Blue Belt

Chapter 8

                                                                     VIII.

             It was drizzling out that Saturday as I walked down the beach, toward the pier, and into work at Benson's Surf Shop.  My mood matched the drizzling nature of that day's weather.  There was not much going on at the beach and there was a chill in the air.  The weather was anything but typical for California.  I was not much in the mood to work but knew I had to.

            Things did not get much better for me when I walked in and saw Bobby at the counter.  He was listening to his iPod and reading some brochure while manning the front counter.

            "Hey Bobby."  I said walking towards him.  He looked up at me, gave me a blank stare, and looked back down.  I could tell his attitude towards me was now somewhat of a match of my attitude towards him.

            "You can go ahead and clean out the restroom this morning."  He said to me.  I paused for a second not believing my day could get much worse.

            "Where are the cleaning supplies?"  I asked after some pause; and with a mildly sarcastic tone of voice.

            "In the back."  He responded plainly as he continued to do his reading.  As I went and looked for the supplies, which took me a while, I began asking myself why he took on an attitude towards me.  As I was doing the cleaning, and fortunately for me the restroom was already quite clean, I just kind of figured with the questions I've already asked of others that worked there that my attitude towards him just kind of flowed back to him indirectly.  But at the same time I wanted to be sure that Sam did not say anything to him about my suspicions.  Of course I also knew that with the attitude I had been keeping about him in my mind, that it's possible he was just seeing through body language that I did not realize I was even giving off.

            "So what's up?"  I asked as I walked back out to the main room, trying to alleviate some tension from before.

            "Not much."  He coldly returned.  Even though my mood had calmed from earlier, the way he said this brought up a wave of anger in me.  I already was suspicious of the guy to say the least and now it felt like my attitude had been externalized.

            "You talked to Sam?"  I asked him point blank.  "Did he say something to you about me?"  I could hardly believe I asked him this after the words came out of my mouth.

            He nodded with a sarcastic smirk in reply.  I did not know what he meant and he did not say anything.  I then really wondered why the heck I brought him up when I was talking with Sam in the first place.  I just kept my mouth shut, helped a few customers, and was determined to get by working with this guy without having to say too much.

            However at the end of my four hour shift, Bobby pulled me aside.

            "Hey Matt, why don't you come over here a second."  He actually pulled me over into a far corner of the store while there were customers there.  I could tell he was teeming with anger.  Since I had calmed down by that point I just went along with it.  He pointed his finger at me, actually touching my chest.

            "I don't need any attitude from you.  Hear me?"  Bobby talked sternly as I just stood by.

            "You OKI geeks think your shit don't stink."  He paused, looked around to see if a customer was paying any attention, and then continued.  "Quit talking about me behind my back.  Do you follow?"  I just nodded.  I knew it was the end of my shift and did not want to make something out of this.  I felt kind of frozen at the moment still knowing how much I could not stand being around him and also desperate to learn what brought this on.