I’m crawling around up there, the different mystery liquids soaking through the knees of my blue jeans and reaching my skin within minutes. My bare hands slip forward with every new reach, so I create a pair of makeshift gloves out of two towels. I look like a wounded soldier who’s just lost both hands.

But the smell is the worst part, like beer puke with some rotten garbage mixed in. I tie a clean rag over my nose and mouth and hold my breath until I’m forced to exhale. I decide to begin at the far wall and work my way backward, wiping and soaking up as much of the beverage sludge as possible. I figure it’ll take at least an hour to do a decent job, but twenty minutes later I’m already out of sponges and towels and I haven’t even cleaned half the space.

I decide to take a quick break.

And that’s when I hear Brenda yelling.

I crawl toward the front of the cooler. Fake ivy winds through the lattice, concealing me from view. Years of dust cover the ivy, and I have to fight the urge to sneeze. Gazing down over the store, I see Brenda standing near the entrance, Huey standing behind the register. Brenda has her purse over her shoulder, held tightly against her ribcage. I picture the handgun lying at the bottom.

“You need to leave, Huey,” she yells. “Go sleep it off. I’m not staying here with you like this.”

“Come on, baby,” he slurs. “I’m just playing around.”

“Go home,” she shouts. “I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt here. I’ve never seen you like this before. You need to get help. If you want me to stay, then you need to leave.”

“Fine, fine, fine,” he says and laughs. “I’m going. I’m going.” He grabs his keys and a bank bag.

Brenda walks further into the store, keeping her distance from Huey as he exits. When the door closes, she throws her keys across the store.

“I’m sick of this shit,” she yells.

I climb down and run out to see her. She’s sitting behind the counter.

“Hey,” I say. “You okay?”

She looks at me, notices my soiled knees, and scrunches her nose. “Zach, you smell like death.”

I tell her about the cooler job.

“You mean you actually listened to him today?” she asks.

“He told me to do it. I can’t afford to get fired.”

“Zach, tomorrow morning that man’s not going to remember a thing.” She gazes up at the cooler. “Did you finish?”

“No.”

“Well, consider the job done.”

“Thanks.”

————

Twenty minutes before closing, I finish my tasks and enjoy my usual beer and cigarette in the cooler. The only thing left to do is the final trash run, which, of course, means the final beer run … well, at least for a while, anyway.