The words uttered by the heavy-set woman Kevin Dingess watched walk out of Reynold’s Produce store the day before replayed through his mind for a moment. She had said them with a ferocity that indicated she was having such a bad day that there wasn’t a thing in the world that could stop her from leaving the grocery establishment that had held a monopoly over Pavil County’s food stuff industry since 1967. Nothing, that was, until she realized that her purse was lying beside the cash register that she’d worked from seven o’clock that morning until then, five fifteen. Her already pissed expression had grown even more furious after her venture back into the store where she had to constantly answer questions like “Since this is going to expire in two days, can I get it half off?” from customers who looked like they only came out of the house twice a month, once to buy groceries when they received their food stamps and once to buy beer and cigarettes when they received their SSI checks.
She had came out of the building as fiercely as she every other single afternoon when she punched out over the past couple of weeks. Kevin would have felt sympathy towards the woman, Lisa Rebecca Henderson, regarding her position as cashier of the only grocery store in a county with an average high school graduation rate of 64.3% , if she hadn’t been the person behind the wheel of the car that killed his wife and unborn child.
He’d been coming to sit in the parking lot to watch her leave every day since about a month after the accident had happened. Every day, for five months, in the middle of the middle parking section, he’d come to stare at the recently installed automatic doors to observe her walk to the blue ’97 Toyota Corolla that she always parked in front of the fifteen-year old Pepsi machine. She never failed to purchase two bottles of Diet Dr. Pepper from that machine before she opened the door to her vehicle. Kevin never could figure out if she was trying to lose weight, because if she was, buying two was probably offsetting the desired results, he thought. He imagined she just really enjoyed the taste. He always eagerly waited to see her open one of the bottles and have it explode all over herself – he wasn’t getting his desired results either.
Yesterday, he stayed around until about a minute after she left for her home in Fox Holler about four miles from the store. He followed her once immediately after she pulled out of the parking lot – that’s how he knew. Some people call it stalking – he calls it curious on looking.
It was on Lisa’s trek home that Kevin’s wife Eloise was taken from the world. The details were still sketchy due to conflicting statements in the accident report, but from what he could tell, Lisa had removed her cell phone out of her purse to take a call, taking her eyes away from the road long enough to crash into Eloise’s minivan on the driver’s side, instantly removing her life and the one she was housing inside of her womb for three months from the Earth for eternity. Kevin still hadn’t gotten over it.
His struggle against the agony he felt over the passing of his wife and his first child left Kevin with nothing but a mad contempt for the large woman who had gotten off scot-free aside from a few insurance payments. She didn’t lose anything of importance other than a few hundred dollar bills. So, he was determined to continue watching her every day until something was taken from her.
Today wasn’t any different yet. He’d stopped on his way home from the school to pick up a McDonald’s cheeseburger and some chicken nuggets for his dog at home. Rusty loved chicken ever since Eloise dropped a whole bird in the floor one night while preparing dinner and he’d dug into it before she even had a chance to bend down and pick it up. He brought home chicken any time he could.
Typically, he’d have his cheeseburger finished about two or three minutes before Lisa walked out of the grocery store. 5:22. She was a little late today– hopefully having an argument with the boss. Maybe she would get fired.
“I see your car sitting in the grocery store parking lot every day Mr. Dingess on my way home from tennis practice,” a girl in his second period U.S. History class had some earlier to him day.
“Oh yea? How do you know it’s my car?”
“Because you’re the only person in the whole county with an “I Heart Corporate Protestors” bumper sticker on the back of your truck.”
“Haha. I know a man down there who gives me some leftover meat from the day for me to feed to my dog. I visit every evening to see what he has.”
She bought his explanation, and it wasn’t an entirely dishonest one. He did know a man down there who does give him leftover meat, but only about once or twice a month. He wasn’t about to tell her his true motives. Even though she was one of his better students, she’d likely still think him mad – she might not even buy it. It was hard to for him to buy it himself at times.
His intentions started out more malicious than what they’d evolved into. He was semi-plotting a murder attempt against “Lisa the Life-ender” as he’d refer to her often at the onset of his grocery store sitting. Many of those early days of watching and waiting were spent with a notepad, jotting down scenarios for the slaying of the cashier.
Before he’d come to his senses, Kevin had narrowed his execution options down to two possible actions.
1. He’d take a day off of school and get her in the morning. He would show up at her house, where she lived alone aside from a parrot and three cats. He’d break into her home and strangle her in her sleep or cut her jugular or something – he hadn’t really thought about the actual method of death. He just knew that she went into work at seven, so if he showed up around 4:30, he’d be able to get in without her being awake and have a good chance of not being seen by any of the sparse neighbors up the holler.
Or,
2. He would place himself at the mouth of her holler and jettison his vehicle into her as he saw it coming. It could be covered up as a mere accident, and although it would run the risk of endangering himself physically more than the first option, he would not have to deal with prison time if he executed it precisely. Plus, it’d be fitting to make her go out the same his wife had to.
Fortunately, he realized that taking her life would not make him any better than she
was. It was then that he decided he’d seek revenge by watching karma do its dirty work.
Lost in thoughts of Eloise, past revenge tactics, and recollections of the words Lisa yelled as she was leaving the building, he failed to notice that it was now 5:33 and an ambulance had arrived at the front door of Reynold’s Produce. He got out of his truck and went to go see what the problem was.
“This woman’s had a heart attack,” he heard as he walked into the store. He looked around to see who the lady was that had suffered from the sudden ailment. On the floor lying between a magazine rack and a locked case stocked with cigarettes, was Lisa Rebecca Henderson, in all her bloated glory. The paramedics were surrounding her, checking for a pulse.
“No pulse! Defibrillator stat!”
“Try it again John!”
“Give her another jolt!”
“She’s gone! She’s gone!”
The chorus of words that led up to Lisa’s death was like a sweet song to Kevin’s ears. He attended her funeral, likely the only person there with hatred the culprit in bringing him to the service. He felt not a bit of shame, either. Not one tear fell from his eyes. Not until he realized that the next day his daily waiting at the grocery store would cease. He weeped a little at the thought. Unknowingly, she’d taken another part of his life away, though he would get over this one.
A few weeks passed and the girl who’d noticed his truck sitting in the parking lot of the produce store while he was hawk-eyeing Lisa asked one day after class.
“Mr. Dingess, I haven’t seen your truck at the grocery store recently. Something happen to that guy you know?” He paused a second before uttering his response.
“My butcher – my butcher passed away.”
“I’m sorry,” she responded sincerely. He smiled at her and she left.
He’d not spoken dishonestly at all to her this time. His butcher did pass away. She died of a heart attack caused by stress and high cholesterol. His butcher did pass away. She died at the hands of karma, and he’d witnessed its great power.
His butcher passed away and he wasn’t sorry a bit. His butcher would never take another life again. The last piece of meat she would ever prepare was rotting in a casket buried between her mom and dad in Pavil County Cemetery.
Sorry for the lack of insightful updates - been a tad busy and have had company. Expect something about the DBA soon.
Batman, AWAY!!!
Joshua Aaron Moore
Quote of the Day
"There never was a good war or a bad peace."---Benjamin Franklin
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