“Sorry.What?”
His boss shook his head.“You’re fired.I’ve warned you several times about the phone.There are customers you’re ignoring—”
Remi furrowed his brow and looked around the empty checkout area.There were some customers in the aisles, but he hadn’t checked anyone out in at least forty minutes.
“I’m not ignoring anyone—” he interrupted.
“Don’t backtalk me.Just get your stuff and go.”
Something rebellious and sour jabbed him.He reigned in the defiant darkness pumping through his veins and put his palms up in surrender.“Wait.Please, sir, I’m sorry.I’ll go lock my phone in the break room.I need this job.”
The twelve dollars in his bank account reminded him of that this morning.He didn’t bother refreshing his bank account’s page over and over again.He knew that number wasn’t going to increase anytime soon.
“No.You’re done,” his boss said.“Look, I didn’t even want to hire you.Your”—he waved a hand down the length of Remi—“look is off-putting to the customers, and your behavior is equally appalling.”
“My look?”The acid churning in his stomach started to bubble as his rage overflowed.
“The handbook clearly states that all tattoos must be covered up and any facial piercings be removed—”
Remi snorted, his anger zapping away his rationality.“Off-putting?My look isoff-putting?” Oh, he knew what that was code for.Remi could be considered a loose cannon on a good day, but when people started going after how he looked…
“You want off-putting?”Remi demanded, throwing up his arms.“I’ll show you fucking off-putting.”
He jumped over the checkout counter and ripped off his stupid blue polo, causing at least three women to suck in their breath.
His boss’s eyes widened, and his face reddened as he started yelling, “Put your shirt back on, young man!”
Remi threw the shirt on the ground and dug his foot into the corporate logo, grinding it into the ground, and then spat on it.The same ladies gasped again.
“You should all know you’re funding the corporatocracy by spending money here,” he said.“On your thousand-dollar phones and TVs that all connect to the internet and allow big business to spy on you and force more of their products down your throat!”Remi pointed to a lady holding a box in the aisle closest to him.“That microwave better be capable of sucking dick because why else would you spendthousandsof dollars on it?”
“I’m calling the cops,” his boss said.
“You fucking do that!”Remi said.“I’m suing you for wrongful termination, so the sooner they get here, the sooner I can file a police report.”
Remi didn’t know if that was how it worked, but the threat made his boss continue to bluster and bellow nonsense.Remi just raised two middle fingers in the air and walked backward out the automatic doors.
“Mommy, that guy has no shirt,” a little girl said, holding the hand of a woman walking in.
Remi gave her a big smile and pressed his palms to his knees to bend down and say, “Your mommy is a capitalist sheep!Save yourself while you can, kid.”
The woman’s face scrunched up into a confused fury.She tugged the little girl away.
Remi just laughed, a little deranged, and ran through the parking lot.
He pulled his leather jacket and helmet out of the saddlebags on his motorcycle, slipped them on, and drove the fuck home.
Fuck this place.
Fuck this job.
Fuck it all.
He fumed, squeezing his handlebars so hard his knuckles were white.He didn’t give a fuck about what his boss thought of him or anyone in that store.A shitty retail job was a dime a dozen.Remi was better than that place.He was the singer of the best band in the world.His band was going to be famous someday, and then everyone would be sorry.
Oh yeah?That’s not what you were saying five minutes ago.
“Shut up,” he muttered out loud, but the sound was taken away by the wind whirling past his helmet.
