Bloodsucking fiends: a love story

getting a new crew chief: "This guy will whip you into shape – he's done it all, his application was four pages long."
    Midnight found the Animals sitting on the registers at the front of the store, sharing worries over a case of Reddi Wip.
    "Screw this hotshot from back East," said Simon McQueen, the oldest. "I'll throw my fifty cases an hour like always, and if he wants more, he can do it himself." Simon sucked a hit of nitrous oxide from the whipped cream can and croaked, "He won't last longer'n a fart on a hot skillet."
    Simon was twenty-seven, muscular and as wiry-tense as a banjo string. He was pockmarked and sharp-featured, with a great mane of brown hair that he kept out of his face with a bandanna and a black Stetson, and he fancied himself a cowboy and a poet. He had never been within six-gun range of a horse or a book.
    Jeff Murray, a has-been high school basketball star, pulled a can of whipped cream from the open case and said, "Why didn't they just promote one of us when Eddie left?"
    "Because they don't know their ass from a hot rock," Simon said. "Can up," he added quickly.
    "They probably did what they thought best," said Clint, a myopic, first trimester born-again Christian, who, having recently been forgiven for ten years of drug abuse, was eager to forgive others.
    "Can up," Simon repeated to Jeff, who had upended the whipped cream can and was pushing the nozzle. Jeff inhaled a powerful stream of whipped cream that filled his mouth and throat, shot from his nostrils, and sent him into a blue-faced choking fit.
    Drew, the crew's pot supplier and therefore medical officer, dealt Jeff a vicious blow in the solar plexus, causing the ex-power forward to expel a glob of whipped cream approximately the size of a small child. Jeff fell to the floor gasping. The glob landed safely on register 6.
    "Works as good as the Heimlich maneuver" – Drew grinned – "without the unwanted intimacy."
    "I told him to hold the can up," Simon said.
    There was a tap on the glass at the front of the store and they all turned to see a skinny dark-haired kid in jeans and flannel waiting by the locked door. He wore a price gun low on his right hip.
    "That would be our hotshot."
    Simon went to unlock the door. Clint grabbed the case of whipped cream and shoved it under a register. The others ditched their cans where they could and stood by the registers as if awaiting inspection. They were sensing the end of an era; the Animals would be no more.
    "Tom Flood," the new guy said, offering his hand to Simon.
    Simon did not take his hand, but stared at it until the new guy withdrew it, embarrassed.
    "I'm Sime; this is Drew." Simon waved the new guy in and locked the door behind him. "We'll get you a time card."
    The new guy followed Simon to the office, pausing to look at the glob of whipped cream on register 6, then at Jeff, still gasping on the floor.
    "Can up," the new guy said to Jeff.
    Simon raised an eyebrow to the rest of the crew and led the new guy into the office. While he was digging in the drawers for a fresh time card, the new guy said, "So, Sime, do you bowl?"
    Simon looked up and studied the new guy's face. This could be a trap. He stepped back and squared off like a gunfighter at high noon. "Yeah, I bowl."
    "What do you use?"
    "I like a twelve-pound Butterball."
    "Net or no net?"
    "No net," Simon said.
    "Yeah, nets are for grannies. I like a fourteen-pound self-basting, myself." Tommy grinned at Simon.
    Simon grinned back and offered his hand to shake. "Welcome aboard." He handed a time card to Tommy and led him out the office. Outside, the crew waited. "Dudes," Simon announced. "This is Tom Flood."
    The crew fidgeted and eyed Tommy.
    "He's a bowler."
    The crew let out a collective sigh of relief. Simon introduced them each, tagging them each with what they did. "That's Jeff on the floor, cake-mix aisle, plays basketball. Drew, frozen food and budmaster. Troy Lee, glass aisle, kung-fu fighter." Troy Lee, short, muscular, wearing a black satin jacket, bowed slightly.
    "Clint," Simon continued, "cereal and juices; he's buddies with God." Clint was tall and thin with curly black hair, thick horn-rims, and a goofy, if beatific, smile.
    Simon pointed to a stout Mexican in a flannel shirt. "Gustavo does the floors and has forty kids."
    "Cinco ninos," Gustavo corrected.
    "Excuse the fuck out of me," Simon said. "Five kids." He moved down the line to a short, balding guy in corduroys. "Barry does soap and dog food. His