Quick Chek on Saddle River
Pauly is as predictable as the cycles of the moon, insisting
on a buttered roll and coffee each morning, then Turkey and Swiss on rye in the
afternoon.
Scott is a cross between Clark Kent and Jimmy Olsen, so mild-mannered Pauly can’t help picking him, that mocking type of tease he used to reserve for Alf, but which the rest of us won’t tolerate, and Pauly missed the fun.
Paul, who looks as frail as a half-starved bird, isn’t the health nut he claims he is, smoking up a storm even when he ought not to, vowing to quit if he can, if only to keep the rest of us quiet, grubbing cigarettes from Hank, even when he hates the brand Hank always smokes, buying his own only when he can’t grub enough or when Hank’s not around to feed his habit.
Scott indulges Pauly the way Alf once did, not yet to the point where he gets angry at being the butt of Pauly’s jokes. He takes Pauly’s theories of global warning with a very larger grain of salt, just one of the many conspiracy theories the rest of us stopped listening while Scott nods and says, “that’s interesting,” as he slices turkey breast for Pauly’s sandwich or spread butter (never margarine) on Pauly’s buttered roll.
Scott aspires to be manager someday, takes business classes at night at the county college; the reason why he’s never at the Quick Chek at night during the week, only one weekends, a fixture so fixed in our minds we cannot imagine him not be there and know something is serious wrong when he’s not.
For all the times we see him week in and week out, we know almost nothing about him – a Christian from the silver cross he wears around his neck, and yet unmarried for the lack of a ring.
If he has a girlfriend or a boyfriend, we hear no word about it. Pauly who works part time at the Fotomat booth outside in the parking lot, secretly looks at the film Scott brings him to get develop, none of which tells us much except that Scott has family somewhere and goes from time to time to birthday parties.
“All cake and balloons,” Pauly complains as if desperate to uncover this enigma we know as Scott, fair-haired, blue-eyed boy who the film envelop tells us lives in Lodi – just up the road and within walking distance from the store he claims as home.
If he cries, we’ve never seen it; I’ve not even seen him in a sour mood, if not smiling then constantly on the verge of one, especially when Pauly picks on him.
Pauly, who always looks for the oddest explanations for the simplest things, claims Scott is secretly a space alien, to which Garrick claims Pauly has seen one too many episodes of X-Files and needs to stop smoking pot.
“Just leave the boy be,” Garrick says, trying not to play into Pauly’s usual guessing games, about this or that, making a mountain out of a mole hill Garrick claims is made of dung, each of us locked into this strange ritual, a holy communion on rye we share, one more mystery of the universe we must accept on faith.
Main Menu
email to Al Sullivan 
Scott is a cross between Clark Kent and Jimmy Olsen, so mild-mannered Pauly can’t help picking him, that mocking type of tease he used to reserve for Alf, but which the rest of us won’t tolerate, and Pauly missed the fun.
Paul, who looks as frail as a half-starved bird, isn’t the health nut he claims he is, smoking up a storm even when he ought not to, vowing to quit if he can, if only to keep the rest of us quiet, grubbing cigarettes from Hank, even when he hates the brand Hank always smokes, buying his own only when he can’t grub enough or when Hank’s not around to feed his habit.
Scott indulges Pauly the way Alf once did, not yet to the point where he gets angry at being the butt of Pauly’s jokes. He takes Pauly’s theories of global warning with a very larger grain of salt, just one of the many conspiracy theories the rest of us stopped listening while Scott nods and says, “that’s interesting,” as he slices turkey breast for Pauly’s sandwich or spread butter (never margarine) on Pauly’s buttered roll.
Scott aspires to be manager someday, takes business classes at night at the county college; the reason why he’s never at the Quick Chek at night during the week, only one weekends, a fixture so fixed in our minds we cannot imagine him not be there and know something is serious wrong when he’s not.
For all the times we see him week in and week out, we know almost nothing about him – a Christian from the silver cross he wears around his neck, and yet unmarried for the lack of a ring.
If he has a girlfriend or a boyfriend, we hear no word about it. Pauly who works part time at the Fotomat booth outside in the parking lot, secretly looks at the film Scott brings him to get develop, none of which tells us much except that Scott has family somewhere and goes from time to time to birthday parties.
“All cake and balloons,” Pauly complains as if desperate to uncover this enigma we know as Scott, fair-haired, blue-eyed boy who the film envelop tells us lives in Lodi – just up the road and within walking distance from the store he claims as home.
If he cries, we’ve never seen it; I’ve not even seen him in a sour mood, if not smiling then constantly on the verge of one, especially when Pauly picks on him.
Pauly, who always looks for the oddest explanations for the simplest things, claims Scott is secretly a space alien, to which Garrick claims Pauly has seen one too many episodes of X-Files and needs to stop smoking pot.
“Just leave the boy be,” Garrick says, trying not to play into Pauly’s usual guessing games, about this or that, making a mountain out of a mole hill Garrick claims is made of dung, each of us locked into this strange ritual, a holy communion on rye we share, one more mystery of the universe we must accept on faith.
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