Even though rumors are swirling that Palmyra’s butcher, Nick, is on the hot seat, for some reason they hire one of his closest friends, Scott, as Southside’s meat cutter. Nick has been talking him up for months and they finally decided to pull the trigger on the guy.
Part of the wait is that he was only recently released from prison. And the morning that he starts, Dale, Craig and Edgar are coincidentally standing around in the Southside conference room, with the lights off, discussing strategy. This is a fairly common occurrence for many of them, as the two upstairs hallways and three offices all spill into this intersection. Even though the overheads are left off, if the lights from those offices and the hallways aren’t enough, this bank of windows also helps brighten up the room. It overlooks the last aisle down below, half bulk and half frozen, and at this moment affords them another opportunity to observe this new butcher.
“Hoo hoo hoo,” Craig says, partially a phrase and partially a chuckle, though all three are snickering.
“Wow,” adds Dale, shaking his head.
Of course, were Scott’s fist flying at one of their faces, they probably wouldn’t be laughing. As it stands, though, they’ve already glimpsed some movement through the door window leading to the back hall, and this hulking, menacing presence in a meat coat punching into the time clock. Then he rounds the corner, briefly out of sight, before drifting back into view as he walks down this aisle. Appearances aren’t everything, so who knows. But this figure with the closely shaven head and multiple dangling piercings, he has just about every visible centimeter of his arms and neck covered with an assortment of tattoos. He also has that bloated, sunburn red, sausage-about-to-pop look often associated with people who lift weights constantly, or are jacked up on steroids, or both.
None of which might matter, although he is already wearing this pissed off at the world expression as well. And it’s not quite enough to say that if he proves to be a solid worker, then his disposition gets a free pass – not when dealing with customers enters the equation. But then again, maybe this is just a convenient observation from this gaggle who, for at least 2/3 of them, interacting with customers is almost nonexistent. To Craig’s credit, he has that distinctly Southern ability to tell someone to drink a glass of cyanide, but with a smile on his face, and manage to be genteel about it; this is something the transplanted Northerners, of which Dale is also one alongside Edgar, can’t quite seem to pull off. Recently for example Craig was dealing with a shopper in grocery who was irate and way over the line. A handful of witnesses report that he told the guy that he “might want to go somewhere else” or if not he was “about to have a real bad day.” Yet manage to remain exceedingly pleasant, somehow, as the customer left without incident.
As vitamin merchandiser, Dale is out on the floor quite a bit, but Edgar hasn’t heard about him flipping out on any of their guests or anything. Some coworkers have grumbled that he’s somewhat harsh at times with his employees, though, which seems much more believable. Whatever the case, something about Edgar’s mellow vibe at work amazes Dale, which would indicate he must act the complete opposite, at least on occasion.
“Edgar’s too normal to work here,” Dale tells Craig, then, addressing Edgar directly, now adds, “there must be something wrong with you, but we don’t know what because you won’t let us in!”
“Yeah – I can’t cut it in a corporate atmosphere! None of us can! That’s how we all ended up here!” Edgar jokes. Well, sort of. From an ability and performance standpoint, he was hanging in the corporate world just fine. But he could never quite gel with that scene on a personal, philosophical level. Something about working for these massive, faceless operations always bothered him.
“Oh god. We should just kill ourselves now,” Dale croaks.
Still, Edgar wouldn’t say he intended any of this as a slam against Healthy Hippie Market, or that he’s complaining about his job in the least. Only that, all things considered, these are some lumpy personalities they’ve assembled in this place – and he would slot himself into this category, too, regardless of how “normal” he might appear. Granted, normal is a debatable and possibly meaningless word, but if nothing else, Edgar thinks there is at least a threshold you’ve got to reach for getting along with your coworkers, and he lands on the right side of that line. But it’s still possible that he and his closest comrades here will be the ones who look like nutjobs, 200 years from now, and not some of these more…colorful personalities on display.
Without getting into the semantics about which topics are pure bunkum, it makes sense that at a place like this, a higher percentage than usual will turn out to be hippie-dippie nonsense, at some distant point down the road. But the practitioners and peddlers certainly stand by their wares, and they have legions of fellow believers buying this stuff, so who can really say? So, yes, they have a sweet old lady on hand here at Southside who charges $50 a pop to read people’s…electromagnetic fields? Something like that…as she then deciphers what they mean. They also have this chick with a collapsible table giving karate chop type massages every Friday, over by their book section.
Then there’s this spaced out nut – very few will disagree on this point – who they’ve reassigned to demoing hot BBQ deli items, from this little display near an end cap, after her own little New Age stand of some sort fizzled out. She’s like an acid casualty from the 1970s, albeit one who does just happen to remember every questionable theory she embraced from that decade. The first time she tried talking to Edgar, accosting him in the employee break room, she was frazzled and distraught, wide-eyed as she rattled off, without prompting, every detail that comprised the chaotic wreck of her life. Though confident that things would soon turn around, because Mercury was currently in retrograde.
He almost choked on his coffee, true, but managed to avoid this catastrophe. And remains pleasant, friendly even, whenever their paths cross. Still, observing what other people find hilarious is often quite instructive, and when it turns out that Craig and his grocery crew have this longstanding tradition of hiding the rubber mat she stands on, whenever she steps away from the little BBQ kiosk, this clues Edgar in on a couple of different points. First being, that he’s not the only person who considers her not just crazy but majorly annoying. And also that these guys in grocery will probably wind up as his allies.
Elsewhere, you just float along and attempt to fit in, hopefully forge some connections. And you might even learn some things. His initial conversation with head cashier Aria – a chatty if somewhat furtive seeming black girl who’s apparently worked here for eons, nearly as long as Willie and Destiny – occurs as he’s buying some things at her register and she asks him what his sign is. Perks up when he says Pisces, explaining that this is a “combination of all the other signs,” and that it means he’ll probably be good at dealing with the various personalities here. She then asks him if he's ever stolen anyone's girlfriend.
Well, he’s not sure what to think about all this, but it’s an uplifting forecast all the same. Even so he thinks it much more beneficial to focus on learning the products instead, as much as possible, rather than the theories behind them. However indirectly, it might help him do his job a little better – and at least as this applies to the deli, it leads to better lunch.
The core of the team back there, all women, are a trio of Russians (that demographic seems curiously heavy at this establishment, though it’s hard to say why) and one Indian. They were a package deal, basically, who all transferred over from the Frilly’s bankruptcy a couple of years ago and are about as dependable as it gets. Much of this is not all that exotic, maybe, but he’s either never had some of it before, or never had any so good – be it tabouli, falafel, spanakopita, and so on, all manner of European, Asian, possibly even African food. A healthy portion of Southern staples, too, of course, including pimiento cheese, and the insanely popular chicken salad which has plain yogurt in place of mayo as its secret weapon and was, legend has it, a recipe originally donated by their Duane.
A service case that is not just much more modern looking but also larger than Palmyra’s certainly helps. Although he has definitely worked in places where you could convincingly make the opposite argument, that they weren’t doing enough business to fill a spacious case, and it was a millstone around their necks. Here, though, it seems just about right, for a trendy looking place in a burgeoning neighborhood, whose customer base steadily trends upward, too. It just feels like a more cohesive operation, one that even a surly looking butcher fresh out of prison is unlikely to disrupt. If only the same could be said about Palmyra.
For the record, Dolly is one of his favorite employees thus far at any store, and he hopes she survives the fallout. Like Teri, she has apparently been raving to Duane about the job that Edgar is doing, and he doesn’t take these things lightly. It means a ton that people would ever just randomly put in a good word for him. But he has heard some disturbing rumors and can only hope that the axe falls elsewhere up in that deli.
There’s a known list circulating, theoretically confidential though many an eyeball has glimpsed it, which suggests they’re keeping tabs on the meat department, and might begin their cleanup efforts there. Though no names are listed, it seems pretty obvious who’s implicated. If not a simple process of elimination would show that Southside was handling that role by committee for the past couple of months, meaning it’s unlikely they were chronicling someone’s shortcomings there, and Liberty Avenue has no meat department. This thing stretches on for page after notebook page, and the one example Edgar has his mitts on is a couple months old, but it all reads very similar to this:
aside from the two (now 1 ½ or so) chicken trucks
box of ruby trout on end on floor, lid off, ice melting & fish bag half fallen out
tub of outdates from 12/09
10lb tube of ground turkey that’s been here since late Nov
Cookie rack I wanted to throw out months ago, but he wanted to keep it
Package of hunan dumplings he stole from us
Brown sirloin tip roast on bowl of marinating stew beef that’s been here forever
a couple rotten packages of farmed Atlantic salmon in case that’s older than the case he’s been using
tray for service case with unwrapped chuck roast, brown & crusty on top
bowl of marinating strip steaks, also a week old
two 40lb cases of wings dated 12/31
a 40lb box of wings that came in today
7 boxes of salt cod he stacked Jenga style, also case with other 5 smashed up salt cod boxes
Unopened case of cryovac tuna steaks sitting in tub of outdates dated 1/03
bowl of pineapple chunks
The shopping cart of Thanksgiving turkeys
A ½ empty box of cryovac tuna steaks that came in after the unopened one
cases (various fullness) basa, Chilean sea bass, tilapia, snapper – all supposed to be frozen
about 2/3 case of Vitamin Water that was back there when Corey helped him count inventory
the shopping cart of outdated chicken
bowl of cooked shrimp, squid, & ½ bag of raw shrimp, none in case Thu or Fri
2 cases ground round tubes sitting on floor
Box sliced roast beef dated 12/31
Beef trimmings (4 packs, 3 of them brown) which he never uses
Plus the normal cases of beef, pork & lamb, many are not out anywhere
So yeah, while this doesn’t come anywhere near explaining the mystery of hiring Scott – unless Southside were truly desperate – things are clearly not looking good for Nick up there in their northernmost location. The only question is, without knowing enough about the various handwriting styles, who composed this little running recap of serious infractions. This list was just one day, and there are many other dated entries in much the same vein, all captured by the same hand.
But maybe they just want to straighten him out. This doesn’t mean Nick will be fired. For his money, Edgar considers him highly entertaining, talkative, hands down the funniest person who works at this company. He just possibly hasn’t shown a ton of aptitude at his job. And yet, improvements are abounding all over the place up in Palmyra, so it could be his development is one of them. After all, Corey continues going to bat for the dude, although it’s not quite clear why.
As Edgar makes his latest pit stop there, with his own clutch of mysteries to investigate, he can see they’ve made at least one major change. Those massive, towering, wooden wine racks are history, replaced by traditional metal grocery shelves. While these occupy the same amount of floor space – the length of one aisle side, its corresponding backside down the next aisle – they’re not nearly as tall, meaning much less product on hand. Indeed, nearly a dozen marked down shopping carts full of wine nearby will bear this theory out. This change is impossible to miss, first thing walking in the door, and he can’t help commenting upon it as soon as Corey crosses his path.
“Looks great! I think it actually makes it brighter in here, now!” Edgar enthuses.
“Yeah…,” Corey says, though, with a half-baked smile and unsure tone, clearly unsold on the concept.
Back at the deli, they’ve also decommissioned one of their dessert cases. This was a standalone unit, cylindrical but octagon shaped, with glass on all sides and shiny, gold colored shelves. They most commonly used this for pies, both sliced and whole, until someone happened to notice that the glass was completely fogged over. Their first, and most logical, thought was that the case must be too cold…except that, no, it turns out this thing is running insanely hot, to the extent one risked burning oneself just by placing a hand upon the glass. A repairman had already driven over and charged them for the privilege of “fixing” the unit, though it acted up again days later and they decided to, well, simply unplug the thing, slide it over by the emergency exit door in plain sight, though not yet commit to pitching the unit.
Amusing, but kind of par for the course at this location. The reason he came back here, though, is that he has a handful of meat invoices he needs Nick to decipher. One thing that nobody was doing prior to Edgar’s arrival was matching up items on meat invoices, determining what they are being used for and if there are better/cheaper options elsewhere. But now, Duane wants him matching up every SKU on every invoice to a specific usage.
When he finally tracks Nick down, the butcher is in his meat cooler, though this is about the end of any significant progress. Edgar has these invoices on a clipboard, with the items in question circled, but doesn’t really get anywhere with his questioning. He tries to impress upon his coworkers, as always, that he doesn’t necessarily care about this stuff himself, only that he does his own job well. If they want to throw money away ordering more expensive options, after he points these things out, then that’s on them. Even so…sometimes these little fact-finding missions do feel like a homicide detective interrogating a suspect.
Not that it really matters when dealing with Nick. He wouldn’t so much say that the meat cutter is avoiding the questions, and refusing to provide answers, more that the guy is broadcasting his thoughts from a distant planet – possibly the one their BBQ burnout was hanging her hopes upon. Or is his behavior chemically induced? Some have not so subtly suggested such, and it would indeed explain a lot.
“Man, I hate it when she orders seafood!” Nick grouses now, shifting gears somewhat deftly into complaints about Dolly. “Look at this! I’ve got three boxes of tilapia already and she orders another one?! Come on!”
Which is comical enough, except that it’s now April 1st. Nodding his head and kind of absently glancing around, Edgar’s eyes just happen to settle upon these four boxes of marinated chicken breast that are all dated to expire January 31st. And when he casually mentions these to Nick, their resident butcher here does seem legitimately shocked, as in jumping backwards a smidgen, wincing, agreeing that he should probably throw them out.
Later this same afternoon, Edgar’s out at the packaged lunchmeat, solving some of these crimes on his own. This by appearances totally worthless clerk named Steve – the one Nick was trying to transfer to dairy – is out yakking his ear off, doing nothing as Edgar continues muttering “uh huh” and working, comparing items to his invoices. Every meat shop in the land seems to have a useless part-timer named Steve (this is seriously at least the fourth that Edgar can think of, just off the top of his head) and so it is here. The only wrinkle, really, is that the deli and meat are combined, and this Steve is able to extend his lassitude toward both.
The end comes swifter than anyone could have imagined. Even the store manager by all appearances has no clue. Duane showed up out of the blue a short while ago, beckoning Corey and then Nick back to the office. Maybe fifteen minutes later, Corey alone emerges, strolls over to where Edgar is working and Steve continues to hang out.
“Man, that sucked,” Corey explains, shaking his head, looking genuinely distraught. And delivers the news to them, that the butcher is history.
So this is the last they will see of Nick, by and large. And yet in many respects their troubles are just beginning. Though campaigning openly and endlessly for being next in line, bizarrely enough, a few days after they appoint Justin to the post, he puts in his two weeks’ notice and soon quits to work at some local horse farm. Edgar had learned many years and about three grocery stores ago that you should almost never cheer when someone is gone, because chances are, the replacement will be even worse. Putting aside the fact that he and many others personally liked Nick, the guy obviously had to go, and yet you could argue that in the short run, things have taken a downhill slide – and this is without knowing anything about his eventual replacement.
This is the cold, clinical read of the situation, at least. In reality, it’s high fives all around when the numbers come back, that initial week after Nick and Justin both are history.
“We get rid of the entire meat department, and it actually turns a profit, for the first time since I’ve been here?” merchandiser Christie Marsh says to Edgar, upon examining these results. “Explain that one to me?”
