Buffy Checks Out

by Matt Brown
originally published on the blog - March 26 2005

I'm a good girl. Pop says to become something, first you have to imagine it, which worked for him because when he first moved here, he drove a delivery truck for a 24-hour fruit and vegetable store, and now he owns one. It keeps him out late at night alot, because the night guy is always being "unreliable." Pop tells me to never be "unreliable." He says to always be at work a little bit early, and to stay ten extra minutes at the end to make sure nobody needs any more help, even the other cashiers, even the ones who hate me. I always stay anyway. It makes my boss like me more.

Ma is worried about Pop most of the time, because he's not young any more, and because the walk home from the store to our house takes him longer than it used to. Ma worries about me too, because I have a job at a different grocery store, and cuz I wear eye makeup and have a friend named Eric who calls me on the phone. But I'm a good girl. I wanted the job to make things easier for Ma and Pop, because it's hard to ask them for money for stuff like makeup and clothes because my parents aren't from here and they don't understand why things like that are important for a girl like me. Some days Ma gets very angry with me and says things that aren't fair, about the way I dress and the friends I hang out with, but I try not to ever get mad at her back because she's had it so very much harder than me. Pop tells me that sometimes, when we talk in the kitchen after he gets home from work. I know that he's right, and I know that working in the store, he knows more people than Ma and has a better idea of what it's like here. Sometimes when Ma is against something I want to do, Pop lets me do it.

So I imagined that I would get a job, and Pop was right because I got one pretty soon after that. I imagined what kind of job I would like, like working in a hair salon or maybe a business office. I don't think I imagined working checkout at the IGA, but when I saw the sign in the window it seemed so easy, like when I used to help Pop with the register at the fruit store, so I filled out the application and Mr. Hylas hired me the next day. He taught me how to do register even though I already knew how to do it. And that was the first time "it" happened. The cashier next to me - her name is Beata and she hates me - was staring at me the whole time and when Mr. Hylas was done, she came up to me and asked me if I knew who I looked like.

I get it from the customers alot too. A few times a day, really. When her face is on one of the magazines in the rack, it happens more often. Sometimes they hold the magazine up next to my face and tell me things like "it's uncanny" or "you look just like her" or "you could be sisters." I guess it's dumb to mind, because they're probably right. I'm blonde. Pop says I'm pretty. I've got kind of a smushed nose, and green-grey eyes which are my favourite thing about me. Yeah. Okay, so I look like her.

Buffy.

I don't watch the show or anything, because it's usually on when I'm at work and Pop uses the VCR to tape the soccer game. I know it's not a bad thing to look like her, because people think she's pretty. I know that she's like a superhero or something, too, which is nice because that means she probably helps people and I'd like to be like that. One of the girl at school says she also has sex with vampires but I don't think she was telling me the truth because I thought Buffy was supposed to kill vampires? And that doesn't make sense if she also has sex with them.

I know there are vampires. And demons, too; one of them lives next door to me, although Pop tells me that she's just an old woman with a disease, but I've never seen anyone with a disease like that, except the old woman's daughter, who has the exact same lumps all over her skin just like my neighbour. Once I was helping her with her groceries - the old demon lady, not the daughter - and I accidentally touched her hand and it felt like a rubber boot. But I washed my hand real quick after that, just in case it really was a disease, but nothing happened to me. I think she's a demon, like the ones Buffy kills.

I got a book out of the library to learn more about vampires just in case I ever saw one. The book says that lots of the stuff on TV and in the movies is wrong, like vampires don't have scary bumps on their faces and they can't turn into bats or anything. The book says that vampires are very obsessive compulsive though, like my cousin Richie who is usually fine but who has to wash his hands alot after he goes to the bathroom because he's afraid of germs. I don't know if vampires are afraid of germs too but the book says that they usually "exhibit compulsive behaviour" like not being able to leave shoelaces untied even if they come upon a pile of shoes a mile high, or having to pick up sesame seeds if they fall on the ground. The book says that this can be helpful in identifying vampires, and also in defeating them, cuz if a vampire was chasing you, you could just spill a bunch of sesame seeds on the ground and the vampire would have no choice but to pick them up while you ran away.

Beata isn't a good cashier like me, because she's always getting angry at the customers. Like one time, we were having a contest in the store where we had to give out little game cards to all of the customers when they paid for their groceries, and Beata forgot to give some to this one woman, and the woman got really mad at her for it. But Beata didn't say she was sorry, she just started yelling back at the woman and calling her names. Mr. Hylas was away that day or else I know Beata would have got fired. But she came up to me after and told me that if I told on her to Mr. Hylas about what happened, she would see me after work and find out if I really had superpowers like Buffy, or if I was just a shrimpy little Greek girl like I looked like.

I'm scared of Beata. She's mean and she's got rough skin and even though she's my age she doesn't go to school and she has a boyfriend who's like 45 years old or something. And I really think she'd beat me up if she ever had a reason to. But I also kind of like watching her yell at the customers. When someone tells me I've done something wrong I apologize right away because I'm a good girl and I don't want anyone to get mad at me. But Beata never apologizes. And sometimes, she stares at the customers just to see if they'll say anything, and they never do. It's like a superpower, like she can't be stopped or killed or something.

Buffy was killed once. It said so in Entertainment Weekly. I saw her on the cover, at the library, so I checked it out when I was reading the vampire book. Buffy died but then the producers on the show brought her back to life on another network. Maybe you can't bring a character back to life on the same network if you've killed her. But it's cool that she came back to life even though she saved the world and died because of it. That's what should happen when you save the world.

One day at work Beata was being extra mean to everyone, including me. She'd always get quiet and polite when Mr. Hylas was close to her, but the rest of the time she was swearing and calling people names and making trouble. I tried to ignore her, and I even helped Jim stock shelves for a while because she wouldn't stop calling me bad things like "slut" and "skank" and telling me that she knew that I did sex stuff with my boyfriend in the back room of the store sometimes.

I don't even have a boyfriend, not even Eric although that's what Ma calls him. Pop knows it's not true, though, cuz he can't get me to blush when he mentions Eric's name and he says that if I was in love with Eric, I'd blush. I'm not really interested in anyone, either, because most of the boys at my school are pretty stupid. Sometimes they call me names like Beata does, too, but I ignore them. Sometimes I wonder if I saved them all from vampires, if they'd be nicer to me. But they probably wouldn't even notice. That girl in my class said that about Buffy too, that nobody knows that she kills vampires. I guess if everyone knew how strong she was, they'd all be afraid of her.

I stocked shelves with Jim until closing and then stayed ten extra minutes to see if anybody needed any more help. Nobody did, so I got my things and went out the back way to go home. I heard Beata yelling at someone in the alley, but that kind of thing happens a lot. Still, I went to see if she was okay, even though she hates me, because I know that if something bad ever happened to her, I'd feel bad about it. I know I'm a good girl.

When I got there, though, Beata's boyfriend - the one who's like 45 years old or something - was doing something to her, kind of pushing her up against the brick wall and Beata was trying to hit him and push him away but he wouldn't go. The only people I'd ever seen in fights were boys at school. I'd never seen a girl in a fight with a man. It was different, it wasn't as fast and it didn't look like Beata's boyfriend was being very fair because she was just trying to get out and he was choking her and hitting her in the head and making her hair go everywhere. Beata hit him once in the chest and a bunch of coins came spilling out of his jacket, and he swore at her and hit her on the mouth, and then he started crouching trying to pick them all up. It was like he completely forgot she was there for a minute, because it was so important for him to pick up everything he'd dropped. Beata was trying to catch her breath and she was bleeding from her mouth and also her eyebrow where she used to have her piercing.

I didn't think what to do, I just went over and took my backpack and hit Beata's boyfriend on the head with it as hard as I could. He swore at me and grabbed at my ankles but then Beata grabbed his hair and started to pull and while she was doing it she was screaming really really loud and really high and he pulled on my ankles and I fell over but I hit him again with my bag as I fell and then I was on the ground and the ground was muddy from the rain but I kicked out with my shoe and hit him in the chest and he was grabbing my thighs and Beata was punching the side of his head and I kicked him in the mouth and he reached out and grabbed my belt and then punched me really hard in the face and my head hit the ground and it really really hurt and I thought I was going to cry because my head felt like it was blowing up like a balloon and then I couldn't see as good any more and then

I remember that for a long time I just lay there and wondered about something. But I'm not going to tell you what I wondered, because

When I woke up I was in a room in the hospital, and a lot of people were there. Pop was there, and his eyes were all red because he'd been crying. Ma was there, and she was still crying a little bit. A doctor was there, in a white coat. A policeman was there, and I could see the gun on his belt. Beata was there, and she had bandages on her face and she was talking to the doctor and the policeman. And everyone was facing away from me because they all thought I was sleeping.

I could feel my body and it was all there. I could feel a bandage on my head like the one on Beata's. I could see some cuts and bruises on my hands, but my hands worked fine and didn't hurt. And I could see that Ma and Pop were worried about me, because they always are.

"I'm awake," I said.

-- For Demetra.