Chapter 9: Clocking out.
After Marian left, I stood for a long moment in the sudden silence of the store, the echo of her light, quick footsteps fading into the night.
The weird, adrenalized energy that had fueled my impromptu performance had long since gone away.
' I better get back to work then, standing aimlessly won't do me any good.' I said to myself, quickly doing as i had told myself.
I went to the door and flipped the sign back to 'OPEN'. Then fixed the sunglasses shelf since Marian had bumped into it earlier, afterwards I returned to my position behind the counter.
Business continued as usual, if you could call the slow trickle of late-evening customers "business."
A tired-looking construction worker buying a pre-made sandwich and a monster-sized energy drink.
A couple of teenagers giggling together while eating from bags of candies, neither triggering a panel.
After them was an older man in a worn coat who carefully counted out exact change for a single lottery ticket and a newspaper, causing me to loose an interval of time I wished I could've blocked out.
Each transaction was similar to the last, in which I had to do the same old things. scan the item, bag it, collect the payment, make some change, offer a weary smile.
The last part which was the one that tired me out more than the rest, I swear I felt my jaw aching by then.
The surreal episode with Marian felt like a dream layered over the boring, predictable fabric of my night.
I kept glancing at the door, half-expecting that perhaps another potential target would step into the store, perhaps an angry wife, a female cop off duty, or another easy bonus but, alas, it was a futile endeavor.
Just when I reached my limit, the digital clock on the register clicked over to 11 PM.
' Finally... Time to clock out.' I felt relieved.
My shift was officially over. I flipped the sign to 'CLOSED' for real this time, the lamination feeling heavier in my hand.
After that, I went through the closing routine like I usually did. I counted all the wrinkled bills and jangling coins in the register, my fingers moving by rote, separating tens from fives, stacking quarters into neat rolls. I tallied the day's receipts, the numbers blurring together into a meaningless total that represented someone else's profit. And yet I knew i wasn't envious but glad that today had managed to go by without a hitch.
Thinking I was finally done, my back pocket suddenly vibrated with a dull buzz that made me jump. I fished out my cheap, cracked-screen smartphone.
The glow illuminated my tired face in the dark store. A text notification glowed on the screen.
From Zoe Noona: Could you please lock up afterwards Julian, I don't think I'll be back anytime soon. Sorry for the trouble, Noona promises to make it up to you next time XD.
I stared at the message. Zoe Noona was my boss, the owner of the convenience store. "Noona" was what she insisted I call her.
[?] a Korean term for an older sister-like figure.
She was in her late thirties, relentlessly optimistic, and chronically over-scheduled. Well that's what I forced myself to believe even though it looked like she was always out having fun, pushiness the boring part of the job to us, the staff.
Her "won't be long" errands had a habit of turning into multi-hour odysseys involving mysterious "business associates" and what smelled suspiciously like soju on her breath when she finally returned.
'Of course she'd say that...' I smiled helplessly, a dry, tired twist of my lips.
It was pitch dark out, well past when she'd told me she'd just be "running to the bank." The cheerful emoji at the end of her apology was a trademark move, something she never failed to use.
Fortunately, I was already done. Her text just meant I was officially the last one to leave the store.
With nothing left to do, I headed into the cramped, windowless office at the back of the store. It smelled of stale coffee, old paper, and Zoe's flowery perfume. I placed the stack of receipts and the locked cash bag in the top drawer of her cluttered desk, the one she always left slightly open. Though I wasn't sure if she did the same with the other staff besides me.
I walked back through the store, looking for something until.
My hand hit the light switches with a series of soft clicks. The fluorescent tubes buzzed and died, plunging the space into a deeper darkness, broken only by the eerie, green exit sign over the door and the dim glow of product lights inside the drink coolers, making the bottles and cans look like alien specimens in glowing cases.
Now that I could finally leave the store, literally, I felt a lot lighter and eager to hear out.
I walked for a while, my footsteps echoing in the quiet residential streets near the strip mall.
The cool night air felt refreshing after the stuffy store. My apartment was a good forty-minute walk away, and my feet ached. After a few blocks, I stopped under a flickering streetlamp and raised a hand.
A yellow cab, its roof light on, cruised around the corner almost immediately, as if summoned by my exhaustion. I slid into the back seat, the vinyl cool and sticky against my legs. The car smelled of pine air freshener and old cigarettes but I didn't mind since it seemed to be a common occurrence for cab drivers these days.
I told the driver my address. the driver who has a grizzled beard nodded in acknowledgment before I got in.
The city slid by the window, a blur of dark shapes and pockets of light, all-night laundromats, neon bar signs, the occasional glowing window of an apartment where someone else was still awake.
When we pulled up to my building, which was no different from a squat, grimy brick structure that had seen better decades, I paid the man with crumpled bills from my tip money, watching the cab's taillights disappear
around the corner. The silence of my street felt heavier, more lonely than the commercial area.