Roast
Detective Michael Mason
So I’m waiting in line at the supermarket at three in the morning. It’s that time when they don’t want to actually pay people to man the store so they only got those self-checkout things open. And at three am, no matter how few people there are in the store stocking up on microwave dinners and pints of ice cream, no matter how few people there are in the store, there’s always a long fucking line at those self-checkouts. Because everyone is too goddamn lazy to go to them during the day when they got clerks in green smocks staring off into space as they bag your groceries. Everyone is too goddamn lazy to use these things unless they have to so no one knows how to fucking use them when they have to.
And the whole time I’m waiting in line, the whole time I’m waiting and wiping my hand on my pants to get the sticky from the dripping pint of pistachio ice cream I’m holding, the whole entire time I’m looking at these people. I’m wondering if any of them are my perp. If that lady with the family-sized pack of Twinkies is loading up little kids from the soccer game and jack-knifing their teeth out. If that weasel-y looking guy, the guy with the greasy black hair that’s thinning so much the comb over looks more like a street map on his scalp, the guy with the wiry facial hair that can’t really decide on a growth pattern, the only employee here this late at night, if he decided his power as the security for the graveyard shift was going unnoticed and decided to take it out on all the kids he could lure with pistachio ice cream. The ice cream that’s coating my hands.
And this guy is nodding at me like the badge clipped to my waste and the bubblegum machine tin star he’s got pinned to his green smock, like the two of them bond the two of us in some sort of camaraderie.
And that lady at the front of the line still can’t figure out how to bag her Twinkies. Where the hell to swipe her credit card.
My phone rings and I know it’s my wife wondering what time I’m going to get home. Except it’s not my wife. It’s Miles down at the station. It’s Miles telling me he knows I just got off shift but I may want to come back in. Telling me there’s something at the campgrounds off the Four-oh-Eight I might be interested in seeing.
A Good Samaritan would put the ice cream back in the cooler. A good customer would do that. I toss the pint on top of the store brand soda display and head toward the automatic doors.
I wonder if Twinkie lady could figure out a fucking door handle if the motion sensor didn’t alakazaam her out of the store in a whir of radiation.
I wonder if my bitch ass child-molesting murderer works cleaning detail here in his spare time. If he’ll have to wipe up crusty green ice cream from stacks of strawberry and orange flavored pop.
And the whole time I’m waiting in line, the whole time I’m waiting and wiping my hand on my pants to get the sticky from the dripping pint of pistachio ice cream I’m holding, the whole entire time I’m looking at these people. I’m wondering if any of them are my perp. If that lady with the family-sized pack of Twinkies is loading up little kids from the soccer game and jack-knifing their teeth out. If that weasel-y looking guy, the guy with the greasy black hair that’s thinning so much the comb over looks more like a street map on his scalp, the guy with the wiry facial hair that can’t really decide on a growth pattern, the only employee here this late at night, if he decided his power as the security for the graveyard shift was going unnoticed and decided to take it out on all the kids he could lure with pistachio ice cream. The ice cream that’s coating my hands.
And this guy is nodding at me like the badge clipped to my waste and the bubblegum machine tin star he’s got pinned to his green smock, like the two of them bond the two of us in some sort of camaraderie.
And that lady at the front of the line still can’t figure out how to bag her Twinkies. Where the hell to swipe her credit card.
My phone rings and I know it’s my wife wondering what time I’m going to get home. Except it’s not my wife. It’s Miles down at the station. It’s Miles telling me he knows I just got off shift but I may want to come back in. Telling me there’s something at the campgrounds off the Four-oh-Eight I might be interested in seeing.
A Good Samaritan would put the ice cream back in the cooler. A good customer would do that. I toss the pint on top of the store brand soda display and head toward the automatic doors.
I wonder if Twinkie lady could figure out a fucking door handle if the motion sensor didn’t alakazaam her out of the store in a whir of radiation.
I wonder if my bitch ass child-molesting murderer works cleaning detail here in his spare time. If he’ll have to wipe up crusty green ice cream from stacks of strawberry and orange flavored pop.
