A lot of interesting things happened in that store. I met some amazing characters, I got robbed, hit by a guy with a stick, listened to many late night personal confessions and revelations like I was some sort of therapist and counselled a few souls who were beyond counselling - so I figured, what harm could I do?.
I met drug addicts and whores of both sexes, was picked up, tried to pick up, had sex in the fridge and marvelled at the fact 7/11 had their own use by date gun that I could change to any date I wanted and 'use-by-date' any product in the store. (Especially relevant whenever you consider buying a 7/11 seafood roll - could I get sued for saying that? But can they sue me for recounting a practise used in one of their stores... stay tuned to find out.)
About five years ago I started writing a novel and one of the characters starts his working life doing night shift in a convenience store and his career then incorporates most of what I'd seen and experienced in my working life, starting in that 7/11 and then moving on to a career within a multinational media production company.
And it would be wrong of me to tell which company.... so don't even ask.
It's a fiction, it doesn't name names, but the situations are all based on something I saw, heard, witnessed or lived myself - and then I exaggerate them to their most extreme outcome in order to highlight the craziness of something that was looked upon as morally grey and shouldn't have been.
I will be placing it online at Smashwords in a couple of weeks - once I've done another proof read. I'm a terrible proof reader - I get so caught up in the story I forget to actually proof read and before I know it I'm 20 pages further along and haven't corrected a thing. I guess that's either a good sign the story is entertaining - or that I'm a complete narcissist and love my own work.
I thought I'd put some chapters online for people to read - a preview of what's to come.
The story is called - THE LAW OF HAPPINESS AND DIVORCE.
It's about a sheltered middle class guy and the girl he meets who schools him to become more wise about the world. What she can't foresee is his education about how the world really works takes his innocence and changes him into a far less likeable human being.
It's about love, sex, drugs, ambition and the study of the moral questions every person must ultimately confront and answer - questions that determine who we are going to be and what each of us consider to be good and bad - right and wrong, within the world we live in.
I think it's best described as a black dramedy. I hope it makes people laugh and cry, but most importantly - think.
So here are the first two chapters. I'll post a few more over the coming weeks until it's ready to go online. Then I'll post a link and it can be downloaded complete. I hope everyone enjoys.
The Law of Happiness and
Divorce
By Scott Norton
© 2012
ONE − Nightshift and nametags.
Bailey Fairfield’s
life was slipping away from him. He worked night shifts at a convenience store and
the temporary job had taken weeks and turned them into months that extended
into years. The end of his second year was fast approaching, but on this night
there was a change from his usual routine; he found one of his regular
customers, a transient night stalker, tucked under a shelf trying to go
unnoticed and get some sleep. She was like a final flourish to the chip display
as she lay curled in a ball. With her dirty toes protruding from her worn
flannel nightshirt she looked innocent. The flannel was stretched and
disfigured as she tucked her knees inside to give warmth. Her dark hair fell
towards her shoulders, the oiliness from days of neglect binding strands
together.
"Excuse
me," Bailey said softly.
The woman didn't move.
"You can't
sleep here."
Bailey lent down and gently rocked the
woman’s shoulder. She woke with a look of terror in her eyes and tried to place
where she was.
"You can’t
sleep here. Not inside the store.”
The woman nodded her head like she
understood, but she didn't. She said nothing as she got to her feet, walked
down the aisle, out the doors and into the dark car park before disappearing
into the distance. Bailey stood watching as the night swallowed her scuttle
down the street.
The next time
Bailey saw the woman she arrived with flowers picked from a neighbour’s garden.
She placed them on the counter.
"For you,”
she said with a smile.
Bailey didn't know how to take the gesture.
The woman giggled and left the store.
She became a
regular visitor after that. Once or twice each week she’d arrive, take some
straws, sugar sachets and other free items, then leave. Sometimes she'd bring a
gift: an old newspaper, a treasure masquerading as junk or something more
significant, like a hand-made card which said hello in a more eloquent way than
she ever could. One night, almost unnoticed by Bailey, she began calling him by
name. Bailey asked her name.
"Kylie,"
she said with growing confidence. Bailey suspecting she had a crush on him. She
didn’t.
Then one night
Kylie arrived at three, looking shaken. She wore her usual flannel nightshirt
with bare feet. She had blue markings on each temple, the result of shock
treatment delivered by a well-known hospice she called home; a halfway house
for Kylie’s mind to catch up with the rest of the world.
She began with
small talk and slowly crept towards her treatment at the hands of one of the
male nurses watching over her.
“He stuck his cock
in me. I told him not to, but he doesn’t listen.”
Bailey stopped stocking cigarettes and
looked to Kylie with concern.
“He raped you?”
Kylie shrugged.
“They get to control
everything; money; when you do stuff. You have to sign a paper that says they
can do what they want to you.”
“Not rape. You
should report it to police.”
“They’d get mad at
me and I don’t have anywhere else to go.”
Bailey wanted to help but he wasn’t sure
how. He gave Kylie a coffee, a free doughnut and set up a milk crate for her to
sit.
“I’ll go with you
if you want?”
“It’s okay,” she
said.
Kylie never raised the subject again. By
the time the sun came up Bailey put the story down to a cry for attention that Kylie backed away from when Bailey offered to help. But the night marked the
start of a genuine friendship brought on by the boredom of night shift and a
recovering drug addict’s insomnia.
One night a young
woman entered the store. Bailey didn’t notice. To him she was just another in a
long line of vacant faces, wandering the aisles, chasing a fix for a late night
craving. Kylie spotted her glancing at Bailey. The woman scanned the shelves,
the chocolates, the biscuits, the batteries, but always came back to a sly
glance to the front of the store. At first Kylie thought she was a thief,
checking to see who was watching. But she never took a thing.
"She’s
pretty?" Kylie whispered.
Bailey stopped stacking shelves and looked.
The woman was very attractive and she moved to the counter as Bailey looked her
way. She stopped at the doughnut display, gazing at them as if she could make
one levitate.
"Are these
fresh?" she asked.
"Yes.”
"They’re
yesterday's," Kylie added. "He’s got the fresh ones out back.”
Bailey looked to Kylie dumbfounded. Kylie
laughed and released some red slushie into her coffee. She showed no sign of
regret over her betrayal.
"Could I have
a fresh one?” the woman asked in a flirting tone.
Bailey went to get a fresh doughnut.
The moment the
woman left the store Bailey turned on Kylie.
"She was off
her nut! Do you really think she cares if the doughnuts are fresh or not?”
“She liked you,
idiot. She kept looking to see if you were looking."
Kylie let go a giggle as Bailey’s annoyed
expression left him. He replayed the last few minutes in his head and realised
Kylie was right. He mentally kicked himself for missing the signs.
TWO − Nocturnal Clubbing.
With a night off
from work, Bailey was ready to enjoy himself. No longer able to sleep with the
rest of the world, he lived in a permanent state of jet lag and often headed to
clubs as the conservative crowd were thinking of coming home. On the second
level of a club called Hades, in the darkness behind the upstairs bar, Bailey stood
watching the dance floor. He didn't notice the girl who moved in behind him,
but she noticed him.
"Hi.”
Bailey looked
around to see the extremely attractive young woman sitting on the divide
between the booth and the walkway. She was almost completely dressed in black.
She wore a cap and had her hair tied back. She swung a bottle of beer on her
finger, jammed inside the neck.
“Hi,” Bailey said,
desperately trying not to look too eager.
"You don’t
remember me, do you?"
Bailey looked at the girl, wishing he did.
He smiled, trying to be confident.
"From
college, right?” He had no idea.
“Nope.”
The girl was enjoying his confusion.
“If I asked you
for something, would you lie and say you haven't got it?"
Bailey screwed up his face, confused.
"A fresh
doughnut maybe?”
Suddenly the
girl's face jumped into context. Bailey was on his third drink and while he
wasn’t drunk, he had a buzz going. The next half hour flashed by. They talked
about work; they laughed about nothing and danced to any song sounding vaguely
familiar. Then the girl's tongue was down his throat. It was still there when
the lights came on and the other clubbers ducked for cover as harsh fluorescent
lights gave away make-up, age and imperfection.
"So?" Bailey said, urgently searching for a way to
continue what they’d started.
“Time to get
going,” he said, regretting the words the moment they came from his mouth.
“You could come
home with me - if you want?” the girl in black offered. It was the most
beautiful sentence Bailey had ever heard.
Minutes later they
entered a third floor flat, shed their clothes as they crossed the main room
and walked entwined to a bedroom where they closed the door behind them and
fell to the bed naked.
As the two lay
panting in the afterglow of sweaty, passionate, satisfying sex, Bailey noticed
the room for the first time. Hanging from the cupboard at the foot of the bed
was a brightly coloured, ‘See how I grow chart’. The rest of the room was
equally pre-teen. There were primary coloured toys displayed along a series of
shelves and the side of the bed was modelled in wood to resemble a racing car.
"Is this your
room?"
"Sort
of," the girl said, as she leant over and lit a joint. “It’s my brother's
flat, but he lets me use the room when his son doesn’t stay over.”
Bailey nodded as
if he was fine with the idea of staining a young boy’s bed sheets.
A bad excuse later
and he was hopping around on one leg and slipping his boxer shorts on. Once
he’d found his jeans and shirt he headed for the door with only the briefest
goodbye. As he walked home, passing suits on their way to work, he began
thinking of the girl and that room. He couldn't work out why he’d been so
uncomfortable, or why he left so quickly. The girl was beautiful; the sex was
great, so why didn't he stay longer? He fished in his pocket for his phone and
checked a text message from her that simply read, ‘this is me’. That’s when his
heart sank. He’d heard the girl’s name only once and now, after beers, dancing
and sex, he’d completely forgotten it.
That night at his
store he had a strange feeling in his stomach, nerves, excitement. He was
showing all the signs of having a crush on someone and not being sure if they
felt the same way. Bailey was a schoolboy again. Every time the door to the
shop opened he looked to see if it was ‘that girl’, it never was. By the second
night the butterflies in his stomach had cocooned themselves into deep nagging
self-doubts.
He chastised
himself for the way he left and the coldness he displayed on recognising the
child’s room. He berated himself for not remembering her name and he tried to
compose a text to her a dozen times, but each time he left it unsent for fear
she would discover he’d forgotten her name.
Kylie arrived at
three, her usual visiting hour.
“My feet are
cold,” she said, as she came behind the counter and sat on a milk crate.
“You’ve got bare
feet.”
“I had bare feet
yesterday and they weren’t cold then.”
Bailey was in no mood to deal with Kylie’s
strange view of the world or her warped logic.
“I could get you a
towel to wrap them.”
Kylie nodded and Bailey headed to the
storeroom to grab a towel. When he arrived back Kylie was microwaving a seafood
roll and helping herself to coffee.
“Hey Kyles, I’ve
told you before, the coffee’s okay but you’re going to have to pay for the
roll.”
“I’m not eating
it.”
Bailey threw the
towel on the ground near the milk crates. Kylie took the heated roll and placed
it in the centre of the towel. She then wrapped the whole thing around her
feet. Bailey looked on in awe. He didn’t have time to list the problems
relating to the sale of a seafood roll preheated and used as a foot warmer, so
he let it slide and went to do a money drop.
By the time he'd
finished, Kylie’s feet were warming nicely and she was happily sipping on her
slushie-enriched coffee.
“So what have you
been up to?” Bailey asked.
“There’s a rat in
my room. I can hear it at night.”
“A rat?”
Kylie nodded.
“They say they’re
bad, dirty and that, but it went straight for my soap and ate it. If it’s so
dirty, why does it love my soap? I told them about it, but no one believed me,
so I set this old mousetrap. It worked, sort of.”
“You caught it?”
“Yeah, but then it
ran away with the mousetrap on its head like a necklace. It looked really
pissed. I think he knows it was me.”
Kylie took another sip of her coffee.
“You think rats
are that smart?”
“Not smart-smart”.
Kylie said as she drank. “Just rat smart, they only ever do what’s good for
them and they put all their smarts into that one thing. That’s why there’s so
many of them. Hard to get rid of something when they only think about not being
got rid of.”
Bailey went to the
back office, grabbed the mop and bucket and guided them with the mop’s handle into
the main area of the shop. As a slow song piped through the speakers he mopped
to the beat, removing a thousand steps taken across the floor over the past
twenty four hours. He meditated as he moved the mop in a figure eight, slowly
covering each aisle. Kylie never once took her eyes off him.
She watched the
way he swivelled the handle in-between strokes. She watched his lips moving as
they mouthed words to the song wafting into the air from above. She saw the
moments his mind reflected on the girl and checked the door in a vain hope. As
he neared the end of his mopping a customer arrived and walked across the still
wet floor. Bailey breathed deeply through his aggravation. The moment the customer left he flicked the
almost dry mop over the footprints until there was no trace the intruder ever
existed.
"Do you think
he'll get tired?" Kylie asked. Bailey looked to her confused. Kylie had
seen the expression many times before.
"The rat; do
you think he'll get tired carrying the mouse trap around on his head?"
"I don’t
know, maybe.”
“But he knows. He
knows what a trap looks like so he won’t go near another one, will he?”
“I really don’t
think a rat is that smart, Kyles.”
Kylie shook her head in disagreement. She
was accustomed to Bailey's naïve view of the world.
“I think I'll
start wearing shoes,” she said.
Bailey grabbed the
use-by date gun and went through the door at the back of the shop that led to
the office and storage area. To one side stood a large cold room door, he
opened the door and walked into the fridge. He grabbed a box of chicken rolls,
ripped open the tape on the box and began to use the gun on each roll before
stacking them in the fridge. With every click of his gun he extended the lifespan
of the processed rolls as edible food.
And then the girl
he’d been waiting for appeared. Something made him look up when she entered.
She looked at Kylie, then around the store. She meandered up and down the
aisles, looking to the front desk, glancing at the door leading to the back
office and procrastinating in the hope of spotting Bailey.
Bailey did what
most twenty three year old men wish they could do when confronted by a woman they’d
slept with and then forgotten their name, he hid in the fridge behind the
chicken and seafood rolls.
"Chicken
rolls are good," Kylie called out, as the girl swung around the front of
the shop near the counter.
“Yeah?”
“Just don’t eat
them.”
The girl looked
confused, but Kylie just pointed a finger to the fridge doors at the far end of
the store and Jenna slowly walked to them. She saw Bailey working inside. He
was suddenly too busy to notice anything. She gently knocked on the glass.
Bailey looked up; doing his best to act surprised at seeing her.
“Hi,” he said with
enthusiasm, his words muffled and repelled by the airtight seals on the fridge.
“I was hoping
you’d call me,” the girl said with a raised voice.
“Sorry?” Bailey
held a hand to his ear to indicate he hadn't heard. The girl opened the fridge
door.
“I was hoping
you’d call me. You weren’t at the club last night. I almost sent you a message.
But I figured, you hadn’t sent me one... so,” she spoke with a disappointed
quality.
“I'll come
around.” Bailey pointed towards the end of the fridge, he was looking to buy
himself time.
When he re-entered
the shop he asked Kylie if she’d mind watching the store for a few minutes as
he ushered the girl into the back office for privacy. Kylie nodded, took a
sugar jam doughnut, placed her lips to the hole and squeezed hard. She was
always happy to watch the store for Bailey.
In the back room
Bailey considered any number of white lies to get out of this awkward
situation. He desperately wanted more from this girl, but he sensed danger. His
great fear with relationships was being hurt. In the past he’d protected
himself with a string of empty sexual encounters, but this girl was exciting,
edgy and unafraid. If he allowed this to become more than a one night stand,
she might discover how much of the world he couldn't make sense of and then
she'd confirm what Bailey feared; that he wasn’t someone of substance.
In the face of
this he told the truth. History had taught him saying exactly what was on his
mind was the fastest way to repel a woman. He felt it better to be disappointed
now than heartbroken later.
"I couldn’t
remember your name.”
The girl was shocked.
“I usually make
more of an impression.”
“You did. It was
an amazing night, but…you told me your name at the start, and all I was really
thinking about was … you know. Then when it did go that way, it seemed a little
late to ask again.”
The girl smiled. She liked honest. She
hadn’t come across it often. Bailey read the smile as the beginning of the end
and jumped in first.
“I'm not sure it's
a good idea, anyway, you and me.”
“So you don’t want
to fuck again, right now, while she’s out there minding the store?”
Bailey re-evaluated
his plans.
“We could do it in
the fridge,” he offered.
“My name’s Jenna.
Don’t forget it again.” She grabbed Bailey’s hand and led him through the cold
room door and towards the back of the fridge. It didn’t take long for the windows
facing the store to fog up.
Over the next 40
minutes Kylie rimmed five doughnuts and served three customers. One customer
wanted a pouch of tobacco and some papers, one just wanted papers and the
third, a middle-aged woman, wanted balloons, two shoelaces, a packet of wooden
skewers, and papers.
The milk
deliveryman arrived with five full crates of milk stacked and loaded on his
trolley. He entered the store with a smile and nodded to Kylie as he passed,
heading for the fridge. Kylie giggled to herself as the man wheeled his crates
into the back office and opened the cold room door.
“Jesus!”
The crates came
off their trolley.
Jenna and Bailey
were lying behind a wall of soft drink boxes so they couldn’t be seen in the
shop. But from the main door of the fridge the deliveryman saw everything.
Kylie and Bailey had their pants down and a rhythm they weren’t ready to lose,
until the interruption. They jumped to their feet and quickly turned away from
the delivery man, who was standing with the door and his mouth open. They
dressed like they’d been caught by a parent. Still adjusting her top, Jenna strode
confidently past the milkman and out into the store. She opened one of the
display doors to the fridge as she passed.
“Are you working
tomorrow night?” she asked. Bailey was still trying to button his jeans.
“Yeah.”
“I'll see you
then.”
Within four weeks
of that chilly second meeting, Jenna was virtually living in Bailey's
apartment. The first week she had a toothbrush in the bathroom, the second and
third weeks began a slow trickle of possessions and by the fourth week all she
needed was an official invitation and she could change the address on her
licence.
Bailey's apartment
was on the first floor of a red brick building. From the street it had the
architectural charm of a standard Russian tenement. Through the front door
there was a small entrance hall with a bathroom to one side. The large single
room made up the rest of the flat. It had a Japanese futon that stood as a
couch during the day and a bed at night. On one side of the room was a
television, with CDs, DVDs and various games all neatly stacked in cheap wooden
shelves. On the other side, tucked away behind a curtain, was a very small
kitchenette. It boasted a sink, a stove and a bar fridge with a microwave
sitting on top. It was everything Bailey needed.
Jenna loved it.
“You can stay if
you want,” Bailey said, one night in the afterglow of sex.
“I should hope so
after that.”
“No, I mean for
good.”
Jenna was lying on
Bailey's chest. She looked to him with a grin on her face. He looked at her,
also smiling. It was one of those ‘couple’ moments, a private memory that can’t
be shared with anyone else.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Jenna put her head
back on Bailey's chest and listened to his heartbeat. Now it was her heartbeat
as well. A smile travelled through her.
The next few weeks
were relatively uneventful. Jenna moved in and made Bailey’s flat her own. It
took on a distinctly Japanese feel, not because Jenna liked the motif, but
because she liked the price of items made out of paper and bamboo. They also
seemed to go with the aesthetic of the room and more importantly, they made
sense of the futon.
One evening, as Jenna
was cooking, following each step in a complicated recipe, a neighbour came to
the door. He was around thirty, dressed in dirty denim jeans that probably
weren’t bought that way, but had, over time, come to resemble the fashion.
“Hey.”
“Hey,” Bailey
said, establishing standard first contact between two male neighbours.
“I had a plant on
my balcony. It's gone.”
“I didn't see
anything.”
“Someone climbed
onto the balcony and they had to come from yours to do it.”
“Unless they had a
ladder.”
The neighbour was growing increasingly
annoyed by Bailey’s attitude.
“Look, you know
what I'm talking about. It was perfect, almost ready.”
“I’m not much of a
gardener.”
“Do you think
you’re smart?”
“What did I say?”
“I think you took
it.”
“Come in and have
a look if you want.”
Jenna came to the front door.
“What’s going on?”
“There was a plant
on my balcony and genius here claims he knows nothing about it.”
“We don’t smoke,
sorry.”
Bailey realized
instantly what was going on and couldn't believe how incredibly stupid he'd
been. The disgruntled neighbour took one last angry look at him, then turned
and went home.
“Can you believe
that?” Bailey asked, astonished.
“I thought he was
going to hit you.”
“It's not my fault
I didn’t get what he’s on about. How stupid would you have to be to have it on
your balcony where people could see it?”
“I know. I’ve been
waiting for it to be ready for weeks. It’s in our bathtub, by the way.”
Bailey stood with
a stunned look on his face. He was hoping he'd misheard. But Jenna just
returned to the kitchen to work on straining the plant fibres out of gee she'd
shortly be using to make brownies.
Bailey opened the
bathroom door and drew back the cheap plastic curtain - his mouth fell open.
There was the plant, complete in its ceramic pot. It even had the planter tray
that it sat on next door.
“Don't turn off
the heat lamp,” Jenna called out, sounding like a growing expert.
“Are you insane?”
“What?”
“If he finds it
he’ll kill us.”
“He looked pretty
harmless.”
“He’s growing dope
on his balcony!”
“He’s not growing
dope, he’s saving money. And now I'm saving time and money.”
Bailey shook his
head. He knew Jenna wasn’t like any girl he’d ever dated. But she seemed to get
him, or at least put up with him. And that's why he was suddenly so happy.
That evening, as
the two sat eating brownies and talking about nothing, Bailey discovered more
about Jenna. The afternoon’s events made him curious and the brownies made her
talkative. As she’d struck her teenage years, symbolised in independence and
individuality requiring all friends to dress and act in identical manner, she
took to being a Goth.
At a private
girl’s school it was difficult, tartan grey being the colour of the uniformed
skirt with a white blouse and equally bland grey jumper. But for Jenna, the
uniform was nothing but a challenge: the jumper became black, the skirt was
concealed by a scarf worn around her waist and her foundation became paler,
highlighting the black eyeliner. Her teachers despaired, removed and reported.
At every opportunity Jenna and her friends withdrew, reapplied and re-emerged
highlighted.
It was at a time
when her parents were in the middle of a protracted divorce and neither wanted
to say or do anything to suggest either of their children were less than their
favourite. It was a world where few lessons were delivered by lecture, and many
were delivered by example. Jenna had learnt them all and instantly began using
them to negotiate her way through life.
More recently
she'd begun studying for a diploma of education, her goal, to teach primary
school students. Bailey had known she wanted to teach, but not young children.
“I think I could
really do something with kids that age,” Jenna said. “That’s when a person
needs someone to help work things out.”
“What sort of
things?” Bailey asked, intrigued by the comment.
“Everything. How
the world works.”
Bailey was finding new layers to Jenna every
day and everything he discovered made him love her more.
As for her, she
didn’t feel she knew Bailey any better than when they’d first met. She did of
course, but she was making the same mistake others made, assuming he couldn't
be as straightforward as he seemed. When he told the truth, it had to be
cloaked in some sort of ambiguity. When he did something for the good of
someone, he must have seen an advantage in it for himself. Jenna was convinced
Bailey’s mind was working through agendas the way a computer works through
binary combinations. She was sure he was plotting and evaluating every
circumstance, every scenario, predicting a thousand different outcomes and was
too slick to be discovered. What she saw was a master of spin delivering a perfectly
honed public image of benign innocence. Bailey swore he wasn’t holding anything
back, but Jenna didn’t believe him; that would make him an outcast in a world
of players plotting many moves ahead. In her mind, there was no way a person
could get to Bailey’s age and still be so naïve. She was certain there were
sides to his personality he wasn’t ready to reveal. It all added up to an
intriguing personal riddle, a riddle Jenna was determined to solve.
