{"id":621,"date":"2013-03-12T10:23:27","date_gmt":"2013-03-12T18:23:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/?p=621"},"modified":"2013-03-12T10:34:28","modified_gmt":"2013-03-12T18:34:28","slug":"a-hazy-shade-of-thin-mint","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/2013\/03\/12\/a-hazy-shade-of-thin-mint\/","title":{"rendered":"A Hazy Shade of Thin Mint"},"content":{"rendered":"

fiction by Jason Edwards<\/em><\/p>\n

Liam is afraid to drive across bridges. Which sucks for someone who lives, works, plays and learns in and around Seattle. It\u2019s close to 3 PM on a Tuesday in June and I\u2019m driving Liam\u2019s car. He met me at the airport, gave me a handshake and a brohug, threw my bag into the back seat and then got in on the passenger side. You want me to drive? And he said Yes, Liam is afraid to drive across bridges. In third person like that.<\/p>\n

Traffic is terrible but the kind of terrible I\u2019m used to. 6 months in LA. There might be a reason for someone to go to LA, but there are reasons to go other places first and if you\u2019re lucky you\u2019ll die before you use up those reasons.<\/p>\n

Liam says, Where\u2019s the party.<\/p>\n

Safeway.<\/p>\n

Fuck. Which one.<\/p>\n

The one on 155th and Aurora.<\/p>\n

Fuck. Shoreline?<\/p>\n

Yeah.<\/p>\n

Why?<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know. Because they don\u2019t charge for bags there, since it\u2019s not Seattle, it\u2019s Shoreline.<\/p>\n

Fuck.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

This part would be in italics if I thought whatever medium, you\u2019re reading this in could handle it. But I can\u2019t take that risk. I got a Facebook message from Kareem. He wanted to tell me he was going to throw a party. In Seattle. In a grocery store. Just let people eat and drink what they wanted and he\u2019d pay for it. Why not. I sent a message back, saying I\u2019d fly up for it. He told me not to tell Liam. So I told Liam, asked if I could get a ride from the airport. The day before my flight, Liam sent me back a message: Okay.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

The traffic on highway 5 gets better after 130th, about a mile from our exit. I take 145th, a mile to Aurora, which is also Highway 99, old highway 99, not really a highway, just a busy street with old motels, old Taco Bells, and about a thousand tree dispensaries. I turn right on Aurora, and I\u2019d be able to see all the way to Alaska if I had better vision and the Earth didn\u2019t curve. But it does, the Earth curves.<\/p>\n

Liam asks me to park his car as far away from the front doors as possible. It\u2019s a gorgeous day. The sunshine is perfect, the blue sky is perfect, the sounds of radio stations through open car windows on Aurora is perfect.<\/p>\n

There are two entrances into the Safeway. What time does the party start? Liam asks me.<\/p>\n

2 PM.<\/p>\n

Fuck.<\/p>\n

We make our way towards the entrance more on the left. The one on the right has girl scouts in front of it.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Another part in italics. I\u2019m not good at flashbacks\u2014this one is from about two minutes ago. I turned off the car and didn\u2019t say anything. Liam didn\u2019t either. He just sat there, kind of hunched, like he was going to be sick or was finally done being sick. Then he opened the glove compartment. Just in case, man, he said. Then he got out. I looked into the glove compartment\u2014it was empty except for a Sig Sauer P220 Platinum Elite with an ergonomic beavertail grip, front cocking serrations, front strap checkering, and custom aluminum grips (according to the website). It smelled used.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Inside the Safeway I lose Liam almost immediately. I see Jordan and Dane walking up the cold beer aisle. Kim has a shopping basket and she\u2019s looking at the wall of gift cards. One of Kelly\u2019s kids comes racing out of the aisle with all of the baking stuff, turns a corner and zips up soups. I walk towards chips and seasonal, and find Van and Shelly. Van\u2019s talking to a skinny guy with bad hair.<\/p>\n

Shelly\u2019s smiling. Shelly\u2019s always smiling.<\/p>\n

Hey Jason, Shelly says.<\/p>\n

Hey.<\/p>\n

Long time.<\/p>\n

Yeah.<\/p>\n

LA?<\/p>\n

Yeah.<\/p>\n

Suddenly the skinny guy with bad hair throws a punch at Van. Van takes it, laughs. I\u2019d say you punch like a girl, Steve, but my daughter punches harder than that, Van says. The skinny guy stomps off. I head toward milk.<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t decide between buttermilk or half and half. I\u2019m not going to drink any. I paid a thousand dollars to a kid in LA to get me UC, so I could work on my abs. I finally choose some non-dairy creamer.<\/p>\n

I walk towards produce. I see Kim looking at celery.<\/p>\n

Hey Kim.<\/p>\n

Hey you\u2019re back. She gives me a hug. She\u2019s good at it.<\/p>\n

I saw you by the gift cards. Kareem\u2019s paying for gift cards too?<\/p>\n

Oh, no. I paid for those myself. It\u2019s my sister\u2019s birthday next week. Where\u2019s Liam?<\/p>\n

Liam?<\/p>\n

Didn\u2019t he give you a ride?<\/p>\n

Yeah.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t let him see the girl scouts.<\/p>\n

What girl scouts.<\/p>\n

The one\u2019s selling cookies.<\/p>\n

Why.<\/p>\n

The store manager is letting them sell cookies inside, to us. But not in the cookie aisle.<\/p>\n

Maybe Liam\u2019s in the cookie aisle, then.<\/p>\n

I hope he is. When are you going back to LA?<\/p>\n

Never I hope. Tomorrow.<\/p>\n

Celery is too damn expensive.<\/p>\n

I know.<\/p>\n

No calories.<\/p>\n

I know.<\/p>\n

You look good.<\/p>\n

UC.<\/p>\n

Is that why you\u2019re drinking non-dairy creamer?<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Italics again. A trick I learned at a party in Westwood. Carry something you don\u2019t like to drink, so you don\u2019t accidentally drink it. Because when you go to parties, the instinct is to sip whatever\u2019s in your hand. I learned the trick from a girl with the straightest, blondest hair I\u2019d ever seen. I forgot her name. Either that, or I can\u2019t think of something deeply pithy and symbolic to call her right now.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

If this was a house party, everybody would be in the kitchen. What\u2019s the equivalent in a grocery store. I walk to the deli. A bunch of people I don\u2019t know. As I get closer, I realize they\u2019re all pharmacists, so they must be Desiree\u2019s coworkers. They are all of them extremely drunk. They are having a lot of fun. They\u2019re talking about one of their coworkers, one of them that they really hate.<\/p>\n

I try the aisle that has dog food and baby stuff in it. It smells really horrible. In the next aisle is household cleaners. Alan and Helen are sitting in folding chairs, drinking lemonade and eating chips. Alan has his iPhone plugged into a portable speaker, and they\u2019re listening to Mumford and Sons. Or maybe The Lumineers. Or maybe Phillip Phillips. Alan is a doctor. Hey Jason, he says. UC? Looking good, brother! I honestly believe he is genuinely happy for me.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

6 months earlier, right before I left for LA. Liam and I went to Uneeda Burger, in Fremont. Why LA? he said.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m trying to get UC, I said. I know a guy who knows a guy, and besides\u2026<\/p>\n

Besides what? he said, taking a gigantic bite out of his cowboy burger. Barbecue sauce gooshes out and the smell is incredible. Foreshadowing. I gulped down hefeweizen. I hated hefeweizen.<\/p>\n

I shrugged. I dunno. Usually this would be the part of the story where I finally reveal that my mom was dead. Or my dad. Or I got dumped by a girl who later got hooked bad on drugs.<\/p>\n

Wife? He said, frowning.<\/p>\n

Doesn\u2019t exist yet, I said.<\/p>\n

And she never will, he said, and we fist bumped. Let\u2019s go get some Tagalongs.<\/p>\n

It was the saddest day of my life.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no one the Asian aisle, which has Mexican food in it too, and Indian, and Kosher. I walk through it to the front of the store. Chelsea is talking to a check-out girl, and her fianc\u00e9e Walter is flipping through tabloids. The other Chelsea walks through the front doors, takes off her sunglasses, blinks a few times, puts her sunglasses back on and walks out again. In the video section, there\u2019s, like, a hundred girls scouts. They are terrifying.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

I wrote a short story, once, called \u201cThe Taffy Mafia<\/a>.\u201d It was supposed to be a sort of spoof on zombies. Except instead of the walking undead, there\u2019s these little girls running around, almost feral, selling taffy for some school fund raiser. No one gets hurt in the story, no one\u2019s even in danger. But everyone is scare shitless. They\u2019re even more scared than when, a while earlier, the town really was overrun by actual flesh eating zombies.<\/p>\n

I submitted the story to a literary journal, a no-name rag run out of a no-name community college. It was nominated for a Pushcart prize. It won. I stopped writing after that.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

The girl scouts come to some sort of conclusion, and scatter. Except for one girl scout, who looks like she\u2019s about nine years old. Her girl scout clothes are pristine. Perfect. Her hair is golden blonde and the curls are absolutely perfect. Her rosy cheeks. Her bright blue eyes. Her perfect white teeth as she smiles. She reaches up to grab a copy of Sex Lies and Videotape. At her feet are other DVDs: Bad Influence, Crash, Two Days in the Valley. I start to get very queasy.<\/p>\n

The party\u2019s starting to wind down. The windows are tinted, but eventually the light doesn\u2019t change every time the door opens. So the sky is now the color of tinted windows.<\/p>\n

Crystal and Kevin are at one of the self-check lanes. Kevin\u2019s running the same bag of mini carrots over the UPC reader, over and over again. Every time it goes beep, Kevin says \u201cFuck you, Kareem,\u201d and Crystal says \u201cYeah.\u201d<\/p>\n

The bakery section. Laura, Tammy, Melody, Eric, and Keith are sprawled. They look like dead angels. Greasy hair, flushed cheeks, dirt underneath their fingernails, perfect abs, perfect fucking abs, every single one of them.<\/p>\n

I decide to find Liam so I can leave.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

The last little interlude. The big epiphany. The whole point of the story. The chunk of cookie lodged in my throat that makes me choke. Anticlimax.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Liam\u2019s in the cookie aisle. He\u2019s sitting, he\u2019s crying, he\u2019s shoving handfuls of girl scout thin mints into his mouth, chewing them, brown goo pouring out of his mouth. There are boxes all around him, like dead soldiers, dead children in a schoolyard massacre, dead bugs beneath a bug zapper, dead fish at low tide, rumpled up tissues surrounding the most persistent nose bleed of all time. But they\u2019re just boxes, green and cheery.<\/p>\n

Liam looks up at me as I approach. Dark circles under his wet eyes, nose is running, and all that chewed up cookie drooling from his cookie-soaked chin. The Safeway fluorescents make his skin look yellow, like old damp newspaper.<\/p>\n

Please Jason, he says.<\/p>\n

I pull out the Sig Sauer, point it at his forehead.<\/p>\n

Oh god, thank you, he says, Thank you god, thank you god.<\/p>\n

I pull the trigger. There\u2019s a lot of blood. A lot of blood. But there\u2019s way more chewed-up cookie.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

fiction by Jason Edwards Liam is afraid to drive across bridges. Which sucks for someone who lives, works, plays and learns in and around Seattle. It\u2019s close to 3 PM on a Tuesday in June and I\u2019m driving Liam\u2019s car. He met me at the airport, gave me a handshake and a brohug, threw my … <\/p>\n

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