The Living Demons by Robert Bloch

Author:Robert Bloch [Bloch, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Horror Collection
Publisher: Sphere Books
Published: 1967-09-09T00:00:00+00:00

Black Bargain

It was getting late when I switched off the neon and got busy behind the fountain with my silver polish. The fruit syrup came off easily, but the chocolate stuck and the hot fudge was greasy. I wish to the devil they wouldn’t order hot fudge.

I began to get irritated as I scrubbed away. Five hours on my feet, every night, and what did I have to show for it? Varicose veins. Varicose veins, and the memory of a thousand foolish faces. The veins were easier to bear than the memories. They were so depressing, those customers of mine. I knew them all by heart.

In early evening all I got was “cokes.” I could spot the “cokes” mile away. Giggling high-school girls, with long shocks of uncombed brown hair, with their shapeless tan “fingertip” coats and the repulsively thick legs bulging over furry red ankle socks. They were all “cokes.” For forty-five minutes they’d monopolize a booth, messing up the tile table-top with cigarette ashes, crushed napkins daubed in lipstick, and little puddles of spilled water. Whenever a high-school girl came in, I automatically reached for the cola pump.

A little later in the evening I got the “gimme two packs” crowd. Sports-shirts hanging limply over hairy arms meant the popular brands. Blue work-shirts with rolled sleeves disclosing tattooing meant the two-for-a-quarter cigarettes.

Once in a while I got a fat boy. He was always a “cigar.” If he wore glasses he was a ten-center. If not, I merely had to indicate the box on the counter. Five cents straight. Mild Havana—all long filler.

Oh, it was monotonous. The “notions” family, who invariably departed with aspirin, Ex-Lax, candy bars, and a pint of ice-cream. The “public library” crowd—tall, skinny youths bending the pages of magazines on the rack and never buying. The “soda-waters” with their trousers wrinkled by the sofa of a one-room apartment, the “hairpins,” always looking furtively toward the baby buggy outside. And around ten, the “pineapple sundaes”—fat women Bingo-players. Followed by the “chocolate sodas” when the show let out. More booth-parties, giggling girls and red-necked young men in sloppy play-suits.

In and out, all day long. The rushing “telephones,” the doddering old “three-cent stamps,” the bachelor “toothpastes” and “razor-blades.”

I could spot them all at a glance. Night after night they dragged up to the counter. I don’t know why they even bothered to tell me what they wanted. One look was all I needed to anticipate their slightest wishes. I could have given them what they needed without their asking.

Or, rather, I suppose I couldn’t. Because what most of them really needed was a good long drink of arsenic, as far as I was concerned.

Arsenic! Good Lord, how long had it been since I’d been called upon to fill out a prescription! None of these stupid idiots wanted drugs from a drug-store. Why had I bothered to study pharmacy? All I really needed was a two-week course in pouring chocolate syrup over melting ice-cream, and a month’s study of how to set up cardboard figures in the window so as to emphasize their enormous busts.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.