A Cold Pill to Swallow

[S] But who's counting?

Luis sat behind the register in his uncle’s shabby corner store. The cramped shop was tucked between a meat market and an alley that served as a public toilet for the unhoused or the impatient — you could only imagine the smells. Despite the stench, Luis kept the door propped open, and a dented metal fan on the counter did its best to usher ‘fresh’ air from the street into the stuffy space. It was Thursday morning, when Luis had no classes at the local university. His father insisted Luis cover for his uncle because “helping family is helping yourself.” Whatever that meant.

Luis sat his phone down and leaned forward as a figure stepped through the open doorway. A familiar, pudgy man wearing his de facto uniform of too-tight blue jeans and a sweat-stained polo shirt nodded to Luis.

“Yo, Luis. Looking chipper as always. When did kids get so depressed?” The middle-aged man’s paunch jiggled as he laughed at his own joke.

“Yo, Steve,” Luis said, ignoring what he knew was Steve’s idea of a zinger. He leaned back in his chair, knowing that Steve wouldn’t be buying anything. Steve was the inventory dude — the stocker guy? He didn’t know Steve’s job title, actually. He just knew that every Thursday morning, Steve came in to take stock of the drinks in the store’s ancient fridges.

“I went down to visit my sister over the weekend,” Steve began, unprompted. A familiar rapid clicking sound accompanied his voice as he spoke. Steve lugged around what looked like an oversized calculator strapped to his waist, which he tapped at blistering speeds while poking through the fridges, taking stock of all the different juices and sodas. “You shoulda seen her face when I told her that joke. You remember, right? The one I told you the other day about—”

“I remember,” Luis cut him off. “I wish I didn’t,” he continued under his breath. Calling Steve’s humor dark was like calling the ocean wet.

Steve chuckled, eyes focused on the drinks, fingers tapping away uninterrupted. “The damndest thing happened while I was there, though…”

Luis heard an uncharacteristic thoughtfulness in the man’s voice.

“I had one too many Coors while I was down there…“

Not an uncommon occurrence, Luis thought to himself.

“… so I crashed there on the couch,” Steve continued. “And I had the most vivid dream.”

Luis studied the man from across the store. Even though Steve faced away from him, Luis could see his face scrunched in thought.

“I was walking down this dark hallway. The floor was dirty linoleum, and the lights were fluorescent and too bright – the kind of stuff I see every day,” He recounted.

Luis normally made a point to ignore Steve’s incessant rambling. In fact, it was something like a dance between them; Steve talked and talked, sprinkling in terrible jokes and curses as often as possible, and Luis made a point to ignore the vast majority of what Steve said. Today, however, Luis was listening intently; his phone rested face-down on the countertop beside the register.

“When I got to the end of the hallway, there was a fridge door, just like these in here,” Steve said. “Then, when I reached my hand out to open the door, my vision shifted. It was like I was coming out of my body, and looking at myself from the outside. I watched myself open the fridge door. On the inside, I saw my life. My whole goddamn life, starting from when I was a kid. There was shit in there that I haven’t remembered in forty years,” Steve shook his head, moving to the next fridge.

“The worst part,” Steve resumed. “I was tallying my whole life on one of these,” he stopped tapping for a few moments to raise his inventory device. “Every time I took a shit, every time I laughed, every time I… cried,” Steve said the last part quietly, not accustomed to sharing such personal thoughts with anyone.

“I tapped away, just like I do every day. Only I wasn’t in my body, remember. It was me but it wasn’t me, and I was watching myself inventory my own life. When I got to the end, I watched myself close the door, and shake my head.”

The tapping stopped and Steve turned to look at Luis, face somber. “Then, the me that wasn’t me said ‘That’s it?’,” Steve’s eyes held Luis’ in a stony gaze for a few long moments. Then he cracked a grin, and gave a hearty laugh. “I knew I could be a real asshole, but shit, that cut deep even for me.”

Steve’s demeanor melted back to its normal irreverent state, and he returned his attention to the ice boxes. But now Luis wasn’t sure which was the façade — thoughtful Steve or profane Steve? Either way, the rest of the morning passed in much the same way as it always did. Steve gabbed away about nonsense, and Luis made a point to absorb as little as he could of Steve’s words.

Eventually, Steve closed the door of the last fridge, and made his way to the door. As he passed the register he paused, leaned far over the counter and looked down at Luis. “You better do something with that life of yours,” Steve said quietly, a faintly ominous tone tinting his words. “You don’t wanna get to my age and have nothing to show for it,” he stated flatly. Steve turned suddenly and walked out the door. He shouted back over his shoulder, “Tell your uncle to stop buying goddamn diet Pepsi, no one’s drunk that shit since it was okay to grab a bi—”

“I’ll tell him!” Luis shouted back, with no intention of hearing the rest of the sentence. Luis sat back, not sure what to think. He felt like he had just experienced a profound moment, but at the same time… It was fucking Steve.