The Night of Blue Snow

Read Part 1 by Clicking Here

It's Not a Dream

When Abby opened her eyes, the masked man was looming over her. As she came back to consciousness, he pulled a gun from his waistband and then let the weapon dangle loosely from his hand. He wasn’t pointing the gun at her, but she felt its presence like a radioactive anvil on her chest. Sharp, gray-blue eyes stared at her but she kept her gaze on the firearm.

“Are you OK?” he asked her.

Words formed in her throat but died before reaching her mouth. A guttural gurgle passed through her lips, and then she scrambled backward until she hit the glass door of one of the fridges. She pushed herself upward so that she was at eye level with the masked man.

“You’re OK,” he said and stood up. “I don’t want to hurt you. I just want the cash from the drawer.”

Abby nodded but didn’t move. She couldn’t move. The wall of sound boxed her in again, and the weight of it all was too great to overcome. Blinking was a labor. Breathing was next to impossible.

“I need you to open the register,” he said, annoyance creeping into his voice.

When Abby remained on the ground, her hands shaking, he added, “Now.”

Abby watched the gun swing at his side. The barrel brushed his outer thigh. If he fired right now, the bullet would smash through the tiled floor and Abby would cover her eyes, and bits of shrapnel would fly into her forearm. If the gun fired, the masked man might panic and shoot her. Her arms would still be up, a useless shield that would barely slow the lead down as it tore through her flesh and punctured her neck. She’d die choking in her own blood. The man would run off, and Abby would slide into a puddle and die gasping. Alone in a gas station.

Is She Narcoleptic, Maybe?

She fainted again.

Joe was exhausted by this. This was not the plan. This could not be anyone's plan. This was supposed to be the easy part, the point-the-gun-and-take-the-cash part. Escaping the police, the thrill of being hunted was supposed to be the taxing portion. There were supposed to be helicopters and K9s, flashlights shining between trees, and frenzied shouting. At the very least, Joe was going to hear about himself on the evening news and see how close the sketch artist could come to matching his face.

Instead, this. A clerk who couldn’t keep her eyes open.

He sat down across from her and waited for her to rouse again.

Seriously, It's Not a Dream

This was real. A man with a gun was robbing the gas station. Abby let that thought sit in her mind before she opened her eyes. She couldn’t wish him away, couldn’t wake up suddenly and be holding Bobby. This was real, and it was happening right now. She lifted her eyelids and saw him staring at her.

“Look, I want you to open the cash register,” he said. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

She forced her chin up and down. This was progress. The floor felt cold and moist from the mopping. She nearly slipped standing up, and she saw the masked man move to catch her but then stop himself.

One foot in front of the other, one foot in front of the other. Abby remembered teaching Bobby to walk, the patience and excitement of seeing her son take his first steps. He had stumbled and hit his butt a few times but he got up again and kept going. He used the table for support, and she never told him to. It was simply an instinct.

Abby grabbed the edge of the counter and wormed into the back, and sidled slowly to the register.

“You’re doing great,” the masked man said somewhat sarcastically. “Now open the drawer.”

Abby punched the button, and the drawer slid out. There wasn’t a ton of cash to be had, maybe $300 or $400 total. The masked man leaned over the counter and looked inside, and then motioned towards the drawer with the gun. Abby gasped involuntarily.

“Relax. Put all of that into one of your plastic bags back there.”

She panicked. They didn’t have plastic bags anymore. Six months ago, the county issued an edict declaring plastic bags harmful to the environment, so the station only had recycled paper bags with flimsy handles. That wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted the plastic bags and Abby looked desperately for a spare bag, one that survived the purge.

“What are you doing? Put the money in a goddamn bag.”

Tears formed in her eyes, “We don’t have any plastic bags.”

“What?”

“There’s this new rule, and we can’t have plastic bags because they don’t break down easily and I’m trying to find a leftover bag, but all we have are these shitty paper bags…”

“That’s fine. Just put it in a paper bag.”

“But you asked for a plastic bag and these paper bags are actually terrible.”

“Paper is fine, Jesus. Just bag the money.”

Abby unfolded one of the paper bags and it crinkled in protest and it was the loudest sound she had ever heard. The crinkle cut through the roar of noise in her head and looped until it was all she heard, and she tried very hard to not pass out again.

The cash seemed so meager at the bottom of the bag. When folded out, the bag was designed to hold anything from cereal boxes to wine bottles to dirty magazines, so two handfuls of cash looked lonely and paltry lining the bottom.

“Stop looking at the money.”

Abby snapped back and handed the bag over. The masked man looked inside.

“That’s it?”

Abby wanted to explain that no businesses keep much cash on hand, especially gas stations, because of the threat of armed robbers. Plus, there was a blizzard and that weird chemical light in the sky or whatever, so there wasn’t any foot traffic tonight. People wanted to get back home. They weren't stopping for pleasantries or cigarettes. But she couldn’t think of any words, so she nodded again.

“Well, fuck me and hit for six.”

Fuck me and hit for six. That's a dumb expression, she thought.

Abby had heard it a few times in high school because one of the varsity baseball players used to say it all the time. She had been a scorekeeper for the team as part of her statistics class and would ride on the bus to away games with the team. If the boys won big or lost big, the left fielder would board the bus and mutter, “Fuck me and hit for six,” like it meant something.

Abby remembered asking one of the other scorekeepers if it was a baseball expression and they told her no, it was from cricket and it meant, “Basically, like, uh, you’re shocked.” The left fielder’s dad had worked in England, and the phrase was one of those accouterments you pick up living overseas. In all the years since graduation, she’d only heard that expression spoken by one person.

And she wasn’t sure why she said what she said next, but she heard herself say, “Joe Coughlin?”

And the masked man stopped and stared at her.

This Gas Station is Staffed by a Psychic

How the hell did she know his name? Joe tried to stay cool. He was the one with the gun. He was robbing her store. His gunless hand touched his face, and the rough cotton was there. He was still wearing a mask. His face was completely covered. The baggy hoodie and sweatpants hid his frame. He hadn’t worn a nametag. That would be absurd. He didn’t bring his wallet, so there’s no chance he dropped his license, credit card, or anything else identifiable.

So, how the hell did she know his name?

He studied her face. Sweat beads lined her brow and her eyes were filled with an odd cocktail of fear and familiarity. Did he know this person? They were roughly the same age, he estimated. If she lived near the gas station, maybe they’d seen each other in the neighborhood. Gilroy wasn’t a big town. She could be his neighbor’s sister, the cute girl from the Christmas party two years ago. That woman had blonde hair, though, and a fuller figure. The clerk was short and flat and skinny. Her hair was dark. There was a fading youthfulness around her eyes. Her lips weren’t thin but weren’t full either. They were just lips. Her eyes were just eyes. Her nose was small and cute, but it was just a nose. This was just another face. His mind scrolled through a sea of meaningless faces, all of which bore a passing resemblance to this woman.

But somehow she knew him, and he was wearing a mask.

He’d fake like he knew her if they were at a bar. Feign recognition, coax details out of her until the memory lit up and he could place her. This was not the situation. He wasn’t even sure he should acknowledge that he was Joe Coughlin. There was at least a one-percent chance she’d guessed his name, right?

Joe Coughlin isn’t uncommon as a name. Wasn’t there an actor who had his name? Maybe she thought he was that guy, and this was a TV prank show.

No, that’s dumb. She passed out too many times to think this was a gag. And this was a Gilroy gas station at midnight. No audience in America would care what happened here. No one would want to watch a minimum wage clerk be tricked on national television. Her life was already miserable. No one would care.

That left one option. Maybe she was psychic.

As explanations went, it was dumb, he knew that, but it at least absolved Joe of any fuck ups. Each time he subtly examined his clothing and replayed the night in his head, he could not spot where he’d gone wrong. If she was psychic, he needn’t have blundered, he merely picked the wrong gas station to rob.

Since saying his name, she’d stood frigid and silent. Her eyes flitted to the ceiling or the ground whenever Joe looked at her face, but he felt her stare when he looked away. The bag of money sat on the counter between them.

“No,” he finally said.

She nodded, but the slightest twitch on her lips gave away the ruse. This was Joe Coughlin, masked and armed, standing before her, and she knew it.

“I’m not Joe Coughlin.”

“OK,” she whispered to the cash register.

I Know You

This was Joe Coughlin, she thought. Definitely, Joe Coughlin.

When he left, she’d call the police and tell them Joe Coughlin, Immaculate Family Class of 2007, or maybe 2006, was the robber. They would go to his modest but fashionable house and arrest Joe Coughlin, and his wife would scream. Abby would go to the trial, and the bespectacled prosecutor would say, “Can you identify the man who waved a gun at you?” and she would look across the courtroom and point at him and say, “Yes, that would be Joe Coughlin, and he is sitting right there.”

Not Great

I’m fucked, Joe Coughlin thought.

“I’m not Joe Coughlin,” he told the clerk again, with less conviction.

“OK,” she said again.

This was a disaster. How did he choose the one gas station manned by a psychic? There had to be thousands and thousands of gas stations in America, and the odds that even one of them would employ a psychic clerk were next to zero. The universe truly wanted Joe dead and buried, but not before putting him through every absurd ordeal it could concoct.

The clerk was staring at him. She knew who he was, and it stood to reason she knew what he was thinking. She had supernatural powers. That much was clear; she was probably peering into his mind now. Getting her kicks from his anxiety, soaking in his misery. If she could see all that, she had to know what this year had been to him, the suffering he’d already seen. If she could see Joe Coughlin, she had to know what made him this way, who he really was.

Fuck you, he thought. I am Joe Coughlin. And who are you?

He looked into her eyes, and her gaze disappeared, fleeing to unwatched corners of the store. There was a bronze name tag pinned above her left breast, and it said, “Abby,” and beneath that, in italics it said, “assistant store manager,” and under that, in bold lettering, it said, “How can I help?”

“Abby,” he said, and she looked at him.

You Remember Me, Too? Otherwise, This Could Be Awkward

He knew now. He remembered her, she thought. Those early summer baseball trips flooded back to her. The smell of leather bus seats, the rich odor of motor grease and bubble gum, and chewing tobacco that the boys pretended to hide and the coaches pretended not to see. The sounds of teenagers gossiping and spitting wads of chew into Gatorade bottles. The slosh of backwash and discarded tobacco. Adults staring quietly at the road ahead, wishing they were either younger or elsewhere. Abby and her two nerdy friends looking at their assignments, doing homework and whispering about who the cutest boys were.

Joe Coughlin was a floater, one of the kids who nestles comfortably between the peak-too-soon popular kids and the probably-won’t-peak-ever losers. He was likable and funny. The outfielders hung out in the middle two rows and played intermediaries between the position players in the back of the bus and the pitchers in the front. He would ferry jokes back and forth, shouting dirty punchlines like he didn’t care what the adults thought of him. And they didn't care, but only Joe knew that. He seemed to know so much already. It was like he figured out the jig early, giving him a radiant magnetism that roped in everyone, even the coaches. People gravitated to him. He had a reassuring confidence you hoped would rub off on you.

She’d never had a crush on him per se. Not specifically. Teenage girls ponder what every boy would be like on a date or in the backseat of a car. Joe was no exception. If anything, because of his gregarious nature, he was more likely to be fantasized about and then discarded as too bombastic to tie yourself to. Imagine being at the center of all that attention. Like standing next to the sun. Her cheeks would never stop burning.

It was impossible to tell how he’d aged, but back then he wore his hair long, letting it brush his shoulders. He was cherub faced and clean-shaven because the boys weren’t allowed facial hair at Immaculate Family. Babyfat padded out his cheeks, and he looked perpetually tired, but many of the boys did. They would stay up late playing video games, and their parents would let them because they were glad they weren’t out drinking or smoking weed or having sex.

She wondered what he looked like now, underneath the mask.

This is Awkward

How can you help? You can not know my name. You can not read my mind. You can not ruin this one simple thing. This one last gasp before the big sleep.

“Are you a psychic?”

As soon as he’d asked it, he knew it was moronic and impossible. Her screwed-up expression, half curiosity, half pity, told him everything he needed to know. He regretted saying it, and felt himself shrinking before her.

Then he remembered the gun.

It was the great equalizer, the washer-away of shame. No one should laugh at a man with a gun lest they meet his bullets. That’s what his Dad used to say when watching John Wayne movies. It was one of those stupid things his Dad said that left an indelible impression on Joe.

“You’re not a psychic,” he said, then put the gun on the counter, the barrel pointing toward the clerk. She fell backward and knocked over several packages of cigarettes. She stooped to pick them up and then stopped and stood bolt upright and stared at the gun.

She was visibly panicked. He could see her scrambling for words and trying to decide which ones to offer him.

“It’s Abby Wallace. From IFH? Go Streaks?”

A moment or two passed as Joe scoured his memory. Then, he found her. “The scorekeeper?” he said.

Why Did You Tell Him Your Name, Abby? You're Never Making It Onto That True Crime Podcast Now

Abby was going to cry. The hot uncontrollable ball of fear and misery was growing in her throat, and the edges of her vision were fuzzy. That gun seemed so large. Its oil scented the air.

Why did she say his name? Now he knew she could identify him. He would have to kill her. She knew more about true crime than anyone else, and you could not have loose ends. Joe was sloppy and seat-of-your-pants, but he’d realize soon he had only one option. That meant her body would be stuffed in the dumpster. They'd find her with a dusting of snow atop her face the next morning, banana peels, and gum on her back. Her mother would be horrified. Bobby would grow up alone. He’d have Dan, but that’s like having nothing at all.

Or what if they didn’t find her at all? The refuse truck would come in two days, and those guys wouldn’t look inside the dumpster. The truck would latch its mechanical arms to the sides of the dumpster, hoist it up and flip it upside down. Abby and a week’s worth of greasy fast food, used cleaning products, tampons, garbage water, and God knows what else would slide into the truck. They’d drive her to a dump, and her body would sit there for weeks. Maybe forever. Maybe Bobby would always wonder what happened to his mother.

The world narrowed again, even as the tears ran warm and heavy.

Abby was going to pass out. Again.