Frankie & Formaldehyde

Chapter Ten: Hawaiian Shirts

"What does that mean?"

"I know well what it means," Martin replied.

"Don't be a fool!"

"He's a paying customer."

"He's going to rip us apart!"

"Don't be silly. He's using his debit card. He wants his Air Miles."

Hesitantly, Martin Eisner rose from behind the counter. He gave George a terse smile before taking his bank card and running it through the cash register. "Lovely day," he managed to say to George, his fingers trembling so badly he dropped the card twice. George gave a grunt of agreement.

The receipt was printed up and handed to him. "Have a good day, now. Don't forget that if you have any trouble with your purchase you have two weeks from now to bring it back for complimentary alterations."

"You're stark raving mad, you stupid, stupid man!" Helga popped up from her hiding place behind the massive oak counter. "No returns!" she snapped at George. "None!"

George pocketed his receipt, briefly wondering if he should break his not eating past acquaintances rule. But despite her bravado, Helga Eisner was visibly shaking in terror. George sighed, and left the store, along with his stained suit jacket and tie and good dress pants. The white shirt he'd worn was tossed in the restroom dustbin.

Some things were beyond repair.

***

He wasn't hungry per se, but it was more a feeling of habit that led him into the small grocery store, its produce over-ripe and rotting on the shelves. It was strange how everything seemed to be in such an advanced state of decay, an issue that Frankie had never brought to his attention. He dropped off his soiled clothes at the dry cleaners up the street and had earned a few bullets whizzing past his good ear as a result. The clothes hanging on the racks, ready for cleaning, were now grey rags that hung in ghostlike tatters on the line. How did anyone stay in business with everything as decrepit as it was?

He randomly grabbed a packet of Slim Jims and began snacking on them, wrapper and all. No one stopped him as he tossed them to the floor and ripped open a packet of marshmallows, wolfing down four of them before discarding them in an equal fashion. The grocery cart he pushed had a wonky wheel that squeaked loudly in the otherwise silent store. No muzak here, at least that he could be grateful for. He pushed the cart towards the back, where a light was still glowing and the thin outlines of shadows betrayed the suggestion that someone was employed here.

The sound of gently moving water caught his attention and he glanced to his left to see a large, 200 gallon fish tank crowded with pink life. Figuring it wouldn't be a terrible thing to add variety to one's diet, George reached into the tank and pulled out a large talipia, which he then devoured in two solid bites.

He'd never been much of a seafood eater, however, and he preferred the shining, red steaks displayed before him. But when he tried to pick up the mouth-watering slices of steaks he was shocked to find they were locked beneath a thick layer of .

"C-Can I help you, sir?"

The pale, pimply faced youth brandishing a semi-automatic weapon pointed at George's skull wasn't about to get a reprimand for poor customer service. George frowned, and pointed at the vast selection of meat under lock and key.

"That's top sirloin and unless you have thirteen hundred dollars in your pocket you're not getting one bite." The youth cocked the gun.

Sheesh, kids these days. Give them an assistant manager position and all of a sudden they think they're that damned Clint Eastwood. You're lucky today, punk.

Still, it got George to thinking. They were supposed to be retired, but Frankie was still working, more than she ever had in her entire life. She was tired all the time, a certain forced cheerfulness in her voice that George knew masked her sadness. As he looked around the store and at the terrible state of their town in general, he marvelled at how effectively Frankie had shielded him from all of it. He'd spent the last few years of his life confined to a wheelchair thanks to a stroke, but she'd never voiced any sense of hardship towards his care. They'd both grown old with the ethos that you took care of those you loved, and if sacrifices had to be made, then so be it. He would have done the same for her. That was how things were supposed to be.

But there had been a profound change recently, and George knew it had come with his unwanted, but given, new lease on life. He had a vague memory of drifting off into a beautiful dream where he had found the most peaceful backyard he had ever seen, the smell of charcoal on the grill wafting into every pore of his being. All of it was wrenched cruelly from him when he awoke, the scent of something foul and sour thick in his sinus cavity. It was only recently that he realized that smell was himself, his blood pooling into his brain and spoiling in the humid confines of his bedroom.

That was why she kept the A/C running as high as she did. Why she scrubbed and cleaned like she was going to perform surgery in their kitchen, a bleached toil she took on the minute she came home from a long day at work. He stared down at the unbelievable price of bacon, a cost that would be difficult for two people to afford, but she was shouldering it alone. She was doing what she promised, taking care of him, making sacrifices and doing what she could. The whole business with the bank was hers, too. She worked all day and night trying to keep it together.

George spit out the rubbery fin he had been trying to chew. It landed with a bloodied splat onto the plexiglass enclosure. George had never been a man who just took what was handed to him. He deeply believed in the virtue of reciprocation. He handed the kid behind the counter his credit card and left the store.

He was going to give back all right, back to those Osmosis bastards who had made him this way. Damn straight.

He was going to give back to their black hearts in spades.