Murder in the supermarket

I’m after a book, I know the shop that has it, and I know what it costs. I
don’t like to waste time shopping. In fact I’m slightly obsessive about saving
time.

The Internet was my godsend.

I browse online for books, but I buy them from my
favorite bookshop. Why don’t I buy books online if I don’t like shopping? Life
is far from ideal and not easily answered.

I work in a drab building 60’s tower block, which,
like many of the older inmates, has cancer. The functional furniture was designed
by engineers, engineered for space and efficiency, with no thought given to the
inhabitants. The fluorescent strip lights stings my eyes, so at lunchtime, I
escape for some fresh air and rush to the bookshop, followed by a Marks and
Sparks sandwich and fruit juice and a sit in the park with my new book.

If it’s raining or very cold, I head over to a
peaceful back alley deli for a freshly made pastrami and honey mustard sandwich
on crusty farmhouse bread and a glass of squeezed juice. To warm the bones
there’s also a daily soup. It’s pricey, but as an administrative manager for a
bank, I can afford it occasionally. A wife, a child and a 40 mile commute take
their toll on the rest of my pay packet.

            About
a week ago, one of my underlings royally fucked up and nearly failed his
three-month probation. He had committed several clerical mistakes that resulted
in some of our credit card customers being overcharged. Several complained and
threatened to change banks.

As his supervisor I took most of the responsibility
and was hauled across the coals. I was stressed not only because my team had
screwed up but because I could have prevented the mistake by doing my job.
Instead, I killed time at work browsing online for books just out of sheer
boredom.

Being bollocked makes me feel inadequate, just the
way I was as a 14 year old at school. “Hunter” my math’s teacher would shout
“what is x if –b plus the square root of b2-4ac divided by 2a?” and I’d stand
there and quiver.

“I…I...”

“I what Hunter?”

“I don’t know, sir”

“You don’t know? Weren’t you listening?” and then, without waiting for an
answer he’d turn to someone else and in a withering tone say  “Johnson
tell Hunter what the answer is”.

Of course my carpeting wasn’t anything like that, 30
years on. It was all a bit more civilized. But my ingrained reaction was the
same, and my bowels churned.

            I
angrily left for lunch in a rush from the barren walls, fluorescent lighting,
stale air and most of all the noise, the constant chit chat and shrill squeal
of the temp agency girl flirting with the young men. Any other day I’d envy
them and let it wash over me. Today, I felt they sensed my anger and were
carrying on this way deliberately to bait me.

            The crisp
February air and sunshine were a welcome change from the murk of the office. I
still felt unhinged, my head filled with a dense fog. It was like a serious
head cold that causes stupid errors of judgment or retarded performance of even
the simplest tasks such as getting on the right bus or checking that the road
is clear.

I walked down the street, got on the tube, caught the
train and went home, calling in sick from the train. It may have looked a bit
suspicious, but I was more afraid of what might have happened had I stayed in
the office.

Arriving at the station, I walked the 15 minutes
home. Nobody would be there, my wife was at work and my daughter was at school.


Shit. It was half term. I’d forgotten all about it. I
leave for work before my daughter gets up and return home after her normally.
I’m a bit out of touch with her schedule.

“Hi Dad”, she said as I walked through the door

“Hi Jess…ah struth, its half term, isn’t it?”

“Er yeah? What you doing home?,

“Oh, I’m sick.”

“Bunking off more like,” she smiled

“Yeah, something like that.”

The mist had cleared a little. I liked seeing Jess. I
missed her when I didn’t see her and as we grew older we were seeing less and
less of each other.

“Say seeing as we’re both at home, do you want to go
to a movie and grab a pizza for dinner?”

“Sorry Dad, I’m meeting Dianne and Susan in town in an hour or so”

“Ok, have fun, I’ll go to Sainsbury’s and treat myself.”

I went up stairs to change into jeans, t-shirt and
jumper, pulled on some shoes, pulled the car keys off the rack and went to the
car.

The drive was uneventful. But, because it was half
term, the place was full of mums and their kids. It was like hell on earth and
I was about to enter the seventh circle of it.

Hell is other people, according to Sartre. I’d say
hell is a supermarket or shopping center during a school holiday.

The vegetable aisle thronged with human cattle. The elderly
pulling along bags ready for an extra bottle of booze or a pack of biscuits;
the chronically unemployed shy and feckless in their pajamas and slippers; mums
of all types who needed to get something for the night’s tea as the half term
upset their normal routine; and a few who fitted no category, people who should
be working but weren’t. Maybe they’d finished for the day, were throwing a
sickie or taking the afternoon off just as I was.

I let out a deep sigh as the mental fog descended
again. I didn’t want to be around people and expected the supermarket, in the
middle of the afternoon in the middle of the week, to be a quiet haven. I felt
as if I were suffocating.

All I needed was a space at the deli counter for some
nice pate, cheese and biscuits and then the wine aisle. Instead, I was blocked
at every turn by a trolley or a small child and forced to perform little
hopscotch-style jumps and shuffles to get through.

At the deli counter, I was out of breath and turning
puce. Gripping the top of the counter, I deliberately took deep, slow breaths.
It took a few minutes before I began to calm down.

Then some Neanderthal, halfbreed blubber babe in pink
fleece pajamas and pink slippers wailed at a kid called Jedward and bumped, I should
say rammed, into my back. She was walking at full speed and suddenly turned to
clip Jedward around the head. I know his name because she was yelling it in his
ear.

But then, to my utter incomprehension she wailed on
me and spewed forth a  string of
expletives about how I was in her way. I took it for over a minute before I
pulled out a night stick and beat her senseless – well, dead, actually. She was
senseless before I laid a splinter on her. Her head cracked loudly and the
blood scattered around the scene like droplets of mercury on a science lab
desk. Her kid screamed in terror.

What was his problem? He was free now to change his
name and escape the brutality of his life.

His fat mother, eyes popping out of her skull, jaw
hanging loosely, would never speak abusively to anyone again.

I pulled off my jumper and t-shirt, wiped the blood
off my face and walked calmly from the store. Time was frozen, and I walked
through it. I didn’t hear anybody scream. Everyone parted as silently as the
electric doors through which I left.





At least that’s what I wanted to have done as I slowly stirred from my dream
of what might have happened.

The woman stopped shouting obscenities; I turned to
the deli server and ordered. She poked me again

“Are you gonna say sorry?”

 “Pardon?”

 “You deaf or stupid? Are… you…
gonna… apologize?”

“For what? You bumped into me, I was just standing here”

“ You want a slap mister?”

I was beginning to wish I had the night stick.

“I’m sorry for bumping into you” I said without a
hint of sarcasm.

She still picked up on my lack of sincerity. “You
being funny mister?”

“No, I mean it I am truly sorry”,

“Well what you gonna do about it?”

The image of her dead body sprawled on the floor
returned briefly.

“I’ve apologized, what more, could you want?”

“You could compensate me”,

“I don’t think so”,

“Buy me my shopping or I’ll claim sexual harassment”

I smiled at the thought of someone molesting this
hag. I leaned back to breathe out of my mouth, to avoid the smell of cigarette
smoke on her breath.

“What you laughing at?”
“Nothing, nothing”, I said before turning to the deli
server, and asking him to pass me his meat tenderizer.