I’m not sure who else I worked with, but I was lucky to have my first shift with Darren. He explained everything I really needed to know about the job, all the ins and outs, and what regulars to look out for. We had a steady stream of customers that day, but it didn’t get too out of hand. The day went by quickly, and we were never stressed.

Towards the end of our shift, the cashiers all went home, leaving just Darren and me. Also, Linda, who was the evening manager. The store had officially closed, and now we had to restock the shelves for Sunday. Linda gave us a cart full of items that needed to find their homes in the correct aisles.

Darren was over at one section, and I was at the other. After an hour, we finished stocking and told Linda, who was counting all the money from the registers. She had to check our work before we were dismissed for the evening.

After checking Darren’s aisles first, she gave him the go-ahead to leave, but after seeing mine, she seemed to find many mistakes and things misplaced by just the smallest amount. A regular spaghetti sauce and a garlic spaghetti sauce were mixed up. I had the brand name down, but the variety was incorrect. That happened to me all up and down the aisle.

“Well, the first day of work is the one day to make mistakes. Now, let’s never make those again. You’re lucky I still have to do some finances; otherwise, I’d make you close the sore yourself. But, seeing that you incorrectly followed simple instructions, I’m not sure if I could trust you with closing the store,” Linda said. Her words felt like venomous fangs chomping at my psyche.

I nodded. “I’m really sorry. I’ll fix it right now.”

Linda eyed me like a hawk in response and walked away. I started correcting my stocking errors.

“Hey!”

I jumped. I thought I was alone.

“Sorry, man, didn’t mean to scare you. I overheard the conversation between you and Linda. Don’t take it personally. She can be a pretty harsh person, but she means well. Let me give you a hand with this stuff,” Darren said as he knelt by me, fixing the errors I made.

“Oh, dude, you don’t have to help me. This is my bad. I’ll take care of it. You can go home.”

“It’s no big deal. I have nowhere to be. Besides, it gives us a good chance to get to know each other, and you get out quicker,” Darren said as he patted me on the shoulder. “So, tell me about yourself. Where are you from?”

I told him how I lived just about twenty minutes away and that I was sixteen and still in high school.

“Oh wow, I would have guessed older,” he said.

“What makes you say that?”

“Just the way you carry yourself, you seem very mature. You came here to work and not fool around. I respect that kind of attitude.”

“What about you?”

“Oh, I’m nineteen years old. Starting my second year at Lake County Community College.”

“Right on, do you know what you want to do?”

He stopped rearranging the shelf stock and paused. “You know, I’ll get back to you on that. At the moment, I’m just kind of taking the gen eds. I might transfer to the University of Illinois or something. I’m figuring it out as I go along. You know where you want to go to college or what you want to do?”

I shrugged. “Not really.”

“You still have plenty of time. Pursue what you’re interested in; that’s my advice.”

I laughed. “What makes you say that? It sounds like you don’t know what you want to do.”

“Hey hey hey, I’m still figuring it out. Give me some time, mom.” He grinned. “So tell me about yourself.”

“Oh, there’s not really a lot to tell. I’m sixteen, I work here, and I go to school.” The only thing I could think of was Michael as I said that. It’s alright, you can tell him. He seems like a pretty good guy. Tell him it’s hard to talk about your personal life.

“That’s it? There’s nothing you really do for fun?”

I shook my head and smiled, but thinking about Michael at that moment turned my eyes misty.

“Right on, I respect that,” Darren said.

We finished rearranging the shelves, and thanks to his help, it only took us a half-hour. It would probably have taken two hours if it was just me doing it by myself. Before I went to Linda to notify her I was done, Darren patted me on the back.

“Hey, dude, I’m going to head out now. I don’t want Linda to know I gave you a hand. I’ll see you later.”

“Cool, thank you so much for helping me, you didn’t have to do that, but I really appreciate it. Have a good night,” I said, and he strolled away from the store into the parking lot.

I went to Linda’s office, which connected to the break room. She was inside counting money and punching numbers into a calculator.

“Hey, I’m done. I just wanted to let you know so you could check it out. I’m sorry for messing up earlier.”

“Thank you, Gordon.” She looked up at me over her glasses. “That was awfully fast. Did Darren help you out?”

“Yes.” I gulped, worried I had just got Darren in trouble, but Linda just smiled and continued to count.

“Darren’s a good kid. Ordinarily, I would check over your work, but since I have some stuff here keeping me busy, I trust that Darren helped you do it right.” She pulled out a sheet of paper and wrote down some information quickly. “Feel free to tell him this if you wish, but I’m adding a half-hour to his time card. Even though he was willing to help you for free, he should get paid. Have a good night Gordon.”

“Have a good night, Linda. Sorry again for coming in late today and doing things wrong.”

“Stop apologizing. Don’t worry about it anymore; clean slate from here on out.”

As I walked outside to the parking lot, I stopped at the sound of footsteps approaching me. Startled, I whipped around and saw Darren smoking a cigarette.

“Damn, man, didn’t mean to scare you again. I just wanted to say sorry about earlier. I felt like I may have struck a nerve when I asked you about your personal life, and I wanted to apologize.”

Shit, now you have to tell him. “Oh, it’s all good, dude. Don’t worry about it. I just have some… issues at home that I’m working through.”

“If you ever need someone to talk to about it, let me know. We should exchange numbers, though.”

I looked at him, surprised. Kids at school never really took the time to get to know me. It was a strange feeling.

“You know, in case we have to contact each other about work stuff.”

“Oh, yeah, of course,” I said, and then I gave him my phone number, and he gave me his. “So, what do you do for fun or in your free time?”

“I’m a big fan of Elite Crushers. I probably play every day. Do you ever play that game?”

My stomach dropped as if I was on a roller coaster. “Uh. Yeah, Elite Crushers. Yeah, I’ve played it before.”

“Oh cool, you play any games nowadays?”

Once again, I was getting choked out by an emotional snake. “I don’t know, but I have to get going. I’ll talk to you later, man. I don’t mean to be abrupt, but my mom will start wondering where I am if I’m not home soon.”

“For sure, I understand.” Darren nodded.

I got in my car and drove straight home. The entire time I was cursing myself for not being able to hold a conversation with Darren, but I was emotionally overwhelmed.

As the weeks passed, it became apparent that my favorite thing to do was go to work. It wasn’t because I enjoyed the tasks, but I started to develop a rapport with my coworkers. The other helpers were decent and pleasant, but they weren’t like Darren. They had no interest in getting to know me.

Whenever Linda sent out the schedule, I felt joy every time I worked the same day as Darren. It didn’t happen all the time, but about half the time, we worked together.

Usually, we spent our breaks and lunches talking. Although I didn’t say too much, it was mostly listening to Darren tell stories of what he had done since the last time I saw him. I didn’t mind, though. He talked to me as if I was a friend, and that’s all that mattered to me. Since our conversation in the parking lot, he was cautious not to ask about my personal life or things I did in my free time.

We ate a sandwich made from Stella’s deli on our lunch break one day.

“So last weekend I just did homework and worked. Then I had to help my cousin Wyatt and his parents move. I didn’t have a break to relax at all, you know? It was brutal,” Darren said.

“That does sound rough,” I replied.

“It was a little fun, though. On Sunday, after I helped Wyatt move, we started playing Elite Crushers. He’s wicked good at it.”

I nearly spit out my water. It went down the “wrong pipe.”

“Oh shit, you alright, man?”

I was coughing like I was deathly ill. “Yeah,” I croaked, and then I cleared my throat. “He’s good, though?”

“Yeah, man, I play local tournaments here and there at stores, and usually I do well, but it’s all thanks to Wyatt. He practically ‘trained’ me at the game when we were younger.”

I felt like my eyes were lighting up. “No way. Do you play professionally?”

Darren shrugged. “Not really. I never really thought I was good enough to try out the official tournament scene, so it seemed like a waste of money. My mom and I don’t have a lot, so I didn’t want our money to burn, you know?”

“Do you have to pay for the local tournaments at game stores?” I asked. I never really heard of them happening, but then again, I could be classified as a hermit.

“Some of them are free. Sometimes you have to pay like $5 or $10. The free ones usually just give you store credit, so I rely on that to buy new games.”

“Sounds like a good method you have in place. What about Wyatt? Does he play professionally?”

Darren shook his head. “He has in the past but doesn’t anymore. Wyatt is pretty good, though. He played like a year ago and got in the top thirty-two at the Chicago tournament. From what he’s said, he hates all the personalities involved and doesn’t have the money. Wyatt doesn’t like traveling to play, but I think he’s down to play at the major tournament in Chicago.”

“Yeah, I totally get where he’s coming from about the big personalities,” I said, but Darren raised his eyebrow.

“What do you mean by that?”

Silence sat between us, and I looked him square in the eye, continuing to chew on my sandwich. “Nothing really, I’ve just met some awful people before, and there are just some personalities you can’t stand, you know?”

“Yeah... I get what you mean.” Darren opened a bag of chips and started munching. “By the way, there’s something I wanted to bring up to you. You wanna get together after work and hang out at my place?”

I stared back at him, and my jaw dropped. “Sure.”