The Last Customer (5 page)

Winny sensed that his brother desired to leave. Garth had been very vocal about
getting out
since before they’d graduated from Dodge Junction Senior High School, five years ago. On many occasions, Garth had confided in Winny that he was sick of small town life. He wanted to see the world, experience new things
;
meet new people. Personally, Winny didn’t agree with Garth’s philosophy. To Winny, family and friends were everything. Small town life was enough. It was easy. The way life was meant to be.

           
Buggy’s Liquor was passed down to the Gasper boys two years earlier after their father retired, after spending many years running it. Buggy’s Liquor was the town’s most successful booze outlet.

Buggy Gasper, Winny and Garth’s father, retired at the age of sixty-eight and he was proud to have set up a successful business for his sons. The store continued to make a good amount of money. It would be enough for his boys to raise their families and live a comfortable life, if they ever settled down
.

The people of Dodge Junction took a liking to the Gasper boys. They were charming and witty. They displayed an ideal family dynamic. For this reason, the other liquor stores in town weren’t as profitable. They only wanted to make a buck. The Gasper’s were part of the community. In small towns like Dodge Junction, people were more than willing to go out of their way to buy beer and spirits from people they trusted. The Gasper boys held a warm relationship with the town. Winny appreciated this. He didn’t know why Garth was so ashamed of living
the good life.

Winny shook his head.

           
Usually, Saturday nights were busy, but not tonight. Most of the townsfolk stocked their booze on Friday. The county fair was being held in Watertown, which meant the weekend would be slow. The town was dead when the county fair came around, the lively crowds from town, usually made their way up to the Rock River Camp Grounds, near Watertown. Everyone was stocked up on booze for the three day celebration. The majority of Dodge Junction’s townies were camped out in tents and RV’s by Rock Lake. They were drinking, camping, and boating. Still, Winny and Garth expected Saturday to be a bit busier than it was.

Maybe tomorrow would pick up?

Winny set his half-eaten bag of corn nuts on the counter and crumbs sprinkled out across it. He made his way toward the bathroom, at the back of the store. Along the way, he grabbed his wooden mop which was rested in a yellow bucket. The bucket wheels were loose and they whined every couple of feet and the back right wheel spun back and forth, lazily. It wasn’t closing time yet, but Winny figured he might as well mop the floor, getting it out of the way.

           
“It’s my turn to clean the crapper, right?” Winny hollered.

           
Garth blew his shaggy brown hair away from his tan face. Looking to the back of the store, he stood up and directed his dark brown eyes at Winny. “Yeah, bro. It’s your turn to clean the crapper. I’ll sweep up when we close.”

           
Nodding, Winny pushed his mop bucket toward the restrooms.

Stopping in the middle of the brightly lit hallway, which separated the men’s room from the lady’s, Winny propped the large blue door open with his plastic bucket. He quickly dipped the stringy cloth end of the mop into the soapy water. Tiny white bubbles popped at the surface. He stirred the handle until a thin layer of foam spread across the surface of the swaying water. It smelled piney and pleasant. Moving from the far end of the hall to the mouth of it, Winny swabbed the mop from side to side, never missing a spot.

2

The store’s automated doorbell chimed loudly when Father Leslie Gardner entered the store. Shaking his head, he blew out an exhausted breath. He waved his arms up and down like a bird. He sighed when the cold air conditioning surrounded him. Standing beneath the vent, he closed his eyes and inhaled deep. His light gray T-shirt was sweat stained underneath his armpits and lower stomach. He wiped his forehead with his forearm then turned to Garth and smiled.

           
“Man, is it hot out there. It’s nearly dark out and I’m sweating like a hog,” Gardner said cheerfully. He continued to wipe sweat from his brow. “I got
this
sweaty walking from the house.”

           
“You only live up the hill,” Garth returned, subtly sarcastic. He barely looked up from his magazine to acknowledge Gardner.

           
“I know,” Gardner said matter-of-fact like. He had an excitement in his tone. A grin curled across his aging face. “Where’s your brother?”

           
“Back here!” Winny shouted excitedly from the back hallway.

Father Gardner turned to the back of the store. He raised his right hand and waved. “Good evening to you, Winny. Why is your brother so cranky?”

“Evening, Father! He’s always cranky, you know that.”

Shaking his head, Father Gardner winked at Garth, who looked annoyed and went to the cooler. He walked past the cold beer and stopped near the milk. He pulled out two gallons of two percent from the bottom rack, walked back to the counter and set the milk jugs next to the cash register. He dug through his pockets. A moment later, he held out a crisp twenty dollar bill while Garth rang him up.

“It’s sure been a scorcher, wouldn’t you say?” Father Gardner prodded, running his hand through his damp silver hair.

“I wouldn’t know. I’ve been in the nice, cold, air conditioning all day.” He set his magazine down and looked out the window. “I might go for a run after work.” He turned to Gardner with an inquisitive expression. “Say, can I ask you a question?”

“Sure thing.”

“You’re a priest? I mean we call you
Father
and all. So, where’s your church? I thought you worked in a flower shop?” Garth asked as he took Gardner’s twenty dollar bill. He put the twenty in the register and then counted out Gardner’s change.

Gardner nodded as he briefly skimmed over his change. He put the money in his pocket then looked up at Garth, “Excellent question. I retired about eighteen years ago. I still work with the church, but on more of a consultant level. I spent a lot of my days traveling…setting up aid in third world countries and less fortunate parts of America…that kind of thing.” Gardner responded, vaguely. He didn’t think it was necessary to tell Garth that he’d spent most of his time fighting heinous acts of evil, exercising demonic spirits and battling those who lived their lives along a disturbed path. That, in fact, was why he’d retired in the first place. The exhaustion that came from fighting unholy enemies had gotten to be too much. He couldn’t handle it anymore, didn’t want to. Neither could his mind. He wanted to experience a bit of happiness. He desperately wanted to relax before he left this world. Now, he lived with his beautiful wife Donna, the love of his life. They were happy. They still worked, owning a garden nursery in town. They didn’t make much money, but the work was relaxing and it was easy. Given the things that Gardner had seen, he didn’t think that it was too much to want a little peace before he passed. Not that he would pass anytime soon. He was well and in good shape for a sixty year old man. He didn’t drink—maybe a glass of wine with dinner—and he was an avid runner. Given the stress of his career, he was lucky he hadn’t had a heart attack, yet. The average man would have dropped dead if he’d seen an eighty year old Hispanic woman crawl across the ceiling of her one bedroom apartment, on the Mexican side of Tijuana. The many faces of evil were branded into Gardner’s memory. His thoughts were scarred from the evils he’d fought.

“You want a plastic bag for your milk?” Garth asked.

“No thanks. Say hi to Buggy for me. Tell him to stop drinking so much beer. Every time I see him…he’s drinking beer.”

Garth aimed his index finger at Father Gardner like a gun and then pulled the trigger and said, “He’s pretty happy, Father, and beer isn’t the worst thing in the world.” He raised his finger to the sky. “Say hey to
your
father…for me.”

Gardner smiled, gently. He left the liquor store with his milk jugs. A hot gust of humid air bellowed into the store as he left.

3

The sun disappeared, replaced by darkness and the rising moon. Inside the store, Garth ran his palm along the rough edge of the wiry metal rack that ran the length of aisle one. The rack neatly displayed all the sugar based snacks, like candy bars and gummy candy.

He made his way toward the restrooms. Along the way, the yellow wrapper of a Butterfinger called out to him. He hadn’t eaten a candy bar in a long time. It wouldn’t kill him to have
just one
. He thought about it—then passed.

Garth hated cleaning and he didn’t want to help Winny either but he was bored and craved some company. After rounding the corner of aisle two, he grabbed a bag of potato chips from the corner shelf, ripped the bag open and began to munch. He moved into the men’s room doorway and leaned against the open doorframe. He kicked at the wooden door stop wedged beneath the chipped door and tiled floor.

           
“How can a guy as smart as Gardner believe in something as silly as God? You’d think he’d be smart enough to acknowledge the facts.”

           
Winny stopped mopping. Garth knew he’d struck a chord. He sometimes forgot, or chose to forget, that Winny was a
believer
.

Slow and precise, Frowning, Winny set his mop against the off-white tile wall. Garth rolled his eyes. He knew he shouldn’t have said anything. Now, he would receive a lecture about how Jesus died for our sins and blah, blah, blah. There was no concrete evidence that God existed, let alone had a child.

           
“Why are people who believe in God stupid?” Winny asked. He steadied the mop and crossed his arms. “I believe in God. I’m not a genius, but I don’t think I’m stupid.”

           
Here it was. He should have kept his fool mouth shut.

           
“You want to stay in this town and keep working at this stupid liquor store, that’s stupid too,” Garth hissed back. He didn’t know why he put it that way either, the words just came out.

           
“So you
are
saying that I’m stupid?”

           
“You’re
acting
stupid. I don’t think that you
are
stupid. It’s stupid that you’ve accepted this store as your destiny,” Garth enlightened his brother. He didn’t know why he’d said all this. He immediately wished he had kept his mouth shut. For one reason or another, he was antagonizing his brother.

           
“And why did you change the topic from religion to geographic location?”

           
A long silence followed. Winny stared at the floor. He prodded his toe at the edge of his mop. Then, his eyes swept upward and he said, “This store’s been in our family our entire lives. I have fond memories
in
and
of
this place. In a way it’s a
living thing
. This store provided our family with a home, money and a life. That’s not stupid. It’s a success. And if you see a success as stupid, then you might want to ask yourself if
you
aren’t the one
acting
stupid.”

           
Garth gritted his teeth. He hated it when Winny came at him like this, making him feel unappreciative. It was degrading. It made him feel selfish.
 

           
“I guess I want more than this. Think about it. We run a liquor store in a stupid little town that no one’s ever heard of. Don’t you want more out of life?” Garth returned.

           
“Like what?”

           
And that was the problem; Garth Gasper didn’t know what he wanted. He only knew that
it
was more than
this.
He was better than
this place
and he wanted to prove it to the world. Even more than the world, he wanted his family to know it. Their father, Buggy, originally named William, had technically given the store to both of them equally, but everyone knew that Winny was in charge. And it wasn’t because Winny was smarter—he wasn’t. He was the oldest and it just seemed right to let Winny run the place. He was more assertive.

           
“I want to move out to California, live by the ocean,” Garth finally said, with no conviction. Living in California wasn’t necessarily a plan. It was just a place. The only difference was that California’s weather was great.

Both Garth and Winny had friends that had moved out to California in search of the American dream. Tom Hopkins moved to Los Angeles shortly after graduation. He had intentions of becoming a famous actor, but had only become cynical. He moved back home two years later. He’d developed a nasty drug problem to boot and he’d blown his savings. His only success was a small role on a television show about homosexual men in rural Texas.

           
“What do you want to do in California, Garth? I’m not trying to be mean; I just don’t know what you want to do with your life. If you don’t want to stay here, that’s fine. Just because I’m content here doesn’t mean that you have to be. But it would be nice to know that you have a goal and that you’re trying to achieve it.”

           
Winny always had a way of asking questions which in turn made him appear angelic. He talked like he’d already done it all, seen everything there was to see. Winny could be self-righteous. He liked taking the high road and did so whenever he had the chance. Still, Winny had what he wanted out of life, he was happy living on a pedestal in this one horse town. He was able to look down at his misguided little brother and hover above the simple minded population. It made him feel superior, or so Garth thought.

           
“You’re really getting mad at me, aren’t you?” Winny asked as he squared off with his disgruntled sibling. He placed his hand on Garth’s right shoulder. “I’m serious. I just want you to be happy. I wish that working here, with me, was enough. But if you need to go…and see the world…then that’s what you need to do. I get it. I admire that. You’re a dreamer.”