“Tales of a Scorched Coffee Pot” — Chapter 75

Everyone expects that the Liberty Avenue store will be the next to close. It’s been on life support for years, so much so that for the past three Christmas parties, Mr. Locke’s speeches have included a reference to keeping their fingers crossed that Liberty can weather the storm. The city has at least begun to identify the traffic problems with this district, and started addressing its infrastructure accordingly. Buildings are being knocked down left and right to accommodate many of these changes. The only question is whether this original location, which has lasted 35 years now, can hang in there long enough to see the turnaround. Sales have steadily plummeted and, while still just barely profitable, with Southside and Palmyra having reliably moved in the other direction for quite some time now, Liberty is no longer the feel good story, the secret cash cow bringing a smile to everyone’s lips.

During Edgar’s extended AP vacation, they experienced almost a complete turnover here, too. Multi-departmental talent Sam, vitamins head Candace, and cashier Jim are the only three people who were here a year and a half ago. Some, like Craig’s transferred half-brother Allen, and the older gent running the place, Leroy, are at least familiar to him. There is of course no avoiding Pierre, either, on his second tour of duty as assistant manager here. Though occasionally whining about how “they” did not properly train him for his long vacated pricing coordinator post, mostly, as expected, Pierre casts himself as this store’s savior. Boasting that Duane and Corey told him this place needed a lot of help, and he was the only person suitable for this mission.

Elsewhere, Edgar is sad that Russian Robert moved on mere weeks ago, replaced by a blandly normal, middle aged guy, Pete, who gives off some clear vibes of only slumming it here, as he looks for something better, because he was recently downsized away from his former high paying job. Also that the amusingly deranged cashier Linda, though best appreciated from a considerable distance, is no longer in the mix providing her cryptic dispatches, via the Scan Error notes. Not that everyone is lamenting these changes — or for that matter rejoicing over the ones who’ve chosen to stick around.

“Whenever I talk to Sam, it makes me wonder: am I speaking to a cyborg?” Jim tells Edgar one afternoon.

Edgar cracks up to hear this, and, while he’s not sure cyborg is the most accurate noun, he knows exactly what Jim’s talking about. Sam could feasibly lay claim to the title of most colorful personality here, now. But it’s far from a slam dunk, particularly with Pierre on board, not to mention a couple of fresh contenders, like Dorothy in vitamins, and the haughty foot massage lady.

Well, in this instance, perhaps the word fresh is not the most accurate adjective, not for describing these two. These old ladies take breaks together, they order lunches from the same nearby takeout places together. They are peas in the same questionably organic pod. Actually Dorothy cannot possibly be that ancient, considering she still has plenty of black alternating with her stringy strands of grey hair, but she moves at about the same speed as the guy she basically replaced — transferred manager Ralph Hedges — yet, unlike him, is constantly grousing about how much she hates technology. And is apparently reprimanded on a continual basis for angering the customers, which isn’t a stretch at all considering she complains about them nonstop during her breaks and lunches, too.

Yet it’s the foot lady with which he’s already experienced some serious personal chafing. Yes, from their first encounter the foot massage lady has rubbed him the wrong way, ha ha — and why not joke about it, considering their interactions have been far more comical than unpleasant. Even if it’s true he dislikes her to the extent that he’s making a point of not learning her name.

She doesn’t even work here. This is not a completely unheard of arrangement, as Southside for example has had this full body masseuse bringing in her table every Friday afternoon for years. But she’s at least pleasant, unobtrusive, and well, yes, easy on the eyes. This one here, though, checks none of those boxes — and he doubts that last point was true even four decades ago. In both senses of the sentiment, that she couldn’t have been much to look at it, which isn’t important, and also that her sharp birdlike features all but telegraph disapproval. Plus in this much smaller store, she happens to be all the more in the way, blocking the little books and incense enclave on the backside of the registers.

He knows he’s going to be in for a real treat during their first ever conversation, occurring on his second return trip to Liberty, as she’s finally established that he works here. She’s trying to push her product, of course (foot reflexology, on which the store makes zilch), but is annoying even without this. One gets the feeling she’s always been so. This initial introduction, he’s walking down the aisle and accidentally meets her gaze, therefore can’t avoid exchanging a nod in hello.

“How do you feel?” she asks, as though gravely concerned for his well being.

“Awesome! I pretty much feel awesome all the time!” he tells her.

“That’s good, that’s uh…good…,” she says, clearly taken aback and fumbling for an entry point, not expecting this response in the least. Unable to come up with any smooth transition for pushing her wares, she instead simply blurts out, “well, you should stop by here sometime and see me.”

Yes, you could definitely make the case that everything is sort of familiar here…except not really. It’s all just a little off, like maybe how having worked here in a past life might feel. The walls and the floors are the same, as are most of the products, the assorted junk piled on the metal backstock shelving, much of it stacked up to the rafters and coated in even thicker layers of dust; the people moving through these set pieces are mostly different, but either way they already seem to know who he is and have expectations about the job he will be doing. The first ever time he came here, Russian Robert was shouting down the bulk aisle to Sam; this time there’s some relative new guy in grocery, a husky, bearded, bespectacled record-store-hipster looking type named Mitch, shouting down the back hall to Sam, from the break room, something to do with a plate of food recently microwaved.

“Hey, how ‘bout some surrychacha sauce!?” he’s hollering, holding a bottle of sriracha aloft, snatched from the arsenal of condiments nearby.

“Nah, I’m good, man, thanks,” Sam laughs and continues around the corner, plate in hand.

Surrychacha sauce? Edgar thinks, chuckling to himself as he slides his cold coffee into the microwave, and hits the button for a minute. Only slightly less mysterious, maybe, than the question of where Sam was headed with that plate full of food, considering he had just drifted into the store with it. And then Mitch right behind him. As he stands waiting for this coffee to warm, he regards the curious pieces taped to the metal wall above the break table, a wall that is actually the backside of their freezer section. Two of the items in particular catch his eye, hand drawn specimens in black Sharpie which resemble flyers that a local musician might tack to a telephone pole, and he’s guessing have to be Mitch’s handiwork.

One is on neon pink paper and features a nightmarish, skeletal wraith with eight tentacles and black voids where her eyes should be, screaming, “Organic! Meow Raw Meow Meow Healthy.” With an inky pool at the bottom, filled in to leave the words HEALTHY SHOPPER MARKET behind in that neon pink. The other, on a sunflower yellowish stock, and the cooler looking of the two, has a single eyed creature with his pair of even longer tentacles hanging around a pole, regarding an actual human. The words “Healthy Shopper Market,” and “How May I Help U” stream from this creature, up above its head and off to the right.

He barely has time to comprehend what this means when yet another unfamiliar face greets him. In this instance it’s a cashier named Richie, who’s maybe in his early forties, comes across as a bit effeminate, but then immediately establishes himself as a major fanatic of the four major male sports. Within minutes he’s already grilled Edgar about his favorite teams, if any, within these various leagues, and if nothing else, this dude is very friendly, talkative, and entertaining. Although this Richie also casually mentions that he was a bit surprised and disappointed that they didn’t mention in the movie Moneyball that Billy Beane was gay, so it would perhaps seem that Edgar’s first impressions of the guy might have been correct. Though he then proceeds to throw another curveball by mentioning that his true passion in life is to bring a MLB team to Chesboro, and to prove this he whips out some business cards he has printed up with the proposed team name and logo — the Chesboro Ballhogs? Edgar chokes down a laugh at the hilariously crude logo, the minor league sounding name, as Richie adds that he’s also reserved a domain name and has a website, writes down the address on his business card.

All this before Edgar has a chance to do much more but open up his laptop and type in his password. By the time Richie has wrapped up his amusing but exhausting fifteen minute barrage of words, and returned to the front end, all Edgar can think is that this place somehow continues to amaze him on the zaniness front. You still just never quite know what to expect, from one day to the next.

This very store’s continued existence offers ample proof of this concept. So, yes, everyone expects that it’s going to be the next one to bite the dust. And yet that’s not what happens at all.