It wasn’t like Nira was a vindictive person. Quite the contrary.
She had lived with Jason for almost a year, put up with everything, and it never occurred to her to strike back. She had never intentionally hurt anyone in her life.
Not that Jason didn’t totally deserve it, the slimeball. If he didn’t want a full-sized woman, why had he pursued her? If it demeaned his sorry ass to have a supermarket checker for a girlfriend, what was the point?
It hadn’t taken long for him to start making suggestions. Go to the gym, sign up for some college courses. Hey, at 23, she was what she was, a home girl whose future was more of the same. So what? She had a job, a paid-off OK car, a decent apartment, and a whole small town that knew her and figured she was living up to expectations.
The pretentious jerk just couldn’t accept that he’d never do any better than her.
Did she miss him at all? Not that much. She missed having someone around, but she would rather be alone than with an ass. She just wasn’t that needy. Vulnerable still, hopefully, but not needy.
Her car was getting a new exhaust, so she asked her good friend, Betty, to borrow hers. Betty’s was having transmission problems, but she arranged to get Nira one from her brother, Goob, who owned a junkyard. It was a rusty old pickup truck.
She was sitting in the parking lot, over in the last row bordering the big boulders that drop off into Tongass Narrows. You get a lot of seagulls there, and crows. People who work at the Safeway feed them while they’re taking their lunch break.
She saw him in the rear-view mirror as he drove up. White sports car, new skinny girlfriend. She just didn’t want to deal with it, so she slid down a little and looked away. Jason pulled up next to Nira and parked. He and The Stick got out and left without seeing her.
Fate depends on intersecting coincidences. There was the truck Jason didn’t recognize, seagulls on the hood looking for handouts, a loaf of bread in her grocery bag, and The Stick leaving the passenger window of Jason’s sports car wide open.
Nira felt possessed, like she was having one of those out-of-body things. She started taking slices of white bread and squish-rolling them into little gummy balls. When she was finished, she began flipping the balls into the front seat of Jason’s car, about a minute apart.
Within a short time there were at least ten seagulls inside the white sports car, screeching and flapping, fighting over the food. Feathers and bird droppings flew everywhere, covering the fake leather seats. Nira started the truck’s motor, to make a fast getaway if someone came by, but she kept tossing until the breadballs were gone. She parked on the other side of the lot and laughed herself silly.
She went into the Safeway and started back to work. It got really crowded and the lines grew long, a major rush. She was very busy, checking fast and non-stop, when she happened to glance up and see Jason and The Stick in her line.
Would she start laughing? Or would she allow herself to get pissed off and ruin the day? Neither, she thought, just stay aloof and get through it. He doesn’t deserve any more attention.
She saw him realize he was in her line, noticed him look around quickly, check the length of the other lines and conclude he would waste a lot of time switching. He clenched up and assumed a look of casual disinterest. Good, she thought.
When they got up close, two or three customers back, she looked The Stick over. I’ll bet she didn’t even graduate from the alternative high school, she thought. GED material at best. Bad bleach job, smacking her gum. Doesn’t look remotely capable of an orgasm. Perfect for Jason.
That had been the beginning of the end, when Nira brought home a book about sex techniques. Jason got angry, told her if she wasn’t satisfied, it was her own fault, everyone knows large women have that problem. After that, his nasty and abusive side started doing a daily workout on her. Not your standard slap-around stuff (he was too much the wimp for that), but a combination of rough sex, public put-downs, and endless snide, nasty comments.
A bunch of this was going around in Nira’s mind while Jason and The Stick slowly moved up the line. The smug, arrogant look on his baby face complemented the recent haircut and clean, pressed clothes. The flaws were hidden, but she knew.
Just let it go, she told herself. You’re fine.
And she would have been, except that when she started checking his groceries, she looked up and saw him smirking. It was the expression he always used when he was working her over, making her feel worthless. She clenched her teeth, and a rage began building that she had never known before.
The groceries, the teeming mass of humanity, the smells and sounds all swirled around her as she automatically checked the bananas, olives, coffee, beans. She suddenly snapped and stood red-faced, motionless, staring into his cruel face. His smirk took on a beaming intensity as he saw that he had succeeded once again in stripping her of resolve and dignity.
She was in an evil trance, a silent frenzy of hate so overwhelming that nothing could stop its momentum. She reached under the counter, closed her hand over the cold steel, and slid her index finger into position. As she brought it up to eye level, she saw the look of horror on Jason’s face. Her mouth moved as she squeezed, and several hundred people turned their heads to the sound.
“I need a price check on register three”, the voice boomed over the intercom loudspeakers. “For the small condoms.”
