The Search: an essay

I recently took a Creative Nonfiction course as part of my Master of Arts in Professional Writing degree program at New England College. Over the course of seven weeks, I developed this essay through research, recollection, and consultation with my peers. The idea had privately floated around in my mind for about six years prior.

This piece brings the reader back several years to the time I worked at a state-run liquor store, exploring the events that made this job memorable and how they affected my general outlook. Simultaneously, a manhunt for an alleged murderer takes place just a few miles away.

Most names have been changed. All opinions expressed are my own and not reflective of the New Hampshire Liquor Commission. I no longer work for that company. 

*

Resume

New Hampshire Liquor and Wine Outlet, Belmont, NH (Location has since closed.)

Part Time Sales Associate

October 2018–January 2020

• Assisted customers with transactions and questions, providing excellent customer service. 
• Closely followed laws regulating alcohol and lottery sales. 
• Cooperated with team members to unload truck delivery, build displays, and stock shelves.

*

Everyday memories and blackouts really aren’t so different. You see flashes of notable fragments and piece together the in-between, in whatever way seems most plausible (or so I’ve heard.) I’ve stitched up my fragments here like they were a single, wild evening, but that’s hardly the case. 

*

April 26, 2019

It’s Friday afternoon: the busiest time of the week and my usual closing shift. I park my first car, a blue 2005 Toyota Matrix, underneath a tree in the parking lot. This spot is within eyesight of the cash register, but doesn’t take the closest spaces from potential customers. On the main road, a state trooper with its lights on cruises from my right to my left toward Laconia. This is the closest liquor store to the city, and the first one between the highway and Lake Winnipesaukee. 

Distracted, I open my door and it taps a car parked closely next to me. Someone in the passenger seat gives me a shocked expression. Oops. Seeing no damage, I mouth, sorry! and walk through light rain to the front entrance. 

There’s a dead little bird on the concrete to the left of the door. 

Internally, I reason that my job consists of anything inside the store or belonging to the store. This bird is neither. That makes it property of the plaza’s maintenance personnel–aka, not my problem.

I make a beeline to the back room, trying to keep my boxy purple polo concealed until I’m on the clock. A fingerprint scanner identifies me and begins my shift. 

I count the cash in my assigned register and type in my credentials. The line at the other open register shuffles into two. Behind me, a man walks into the store. 

“There’s a dead bird on the ground out here.” 

Turning to look, he makes eye contact, as if to confirm I’d take care of it. The other cashier, Jenny, the only full-time non-manager, gives me the same look. I guess the dead bird outside the store is my problem. I cash out the handful of customers that has gotten in my line, put up my CLOSED sign, and get some disposable gloves from the back. 

As I pull the gloves on and move toward the exit, Jenny asks me if I’ve heard the news from Laconia yet. 

“There was a murder in Laconia a few days ago. They’re doing a manhunt for the suspect.” 

As if on cue, two more troopers and a gigantic grey Major Crime Unit van pass the plaza, heading to Laconia. Jenny looks pleased, breaking into a mischievous grin, as if the news were juicy gossip. I’m a little more nervous about it. Either way, tonight will be more entertaining than other Friday nights. 

Outside, I scoop the dead bird into my gloved hand. It’s a songbird, maybe a sparrow, and its little body fits in my palm easily. She feels delicate, feathers rustling as I stand and lift her. Her body is limp, not stiff like I expected. She weighs nothing. 

I don’t know what to do with a dead bird in a parking lot. The only thing I know is to bury it. But it’s late April in New Hampshire, and the ground is still too frozen to break with my hands alone. And it’s still raining.

Ducking around the corner of the building, I find a patch of mulch partially protected by the roof’s overhang. I kneel, setting the bird gently next to me. The wood chips part easily and I scrape a few inches down into the dirt. I hope it’s enough. I lay the bird down into the earth and pat her wing gently with my gloved fingers. For just a moment, we sit together in the cold. Then I swipe the mulch back into place, hoping it will stay there long enough for her to decompose. 

*

This store doesn’t have the “piped-in” music that newer locations do. It’s an older store, open for over 40 years, and the state hasn’t invested in an overhead sound system. Or in matching tiles, for the ones that have been replaced over the years. Or in new tiles at all by the doors. They’ve worn through to the concrete underneath and any replacement would look the same in just a few years. The aisles are a little too narrow, skirting by current codes due to age. The building itself is smaller than the newer stores, so we carry just the bestselling labels. 

Since we don’t have a sound system, we use a handheld radio. The store manager’s favorite station is our go-to: 104.9 The Hawk, a classic rock station that most of the customers could get behind. An Alice Cooper song is playing and Jenny is losing her mind about it. We don’t like Alice Cooper at this store. 

The song ends while we both have customers. The local station host begins to talk, first announcing that Mr. Cooper will be on the air tonight at 7 with his live show, Alice’s Attic. The liquor store closes at 8. 

Some local updates: the weather, the traffic. Some of the roads in Laconia have been closed as part of a search perimeter set up by state police. You may want to avoid that area, and if you live there, stay inside and lock your doors. 

A 58-year-old Laconia man, Wilfred Guzman, Sr., had been found dead in his home with multiple stab wounds a few days ago. Police were searching for a “person of interest” in the case, a 21-year-old Hassan Sapry. By now, the closed streets and dozens of cops made it clear that Sapry must have been a bit more than just interesting. 

This guy could be facing life, I thought. I hoped he wouldn’t want a last drink before getting caught. 

*

I’m restocking the nips (that’s New England for a single-shot bottle.) They’re great stocking stuffers, or for sneaking into a movie, or for alcoholics to feign portion control and/or conceal their habits. People come in and buy four, five, ten at a time, knowing they’ll drink all ten. Some will come back later today for more nips. Some of those, I’ll have to deny service. 

Fireball is, by far, the most popular. It’s a cheap cinnamon whisky (so, a liqueur) that blue collar guys buy by the sleeve after work. The sleeve is the plastic packaging around ten of these, meant to be discarded by the shelf-stocker. We put full sleeves on the shelf because so many people request it that way- just for Fireball. They’ll also buy loose fistfuls of nips, but it’s easier for all of us if the sleeve is there. 

I carry five sleeves to the display- three to put up as-is, two to fill the singles. Before I can start the task, a customer takes two sleeves from my hands and waits at my empty register. (Jenny has vanished from hers.) I’ll try to restock again after this transaction. 

“Working hard, or hardly working?” He asks with a grin. 

I fake a smile, but don’t bother faking a laugh. He must know I’ve heard this line before. I try not to let the repetition bother me. I know from being a customer at other stores that these people are just trying to break the silence and make you smile. 

Then I hear a car approaching the store. No, not the engine–it’s the music. Loud classic rock, but not the same station we’re trying to listen to inside the store. It’s so loud, I can make out the words from the other side of the glass front wall. A beige Jeep Wrangler parks in front of the store (half in the fire lane, half on the sidewalk, with hazard lights on) and the driver hops out. 

This is a regular customer. We employees privately refer to him as Yukon Jack, because every time we see him, he buys either a pint or several nips of Yukon Jack (a Canadian whisky and honey liqueur, 50% alcohol by volume.) His clothes and face are dirty, with a five o’clock shadow and several missing teeth. He walks with a slight limp (perhaps the reason he parks so close) and his hearing seems to be quite poor (perhaps the reason his music is so loud.) 

Yukon Jack often comes inside alone, but this time, his partner comes inside with him. She’s got a tiny dog stuffed inside the front of her hot pink tank top, her thin hair pulled into a ponytail on the side of her head. 

*

The regular customers are one of the more stressful parts of a job like this. At any other store, you might get to know and even enjoy seeing the regulars. At a liquor store, however, it’s the people you start to recognize that worry you. We might ask one another if Yukon Jack has already been in earlier today, to figure out whether it’s time to cut him off. You worry more when you start seeing them more often. When you stop seeing a regular, you fear either the best or the worst for them. And yet they’re often a nuisance when in the store, so you don’t feel relief when they finally return.

With many of the regulars, it’s impossible to tell if they’re already under the influence. Lots of them appear to have mental illnesses or other extenuating circumstances that make their normal behavior fall outside of what is “normal” for others. On the other hand, it could be that we just don’t see them sober. Dependent alcoholics can maintain continuous intoxication for months or years. This isn’t just heartbreaking out of empathy–it gives us real anxiety: the state’s training modules dangle a $1,000 fine over their cashiers if we oversell or take a bad ID. However, if we decline a sale and we’re wrong, we could be accused of discrimination. That’s why we sometimes count how many times a regular has shopped per day, as a way to estimate whether we’ve oversold. (And why we’ll refuse a sale if an ID is even one day expired. Sorry, can’t afford the risk.) 

*

Yukon Jack (the man, not the bottle) is shouting greetings to the employees and the other shoppers whose heads turn to look at him. He drops a handful of his usual nips on my counter, then stands them back up individually. He pays in wadded up bills from his jean short pockets and goes back outside. I avert my gaze as he leaves, so if he starts opening one of the bottles, I can claim ignorance. 

His partner is behind him in line, also buying nips of some kind. 

I smile at the little dog stuffed in her top and ask, “Who is this?” 

I forget the dog’s name almost immediately. While I scan her items, she starts to tell me how many weeks old this dog is, that they just got it, and that he’s still adjusting. With permission, I pat him on the top of his head. 

I’m bagging her nips now. “Oh, God,” she cries out, “I’m so sorry. He’s had an upset stomach all morning and his gas has been horrible. I think he just farted.” 

“Oh no, I’m sorry,” I reply, mirroring her grimace and trying not to breathe. 

Then she starts gagging loudly. “Nope, that wasn’t a fart. Oh God, I’m gonna throw up!” The front of her pink tank top, just below the dog, has a new, wet, orange spot. She grabs her bag and bolts out of the store before vomiting in the parking lot, in full view of everyone inside the store. She takes the dog out of the shirt, takes the shirt off, and gets back in the Jeep with Yukon Jack at the wheel. 

*

I’m refilling a display near the front of the store with handles of Tito’s vodka. Jenny is texting with Kim, a part-timer who’s not scheduled today. Kim’s full-time job is something administrative at the Laconia High School, and she lives in Laconia. Jenny wants to see if she’s got any updates about the manhunt that aren’t on the radio yet. 

Through texts read aloud to me, I learn that Kim lives on the very street where the manhunt is being focused: Blueberry Lane, of course, well-known locally as a place where crazy things tend to happen. Her street is closed, and dozens of officers, representing departments ranging from local police to SWAT, are present. 

“Kim said one of the officers told her to go inside, keep the lights off, and lock her doors,” Jenny told me. “And do you know what she said to the officer? I don’t want to, I’m raking!” She’s giggling at the absurdity of arguing against the command, preferring to do urgent yard work. 

Jenny has a bit of a penchant for drama, and not just this kind where she isn’t a participant. She’s talked to me in the past about an ex-boyfriend who drives her crazy, with his manipulative behavior and addictive habits. I feel badly for her having to deal with it, but at the same time, I’m not sure why she keeps interacting with him. 

There’s also the drama she instills in the store. She’s employed full-time, but likely works less than any of the part-timers. She leaves the registers when she sees customers approach and leaves half-unloaded boxes in the aisle whenever she wants a break. She’s the kind of person who won’t do something unless she’s told–even if she notices it needs doing. 

Jenny looks up from her phone to see a man approaching the registers with a full cart of bottles, mostly liter sized. This is clearly a restaurant transaction, which we called a licensee due to their need at checkout to show the restaurant’s license to sell alcohol. In a control state like New Hampshire, restaurants shop directly at the same stores individual consumers do, but in massive quantities. Jenny evaporates from the area and I’m left to take the transaction. 

I don’t mind a licensee. Besides checking a different kind of identification, it’s a normal sale, except the customer is also doing their job. After several minutes of scanning bottles, I pack bottles into divided boxes that we save for sales of this size and read them their total. It’s over a thousand dollars; about what I expected.

The customer behind him, holding a single handle of Jack Daniels, asks with a gruff laugh, “You having some kinda party tonight?” The licensee says yes, names the restaurant, and tells the other guy he’s welcome to come on down. This just gets another laugh. 

I have a button under the counter that, when pressed, rings a bell in the back room. I press once for another cashier (twice would be for a manager.) Jenny should know that a licensee transaction effectively closes a till for about ten minutes, so a line of regular customers has formed. She should never have left. 

I’m finishing up with the restaurant order by the time Jenny’s squat frame comes hurrying up through the aisles. She scoots past the line of people  at my till, gets behind her own register, and the customers start shuffling into two lines. She sighs and begins cashing them out. 

*

New Hampshire Liquor and Wine Outlet is the name of the store. Read it again. What do we sell? Liquor and wine. We answer the same kind of question many times a shift: 

“No, we only sell liquor and wine here. You’ll have to go next-door to the grocery store for beer.” 

It’s a bit confusing, I get it. Our surrounding New England states’ governments don't control alcohol sales the same way. In Maine or Massachusetts, you could buy your beer at an independently owned liquor store or get your tequila at Walmart. 

This is a high-tourism area, being so close to New Hampshire’s largest lake, and we get customers daily from Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, or even Quebec. We have the allure of zero sales tax and some of the lowest alcohol and cigarette prices on the market. 

But no, we don’t have fresh limes for your margaritas and we don’t have any beer or White Claw. You’re lucky we even have mixers. 

I can tell when a group of tourists is in the store: they’re in a big group, in a great mood, and they don’t know where to find anything. With a shopping cart and a party of five, they manage to block entire aisles. 

One of these groups comes through my line, carting crates of alcohol they can’t find so cheaply at home. I check everyone’s IDs and I’m grateful this group doesn’t complain about it. 

“I wasn’t able to find the beer,” one of the tourists, a thirty-something man with combed black hair, tells me. I explain why and several from the group nod, adding an, “Ohh, okay,” when I direct them to the supermarket next door. 

Then he asks, “Do you know anything about all the cops and stuff?”

I tell him there’s been a murder and the police are searching for a person of interest. “I might not go into Laconia right now, there’s a bunch of roads closed and they don’t know where he is.” 

The group thanks me for the tip and leaves. 

The next customer laughs, setting a single handle of Granite State Vodka (a cheap but local high-proof choice) on my counter. Massholes, he quips, shaking his head. 

*

It’s time for my half-hour lunch break–or more of an early dinner break, at this hour. I’m off the clock and out of sight in the break room; if I’m not getting paid, I will not be providing assistance to anyone but myself. 

I typically bring some food from home in a gray, thermal-lined lunch bag. A sandwich or some leftovers, a prepackaged mozzarella string cheese, probably a granola bar, some kind of fruit or baby carrots. Thirty minutes is just enough to eat what I’ve packed while scrolling on my phone. 

Time passes while I jump back and forth between the Instagram and Facebook apps. I answer a message in my family’s group chat. I play a few rounds of a mindless game, rife with ads for other mindless games, before getting bored enough to open the Indeed job search app, which I still haven’t deleted from my phone since starting this job.

My previous (and first) job at a big-name thrift chain had been fun for a few years. Eventually, though, most of the staff who had been there when I started were gone, and I felt my time there had run its course, too. And I’d started commuting to college during the week, which cost more in gas than I could keep up with on that paycheck. My dad, who worked at the supermarket in the mall next to this liquor store, noticed that this place was hiring. With a pay increase of $3 per hour from my thrift shop job, I gave it a shot. 

Six months into that shot, I’m still on the fence. The job is easy, albeit sometimes physically demanding, and the bigger paycheck still feels good. But I just feel bad, somehow. Getting myself to go to work always feels like pulling teeth, and going home after, I’m crying in my car an awful lot. So I keep the Indeed app on my phone, with my location and experience settings saved, just in case there might be something better out there. Today, as usual, there’s nothing new. 

With my neck hunched down toward the phone in my lap, I notice movement down on the floor. I refocus my eyes. It’s about a dozen sugar ants, exploring the perpetually sticky spot under the communal microwave. Gross, but seems like an on-the-clock kind of problem. I move to the other chair, giving the ants an extra foot of distance from me. 

*

Back at the registers, I sell more Fireball nips, whisky and vodka. While restocking the nips, a middle-aged man approaches and asks me to help him select a good wine pairing for parmesan-crusted haddock with broccoli. 

“I’m sorry, sir, I don’t know how to help with that. I’m only 20 and can’t drink, myself.” It’s true–I have not actually tried alcohol before. 

The man is not impressed, scoffing at me. “What kind of a liquor store employee can’t help select a wine pairing? You can work here before you can even drink?”

I’m really not sure what to say to this. I want to say, Yeah, the state does allow anyone over 18 to work here. I’m here to run a register, not to sample the products. It confuses me why some people expect winery service from a liquor store. We’re a lot more similar to a convenience store, in all ways but what we sell.

The wine dude goes in search of someone with more life experience (and not Google, for reasons I don’t understand) to answer his question. I go back to restocking nips. With no customers ready to cash out, Jenny is wandering around the cash registers as if looking for something to do. 

Both of us cashiers look up when we hear a muffled, rhythmic thumping noise. It’s coming from overhead and getting louder. Customers are looking at the ceiling, jaws agape in confusion. Jenny and I step outside and see a helicopter moving toward Laconia. It’s flying low, but not so low to be of any worry. Just low enough to be loud. 

Jenny grins in giddy excitement. She pulls out her phone as she goes back inside, no doubt texting Kim about what she just saw. Seeing customers working their way to the front of the store, she exits to the back room via a side door so she can continue sleuthing. I go to my register. 

A woman with a bottle each of a rosé and a white zinfandel asks, “What was that about?” She’s referring to the helicopter sounds. I fill her in on the ongoing search a few miles away, speculating that the helicopter is likely involved. 

Jenny pops back out the side door. “Yes, they’re searching for him by helicopter now,” she confirms. “Kim just told me.” 

There are a few customers in line. Jenny makes eye contact with one, then presses her lips together, realizing the error. She gets behind her own till and starts cashing people out. 

The next person in my line is an older woman with a bottle of cooking sherry. Jenny is talking to me from her register while we both run transactions, sharing more details from Kim’s texts. “There’s two of them going back and forth over her house,” she tells me. “They think he’s in the woods now, but they’ve got a perimeter. He can’t get away without being seen.” 

The entry door opens behind me and a customer we privately refer to as “The Pimp” comes in. It’s not my favorite nickname we use for a regular. It feels like a stereotype and a big assumptive leap–all we know about this person is the way he dresses and that he drinks green apple Smirnoff vodka. But he’s been coming in longer than I have, so the nickname was established before I could even recognize him. 

Since he’s such a regular, Jenny and I make quick eye contact while his back is turned toward the nip display. She nods assuringly, telling me that The Pimp hasn’t been in yet today. The anxious tension in my chest falls. I’ve had to deny service to The Pimp once before, and he didn’t maintain his usual cordiality with me. Thankfully, today will be normal. 

The Pimp sets five tiny bottles on the counter in front of me, and I scan one using the quantity setting on the register. He’s very polite, hello, how are you today ma’am, but otherwise doesn’t talk much. His sunglasses stay on. 

Then the exit door opens, and the older woman with the cooking sherry reenters, stomping straight to my register. She starts talking before I’m done helping The Pimp. “You shorted me, I need five more dollars,” she demands. Jenny looks toward me but doesn’t speak, just continues scanning bottles for her own customer. I try to get the woman to hold on a moment so I can finish with the customer I have now. 

“This bottle was seven dollars and I gave you a twenty. You should have given me thirteen back but I only got eight!” I’m throwing nips into a paper bag while she crows at me. I tell her I remember getting a ten out and not a five, but she continues to disagree. I’ve been cashiering for four years and this is the first time I’ve had someone dispute their change. I have no idea what to do, and there’s a line of customers looking increasingly impatient while the fuming old lady stands in their way. 

I look at Jenny, trying to get some help. She looks down when my eyes meet hers, clearly wanting to play the observer on this one. 

I have to make a decision and keep this line moving. “Are you sure?” I ask the woman. “Yes!” she exclaims, frustrated that I questioned her. I sigh and hand her a five dollar bill from my drawer. Jenny tightens her lips together while the woman re-exits and I resume scanning people’s orders. 

Once the door closes behind her, Jenny tells me, “You should have closed and had us count the drawer to see if you were over.” I feel the same irate rage fill my head as the old woman had shown me moments before. 

“Why didn’t you say something while she was here‽” 

She barely shrugs and returns to her transaction. 

*

It’s getting late now. The sun has set and Mr. Cooper has started his nightly show, his ego practically spilling down the wall from the radio’s speakers. I’ve restocked the Fireball countless times while we listen to the faint sirens and the circling choppers. Jenny is wheeling a bucket of murky gray water around the store, wetting but not really washing the floor. A light in the parking lot flickers intermittently. 

Kim comes in. She’s getting a bottle of wine or something, nothing crazy. She needed to get out of the house. 

“I tell ya, it was hard to get out of there. They’ve got all the streets closed in a circle around my block. They didn’t want to let me by.” 

Jenny has abandoned the mop she was pretending to use. It’s easier to chat in person than over text–tell us everything. 

“He just graduated a couple of years ago,” Kim told us about the suspect, Sapry. “I feel so bad for him. His family moved here from Iraq when he was just a kid.” 

Hassan Sapry was born a year and a couple of weeks before I was, on nearly the opposite end of the Earth. He spent his teenage years in a public high school, like I did, just one small New Hampshire town over. But unlike me, for all intents and purposes, his family’s hope that he might have had a better life here ended today. I still have a chance. 

“The police told me to stay inside my house, to lock the doors and turn off the lights if I can. I told them: I’m not going to do that, he’s not going to hurt me. I work in the office at his high school, he knows me.” She speaks with a confidence that tells me she’s unafraid, regardless of what this young man has done. 

“I really wanted things to work out for him.” 

*

What’s the alcoholic searching for at the bottom of a bottle? Does the repulsive smell of rotting fruit turn after several servings into a sweet juicebox recovered from childhood, with all the whimsy of a bendy straw? Is it childhood wonder back itself, or whatever else they felt the first time?

I’m underage and decidedly uncool. I’ve never tried any kind of booze, much less reached an altered state, and its mysterious allure is fading fast as my legal age looms closer. Liquor reeks, actually. Especially when it’s mixed with opaque gray mop water.

But we all have our vices. 

Maybe it’s the same thing I try to find in other stores; nowhere in particular, just swiping my credit card to see what’s on the other side. Or it’s the sugar rush from fistfuls of my no-no foods that will push my young metabolism to the breaking point. It’s Jenny’s ex-boyfriend whittling her loaned cash down to a few losing scratchers, hoping for an eventual stroke of luck. Or maybe it is easier to find in a bottle, where my extended family gathers to search on birthdays and holidays or, heck, if a few of us have the same weekend off. Better to look together than alone, at least. 

Could you call the prize at the bottom a relief? A release? 

Maybe we are searchlights in a darkening sky, looking for a lone runner in the woods. Trying to corner him. 

What happens when you catch the man hiding in the woods? What then? 

*

My neighbor is in the store now. He looks like any other blue-collar guy coming in after work: a friendly smile, wearing a tee shirt and jeans, both stained heavily. My neighbor doesn’t ask for Fireball like the others, though. He asks me to get a sleeve of Sailor Jerry rum nips from the back. We don’t sell much of this brand; this sleeve will probably double the week’s total bottles sold. 

This neighbor–let’s call him Tom–lives in a small trailer on my street that got flipped and expanded to suit a family. He’s not married, but he’s been with his sweet girlfriend for many years. They have a friendly labrador and a one-year-old boy, and I’ll often see the four of them spending time in the front yard together when I drive by. 

Sometimes on nice days, I’ll take walks down my street. Some of those times, I’ll wear disposable gloves and carry a plastic grocery bag. I’ll collect by hand the trash that’s accumulated on the side of the road. It breaks my heart a little to see people litter on a dead-end road. Theoretically, it should only be neighbors and friends on this street. We should treat our own homes better. But I collect it anyway and make my own world a little more pleasant. Some of the litter is obviously the result of sloppy roadside trash pickup, but a lot of it isn’t. It’s cigarette butts and crushed soda cans; Ziploc® bags and tiny empty bottles. Not just any tiny empty bottles: the vast majority are Sailor Jerry. 

In the back room at the liquor store, I look at the clean, full Sailor Jerry bottles in my hand. I know this isn’t the last time I’ll hold them. They’ll be consumed by Tom in his pickup truck, the evidence chucked through an open window onto his own street; rather than disposed of in his own bin, a plastic confession. The Hula girl drawing on the label does not make eye contact. She just keeps strumming her ukulele, the instrument and a thin lei barely concealing her otherwise bare cartoon breasts. She’s going from a picture of paradise out into the gray New Hampshire night with the family man who lives on my street, fated for roadside mud. 

Tom smiles and asks how my folks are doing as I ring him out. He hasn’t connected the same dots as I have; he’s being neighborly. I smile back as I’ve been trained and tell him they’re doing well, thanks. 

*

Our manager has posted the new schedule on the wall outside her office. It’s mostly the same as every other week, but I always check, just in case. Sure enough, it’s the same as always: Friday closing, Saturday opening. I’ll work more in the summer when classes are out. 

I read down the list of names on the grid to see who I might be working with next week. That part changes more often. It seems like every week I draw the short end of the stick. I read the names again. Eight people work here. I like Kim, but we don’t work together very often. I’ve never met Lynn. Six names are left, and I don’t want to work with any of them. The revelation stings a little. 

A man and a woman approach my register together, so I head back to ring them out. They’re smiling like they’re actually happy to talk to me. It’s not until I greet them from behind the counter that I notice a small, colorful bird standing on the edge of the woman’s finger. It cocks its head sideways as if in greeting. 

The woman asks if I’d like to say hi to the bird. (Yes, of course.) 

I step around the counter to their side. She instructs me how to hold out my finger to him, and the bird steps on. The second bird in this hand today. The woman asks if I’d like a photo. 

The parrot is a little bigger than the sparrow I buried earlier. It clings to my finger with blunted claws, golden feathers twitching as it shifts its weight to adjust to my own little movements. Its wings are clipped, but it will never know the need to hunt or gather. It has weight and breath and warmth. I smile as the woman holds up my cell phone for the photo and the bird looks at her too. 

*

The store closes at eight. It’s 7:59 and there are a few shoppers remaining in the building. I turn off the radio by the registers, creating an awkward environment in an attempt to get people moving along. Jenny locks the entry door, flicks the switch on the LED “OPEN” sign, and stands guard at the exit. Most of the shoppers take the hint and get going quickly. But there’s one family with a cart that doesn’t seem to notice anything has changed. 

There’s a mother, a father, and two boys of maybe sixteen to eighteen. I’m getting tourist vibes. Interestingly, the four of them are shopping together. The teenagers aren’t slouching against a wall, looking down at a phone, or asking to leave. They’re pointing to products, reading labels, coming to an agreement as a family. All active participants. An inspiring sight, if this was anywhere else. 

Most of the cart is wine, a couple of spirits too. Probably about a dozen bottles. The manager gives me permission to close my register and invites me to the office to count out my cash drawer. The office is a small room with half-height walls, three steps up in height from the rest of the store. It overlooks the cash register area. Jenny is still keeping people from entering via the unlocked exit, but will have to step away when it’s time to ring out the remaining family.

About ten minutes past closing time, the group finally pushes their cart through Jenny’s lane. They’re chipper, talking amongst themselves as they load bottles onto the counter. Jenny does not start scanning. 

“I’ll need to see everyone’s ID, please.” 

The parents each open their wallets and hand their drivers’ licenses to Jenny. She inspects and returns them, then asks if the other two have some identification. 

The woman looks confused. “They don’t have ID, they’re our kids.” Gesturing to the younger-looking boy, she says, “He’s only fifteen, he doesn’t even have his license yet.” 

“I’m sorry, but I won’t be able to sell to you, then.” (I’m glad to be just a fly on the wall watching this tense interaction.) 

Confusion meets anger. “But we’re their parents, they’re here shopping with us!” 

Jenny’s low patience at this hour has given her strong will. “The law says everyone in the party needs to have a valid form of ID, or nobody gets to make a purchase. I can’t sell to you tonight.” Her arms cross and lips purse. 

“Well, we didn’t know that!” 

“Ignorance of the law does not excuse you from it,” Jenny recites simply. She loves this line. She’s bragged to me about the times she’s used it in the past.

The family sputters a bit more, but it’s clear they won’t win this fight. The woman gathers up her purse from the cart and the boys roll their eyes. 

“Unbelieveable,” the father mutters as they pass through the exit empty-handed. Jenny pulls the door shut behind them and locks it. She puts the bottles back into the cart and pushes that into an aisle. The order can wait until morning to be reshelved. 

Jenny brings her cash drawer to the office to count, too. I count each denomination of bills separately, adding the totals from the ones, five, tens, twenties, and exactly two hundred-dollar bills in my phone. I read the total to my manager. 

“Five dollars short,” she tells me. The old lady who demanded more change today had lied. 

My manager pulls out a clipboard and a pen. Five dollars is precisely the difference that requires a signature from the manager and myself, accepting fault for the discrepancy. There’s no discipline, monetary or otherwise, but if a cashier accumulates these statements too frequently, the state takes notice. I sign my name under the cashier column on the spreadsheet of past errors. My chest feels tight and I clench my teeth in frustration. 

I go back down to the unlit sales floor to tidy whatever I can while Jenny finishes counting her drawer. Circling the store for picked-over looking areas, I pull bottles to the front edge of the shelf (we call it facing them), two deep to appear abundant and orderly. 

There’s a frantic knock knock knock and a muffled “hello?” from outside the front entrance. I’ve been spotted. I avoid eye contact, but the hellos continue. 

“I just need one thing,” the man outside shouts through the locked glass door. “I can see it!” He jabs his pointer finger against the glass.

Shaking my head no, I point to the hours sign in the window. “Please,” he yells. “No!” I shout back, and turn away to walk as far from the front as I can. 

The man keeps knocking and shouting for a few minutes. I’m far away now, facing bottles with my back to the door. Eventually he gives up and walks away. 

*

The manager, Jenny and I converge in the break room when all the closing procedures are complete. We gather our things–lunchboxes, purses, jackets–and take turns using the fingerprint scanner to clock out for the evening. Jenny stands motionless, blocking the wall-mounted machine, waiting for an even-numbered time to show before clocking out. She says she doesn’t like odd numbers. I don’t wait for her. I reach my arm in front of her and take my turn while she waits, then walk alone to the front door to wait for the two of them. 

I lean on the wall by the front door, which the manager will need to unlock and re-lock to let us out of the building for the night. I open the Facebook app on my phone, wanting to kill the minute of waiting around. The first post on my timeline is from the state’s only news channel, WMUR, with a story that broke just 20 minutes ago:

After dayslong search, man charged in Laconia murder

Tapping on the story, I learn that Sapry was indeed more than a mere “person of interest” in this killing. The lie was pretty thin; helicopters for a non-suspect would have been a bit much. 

Outside the store, passing vehicles confirm the story. The scene is surely still under investigation, but with the suspect in custody, some extra personnel can be released. The major crime van comes from Laconia at left and heads toward the highway, likely back to the state capital, to my right. With every few cars that pass, a state trooper’s Dodge Charger drives by, too. No longer are the blue lights flashing; only the faint glint in the darkness outlining the state police logo tells me who they are. The choppers’ white noise, too, has faded away without my noticing. 

The manager and Jenny slowly reach the front of the store. As my boss fiddles with her keys, I tell them the suspect has been caught. 

“Oh, wow,” Jenny says. “So they admitted he was a suspect, now that he’s in custody?” 

“Yup.” 

“Knew it.” 

We leave the store and step off the curb into the parking lot. The rain has stopped, but the ground is still damp. I glance at the mulch to my right, making sure it hasn’t been disturbed. 

A car is still idling in the parking lot. A window rolls down and the driver pokes his head out at us as we disperse to our own vehicles. It’s the man who knocked a few minutes before. 

“Are there any liquor stores still open?” 

The manager replies. “I think the only ones would be on the highway,” she says. “The rest stops in Hooksett, on 93. I think they close at ten.” 

“How far is that?” I glance at his license plate. Massachusetts. 

“At least 45 minutes, and it’s almost 9 now.” 

He says “Okay, thanks,” and pulls out of the parking space. As my coworkers and I say our goodnights and see-you-tomorrows, I watch the stranger’s car turn right on the main road, presumably toward the highway. 

I open the driver’s side door, toss my things over the center console and onto the passenger seat, and plop down behind the wheel. The door closes with a thud. The rain has stopped, but there are still large droplets beaded up on my windshield. It’s like a thousand little gems, reflecting the flickering lights in this lot and the traffic lights at the main road intersection. My drive home is less than ten minutes, but I sit in the cold, quiet seclusion of my car, the one space that is mine alone. A few deep breaths move my body enough to shift the lights in my vision, if only slightly. I barely hear my coworkers’ cars pass behind me.

Then I give in, shaking and crying, pressing my palm to my forehead. I inhale quickly and exhale with short wails. My tears roll off my synthetic polo onto my lap. After two or three minutes, I wipe my cheeks with the back of my wrist and put the car in reverse. There isn’t time to search for anything more tonight; my wings are clipped. I should go get some sleep before I’m due back here in the morning. 

*

Works Cited

Mackin, Jean. “After Dayslong Search, Man Charged in Laconia Murder.” WMUR, 26 Apr. 2019, www.wmur.com/article/perimeter-set-up-in-laconia-after-possible-sighting-of-person-of-interest-in-homicide/27289821. Accessed 20 Feb. 2026.

Perry, Gabriel. “Witnesses Detail 2019 Manhunt for Sapry in Court on Thursday.” The Laconia Daily Sun, 21 Aug. 2025, www.laconiadailysun.com/news/courts_cops/witnesses-detail-2019-manhunt-for-sapry-in-court-on-thursday/article_1a0b2788-c67a-4fa8-9a84-eae0cf9ef850.html. Accessed 1 Feb. 2026.

Wikimedia. “Masshole.” Wikitionary: The Free Dictionary, 17 Nov. 2025, en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Masshole. Accessed 20 Feb. 2026.