Travis pissed him off, most likely. The guy came around the store about one, one-fifteen in the morning. Wednesday morning. I wasn’t working that shift. I didn’t even know Travis was working, actually. I don’t think he was supposed to. Somebody told me – I forget who, Corrine, probably – that Travis took over from Morgan, who usually worked the Wednesday night shift. Needed to look after his mom, I think. She was in one of her moods where she can’t stop crying. Starts cleaning out the fridge with Lysol from six o’clock to sunrise. I don’t know how Morgan puts up with it, but he does. Strokes her hair and everything. Talks softly. No wonder he ain’t got any kids, dealing with a mother like that twenty-four seven. I can’t say for a hundred percent certain it was Morgan’s shift, though. I don’t know everybody’s shift. I mean, shit, half the time I don’t show up for my own shift. Hard to keep time altogether in my head.
But somebody, I think it was Corrine, told me that the guy asked Travis where the potato chips were, and Travis told him they were in the second aisle, near the back, and the dude asked if that was the second aisle from, like, the right, or the second aisle from the left, depending on where you were standing, and Travis kind of rolled his eyes, just a little bit, but boom. The guy took out a gun and popped him. Cranked open the register, grabbed the cash, vamoosed right out of there. They ain’t caught him yet, but I’m pretty sure they will. Hope they will, anyway. I’m working tomorrow night. I don’t want the guy swinging back on some kind of a comeback tour.
You know, Travis had one of those, what do you call it. Where your eyebrow ain’t nothing but one big line? The unibrow, right. Guy shot him right in the centre of that unibrow. Everything scattered everywhere. Travis had that effect on people, pissing them off like that. All that sarcasm. I used to tell him, not everything’s a joke. Not everyone’s got the sense you got. Or the sense that you think you got. Cut people some slack sometimes, because you ain’t exactly, what’s his name, that black-hole dude in the wheelchair. Hawking, right. You ain’t exactly Hawking, I’d tell him. You work at a 7-11 like everybody else. A customer asks you a dumb question, just answer it. That’s all. Answer it. No need to eye roll.
Corrine, I think it was Corrine, told me that they were still finding little bits of brain, like, a week later, tiny gray chunks in between the cigarette packs above the counter. Travis never had much of a brain, but still. Can’t help but feel for the guy. Nobody wants to see that stuff right near the cash register.
