#41 - Just-World Hypothesis

Mr. Deering called very early, while it was still dark. He was with his wife at St. John’s hospital and needed Andrew to open the store.

“I considered closing up for the day, but I think you’ll be alright on your own” He said.

Andrew was still in bed, his eyes closed, the phone to his ear. “Is she OK?” He asked.

“She’ll be fine. They’re taking care of her.” 

“Are you coming in later?” Andrew said. He turned on the reading lamp next to his bed and rubbed his eyes.

Mr. Deering sounded tired. “We’ll just have to see how it goes here.”

They ended the call and Andrew stared at the ceiling for a moment before kicking off his bed sheets. He sat up and yawned and then dressed in the clothes he had worn the day before. Khaki pants and a blue Deering’s Gas and Grocery polo shirt. They were wrinkled from being tossed in the floor, but looking into the bathroom mirror, he smoothed the crease with his hands.

He arrived at Deering’s a few minutes after it was officially supposed to open, but there were no customers yet. He unlocked the double doors opposite the gas pumps and then slipped inside and disarmed the alarm system.  For security reasons, the interior lights of the store remained on twenty-four hours a day, but the soda fountains needed to be turned on. He made his rounds; filling the coffee brewers, adding bags of syrupy mix to the slush machine, opening a package of jumbo hotdogs and laying them out on the rotating grill. He microwaved a batch of sausage biscuits and then stacked them in the heated glass display. These were all familiar tasks, though it was his first time to perform them without Mr. Deering there, watching from behind the cash register.

The place became busy just before eight o’clock. People on their way to work stopped by for coffee and breakfast. At the front counter, Andrew made aimless morning small talk with customers, swiping their credit cards and wishing them a nice day. Nearly an hour had passed before he noticed an odd quietness in the store and realized he had forgotten to turn on the radio that sat on top of a file cabinet behind the register. Mr. Deering usually had it going by the time Andrew arrived. And always set to 92.5 The Beat, a station that played a very limited rotation of music from the nineteen-fifties and sixties.

Andrew flipped the power switch and heard The Byrds singing ‘To everything, turn, turn, turn! There is a season, turn, turn, turn! And a time to every purpose, under heaven.’ He stepped toward the register, paused, and then returned to the radio and twisted the bulky knob on the side, searching for a different station. He decided on 102.7, where the morning DJ was in the middle of call-in trivia.

“Where’s Murray this morning?” The customer at the register asked. Andrew recognized him; a bloated-looking guy who always wore a suit and tie and smelled like Aqua Velva. He stopped in at Deering’s almost every morning, usually leaving with a big coffee and a package of snack cakes.

“He’s with Mrs. Deering at the hospital.” Andrew said. “She has some serious pneumonia, I guess. They had to go over there in the middle of the night.” He scanned the barcodes on the side of the man’s coffee and a package of little chocolate donuts. 

“Aw, that’s too bad.” The fat man said, handing him a folded ten dollar bill. “Tell ‘em our prayers are with them both.”

“I’ll do that.” Andrew said. He made change for the man and handed it across the counter. “Have a great day.”

By mid-morning, business had slowed. A few customers had asked about Mr. Deering, but most just paid for their gas or soft drink and went on their way. Just after eleven, the store emptied completely. Andrew was hungry, so he walked back to the hotdog grill and fixed himself two with mustard, relish, and onions. He returned to the front counter and sat on Mr. Deering’s stool and ate the hotdogs quickly. When finished, he tossed the disposable containers away and pulled out a clipboard and ledger from beneath the counter. When Mr. Deering had hired him two years earlier, the agreement was that Andrew would receive a twenty-percent discount on any food he consumed while on the clock. Andrew tracked his purchases on the ledger, and the total was deducted from his paycheck every two weeks. With only one employee, Mr. Deering had depended on the honor system, but there wasn’t much honor involved; never in two years had there been an opportunity for Andrew to neglect the ledger. Mr. Deering was always watching.

Andrew recorded his hotdogs on the ledger and returned the clipboard to its place below the counter. For several minutes he watched out the window as traffic passed on Melvin Street. As the lunch hour approached, more customers arrived and he was busy at the register again. A teenage boy wearing a faded black White Sox t-shirt stepped up and placed a giant blue slushy on the counter.

“Can I get one of those jerkies, too?” He said. He pointed to a large glass canister at the edge of the countertop filled with tree bark colored sticks of beef jerky.

“No problem.” Andrew said. He entered the total into the register and then grabbed a pair of metal tongs and dipped into the canister to retrieve one of the sticks. Just before it cleared the lip of the canister, the jerky slipped from the tongs and fell onto the countertop.

“Ah, I’ll get you another one.” Andrew said. He pulled out another piece, inserted it into a small paper bag and handed it to the teen.

“You could just give me that one, too.” The kid said.

Andrew laughed politely. “That one’s gotta go in the trash. Sorry. It’s just policy.”

The kid rolled his eyes and left the store. Once gone, Andrew picked up the jerky and slipped it into a paper bag and placed it under the counter to eat later. He decided to consider it a loss. He wouldn’t mark it on the ledger.

It seemed only fair to Andrew, actually, that on a day when he was running Deering’s entirely on his own, he shouldn’t be required to abide by the ledger policy. He had done a big favor for Mr. Deering by coming in so early and opening the store on his own. He was doing the work of two people, and earning Mr. Deering a lot of money by keeping the store open. He imagined Mr. Deering would have wanted him to help himself to a few snacks on the house, just as a way of saying thank you.

After the lunch rush, he helped himself to a large Dr. Pepper. He ate the beef jerky from earlier and then microwaved a green chili burrito. In the late afternoon he ate a king size Snickers bar and opened a bag of ranch flavored Doritos. He listed these items on the back of a napkin, but didn’t write them in the ledger. The napkin was a precaution.

He kept expecting Mr. Deering to show up at some point. Though he had tried to convince himself that there was no reason to feel guilty, he couldn’t help keeping an eye on the parking spaces just outside the entrance, waiting for Mr. Deering’s pickup to pull in. He had even hidden the evidence, tossing the various food wrappers directly into the dumpster outside, afraid that Mr. Deering might find them later in the garbage bin behind the counter and check the ledger to see if it all matched up.

But Mr. Deering never showed up. He never even called. At ten o’clock that night, Andrew reset the alarm, locked the door, and headed home.

He fell asleep on the couch during the Late Show. Sometime close to midnight, his phone rang. He scrambled off the couch and picked up the receiver.

“Hello?” He said.

“Andrew? This is Murray – Mr. Deering.”

Hearing his boss’ voice caused Andrew to stiffen. His first thought was that Mr. Deering somehow knew about the food he had eaten.

“Mr. Deering. Hi. How’s your wife?”

“That’s why I’m calling.” Mr. Deering said. He stopped.

“Hello?” Andrew said.

“I’m here. I’m sorry I’m calling so late, but I need to ask you to cover the store again tomorrow. Can you do that?” His voice was weak.

“Sure.” Andrew said.

“Everything go okay today?” Mr. Deering asked.

“Yeah, yeah. It was fine.” Andrew said.

“Good.”

“You don’t need to worry about the store.” Andrew said. The TV remote had slipped down between the cushions on the sofa. He dug it out and pressed the power button. The screen went black.

“I know. I appreciate that, Andrew.”

“I hope your wife is doing better.” He said, walking toward his bedroom, turning lights off along the way.

“Thank you. But she’s not doing well. She’s really struggling.” There was a sound from Mr. Deering’s throat; a hard swallow.

“I’m sorry.” Andrew said.

“No, no, no. I appreciate what you’re doing for me at the store.”

“It’s nothing.”

“I’m sorry it’s so late.” Mr. Deering said again.

“I was just watching TV. It’s no problem, really.” Andrew said.

They wished one another goodnight and hung up. Andrew took a shower, brushed his teeth, and climbed into bed. Before falling asleep, he grabbed his laptop off the nightstand, and with it resting on his stomach, did a web search for the word pneumonia. He read the Wikipedia entry, an article on WebMD, and followed a link to a discussion forum with the topic pneumonia complications. He read until the words began to blur, and then closed the laptop and returned it to the nightstand.

The next morning, he arrived at Deering’s Gas and Grocery a few minutes early. He unlocked the doors and quickly disarmed the alarm. Before repeating his routine from the previous morning, he stepped behind the register and pulled out the clipboard with the ledger. He slipped his hand into the front pocket of his khakis and removed the crumpled napkin with the list of foods he had eaten the day before. He took a pen from the cup beside the cash register and used it to transfer the list on the napkin to the ledger. When he was finished, he returned it to its place.

A few minutes later, as he was filling the coffee dispensers, the first customer arrived.

*     *     *     *     *

To learn more about the Just-World Hypothesis, read the original Wikipedia article HERE.