Regularity

On his short stroll to work, Old Man Fitz heard a husky voice coaxing him over from the drain. Peering in, he saw a three-foot tall, red-headed, freckled creature with an always-eating-cookie-dough smile, standing on milk crates.

In a gravelly voice, she said, “Things sounded pretty rough for you on the ol’ can last night. You might want to get that checked out”.

Near-catatonic, Fitz could only nod. At his nearby Sundowner Retirement Village, stories about sightings of subterranean dwellers lingered. Staff would respond with, “Oh, insert-old-person-name-here, you’re just an old crazy person” and then do their well-honed dismissive chuckle.

“You’ve got real statesman’s hands,” and she made a pawing gesture. How’s about you use them to grab me a roll of tin foil – and I’m talkin’ from the good stuff.”

She was buxom indeed. But Fitz had worked at the Sunshine Mart for more than three decades and had always followed the rules. He was a team player; wiping the floor if he spilt piddle on it, and always smiling at all the customers. At one time he was even foolish enough to believe he would become manager.

But that was then, and this is now. He hadn’t had such a comely humanoid lass asking him for a favour before. So, with much trepidation, he sneaked into the off-limits storage area and reunited the good tin foil with its original packaging. The Good Stuff was an innovative way to generate more profit for the small, independent supermarket.

The next day, appearing at a different drain, ‘Leslie’ gave him more item requests. When he declined, she teased the name André.

André.

André was the youngblood, the spritely fifty-five-year-old manager. Despite having only nine-hundred-and-ninety-four days experience, he was heralded as the impact player of the town, especially amongst the women in the retirement community. His small black notebook kept track of the home deliveries and never-ending invites for cups of tea. He did all the bookwork from his office in the back, carried groceries out the front, and every kind of customer service in-between. Fitz could feel the resentment emanating from people when they were assisted by him and not their precious André. When Kingdom, the larger chain supermarket opened nearby, many feared the fate of Sunshine Mart was doomed…if it wasn’t for the inimitable André.

“I’m just kidding, silly” cackled Leslie.

When Fitz learned Leslie was a mere forty-seven, his face lit with delight. She became the reason for drinking prune juice. Just a few more supermarket items and then he would invite her to watch TV in his room (when music videos were on).

But Leslie needed confined spaces all the time. He explained his room was, indeed, claustrophobic approved. But the air above would make her sick. And then she tantalised him, asking, “You got enough lead in ya pencil to come down the sewers?” She slipped him a piece of paper through the drain grille. It was a map detailing how to navigate his way to her. On the spot, he made a mental commitment to start attending the aqua-aerobics class.

*****

He’d never before considered the labyrinthine world beneath him. Like the retirement village, it was another world hidden from society. Cars went by above, oblivious. Its network was vast, dark, fetid. Creeping in the shadows. Slithering in the shallows. Compacted in some areas, he had to hunch over like so many of the denizens from his homeworld above. Even when he could walk upright or see anything, the whole place was like a sauna covered in public nursing home carpet.

When he reached Leslie’s ‘house’, she laughed like a drunken schoolgirl at the sight of him. He had slipped over again and again.

“Come lie on the rug and I’ll massage those aches and pains away.”

The ‘rug’ was shredded and dark-stained in one corner but was otherwise a decent tarpaulin. Leslie straddled across his back and began to rub. Her thighs were like two warm milk bottles from the good ol’ days. Her hands were supple and aggressive. During the rubdown, she said she had something to show him, and produced a water-stained, stuck together brochure for Rudy’s Cruises. Their slogan read, Where Everyone’s the Captain. He was mesmerised.

“Maybe some handsome stranger will wrap me in tin foil and stuff me in his knapsack to get me past their body scanners.”

Leslie had just begun taking Fitz’s trousers down to give him a bowel checkup, when there was a sudden shout.

“Oi! What the blimey?!”

An incensed male humanoid stood at the ‘doorway’. Lightning fast, Leslie snatched the brochure and stuffed it down her homemade knotted crop top. The intruder had the most unagreeable blotchy skin and greasy black hair. Even for a sewer-dweller, his singlet was impossibly grubby. If Fitz could see his sagging pants from behind, he was certain more of this fellow’s anus would be visible than his own.

“So, you’re the traitor to your own infernal kind, and now you’re also a homewrecker.”

“Aaron, please! Not again!” shrieked Leslie.

“Well, we don’t need your charity. I scavenge hard ‘n’ honest for what goes in our mouths!” And he shook what looked like pantyhose stuffed with bruised and unsellable produce, before dropping them and launching himself at Fitz, who had stood by now.

“Aaron! Stop! Don’t kill another one!”

The attacker swung his little arms whilst blindly trying to latch on by his repugnant remnants of teeth. And Fitz, filled with machismo from the pamphlet and invigorated from his massage, swatted him away. ‘Aaron’ went several feet before falling, bottom first in a stream of brown water, injured and defeated.

Leslie screamed and rushed to Aaron.

“He’s just misunderstood.”

Old Man Fitz knew when he was not wanted and left for the world above.

*****

The atmosphere at the Sunshine Mart was one of jubilance. André had been manager for one thousand days. The radio volume was turned up to seven over the customary five. Every child who entered the store was handed a frankfurt on a toothpick. Two lots of two balloons had been inflated. Megan on the register had a surprise planned.

Over the loudspeaker came:

“Fitz to the office immediately.”

André wasn’t in the office. But then Fitz smelt something coming from the Executive Bathroom.

“Fitz, come in here and lock that door behind you”, directed André’s voice.

The overweight, slicked-hair André was sitting on the toilet whilst eating a chocolate éclair. The empty packaging on the floor indicated this was his second. He licked his fingers and said, “Even though today’s a celebration of all the things I’ve done, I see you’ve managed to try and make it about you. Well, congratulations, because now you’re going to be initiated into my Inner Circle.”

Stuffing his face with the remainder of the last éclair, André rolled off some toilet paper and shook it at Fitz whilst he continued, “A lesser man would have broken his back spearheading my Good Stuff and Resource Relocation initiatives. And don’t forget the Expiration Adjustments. How much money do you think we save utilising the drains instead of paying for garbage disposal? Well, I added it all up and came to a cool twenty dollars per day. Multiply that by the time I’ve been here, you’ve got yourself twenty-thousand dollars. This isn’t one of your little bingo games, where the grand prize is packet of napkins.”

André put the paper between his legs, looked down at it and appeared satisfied.

“Now, I’m a show you where the magic happens.”

Straining to his left, he lifted up the drain cover on the ground. Attached to the cover was a piece of string. At the end of it was a plastic shopping bag.

“Come have a smell of this” and he held the bag out as if Fitz was a horse about to eat some hay. Fitz didn’t comprehend anything. He’s drunk on power, he thought. But the bag was indeed filled with twenty-dollar notes.

The reason André was revealing this was because he’d caught Fitz with his hand in the fibre-cookie jar. André had orchestrated this moment. He fiddled behind himself yet again to produce a remote to play security footage of an elderly male figure taking multiple items from the off-limits Good Stuff.

“All this time, I’ve put up with your slow-motion shuffling around…and now the truth has finally come to light.”

It was all threats, blackmail and condescension from there: loss of housing, loss of employment, loss of respect from the community. Taunts to try to get a job at Kingdom at his age. Perhaps even institutionalisation if André felt it his duty of care to show the retirement village director, Mrs. Hammerstein (with whom he was naturally in very good steed with), video of Fitz peering down drains late at night.

“What’d you do – drop your hearing aid down there?”

Diametrically opposed, the more ecstatic André became, the more Fitz could feel his own life-force draining away. As a member of the Inner Circle, he now was responsible for re-injecting André’s skim money in other business ventures, all outside of work hours, with staying out of jail his only payment.

André. Aaron. The two biggest ‘A’-holes. One above, one below.

And then something beautiful happened. After all the maniacal laughter, André began clutching at his heart. His teeth clenched and he could only wince and seethe and groan. It wasn’t the first time Fitz had witnessed a heart attack, so he knew what to do. He picked up the remote that had been dropped and, with his recently acquired proficiency, proceeded to delete the incriminating footage as his boss slumped against the Executive Cistern.

Fitz walked out and informed the staff what was transpiring. Acolyte shoppers loyal to André also heard and they all rushed to and crowded the bathroom.

And thus, on a throne (of sorts) and having achieved such a prolific number of workdays, surrounded by employees and customers, André Myers was relegated to what is commonly referred to in supermarket terms as damaged goods. He never even got to flush, neither did Megan get to pull the Party Popper she had brought from home.

The police took an easy statement. Fitz served them cheesecake.

The owner, Rugged Ronnie put in a rare appearance and asked for a word at the fresh death scene.

“It’s a terrible, terrible thing. Just terrible.” He said solemnly.

“I just want you to know that I always knew you’d make manager someday.

Here’s what’s going to happen. We’re going to go out for dinner. I’ll introduce you to my new wife. And she’ll bring a friend too. And she’s going to make you feel young again. Then, you and me, we’re going to talk turkey. Sound like good puddin’?”

And Fitz agreed.

*****

That night though, Old Man Fitz changed his mind. Customers, residents, employees; they had all made their choice against him long ago. The afternoon was merely a reminder overhearing things like, “You’ll never hold a candle to our André!” and, “Kingdom just got a new customer!”

Ronnie would demote Fitz soon enough and work him until he was a hundred years old.

But Fitz felt a surge of vigour looking through his new armada of Rudy’s catalogues. The twenty-thousand dollars was now his. He would smuggle Leslie aboard as a stowaway and keep her below deck, near where they threw the non-re-usable food into the waters. Meanwhile, above-deck, he would become so regal and esteemed whilst sailing the seven seas in search of some sort of pollution-mask, in hope their relationship could then blossom in the public eye. The Captain’s Waltz awaited them.

Still emboldened, under the cover of night, he unceremoniously exited the Sundowner Retirement Village. With André’s ex-keys, he entered the supermarket. He lifted the drain and pulled up the surprisingly light rope.

Attached was a piece of paper: a coupon for 15% off bowel screening. Handwritten on the other side it read, “Gone Cruisin’, Gettin’ Married”.