I Didn't Mean to Say That Out Loud (fiction)

Beyond the slick patch of sweat running down my spine, everything seemed all right. Rush Hour was a bitch, as it always is, those harried minutes between 4:30 and 6:00 when everyone who forgot some important ingredient for the night’s dinner descends on the aisles like cockroaches. Maggots. That’s what we call them when we’re out. Maggots.

I try to avoid the busy sections during Rush Hour, stocking the cleaning supplies aisles if I can swing it. That section is mostly safe from the heaviest traffic, or at least the worst of the maggots, the ones who bump their carts into your ankles while you’re putting the litter bags up on the top shelf and then look at you like it’s your own damn fault.

Today, I was running behind and ended up right in the middle of Canned Vegetables when it started to get busy. I busted out my boxes as quickly as possible; I’ve gotten good with a pricing gun. By the time it was over, the sweat was running but I felt good and had been uninjured in all ways but verbally. It’s like I don’t exist to the maggots until they need something from me, and I can’t tell you I’ve ever heard a please or thanks from any of them.

It was her shoes that I noticed first. They were completely wrong for her. The backsides of each had been warn away, as if she walks with all her weight on her heels. She shuffles her feet – I noticed this second, the sliding sound they made – and leans back into her stride. She had broad shoulders and a big ass, poured into her jeans in just the right way. She was alone, and wisely chose to do her shopping just as the worst of the crowd had thinned.

She carried a basket and a tiny purse, both hanging from her left elbow. Inside the basket, a box of panty-liners and a tube of mascara. I watched her progress in Frozen Foods, where she stopped every so often to examine the toppings on the pizzas. She opted for Barney’s Supreme, and failed to fit the box into her basket, choosing instead to carry it in her right hand. Her nails were painted mint green, matching the color of her ragged, flat-soled shoes. She passed by me slowly, eyeing the garlic toast and the waffles and the peas, selecting nothing. As she passed, the smell of her feet hit me hard and aroused me.

“Clean up on aisle five. Dennis to aisle five please,” interrupted the endless droning of lite-pop music, and I muttered, “Fuck.” I turned to head back to the storeroom for a mop and bucket – it was the tomato sauce aisle, and some dumb-fuck kid probably knocked over the Prego display – and as I did, I heard her say, “Rough day?”

I turned back to see her smiling at me. It was an understanding kind of smile, like she’d been there done that kind of job. She could’ve. Judging by her second-hand dress, her unruly red hair, and those fucking shoes, she didn’t look like she’d been born with one of them silver spoons in her mouth.

“Sorry,” I said. “I was just… I thought… I didn’t mean to say that out loud.”

“It’s fine,” she said. “Are you out soon?”

“I am,” I said. “Another hour.”

“Well that’s good,” she said. “You look like you need it.”

“Yeah,” I muttered, walking away, wondering what the hell she meant. Did I need to be out of work? Did I need to get laid? “It” can be so vague.

I cleaned aisle five quickly – I was right; it had been tomato sauce – hoping to catch sight of her again, wondering what she might say this time. She seemed interested, maybe liking my long hair or my goatee.

As I was about to drag the mop bucket away from the spill, I heard her voice again, this time from the next aisle over. She had run into a friend, and I heard very clearly her say, “Okay then, the bowling alley at 9. Sure.” I’d be out by then. I haven’t been bowling in awhile.

I got to the alley at 8:30 and took a lane at the far end, away from the leagues. I took my time getting ready, lacing the shoes, trying a dozen balls before finding one that fit somewhat better than the rest. I was in the middle of my first game when she came in. She was at the counter getting her shoes when I saw her. Those shoes would suit her stride, that shuffling walk. I stood with my right hand over the fan behind the ball return, watching her as she approached her friends only a nine lanes away from my own. She said hello to a few people, hugged a few others, and when she turned away to go pick out a ball, she saw me standing there staring at her. She turned her head slightly in recognition, and gave me a kind of half-wave, which I did not return.

I finished my first game as she was starting hers. I went into the bar and ordered a pitcher of Coors and a cheese pizza, and tipped a buck to the waitress when she delivered it to my table midway through my next game. I sat down and drank the beer and ate the pie, counting the chews and swallows, listening to the laughter coming from her and her friends, glancing between them and the Keno numbers constantly refreshing themselves on the television screen nearby.

When I finished eating, I returned to my game. I tossed my next ball directly into the gutter and heard laughter again. I glanced over at her group and noticed three or four of them – and her – quickly look away from my direction. My cheeks felt hot.
I left everything at my lane and retrieved my shoes from the counter, which was currently being attended by the waitress from the bar. As I slipped into my shoes, I heard a bell ring and the waitress ducked into the bar to collect another order. I hopped the counter and quickly found the girl’s worn-out, stinking shoes, grabbed the backs between the fingers and thumb of my right hand – already sore from that goddamned bowling ball – and hopped back over the counter and walked quickly through the door.