Supermarket(38)

With that, I stared at the picture of Lola.

I will finish this book! I will finish this book!

I mean, that’s what all this was about! It wasn’t about Mia or falling in love or any of this other bullshit! It was about finishing something I started. It was about committing to something greater than myself. Something bigger than me or Frank, Lola, or Mia. It was about overcoming my fear of failure. It was about making myself complete through my art. It was about something unexplainable.

The picture had become a burden. A weight I carried around at all times. A symbol of my inability to move forward. It had to go. I had to go. I needed to free myself.

I took the picture and tore it in half. Then I tore it again. Lola was gone. And maybe so was Mia. It was time to rid myself of the things that were holding me back. It was time to do this on my own. Do it my way. I threw the shredded picture over the side of the building. The pieces fell gently like leaves in the wind, rocking to and fro as they approached the ground.

It was nearly seven, which meant I was off. Off to finish the last chapter in my book. I would give it that final, climactic event. In about five hours’ time my main character was going to rob the very grocery store I was standing on top of.

I had to prepare.

On the way home, I stopped by the liquor store and grabbed a bottle of Macallan, Frank’s favorite single-malt Scotch, at least that’s what my notes said. My Moleskine had so many entries I couldn’t remember half of what I’d written down. Good thing too, because it helped me with the details and nuances about the characters—articles of clothing, facial features, mannerisms, voice tics, surroundings, weather, and just about anything else I needed to create a real, moving, spinning world for readers to lose themselves in.

After grabbing the booze I stopped at the thrift shop to snag a ski mask and duffel bag. If I was gonna do this, I was really gonna play the part! Fuck method acting. This was method writing.

Back at my apartment, I prepped my typewriter and poured a glass of Scotch. I took a shot. Fuck that, I thought to myself, then threw the glass. It shattered on the floor.

Frank would drink it straight from the bottle.

I opened the Tame Impala record that Mia had left at my place and put it on my turntable. I set the needle down. As the crackle from the record echoed through my apartment, I looked at my attire—black jeans, black shoes, black T-shirt, and empty black duffel bag on the floor, to the left of my chair. Ski mask in hand. “New Person, Same Old Mistakes” by Tame Impala blasted through my apartment.

I was ready. Frank was ready.

I put my hands on my typewriter, closed my eyes, and began to type. Frank strutted up to the closed grocery store. With every word I wrote, every step I spelled out on the page, Frank followed. I could feel the energy. This would be the most propulsive scene I’d ever written. I was fully in the character’s head. I was Frank! I was robbing the store!

As I sat in my chair, I pulled down my ski mask, as did Frank. I took a swig from my bottle of Scotch, and Frank took a swig from outside the front doors of the grocery store. Then Frank wielded a giant metal baseball bat and swung furiously at the front sliding glass door, shattering it.

Walking in with no regard for the law, Frank strolled from aisle to aisle, picking out snacks at will. He opened a bag of chips, ate one, and threw the rest away.

I took a swig, he took a swig.

Over by the self-serving bulk candies, he grabs a handful of jelly beans and throws them into the air above his head one by one, aiming for his mouth. He strolls over to the produce department, grabs a banana, and begins to peel it. Twirling his small black duffel bag, he heads over to a shelf of pasta sauce, grabs a jar, tosses it in the air, and swings, connecting bat to glass for an explosion of red sauce across the aisle floor. Moving to the front of the store, he stops in the middle of aisle twelve, the fluorescent lights flickering in and out just like they always do. With all his might, he kicks the entire shelf, tipping it over. It collides with the shelves in aisle eleven, which repeats in aisle ten . . . all the way down to aisle six, like dominos, where they come crashing down with immeasurable force. With half of the aisles in the store demolished on the ground, Frank cracks a smile, continuing his walk to the front of the store.

Smashing the vending machine open, he retrieves the PayDay he’d been eyeing.

“What kind of grocery store has a vending machine in it?” he snickers, then continues on his way.

Arriving at Customer Service, where Ronda is usually stationed, Frank swigs from the bottle because I, in my apartment, do the same. Hot, I remove the mask, wipe the sweat from my brow, and pull it back down over my face. Drunk, my fingers begin to move slower than usual along the typewriter keys.

Frank jumps the Customer Service desk and slides across it like it’s the roof of a sports car. Landing his feet flat on the ground, he knows what he needs to do next.

He needs to break through the door in front of him, into Hector’s security room. He needs to rewind the tapes and then press record, so none of what he did would be caught on camera by the security monitors. The tapes would go from a perfectly fine, ordered store straight to . . . the aftermath. Straight chaos. There would be no explanation of how it happened.

After fixing the tapes, he would retrieve the money and be on his way.

Frank kicks in the door, revealing the inside of the security room. It’s illuminated by bright screens displaying a live video feed of the entire store. To the right of the monitors, on the floor under a desk, he sees the safe. He knows what to do.