Racing the Rain by John L. Parker

Author:John L. Parker
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scribner

CHAPTER 31

* * *

BAG BOY SUMMER

This was shaping up to be a pretty darned good summer despite the fact that Cassidy had what he thought was the most grueling and thankless job in Citrus City.

With no small amount of silent cussing, he got two heavily laden carts through the automatic doors and out into the ferocious heat and humidity of the commissary parking lot. It was payday and the place was packed with military wives and their squalling progeny, and the women always left the place with at least two grocery carts loaded to the scuppers with Pop-Tarts, Froot Loops, and Cheez Whiz.

Cassidy pushed one cart with his right hand while dragging the other one behind with his left. His customer, a young Filipina woman, had her hands full with a five-year-old girl who was blowing a steady stream of soap bubbles, and a three-year-old boy running around in a harness at the end of an honest-to-God leash.

Dog-boy eyed Cassidy suspiciously. He was wearing a little jumper embroidered with a happy-looking Dutch child and the legend BUSTER BROWN. Cassidy winked at him, causing him to widen his eyes with alarm and reach for the water pistol in the little plastic holster he wore around his nonexistent hips.

“Freddo, what did we talk about already?” said the mother.

Freddo pouted unhappily at his mother, whom Cassidy was just now noticing was actually pretty attractive. Freddo looked at him with narrowed eyes.

“What was it, Freddo?” she said. Freddo slumped in defeat, taking his hand off his six-shooter.

“NO ’QUIRTING!”

“That’s right, baby, no squirting until we’re in the backyard again.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” Cassidy told her out of the side of his mouth. Actually, he might not have minded a quick dousing, since he was sweating like a field hand as he maneuvered both carts through the blistering asphalt hell of the parking lot. Other bag boys whooped at him as they raced back to the store pushing empty carts. You had to go through a complete rotation, like a batting order, to get to be the lead bagger, the one who got the tip—if any. Everyone else pitched in and bagged like maniacs to help get their buddy out the door, not out of altruism or any sense of esprit de corps, but because the faster they got rid of the guy in front, the faster their turn came up.

Stiggs went flying by, riding his cart like a skateboard. He held up two dollar bills and waved them in Cassidy’s face.

Damn, Cassidy thought. He had had just one cart, not even full at that, and he got two bucks! Must have been an officer’s wife. Enlisted men’s wives were the stingiest, but noncoms usually weren’t too bad. Cassidy hoped his customer would pick up a hint from Stiggs’s elation, but she seemed intent on reining in the dog-child, who was groaning mightily and straining at the end of his leash toward a parked 1932 Harley-Davidson seventy-four-inch flathead motorcycle that was still clicking and pinging as it dissipated heat.

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