The Bleeted Undulations Of An Aphasic Universe
an excerpt

“Your late, Jeff, again.” Brenda said.
“I know, I know, it couldn’t be helped. I’m sorry.”
Brenda looked at me for a moment like I was about to get in serious trouble before her look softened. “I can’t keep covering for you when you’re late like this, it’s making me look bad.”
“I know, I won’t do it again. Promise. Do you want to hear about what happened?”
“Does this have something to do you with your web-site?”
I nodded.
“Well,” she looked around the counter, the store was empty and Ed was still finishing up stocking the beer cooler before shift change. She leaned closer, I caught the faint scent of perfume and bubble gum, covered of course with the much more pungent odor of cigarettes and beer, those couldn’t be helped after a busy shift, she carried those smells as well as anyone could. “Do you think this one is real?”
“Don’t know, but it’s certainly different. Ted thinks that--”
“Jeff, you’re late!” It was Ed, middle aged, overweight and always a little grimy. He came bursting out of the cooler and walking towards the counter.
“Yeah, I heard.”
“Twenty minutes by my figuring, I left the chili pot for you to clean. Think of it as my way of saying, ‘thanks for screwing up my evening’.”
“The Chili pot? But that’s your job.”
“Correction, that was my job, now it’s yours.” Ed tapped the badge above his left chest pocket. Shiny and very new looking, it had the title ‘Shift Manager’ imprinted just above his name, “respect the authority, son.” He grinned and walked past. After a few paces he called over his shoulder “Come on Brenda, close out your register so we can go. I’ll be in my car.”
“What? He’s your ride home?”
“What if he is?”
“What if he..? Don’t you remember Dylan, Ed took him home from work one night and offered him a beer. He said the next thing he remembered was waking up in Ed’s living room floor the next day with a bad taste in his mouth, a missing pair of pants, and a very sore rectum.”
“Oooh Gross!” She hit me on the arm a tried to scowl, but she couldn’t help but giggle.
“And you know, “I continued, “A 45 year old man that works at a gas station has got to have something very wrong with him. You are way too pretty to be alone with that perv.”
She smiled and hit the close key on the register, she grabbed her till and indicated for me to put mine in its place. “And who says I’m pretty?”
An urge to kiss her that had been building for a period of weeks suddenly became overpowering, but instead of taking my chance I realized I had a newfound fascination with my own feet, since I clearly couldn’t keep my eyes focused on anything else. I prayed she couldn’t see my cheeks, they felt hot. I tried to change the subject. “Come on, I’ll call Ted and have him take you home, I’ll fill you in on what we found today. Okay?”
She dropped her cash into the floor safe and placed her paperwork on the manager’s desk. I watched her as she finished up and put on her jacket. She was about to speak when the door chimed.
Ed stuck his head in, “Dammit Jeff, quite harassing Brenda so we can leave. Brenda, your chariot awaits.” He smiled, showing stained teeth and leaning heavily on the front door, waving towards his Taurus parked next to pump number 4 at the corner on the lot.
I looked at Brenda still behind the counter next to me. I put my best puppy dog face forward and begged her to stay with my eyes. She shifted her attention from Ed to me and back to Ed again. I got the briefest sense that she found me nearly as pathetic a site as she did Ed.
If ten seconds could be an eternity it was then, I was ready to tell her to go with him in order to stop my stomach from churning, but I couldn’t seem to find my voice. When she did speak up, she said, “I won’t be going Ed, sorry, I appreciate your offer, but I won’t need a ride home tonight after all.”
Ed let go of the entrance door and let it close behind him. He balled up his fists and stomped his foot. “Brenda, it’s not fair. He… he… he’ll just talk about aliens or robots, he’s an idiot.”
Ed huffed and he puffed, but once Brenda had made up her mind she wouldn’t budge. Ed stormed off and we finally found ourselves alone.
We were silent for a time. I had work to do. A few weeks earlier our manager had thought that having a Crockpot of chili would increase our hot dog sales. None of us knew whether or not that was true, but cleaning up that pot of chili after 16 hours of setting out was tough stuff and no one liked it. Figures it would be me that ended up doing it. After I was finished there I rushed through my nightly chores as quickly as I could.
Brenda waited patiently as I worked, I stole glances at her as I swept and mopped. She spent most of the night thumbing through magazines. When I waited on the occasional customer I would have to leave whatever area of the store I was in to run the register, I caught her beautiful green eyes looking at me once or twice but she quickly looked away when she saw me looking back. When I was finished with everything I pulled up a second chair near the cash register and started to fill her in on my big news.
“Was he right?” She asked
“Who?”
“Ed, when he said you would spend your time talking about aliens or robots? Is that why you asked me to stay?” She placed her magazine down and put her hands in her lap.
All of sudden, aliens were the furthest thing from my mind.