Don't Look Back

Danny Burkett lay flat on his back underneath the kitchen sink, squinting up into a spray of water. He put his wrench down, mumbled, “You’ve got to be kidding me,” and turned his head. Blinking the water out of his eyes, his wife, Linda, came into focus. She held their baby boy, Joseph, who wailed as she bounced him on her hip. Her foot tapped ripples in the puddle spreading across the kitchen floor. Danny grabbed his wrench and went back to work, tightening the nut connecting the cold-water supply to the faucet. The spray of water eased but didn’t stop. Cursing, he dropped the wrench, reached above his shoulder for the shutoff valve and turned it. The spray of water slowed to a drip.

Wrench in hand, he pushed out from under the sink. He opened the faucet to let the last of the water trickle out, and then he turned to Linda and shrugged. “I can’t fix it until I get a couple things from the hardware store.”

Linda turned her back on him and walked out of the kitchen into the front hall.

“If you need water, just use the bathroom sink,” he said, tapping the wrench against his palm. “It’ll be fixed by morning—swear to God.”

Linda pressed the back of her hand against Joseph’s forehead. Her brow furrowed. “I don’t care about the sink. I gave Joseph ibuprofen an hour ago and he still has a fever.” She walked down the hall to the coat closet. Metal hangers dinged and rattled as she opened the closet. Joseph screamed, inconsolable, while she rummaged through the closet. She looked back at Danny. “I’m taking him to the emergency room. I’ll call and let you know what they say.”

Even with worry etched across her face, Danny thought she looked great. The same beauty with long blonde hair and big curves that he’d felt lucky to land a date with five years ago. She’d wanted a fairy tale life. A big family in a white-fenced house on a hill. Backyard barbecues with friends. Maybe even a tiny vacation cottage on Lake Moorehead someday. A sick kid and scraping for a dollar every day weren’t part of her dream.

He watched her put on her coat and then place Joseph into his car seat—the same seat her mother brought over with an embarrassed smile after he lost his job at the factory, not saying a word, but sending a message he’d heard many times.

“My daughter could’ve had her pick of men. Russ Jasper with his three-van plumbing business. Or even Jerry Connelly—not a looker, but don’t get me started. He’ll own half the county before he’s done, what with his father’s rental properties and his head for money.”

Danny stared at the car seat. He slammed the wrench on the kitchen counter. Linda looked up. Joseph craned his head back, snot running down his face as he looked at his daddy.

Danny’s face felt hot as he looked down, seeing blood well from his middle knuckle. He walked into the hall toward Linda. His voice trembled, coming out louder than he expected. “I’m sorry. I’m just… God, I don’t know. It’s one thing after another. Losing my job. Joseph crying. The sink.” His knuckle started to throb. He shook his hand. “I’m just sorry, that’s all. Just take Joseph and let me know what the doctor says.”

He paused for a moment. Linda shifted her attention to his hand. He wiped away the blood and shrugged. “He probably just has a twenty-four-hour thing, you know?”

Linda looked away. She buckled Joseph into his car seat, picked up the seat and walked toward the front door. Danny watched her, his vision narrowing, the collar of his “Fast Stop Convenience Store” work shirt tightening around his neck. “Linda, c’mon. Talk to me. Everything’s going to be fine.”

Linda turned toward him, her eyes glassy and unfocused. He stepped back, unsure of what to do as her eyes brimmed with tears.

“You should go, Danny. You’re going to be late for work,” she said, bending down to grab a teddy bear off the floor. Joseph reached for the bear, red faced and bawling. She tucked the bear under her arm, opened the front door and carried Joseph outside.

Danny walked to the open front door. The small oak he’d planted near the curb glowed in the gray light of the setting sun. Wind rustled the tree’s branches, knocking a handful of bright red leaves into the air. He watched Linda walk to the car. She turned, raising her chin in his direction. “Is your hand okay?”

He made a fist. “I think so.”

She let out a shaky breath. “Good. You need to be careful, Danny. If you broke it, things would be even worse.”

“I know. I’m sorry, babe.”

She turned away, set the car seat with Joseph in it on the ground and unlocked the car door. Danny flexed his throbbing hand, wincing at the needle of pain that shot through his knuckle. He stepped inside, grabbed his coat out of the closet and walked back out on the porch, watching Linda hoist Joseph into the back seat of their white Toyota. Pockmarks of rust covered the hood and side panels. The front right quarter panel was patched over with putty and had an empty hole where the running light should’ve been. He needed to rig a light before a cop wrote them a ticket, but it would have to wait. Linda needed help taking Joseph to see a doctor. He gripped the cold, iron railing, waiting for her to close the back door before saying, “Let me call someone to cover my shift. I’ll come with you.”

The way she shook her head, not even looking at him as she walked around the car, stopped him before he had a chance to move.

“No. Just go to work,” she said. “We need the money.” She opened the driver’s side door, stopped and looked up. “Something has to change, Danny. We have to do better than this.”

All he could do was stare back at her.

She lowered her gaze to the ground.

Danny’s hand slipped from the doorknob as Linda got into the car and shut the door, muffling Joseph’s crying. A cold wind gusted against his back. His shoulders tightened as he watched her drive away.

One hour into his night shift at the Fast Stop convenience store, Danny’s mind was still working overtime. He cracked a roll of quarters on the side of the cash register’s change tray. The coins rattled into a silvery pile as he dumped them into their change slot.

He pushed the register drawer closed with a bang, and then reached below the register and tore open cartons of cigarettes. The packs of Marlboros and Newports went into the glass display case above the counter. He looked up, seeing his reflection.

He should’ve gotten a haircut a month ago. Not shaving over the last week didn’t look too good either. And there was a smear of blood on his chin, no doubt from his skinned knuckle.

He licked the pad of his thumb and rubbed the blood off his chin. After a quick examination in the glass case to make sure the blood was gone, he went back to stocking the cigarettes. Linda’s voice echoed in his head.

“We’ve got to do better than this.”

A pack of Newports slipped out of his hand and fell onto the rubber, “Make A Pit Stop at Fast Stop” mat. He bent down to pick them up, wiping them clean on his sleeve. Maybe she was just out of sorts because of Joseph. The kid had cried for days. Had lungs that wouldn’t quit.

He stuck the Newports in the display case and then grabbed the empty cardboard cigarette cartons, crumpled them and shoved them in the trashcan behind the counter, shaking his head.

No. Joseph wasn’t the reason she was upset. It was because Linda had finally figured it out. She was smart enough to know that living on the edge wasn’t living.

It was dying.

One minute, one hour, one day at a time.

His gaze drifted over the crummy little store. Nothing but three, thirty-foot aisles of high-priced garbage like white bread, ready-made chili, chowder and spaghetti, and a couple racks of magazines and newspapers up front. A glossy eggshell paint job covered every counter, rack and wall. And, although mopped every night and every morning, the tile floor had a permanent gray patina from years of customers tracking in oil, slush, mud and road salt. Danny felt a sense of claustrophobia. Every square inch of every rack screamed for attention.

Eat this.

Drink that.

Sleep.

Wake up.

Lose weight.

Get rich.

And then there was the true gold mine of the store. He looked past the whirring ICEE machine and the coffee station. There it was, on the far wall. Gleaming stainless steel and glass refrigeration units that held the key to happiness for the city of Stafford, Michigan. He scanned the units, looking over the brightly colored packages of tropical yellow, red and green malt beverages; blue, red, green and black packages of beer; and the bottles of wine in a host of refined shades of frosted white, dark green and deep red. There was enough alcohol chilling in those units to dull the senses of an entire stadium, and that’s exactly what happened on a daily basis around here—the dulling of senses. He sighed and brushed a piece of lint from the embroidered logo of his shirt.

If things would only get back on track, everything would be fine.

He watched the lint settle on his work boot. It didn’t help to look back on the past, but it was hard to forget how good things were before the Swan Plumbing Supplies factory closed.

He stared out the front window at the dark, empty sidewalk. Just yesterday he’d awakened in a panic. It had been five a.m. and he’d thought he was late for his shift at Swan. Then he’d remembered that his factory job was long gone. The realization stunned him. He’d laid awake under the covers, not moving a muscle until Linda got up an hour later to feed Joseph. He’d stared at the kidney-shaped water stain on the ceiling, thinking about how good life was when he worked for Swan. Everything had seemed possible. Kids running through sprinklers in the summer and riding sleds in the winter. A big old dog running after a frisbee in the park. All the pieces and parts of the American dream. But then Swan moved their factory overseas and everything went to hell.

He shifted uncomfortably on his stool, reliving his death spiral after Swan moved. There were the months of not finding steady work while Linda was pregnant, making do by working brake jobs out in the street and picking up a drywall job here and there. There was Joseph coming screaming into the world—which he knew was a great thing in and of itself, but even a great thing such as the birth of his beautiful son became a crushing weight when it was added to the load he was carrying.

He looked at the floor, wishing he could stop thinking about it, but there was more. The rent going overdue. Running up the credit card bill to buy Joseph’s formula and diapers. The fighting with Linda. Swan’s move had sledgehammered his family, smashing it to pieces.

He scanned the store, hearing the hum of the overhead fluorescent lights. All things considered, this was the one thing he’d done right. After Swan closed, guys all over town were scratching for work. But he’d found a job—this job—by walking through the city for weeks on end, knocking on doors. Even now he felt some measure of pride at his accomplishment. But he had to admit, he’d overreached when he’d signed up for classes at the community college.

He closed his eyes and massaged his temples. It was the perfect plan for wrecking their marriage. Make just enough money to stay on the edge of starvation and take so many classes that he was never home.

The bell on the front door tinkled once, then twice. Customers. He stood and went about his business stocking shelves and ringing up beer and cigarettes. Working was way better than mooning over his crappy life.

As the night wore on and business slowed, he read the college textbooks he’d lugged in his backpack. Reading a paragraph out of Global Markets & Western Decline for the third time, he closed the textbook and made his way over to the ICEE machine. It made a good, cold root beer or cherry drink, but the dispenser froze solid if you didn’t run a drink out of it at least once a shift. He opened the cabinet under the machine and pulled out a metal, red handled ice scraper.

Elbow-deep in the top of the machine, chipping away at the ice, he heard the front doorbells tinkle. He looked up. A man wearing a baseball cap walked in. The man dropped out of sight as he kneeled just inside the door, maybe to tie his shoe. Danny pulled his hand out of the ice.

The guy was probably coming in to buy a six pack. Or maybe he was a big spender looking to buy beer and a bag of chips.

Danny went back to work, chipping away at the frozen build-up in the machine. No reason to stop until the guy picked his poison and made his way to the counter.

“Hey, anybody here?”

Danny looked toward the counter, where the man stood in plain view. He had a goatee, was maybe in his late thirties or early forties, and he wore a green canvas army jacket and a Red Sox baseball cap.

Danny watched the guy shift back and forth. The man saw him. He moved his right hand to a bulge in his coat, just above his right hip. Whatever that bulge was, it was tucked in the waistband of his jeans. The man turned his head for a quick glance behind him. Danny followed his gaze, seeing the empty, dark street through the store’s front window. He watched the man’s shoulders lift with a deep breath and noticed that his shoulders stayed high and tight after he exhaled. The man turned to face him—fingers tapping away at the bulge beneath his coat.

Danny slipped his hand out of the ICEE machine, feeling very alone. The plastic ICEE penguin, spinning merrily away on the top of the plastic sign, poked its beak into the back of his head. He stepped away from the machine and walked toward the counter.

“Hurry up,” the man said, his face shiny with sweat. He grabbed two packs of mints off a shelf-top rack and placed them on the counter.

Danny unlatched the thigh-high swinging door to get behind the counter. He looked the guy over as he stepped through the door.

The man flashed Danny a smile. His goatee and a gap between his front teeth were his most distinguishing features. Other than that, he looked the same as any other overworked guy approaching middle age. Bags under his eyes and a scruff of stubble. He even looked like he could’ve been a friendly person, except for his eyes. There was a squint of anxiety there. A wrinkle of worry.

The counter door clicked shut behind Danny. He placed the ice scraper on the counter, wiped his hands on his pants and nodded at the mints. “That all you want?”

Before the man could answer, the phone rang. Danny picked up the phone, noticing the man had lost his smile.

“Don’t be answering that. Take care of me first.”

“This’ll just take a second,” Danny said, turning his back on the man. “I’ll be right with you.”

Eyes fixed on the observation mirror in the ceiling, Danny watched the guy sneak a look over his shoulder at the still-empty street. Noticing the security camera next to the mirror, Danny silently cursed. His boss, Vincent, unplugged it a few days ago. Said it had an electrical short that kept tripping the breaker. Doing his best to keep his voice steady, Danny lifted the phone to his ear. “You’ve reached Fast Stop. This is Danny. How can I help you?”

“Danny, I can’t find our insurance card and I’m all the way over at Metro Central hospital. Can you get someone to cover you and bring your card? There’s like a million people jammed in this waiting area. If I go home to look for it, it’ll be morning before a doctor sees Joseph.”

As worried as he was about Joseph, seeing the man put one hand inside his coat took all of Danny’s attention. He tensed, holding his breath. The man’s hand stayed put, holding whatever was under his coat. Danny forced himself to breathe. “I got the card in my wallet, but I can’t talk right now. I gotta take care of a customer. Call me right back, okay?”

“I am not calling back. Let him get his own beer. Just get over here, okay?”

Danny stared at the man fidgeting with the bulge under his coat. His stomach churned. “Babe, I gotta take care of this guy.” He looked back at the man and held up an index finger, mouthing, “One more minute,” then lowered his voice to a whisper as he said, “He’s wearing a Red Sox cap and a green army…”

“And that is enough of that,” the man said.

Danny faced the man. All the feeling in his body left him as he stared at the dark, metallic pistol leveled at his stomach. The man sneered. “Hang it up. Now.”

Danny dropped the phone in its cradle. He could’ve sworn he caught Linda’s last words of, “Danny, I need you.”

The man stepped closer to the counter. “Do I look stupid to you?” he said, waving the gun.

Danny stared at the end of the barrel and shook his head. The man narrowed his eyes. “You feel like describing who robbed you, you do it after I’m gone. Now cut the lights. You’re closing up.”

Danny nodded and reached under the counter. Overhead banks of lights winked off one by one until all the lights were off. Two emergency lights over the counter shone down in overlapping circles of yellow. Danny raised his hands. He knew he should be scared out of his mind, but he wasn’t. Sure, the flash of adrenaline from seeing that gun made his heart pound and his hands tremble. But his mind felt clear. The desperate straits of his life gave him the power to stare at the barrel pointing at his face and say, “Look, you don’t want to do this. If you leave now, I won’t say a word.”

“Shut up,” said the man. “And open that safe full of money under the register.”

Danny shifted his gaze to the safe. It was a small, but it was heavy. He remembered hauling it in here. Even with a hand truck and the big guy from the safe company helping, he’d nearly burst a blood vessel while Vincent watched, barking instructions. Shifting his gaze to the robber, Danny thought over what would happen if he opened the safe.

If he gave up the money, there would be repercussions. Vincent had fired Wanda, the last night clerk, for discarding dated canned goods. It stood to reason that he’d be less than happy with a clerk who let a robber clean out the safe. It would most likely be a sure path to unemployment. Having no interest in exploring that particularly nasty level of hell again, Danny looked the robber in the eye, shook his head and said, “Sorry, I can’t open it. I don’t have the combination.”

“Yeah you do.” The robber’s face was stone. “I been watching. I know you put cash in there at closing time. Now quit stalling and open it.”

Danny glanced at the empty street outside the store. Where were the cops when you needed them? He shifted his gaze to the safe, wishing Vincent hadn’t given him the combination. He’d only been on the job a few months—three, to be exact. Definitely not long enough to be in charge of a safe full of money. He bit his lower lip, looked at the man, and shook his head again.

The thief’s eyes widened. “You want a hole in your head?”

“I don’t want trouble,” Danny said. “Take whatever you want. Beer, cigs, the money in the register—but I can’t open the safe. I’ll lose my job.”

The thief extended his arm, pressing the tip of the pistol against Danny’s forehead like a cold, hard finger.

Danny could feel the blood drain from his face. His legs went numb, tingling like they were going to fold under him. His mind, however, still maintained an amazing calm—almost as if he was watching from a distance.

The robber talked in a low rumble. “Losing your job is the least of your concerns. Now open the goddammed safe.”

Danny gauged the distance between the gun and his right hand, still sore from slamming that wrench on the kitchen counter. He knew he could knock the gun away before the man pulled the trigger. The question was, would this guy recover and start shooting before he could pull the gun away? If he did, Danny figured a bullet could end up knocking around in his skull, ripping through his gut, or tearing up any of a handful of places that were just fine the way they were. But that would only happen if this guy got lucky.

Danny tensed, readying himself to slap the gun away and fight to pull it from the man’s grip. Images of Linda and Joseph flashed through his mind. He froze. What would happen to them if something went wrong? He sighed. Linda and Joseph needed him. He settled back on his heels. His only choice was to roll over.

“Alright,” he said, taking a step back and feeling the cold barrel pull away from his forehead. “I’ll open it. Be cool.”

He kneeled and spun the dial on the safe, feeling the throb of his bruised knuckle. Thoughts of once again having to look for a job whirled through his head, making him lose his place as he turned the dial. He tried to pull the door open. No go. He took a deep breath and spun the dial again. A crack in the back of his head sent a bolt of pain through him. He rubbed his head and sucked air through clenched teeth.

“Quit daydreaming,” the thief said, waving his pistol. “Or the next thing you feel is gonna be a bullet.”

Teeth clenched, Danny spun the tumbler through its paces to the last number and pulled the handle. The heavy metal door swung open soundlessly. The thief smacked the counter.

“That’s what I’m talking about. Put it in a grocery bag and hand it over.”

It took a couple sweeps of his hand for Danny to fill one of the brown paper grocery bags with stacks of rubber-banded bills, wondering all the time why Vincent hadn’t deposited this mother lode of cash. It had to be a month’s worth of receipts. He couldn’t even look at the robber as he handed it over. The guy took a step back, rolled down the top of the bag, stuck it in his jacket and then held out his hand. “Gimme your wallet.”

Danny stared at the robber. He put his hand over his back pocket. “What?”

The robber pulled back the hammer on his pistol. “I don’t like the way you’ve been messing with me. Give it to me.”

Danny went cold. The insurance card was in his wallet. Linda needed it. He stood frozen. The robber wiggled his fingers. “Right now. Let’s have it.”

Danny’s mind raced. Linda needed him alive, but she also needed their insurance card. As he pulled his wallet from his back pocket, he slipped his finger behind his driver’s license and tried to pull out his insurance card. It was wedged in tight, but it started to slide free.

The robber snatched his wallet.

“Wait! I need—”

The robber ran and pushed through the front door, leaving behind nothing but the sound of the bells tinkling. Danny slumped against the counter.

He had nothing when he came to work. And yet, somehow, he now had even less.

He flicked the lights on. The fluorescents flickered back to life around the store. His gaze traveled over the counter, looking at the extra change tray, the two packs of mints, a Shriners donation box, and candy displays for suckers, chocolates, and licorice. A swipe of his hand sent everything flying. Coins rolled and spun on the floor in front of the counter. The phone rang. He reached over to answer it, knowing it was Linda calling to ask him why he’d hung up on her and when he was coming. And then he stopped. He peered into the shadows under the counter. There, on top of the safe. He reached under the counter. It had been there the whole time. Vincent had hidden a gun and never told anyone about it—the idiot.

Danny turned the gun over in his hand. His neighbor, Ray, had the same model, and they’d both become pretty good at using it to shoot rats at the city dump. He ejected the clip into his palm. It was heavy with shiny brass bullets. Oiled and new, the gun barely made a sound as he slapped the clip back into place. He looked at the front door and tightened his grip on the gun. The robber couldn’t have gotten very far.

A bolt of pain shot through his knuckle.

He winced, dropped the gun on the counter and grabbed his hand. His knuckle throbbed. He massaged his hand, staring at the gun. Maybe it wasn’t a good idea. Maybe the best thing to do would be call the police. What good could come out of chasing the thief?

“I can get my wallet back,” he thought. “I can give Linda our insurance card. I can get Vincent’s money and put it back in the safe. I can keep this lousy job and keep money coming in until I find something better.”

He picked up the gun again, this time ignoring the pain in his knuckle as he focused on the door and whispered, “I can finally do something instead of letting everything be done to me.”

Gun in hand, he vaulted the counter and ran out the front of the store.

One look left and one look right showed nothing but empty street. The robber couldn’t have sprinted the block and a half it took to get to the alleys on either side of the store. Nobody was that fast. Seeing only one other direction the guy could’ve taken, Danny ran across the street and jumped over the wrought iron fence that bordered the city park. The faint sound of the phone ringing from back in the store gripped his thoughts as he tucked his shoulder, hit the ground, rolled over and jumped to his feet. Heart pounding, he entered the woods in a dead run. No way was he gonna pick up that phone to tell Linda that he got robbed, might lose his job, and didn’t have their insurance card. But there was still a chance to turn things around.

That robber picked the wrong guy to rob tonight.

He gripped the gun as he dodged a tree and broke into a sprint, mind churning.

God, let me find this guy. Just this once. Let me get this guy and I’ll never ask for anything again. Just this one time…just this one time.