Nebraska

The Road Stop

Charlie worked the day shift at Joe's Road Stop one Wednesday a month. He usually worked the night shift, so that one day was special to me. I could talk to Charlie for hours on end without interruption and drink blue raspberry slushies until I started to gag from the smell.

On this particular Wednesday though, a group of teenage boys decided they needed to come into Joe's and start making vulgar comments and obscene gestures that were directed towards me. I was ready to cuss them out as soon as I heard them, but Charlie stepped in before I had the chance. He was more furious than I had ever seen him; his hands were tightened into fists and I could almost hear the crackling of the white hot flames burning inside him.

The teenage boys were unimpressed by Charlie's rage to say the least, but their faces turned sour when he pulled a metal baseball bat out from under the cash register. He walked out from behind the counter and started screaming at the top of his lungs, swinging the bat around so it crashed into shelves and made the kids jump and cower. Those poor boys were frozen in fear, not daring to stand up to Charlie or even move from where they were standing. I was too, I guess. I just stood there and watched as he grabbed the collar of one boy's shirt and spit on his face like he was dirt. That was when Charlie dropped the bat and started throwing punches. That was also when I stepped in.

I screamed my throat raw as I tried to pull Charlie back and beg him to stop hurting the poor boy. The rest of his friends had abandoned him, leaving him to suffer under the feral wrath of Charlie's steel-toed boot alone. He had curled up on the floor as Charlie kicked and kicked and kicked, all three of us screaming at the others to stop. The kid spit up blood that would most likely stain the floor, and his muscles twitched and flinched with each blow. Charlie didn't seem to care though, not about anything. He had a wild look in his eyes that showed no remorse and I didn't know what to do about it. I could only keep screaming and pulling, screaming and pulling, screaming and pulling, no matter how much it hurt.

Finally Charlie stopped, his chest still heaving from the adrenaline, and he spit on the boy one last time. The boy ran for his life, out of the door never to be seen again. Tears covered my cheeks and I couldn't stop shaking. Charlie on the other hand didn't seem fazed at all by the encounter. He kissed me like nothing happened and told me that he wasn't going to let them hurt me, not ever. I didn't meet his eyes because I didn't believe that they were the threat, and instead I looked straight into the lens of the security camera that had caught all of Charlie's destruction on tape. Charlie had to find a new job after that.