After working at Freddy Wood’s Market for about six months or so, people around town began to identify me as ”the guy from the liquor store” or “liquor store guy” as in “Hey, it’s ‘Liquor Store Guy!’ ” if they spotted me in a restaurant or supermarket somewhere. (One big jackass college kid came in the liquor store one day and said, “Hey, you’re ‘That Motherfucker Who Walks Everywhere’“. When I glared at him, he corrected himself, “I mean ‘That Guy Who Walks Everywhere’.” I said, “I don’t have a car.” “Oh, sorry.”) I found being called ”the guy from the liquor store” or “liquor store guy” really insulting at first, being diminished to a job description—and a shitty job at that— but eventually I embraced it, figuring it was like a mask or protective armor that shielded me from all the fucking bozos rolling through my store. (Why should they know my true self? What good did that do me? Let them just see the surly, sullen, cynical “Liquor Store Guy”. Why not? Why not just play a role? The liquor store was already like a set anyway. From a distance at night it looked unreal: a flood-lit, white concrete building, floating out there in the darkness like a ship at sea.)
While I was working at the liquor store in Shadow Valley, Jim was working in Rohnert Park at Tony’s Liquors. He had two co-workers he was friends with, Don and Ernie. Don was perpetually making lecherous jokes, sometimes funny, sometimes not. Ernie was a quiet, soft-spoken guy from the Midwest, somewhat impressionable. We played softball together a few times. Sometimes it was just the four of us, sometimes Don and Ernie were able to scrounge up enough guys for a game, with the odd Little Leaguer from the neighborhood thrown in. It was a time when it was just the four of us that I told them as a joke that I’d been working on an opera, “Liquor Store Guy.” I sang them what I had:
“One day you’re riding high
the next thing you know you’re a
liquor store guy,
liquor store guy”
They thought it was pretty funny, joining in on the “liquor store guy, liquor store guy” part, more of a chant really, than a melody.
One time Don brought his girlfriend by Freddy Wood’s Market. He didn’t tell her or indicate in any way that he knew me. She approached the counter in all innocence and asked me if we sold single servings of microwave popcorn.
I put on a crazy, puritanical voice. “This is a family store, m’am. We don’t sell promiscuous single servings of popcorn. If you want microwave popcorn, you’ll have to buy the whole box.”
She stared at me bug-eyed while Don quietly snickered behind her.
Being a liquor store guy was nuts and the laughs were where you found them. My first weekend at the store I walked around a corner of one aisle to discover a guy lying on top of a woman right in the middle of another aisle. (They were still fully clothed.) She was asking him, “Will you still respect me in the morning?” My mental response: “Take a fucking wild guess. Seriously, lady.”
People used to ask me for directions all the time. They’d often open with, “Can you tell me where to go?”
“Yeah,” I’d respond, absolutely deadpan. “I can tell you where to go.”
More often than not, they’d want directions to the freeway. I’d tell them,”Stay straight through the next two lights and you’ll run right into it.”
This would perplex them, the directions being so simple and straight-forward. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah, I’m sure,” I’d reply, thinking to myself, Hey, asshole, I’m not the one who’s lost.
“It’s just the directions are so simple,” the person would say, doubtfully.
“I can make ‘em more complicated if you like: First you pass a red barn with a three-legged cow with one eye, then you turn left, then right…”
“No, no, that’s okay.”
Then they’d ask someone else passing by, another customer or employee.
This would piss me off. (So I’m a liar, now, too? If you don’t believe me, why do you ask?)
We sold a kind of cheap gin called “Gilbey’s”. Customers would often call it “Gibley’s” for some reason. I had a Korean guy, a regular who would yell that at me every night, “Gibley’s! Gibley’s! Gibley’s!”
We also sold cheap generic cigarettes by the pack or the carton called GPCs. People managed to mangle that name, too. “Give me a pack of GCPs, GPDs, ABCs, whatever the fuck, gimme some smokes.”
Sometimes they ordered both. “A half-pint of Gibley’s and a pack of GCPs.”
No matter how much or how often some customers drank, they could never quite grasp the different sizes of the liquor bottles we sold: half-pints, pints and fifths.
The customer would point hesitatingly towards the shelves of liquor bottles behind the counter where I was standing.”I want the bottle of whiskey right there…”
“The half-pint?” I’d ask.
“No, bigger…”
“The fifth?” I’d say, picking it up.
“No, not the big one, the little one, not the half-pint…”
Then I’d really mess with them. “You want the big little one or the little big one?”
“Now, I’m not sure…”
I’d pick up the pint. “The pint?”
“That’s it!”
I once had a guy ask me if we sold hard liquor. (Considering that I was behind the counter at the time, standing in front of four rows of shelves filled top to bottom with bottles of booze, I was somewhat surprised by the question.)
In response, I just held up my hands in front of me about two feet apart.
The guy stared back, nonplussed.
I spread them to three feet apart, then and wide as I could.
“Boom!” I yelled.
The guy jumped as all the rows of liquor came into focus for him.
“Oh shit!” He laughed. “Wow!”
“Yeah. ‘Wow!’ ”
I told another customer later it was like the scene in the Vietnam War movie, “Platoon” where the veteran sergeant warns the rookie GI played by Charlie Sheen, “Bunker!” “Where?” The sergeant points and the enemy log bunker comes into focus amidst the green jungle. (Fucking ridiculous.)
I once had a customer ask me where the Newcastle beer was. He was at the back of the store while I was behind the counter in the front.
“It’s right there in the cooler you’re standing in front of, “ I told him.
“I don’t see it!”
“It’s there!”
“I still don’t see it!” He was starting to get frustrated.
“It’s there, just keep looking!”
“Look, buddy, it’s not here!” He was getting snotty now.
“Yeah. It is!” I filled the coolers myself so I knew exactly what we had and didn’t have.
“No, it’s not! Oh, wait…” He found the Newcastle Ale right where I said it was.
He came strolling up with two bottles of Newcastle, a somewhat sheepish grin on his face.
I was still annoyed by all the attitude he had been giving me so I told him, “You know, if you were Columbus, we’d still be living in Europe?”
He didn’t think that was funny at all.
In the first story, “Freddy Wood’s Market,” the author remains a detached observer of the scene and its characters. In this story he morphs, in spite of himself, into part of the community. Although he says that being identified as “Liquor Store Guy” irritates him, he comes to accept it as a role he must play at this stage in his life. And so he develops a song and a persona: sullen, yes, and sardonic, but also directly engaged with the people who walk daily through his life. One must put this together with the second story, “Checks and Balances,” in which we see the detached and wise-cracking observer evolve into someone who is reflective and caring and very kind.