The Checkout Girl by Susan Zettell Page A

Robson-Lang. On any given day the city air exudes industry, is saturated with it, the smell of money going into some already-rich person’s pocket. And these days that rich person likely lives in the States and not Canada. That’s what the union folks are saying.
    Charlie worked at Budd. A union man, he worked a press. He came home smelling of metal and grease and the no-water hand cleaner all the men used before they drove home after their shifts. He loved his job, loved being in the company of hard-working men. Believed in unions and their cause: fair play and fair pay for labour. He loved all things that had to do with cars, so was proud to be part of their manufacture, even from a distance.
    â€œYour father loved to drive,” Connie once told Kathy.
    So it was a shock, but maybe not a surprise, that her father died in a car accident. On the stretch of 401 across from where Oakdale College now stands. Fell asleep at the wheel after a shift at the plant, the police report said, though what he was doing on the 401 heading west, no one knew. Not Connie, not his buddies, and certainly not the semi driver who saw him coming — tried to brake — but couldn’t stop fast enough.
    Charles (Charlie) Michael Rausch, born 1925, drove from his side of the road straight across the pretty wildflower-covered median, gaining speed as he went, dipping down into the culvert, rising up, tires churning the grass until they gained purchase on the blacktop again, accelerating full tilt right into the front end of the transport truck.

Kathy pulls into the Lehmans’ driveway. Penny’s left for work, her tire tracks in the snow, the house dark except for Pete’s room in the attic.
    â€œCome up and see Teach,” Pete shouts down as Kathy takes her boots off in the hallway.
    Pete calls his part-time work maintaining the labs at Regent University supplemental income; his real money comes from drug-dealing. By working at the university, he maintains the appearance of a legitimate income. That’s what he says, at least. Teach is a professor, and one of the research scientists Pete works for. Teach also buys lots of Pete’s dope.
    Harold Patrick Markham, Markham with an “h,” Teach tells everyone when he first meets them. Who gives a flying fuck how it’s spelled? Kathy wants to say. But she never does. Teach intimidates her. Most educated people intimidate her. And not only the people, but the broad manicured lawn in front of the university campus intimidates her. The Campus Centre, where kids her own age and probably no smarter than her hang out, intimidates her. Well, maybe they’re smarter ambition-wise, but maybe not. Maybe they just perform better for their parents. Maybe they’re obedient. Or maybe they have no imaginations. (Kathy doesn’t want to probe that too deeply, because her imagination regarding her future in skating, or any future beyond checking out groceries, for that matter, isn’t exactly working overtime.) The very word degree, as in university degree, is intimidating, because if you’re talking degrees, there’s got to be a scale with something higher and something lower.
    And when it comes to degrees, Kathy feels lower these days, because no degree has to be lowest of all. It’s the kind of stuff she and Donny talk about for hours when they smoke some dope. Semantics, my dear, they say in fake snooty voices, and they sniff and push up the ends of their noses with their fingertips. Then they laugh, because it makes them feel better to laugh. And because when you’re stoned, laughing is what you do. Laughing and listening to music and eating and talking endlessly about nothing, and the degrees of nothing.
    Marijuana’s the best drug — the highest degree — for having sex, they’ve decided. Personal research proves it. Though they’ve preserved their virgin friendship, they have conducted marijuana and sex experiments