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We all feared HER. Well, I guess that isn’t saying much; you’d be scared, too, if a horrible, monstrous,
and altogether quite evil creature resided behind the meat counter of your grocery store. Who do you know who could make a pharmacist shake in their lab coat?
Bellona
was the name of the ancient terror that loomed behind the slicing machine. Armed with a ‘Happy Grocery’ smock
and the foulest of looks, she terrorized customers from here to the Produce Section. A typical exchange with Bellona usually
went something like this:
The customer
was immediately greeted by Bellona’s sharp glare.
“What
do you want?” She snarled at the customer nearest the counter. The customer would shrink back a bit farther from the
glass.
“Well,
um, I’d like to order . . .” Bellona would then give them a you’re-wasting-my-time look as the poor customer
floundered to recover from her foul blow.
“Order
or leave,” said Bellona, no sympathy in her tone. Most customers would either order as quickly as possible, or make
some excuse about being in the wrong line and leave.
And the
manager wondered why prepackaged meats were so popular?
It’s definitely a health hazard that anyone who has worked at the Meat Counter knows. We were going through meat
counter assistants so fast last month that I didn’t know half of their names! being picked for meat counter is a death
sentence. At last count, the longest anyone’s ever worked as an assistant was a week and a half. And unfortunately, we need a new one.
We all huddle together, whispering at lunch break. Everyone’s here but Bellona. No one knows where and if she eats
lunch. To tell you the truth, we didn’t want to know. I sat next to my best
friend, Heron. He looks, as always, nervous and birdlike. His sharp face shows lines of stress and concentration, and his
eye flits around, looking for the boss.
Today is the day when the new meat counter assistant will be chosen. Molly and Sylvia from Floral are whispering in the corner. The rest of us stand in a bunch in the center of the room.
“It’s going to be me, Al, I know it!” moans Heron. I try to comfort him.
“It could be any of us”, I tell him. But then we all freeze; Mr. Calvin is at the door.
He smiles, a fake smile. He doesn’t understand our monster problem. “Well,” he says cheerfully, “today’s
the lucky day. We need a new meat counter assistant, and one of you will get the job!” He smiles, raising his eyebrows
to a balding forehead. “The lucky winner is . . . Heron!”
Heron moans and slumps into a nearby chair. “Oh no.”
All through lunch, I talk to Heron. Which is a far cry better than the others, who have started to treat him like poison
ivy. I promise to take him over there, which he’s suppose to do after lunch. Heron just sits there, playing with his
new smock and looking at his sandwich. I stop talking, and follow his gaze. He’s looking at the clock, which reads 12:29.
It’s time for him to leave. I get up, and together we walk the aisles, toward the glassy prison that will soon be his.
As I leave to go help clean up, I can’t help but thinking: Checkout has lost a good man.
A week passes. Miraculously, Heron doesn’t leave. He hasn’t even begged for a transfer yet. Although he seems quieter, more nervous, and sometimes miserable.
He has even laughed once. I think that means we are seeing signs of improvement. I try to ask him what goes on at the meat
counter. I even try swinging by and hiding behind the bread aisle, but nothing works.
Apparently, they ignore each other. This is highly unusual. Bellona enjoys criticizing and generally despising
all her assistants. She once made an ex-Florist faint. Yet here’s Heron, practically the same as always. And despite his shunning by Bellona and all the
other employees, he seems just fine. Almost.
We talk at lunch. Bellona’s unnatural kindness (if you could call it that) is scaring him. “Al,” he
says,” It’s wrong! I want to know why she’s being, so, so . . .”
“Human?” I offer.
“Yeah! But if I ask her, then well . . ..” Heron draws a finger
across his throat.
I nod. “We need a plan.”
But Heron sighs. “No, we don’t. I have to do this myself.”
It is like waiting for a storm to break. All day long, I worried about Heron, and what would happen to him when he talks
to Bellona. To me, it sounded like certain death. But despite my quests to the Meat
area, I couldn’t spot one thing wrong with them. That is, nothing more wrong with Bellona than usual, no Missing in Action report for Heron.
Then, at about four o’clock, as I try lurking behind the bread aisle, Heron pops the question, so to speak.
“Bellona?’ he says. They have just ‘helped’ the last customer in a huge wave. Bellona is lurking
by the sausage. She didn’t even look up from cleaning the slicer when Heron spoke.
“Yeah?”
“Well, I was just . . . wondering . . . something. “ Bellona gave one of her oh-so-common just-get-on-with-it looks. “Why are you so nice to me?”
Heron finishes.
For a second, a minute maybe, I’m sure she was about to blow her top at my poor friend. Then she laughs. Bellona,
terror of the Happy Grocery, laughed. I move closer to hear what came next.
“That, Heron, is an interesting story.” Just then, Mr. Calvin, the manager, pops up. “Al! Just the man
I wanted to see. I need you to clean up on Aisle 6 . . ..”
Mr. Calvin keep me so busy for the rest of the day that I hardly have a chance to breathe, much less find out about Heron.
I hate everything now. Why do I care if the customers have a question? Why do I have to be the janitor? Why
is the night shift late today? Finally, however,
the night shift, protector of sanity, savior to my anxiety, arrives.
I rush to the break room, looking for more than my coat. Heron is in the back. I run over to him, already asking, “What did she say?” Heron doesn’t look emotionally devastated or mentally unstable.
Though relieving, this is wrong. Did he resign? Fear and sadness wash through
me. I almost miss what Heron says.
“Why don’t you ask her?” I look up. All the employees are staring.
Bellona is standing in the doorway! I see her catch Heron’s eye. He nods. The terrifying woman strolls over to me and
hands me an envelope.
“Hope you can come,” she mutters, backing away. I look at her, then at Heron. Judging by the look he gives
me, I know somehow that the ‘terror of the Happy Grocery’ would never again strike terror in the hearts of others.
~The End~
Illustration by: Nicole
Falk
Copyright © 2007 by Renata Wettermann
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