"Tales of a Scorched Coffee Pot" - Chapter 86

It feels like the Feds waiting an eternity, for a technicality that allows them to throw the book at someone. And that's pretty much what this is. Because as poor as Pierre's performance has been, in every role, at every store, the collective, whispered wisdom was that they would never be able to get rid of the guy. For reasons that are understood but also not spoken aloud. And yet here they are, savoring this moment where a single photo saved to the office computer at Liberty has brought about Pierre's downfall.

To be clear, he has saved more than one such photo, though there's a lone snapshot out of the bunch that does him in. All of them feature a young boy about town whom Pierre is known to have the hots for, has invited to move in with him in hopes of making a move on the lad. It's now thought that the sentiment must be at least partially reciprocated, however, for the youth apparently sent – unless Pierre acquired these by other means – a range of varied selfies to this deposed assistant store manager. For who knows what reason, Pierre downloaded these mostly harmless pics to that shared office computer.

All is fine and dandy until the morning one of the cashier girls stumbles across the collection, aghast in particular at the one which features the object of Pierre's desire wearing nothing but tighty whitey underwear. Itself this might be just barely passable, but the problem is that there are allegedly some pubes sticking out from the top of the underwear. An icky visual, to be sure, leading to the next, which is that of a football referee throwing his flag onto the field, having intently scrutinized play after play in eager anticipation of just this scenario. Blowing his whistle and jogging excitedly to the middle of the stadium, to announce this penalty with considerable relish. Or maybe the metaphor is more aptly that of a soccer ref instead, handing someone their red card as they tell him to hit the showers.

Edgar could be wrong, but it seems as though Duane, Friendly and Unfriendly HR, and pretty much everyone else is visibly relieved as this announcement is made. They can scarcely believe their incredible good fortune. A sentiment Edgar mostly agrees with, too, though silently, because even if somewhat enjoying the trainwreck-esque prospect of Pierre's catastrophic performances, from a pure business standpoint he was obviously a complete menace.

Liberty's got a full plate anyway, and this is one less nauseating dish to consider. They surely did not need to the distraction, of this cement block weighing them down further. After months of talking a great game, making for a great conversationalist, winning people over with his vague good cheer but not really doing anything, Leroy decides to retire, citing his wife's poor health. Realizing that this represents an opportunity to, in all likelihood, use one competent individual to fill both positions – or else kill the assistant one completely, which is technically what happens – Palmyra's meat cutter Billy is appointed store manager here.

Again this was never posted, although unlike previous examples, not a single person is known to complain, because nobody else in the company wants it. And to visit this place now, as if not always producing this result, definitely leaves the current tourist wondering: what kind of barren wasteland have I just set foot into? It pretty much looks the same as it has for years now, true. Yet the help seems progressively weirder and weirder, on a number of different levels. Those that continue to stick around are strange enough in their own regard, reminiscent of the odd, respectable, well paid veteran stranded on a 100 loss baseball team, late in the season, like, say, Candace in vitamins, or Richie, the cashier who is hoping to bring his own MLB team to Chesboro. They were never traded yet it's difficult to fathom what use they are to the current club, and why a rebuilding team wouldn't just unload them. You're left concluding that the brass upstairs might have forgotten they were here, that this is the only possible explanation for why they haven't been deployed elsewhere.

It's weird that they continue to hire new people to fill in the gaps, though of course this is often a necessity. An example of this phenomenon would be grocery manager George, a kind, personable, seemingly intelligent young black man who was hired to take over when Laurie switched to Central, or the other cashier, Amy, who replaced Jim and is the one receiving all the high fives for bringing about Pierre's downfall. You've still got Allen and Mitch lurking around the fringes in back somewhere, of course.

And then there's Sam. By a factor of 4 or 5x he is the longest tenured employee in this joint, kind of the Liberty equivalent of Palmyra's part time fuckup Steve, maybe, except for a few crucial differences – Sam is full time, that's one example, and he also actually works, that's another, and is not only working but running a couple different departments. Instead of hiding out and attempting to avoid all interaction, too, he comes right at you with his bizarre, if often quite amusing worldviews. Like when he's giving Edgar the what's up nod drifting over for a quick chat, grinning from ear to ear as he pretty much always is. Then explaining with a hearty chuckle that Rob was in here recently, grilling them as to what kind of progress they were making with perpetual inventory.

“Oh yeah? What did you tell him?”

“Eh we told him it wasn't comin' so hot, 'cause you didn't really explain everything to us.”

“What!? Are you kidding me? Did you seriously tell him that?”

“Oh yeah, buddy, totally,” Sam laughs, though by appearances genuine as he adds, “we sold you under the bus.”

Laughter explodes out of Edgar, causing him to reflexively cover his nose and mouth. Sam is of course chortling along as well, his more of the deep, belly variety, all the more loudly now, even though it's unclear and unlikely that they find the same things hilarious. With Edgar there are actually a few different angles here, and yes, maybe one of these they have in common. But he's also somewhat shocked, though totally believing Sam, that he and who knows how many others said this to Rob, then just openly admitted it. There's a little bit of the language barrier fueled comedy here, as there had been with his fellow Russian uncle, Robert, long since departed, although in Sam's instance it's all the stranger in that he was at least born here, doesn't display much of an accent, yet still employs these distorted euphemisms anyway.

We sold you under the bus. This is the central and far more hysterical bit, one that Edgar can't stop thinking about for the rest of the day and who knows how many beyond. Conjuring up images of shady transactions in the dark, behind the city's school transportation garage, bodies and cash being exchanged underneath just such a bright yellow vehicle, as the participants cast furtive glances over their shoulders and elsewhere.

This conversation occurs during the course of his latest scan audit, which is just about the only scenario that could possibly bring Edgar qa through these doors. A little later on, as his path brings him into the vitamin department's orbit, he next encounters the grouchy old lady Dorothy, who takes this opportunity to grouse to him about how much she hates these Slingshot scan guns, as they're pretty much using these for everything now, including ordering from almost every vendor. Her complaint doesn't feature any specifics, just that she's a self-professed Luddite and therefore hates “technology.”

“These damn gadgets remind me of what they were using in that one movie...oh, what was the name of that?...it had Tom Cruise and Dakota Fanning in it, they were hiding in the basement from these aliens...”

“Yeah I don't think I saw that one,” he tells her, before briskly moving on.

This conversation will stick with him for awhile, however, basically in every spare moment where he's not alternately cracking up about Sam's comment. As is so often the case, he wishes he would have been a little more attuned to a readily available quip. Granted, in his defense, he could think of nothing but scurrying away as quickly as possible. However, Dorothy using a movie scene to make a point about how much she hates the technology here perfectly symbolizes the ridiculous irony commonly encountered in these corridors. And it next leads to an insight that is so simple, it makes it all the more profound: he wishes he would have said to her, you know, I would guarantee there's more technology in your TV remote than there is in these scan guns. Or something to that effect. He can fine tune the wording later, because he is going to hang onto this one, to break out every time one of these technophobes takes issue with abandoning their ancient hippie ways.

This topic doesn't reemerge, not on this fine day, even though he can't exactly avoid Dorothy completely while here. It's just too small of a location not to rub elbows with everyone. In the wake of his traffic mileage disputes, he almost never travels from one store to the next in the same day, with the exception of stopping by Palmyra on his way home. He has his laptop, and the internet here has curiously always been the most reliable anywhere, so he can work the remainder of the day from the break room table. Maybe drifting up the elevated front office if things become too crowded back here.

But it isn't as though there's a ton of animosity here. With most of them, it's almost as though they are perplexed by Edgar, they can't understand why he isn't boarding the bus to Disgruntledville right along with the rest of them. He is out here among us, he is friendly and talkative and sometimes even funny. Why won't he just admit that everything sucks? What is his deal? For example, when lunch time rolls around and he's back at the employee break table, here come Dorothy and the freaking foot massage lady, rounding the corner with bags of lunch they've scored from nearby Liberty Diner. As they sit down, Dorothy apologizes for not asking him if he wanted anything.

“That's okay. I usually don't eat much for lunch anyway. Makes me tired,” Edgar says.

Edgar's currently working on a project comparing approximately 20,000 different items, between two different Excel sheets. Duane is thinking about switching over to Harmony Hill as their primary supplier, because they're willing to offer a slightly better volume discount than Universal is, up to a 23%, if HSM makes that switch. The only problem is that Harmony Hill doesn't have nearly as big of a catalog. So the question becomes how much money would they save in a year, if changing over to Harmony Hill – which he is ballparking by pulling in what order history they have since switching over to Slingshot and extrapolating out for twelve months. Which isn't quite as straightforward a question as it seems because they expect that, if they make this move, then Universal is likely to drop their volume discount on the items that remain, since they're not ordering as much, down from a 21 to an 18%. So do they come out ahead in this scenario, and if so by many dollars?

He's playing around with various formulas and formats for determining this. Meanwhile, these two decrepit old biddies sit chomping away and complaining about everything under the sun, including a lengthy diatribe against people who are “always on their computers.” Then someone pages Dorothy, over the intercom, and since she's just finished eating anyway, she pushes in her chair and heads back to the vitamins department.

Now he is left alone with this foot massage lady. She's plenty annoying, and probably always has been, but his distaste extends well beyond that. For she is clearly someone who thinks she knows everything about you after one short meeting. And when Edgar takes his glasses off, to lean back in his chair and stare at the ceiling while rubbing his eyes, as he attempts to mentally sort this out, this apparently provokes her tripwire of derision. Which was on a hair trigger to begin with, surely.

“See! You're tired anyway!” she blurts out.

“It's not that, it's that I feel like my brain is gonna explode.”

“You should take more walks,” she tells him.

“Actually...I walk quite a bit. I just need more coffee.”

“It's from sitting in front of a computer all day,” she declares, adding, as she stands up and pushes in her own chair, “the magnetic energy is really bad for you. You probably don't even have a shield on that thing, do you?”

“No.”

She chuckles condescendingly and says, “well, there you go,” before leaving the room.