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C A T A C L Y S M I C N I C K E L O D E O N
She was just old enough to drink, but no one, any age, deserves to experience that kind of torture. The flashbulbs that go off immortalize the memory and she lives it over and over again. Coming to the end of the reel, it rewinds, and shows again. Forever she is trapped in the cinema of his malevolence.

The Supervisor had a mysterious appeal. There was nothing upstanding or special about her. She would not stick out of a crowd. Tourist season was approaching and management needed someone with a strong tolerance to stupidity to manage the summer help. New England only peaked its head into the sun for a few months of the year to bask in the good weather, and all of the coffee shops and bakeries that barely scraped by in the winter had a short amount of time to make enough revenue for the year. They asked the Supervisor, who at the time wasn’t a supervisor at all, if she could handle that kind of power. She took all of this in stride without so much as a smile, which is why They liked her to begin with. And so it was that the Supervisor came to power.

The Cashier despised her, although the Supervisor could never figure out exactly why. The Cashier was summer help, a fourteen year old who needed money for CDs and make up and all the things that really mattered in life. Clearly the Supervisor could not understand this, and she didn’t really care. She had other things, like him, to worry about. The Cashier was simply a thorn in the Supervisor’s side.

It was almost romantic that this was where they met, although there was never any romance to their relationship. The Supervisor knew his order (triple shot of espresso), and she never forgot the sleeve although he always reminded her. He was impatient, impulsive and imperfect. The Supervisor was efficient, economical, and in his opinion, exquisite. She was a blank slate on which he imagined perfection. And that’s why he liked the Supervisor so much.

Nighttime can be utterly frightening. The Supervisor knows this. She knows because she could hear the dew falling, and the whole town breathing in the dark, moonless night: starless and bible-black, endless. The parking lot was empty, as was the store. Only the bakers remained inside, droning on and pretending not to notice one another.

He was there, drinkless, sleeveless. The Supervisor had only just closed the door and locked it. For the first time, she was afraid. She fumbled with her keys.

A body has a certain feel to it, a certain weight. Pulse. Crimson, boiling rush, pounding in its ears. Pressing down, driving beyond comfort and into it, through it, pavement engrained into its back. Hand-over-mouth-and-silent-shhhh.
No one must know, no one must hear.

Slump forward. Groan-in-the-dark-and-now-quiet-shhhh. Slowly rigid, empty.
Time passes. Silence is deafening.
Someone will find it tomorrow.

He is with her now, he always is. Behind the counter the Supervisor counts change. Two quarters, a nickel, three pennies. Her hand reaches out, stretching towards her customer; it looks like a bone, but its starting to melt. His hand is beneath hers, wrapped around and engaging her arm, supporting it. He is always there, and she knows that he always will be. It’s been two months.

She knows, but she pretends she doesn’t. Her day is an oil painting, smeared and not quite dry. All day she can hear rain, pounding and pounding and she thinks of him pounding. Lately she has been working like a zombie, but everything gets done efficiently. There is nothing wrong with passionless work when your job is serving coffee and donuts.

The Cashier causes problems by avoiding any and all work. The Supervisor wonders why a fourteen-year-old would get a job when her main goal is not to work. She taps the girl on the shoulder and tells her firmly, “Get back to work.” Please don’t make this day any harder goes unsaid. He stares over her shoulder and scowls at the girl’s BRIGHT RED hair. The Cashier did not belong to him.

Customers come and go. Chai Latte gives a sad smile and The Supervisor is chilled to her surrounded-by-him bones while he waves. The Manager asks if everything is okay, and the Supervisor lies. She has gotten good at lying. She has gotten good at having a false exterior. The Supervisor has learned that this is an essential part of life.

She knows, but she pretends she doesn’t. The hours pass and she goes to the bathroom often to make sure every chance she gets. The Supervisor hates leaving the Cashier alone, but she will take her risks. He watches her as she takes a piss and wipes herself. She doesn’t want this to be happening.

Blood can be a scary thing. It had pooled in the parking lot until rain, pounding like today, washed it away. She had washed her hands and her body and between her legs, scrubbing until she thought her skin would tear away like sopping tissue. She had cleansed herself of blood that night. Now she’d give anything for the sight of her own.

He watches her refill the coffee beans, and he watches as she brews fresh decaf. When she sweeps the floor he kicks the dust. It is not a very busy day with all of the rain.

A customer comes in and she realizes that she has lost track of him. She glances up but instead of moving to the counter, she is frozen to her spot, gripping the plastic broom handle. Scruffy hair, dark, with sunglasses. Her lungs are collapsing.

To the right a woman, scruffy hair, dark, with sunglasses. Behind him another man, shorter, of the same. The Cashier greets them, her BRIGHT RED hair now scruffy and dark. She is wearing sunglasses. He is every being in the store. The Supervisor cannot ignore him now.

The paparazzi takes her back through the night, through the bible-black and starless, through the silent endless silence. Flashbulbs. The greeting, the pretend, the I-know-you-know-I’m-not-supposed-to-be-here last breath of fresh air before the attack. The pavement, the tears, the thrusting. Flashbulbs. Sharp agony of defeat, forced down, down, drowning. Skin torn over pieces of glass and an unsmoked Winston. The corn-husking rip of material, the match-striking tear of a zipper. Don’t scream, no one will hear you. Flashbulbs. No please no please no no no. Hand-over-mouth-and-silent-shhh. You belong to me now.

The lungs force air out so sharply that her head spins. He is looking at her, his eyes glazed at her like they always are now, like a fish about to be scaled. Cold, wet, and lifeless.

One of the bakers hands her a glass of water and squeezes her shoulder. “Are you okay? What happened?” Her red manicured nails are covered with glaze, a few rainbow sprinkles sticking to them like glitter.

The Supervisor thanks her graciously. “I’m fine,” she promises with that fake smile she has been practicing.

But the baker knows all about façades. “Something happened to you. Do you want to talk about it?” Her eyes are concerned, this time genuine. Not every element of her life is a lie.

“I’m fine, really,” The Supervisor lies. “I have to get back to work.”

She was just old enough to drink, but no one, any age, deserves to experience that kind of torture. The flashbulbs that go off immortalize the memory and she lives it over and over again. Coming to the end of the reel, it rewinds, and shows again. Forever she is trapped in the cinema of his malevolence.

The Supervisor knows that the rest of her life will be taken in timid, frightened steps. He follows her home from work, always one step behind her. She thinks that she is growing to love him and consistency. They connect on a level that no one else can, now that they are both soulless wanderers. At home the Supervisor imagines work, missing the normalcy of a time long ago, before she was a supervisor at all, back when she was a cashier and the only things she had to worry about were school, music, and boys. She forgets those things now, and he lays next to her on her undressed mattress. Naked, her hand rests on her belly. She can feel it moving beneath the pads of her donut-tainted fingers. Together, they stare up the ceiling with glazed over eyes, two fish belly-up in the murky Atlantic.