A Hole in the Universe - Mary McGarry Morris [87]
“No! Leave them there!” Neil barked.
“But they won’t pick them up over here,” Gordon reminded him. The drivers took only what was in the Dumpster.
“I want to see about recycling them. Get a few bucks, maybe.”
“That’s a good idea,” Gordon said.
“Yeah.” Neil stood up, smiling. “It is, isn’t it.”
“You know, something else you might want to do is give the outdated bakery stuff to the homeless shelter. I go by there. I could drop it off.” He had seen Lida’s Bakery truck delivering day-old bread there the other night.
Neil drew in his chin. “Now why would I want to do that?”
“Charity?” Gordon said with a shrug.
“Charity my ass! Let them fucking work like the rest of us! Like you and me! The lazy fucking maggots, why the hell should I bust my hump just to keep them alive another day. Huh?” He continued to shout in Gordon’s face. “Nobody ever fucking helps me! Nobody gives a fuck if I live or die!” He caught himself and smiled that thin wet smile again. “But so the fuck what, right, Gloomis?”
Every muscle tightened. His eyes flinched from Neil’s. All these years, and it still stung.
“I’ll tell you what,” Neil said, taking a matchbook from his pocket. “Here. Next time you go by just give it a toss and do them all a favor.”
For the rest of the day he managed to avoid Neil, whose angry voice carried through the store now. He was berating Leo for ordering sides of beef without asking him first.
“That’s how much we always get!” Leo looked at him as if he were crazy.
“From now on you ask. You check with me, goddamn it!” Neil roared.
At three o’clock the store began to get busy. Gordon was bagging at Serena’s register for a woman with silver rings on all her fingers. When Serena rang up the total, the woman removed a white envelope from her purse and counted out the food stamps.
“Naturally,” Serena said under her breath.
The woman looked up, but Serena was smiling at her. Gordon was relieved when she left.
“But don’t sell the jewelry,” June said from the next register.
“God forbid,” Serena said with a sigh.
Leo stood at June’s elbow while she rang up an order. He was complaining about Neil again. His face was white, his dark eyes bulging from their sockets. “I’m telling you, he’s a psycho. He’s a friggin’ psycho. And something’s gonna happen, something bad,” he said in a low voice as June’s fingers flew over the keys.
“Come on, Leo, Neil’s just . . . just being Neil,” Serena said as she started ringing up the next order.
“Well, I’m sick of taking his psycho crap. I been ordering without his okay so long I can’t remember. Now all of a sudden he’s pissed? I’m telling you, something’s very wrong with this picture. The man’s headed right off the screen, and you mark my words when it happens, cuz it is. It’s gonna happen.”
A little while later, when the rush was over, June went into the office to rest. Gordon told Serena he was going to stock the dairy case. He’d be right back if she needed him.
“Hey,” she said before he could leave. “There’s something I been wanting to say. I mean, when you first started I kept thinking, I know this guy. And like the name, Loomis—I kept thinking, Damn it, I know that name, but from where?” She leaned closer. “It must’ve been tough, being so young and having something like that happen.”
He nodded. She had turned twenty-two a few days before she died.
“I mean, you probably thought your life was over, right? That when you got out you’d be an old man or something.”
He realized she was talking about him.
“And look, you’re what, in your forties? You got your whole life ahead of you. So really, all you did was miss out on the rat race.” Her husky laugh dragged through him, and he tried to smile.
After work the next night, he called Dennis. No matter what was going on in his brother’s life, they had to stay close. Dennis had never given up on him, and he owed him at least that now.
He wasn’t home yet. “He should be there pretty soon,” Lisa said. Dennis had called from the office to say he had to run some errands and then he was going