Chapter Text
It’s a gloomy day and the weather is a perfect reflection of Snafu’s current mood. She’s overslept and is already late for work, and on top of that it’d started pouring down halfway to the record shop. Burgie’s girlfriend Florence had even warned her before she left the apartment, but she’d pointedly ignored her as she pulled on her boots to make a mad dash to the shop in hopes that she wouldn’t be so late her brother considered booting her out. And if she pretended not to notice the hurt look on Florence’s face on her way out, then it’d be only Snafu’s conscience that would be knocking her for it later.
Because it isn’t that Snafu doesn’t like Burgie’s new girlfriend, but it was just that she is around all the goddamn time. Snafu had liked the chill space she shared with Jay and Burgie, but an additional girl to the house kind of just messed up that mood. Suddenly, the living room in their apartment was no longer littered with beer bottles everywhere and MTV that’d been the ever-present background noise in their home had suddenly been replaced by dramas and romantic comedies. Everything had become so tidy and neat, and Florence ever-cheery mood only soured Snafu’s further because she seemed to be the only one that minded all this change.
So she is already in a bad mood as she barrels into the shop and out of the downpour outside, and her brother greets her with a sarcastic, “Well, look what the cat dragged in.” Reuben is sitting behind the counter and is eyeing her over the newspaper he is pretending to read. Snafu knows he’s just been sitting around waiting for her, doing nothing just so he can scold her for being ten minutes late. “So what’s your excuse this time?”
As if he hadn’t just opened up shop. He hadn’t even bothered to switch on the tacky neon signs hanging around the wall and the one in the display window yet.
“Would it make a difference if I actually had one?” Snafu asks as she flips the switches by the entrance and watches neon’s of pink, yellow and blue flicker to life. “Or are y’just sayin’ that to make me feel bad.”
“Of course I’m guilt-trippin’ you. I wouldn’t have believed any lie you could have conjured up as an excuse for you oversleeping – for the fourth time this month, might I add.”
Snafu rolls her eyes in annoyance as she peels off her soaking coat and dumps it on the floor by her brother’s feet. As if she hadn’t already deposited enough in her bank of guilt today with the way she’d treated Florence before she left the apartment.
Reuben, having noticed the eye-roll, folds up his paper to look her directly in the eye. “Just ‘cause you’re my little sister, doesn’t mean I ain’t expecting you to turn up on time just like everybody else.”
Snafu resists the urge to roll her eyes again. “Pete’s always fuckin’ late too,” she says flatly, unconcerned that she is throwing her own brother under the buss. She is getting tired of hearing this lecture every other month.
“Hey, language. Ma wouldn’t want to hear you say shit like that,” Reuben scolds, dodging the accusation entirely.
“Whatever, man.”
Reuben looks like he is about to say something else, the worried frown on his face making the hairs on Snafu’s arms stand on edge, but in the end Reuben just sighs in that tired way of his. “As reward for your unrelenting tardiness, y’can clean the break room. Your brother Pete’s been smokin’ up the whole place and turnin’ my walls yello’, as well as treatin’ my floor like a goddamn ash-tray.”
“He’s your brother too,” Snafu counters unimpressed as she twists her braids, shaking off the rain water attempting to penetrate her curly hair strands.
“Not until he pulls his weight he ain’t no brother of mine,” Reuben says, unfolding the newspaper again, to actually read it this time it would seem. “Once you’re done with that, y’take stock of the records out front, alright? And make sure you sort ‘em first by genre and then alphabetically. Damn kids’ve been visiting again and think it’s fuckin’ funny to mess up my shit on purpose, and now Led Zepplin and LL Cool J is all mixed up which just won’t fly.”
Snafu wants to protest at the unfair work-load, but wisely keeps her mouth shut. The weekdays are always more quiet anyway, only a spackle of students from the nearby campus comes popping by between classes and Reuben handled them anyway – meaning, he would be keeping a watchful eye out so his obsessive compulsive filing system wasn’t intentionally fucked with.
Even Pete isn’t really allowed to touch the records being the scatter-brain that he is. Their youngest brother is only allowed to DJ what music to play on the speakers every now and again, and manning the check-out when he isn’t too stoned. But the customers like him; he is a friendly, forthcoming guy which really bumped up the sales a lot. It’s partly why Reuben didn’t give him a hard time about being chronically late, unlike with Snafu who the ‘friendly and forthcoming’ genes in their family had apparently decided wasn’t worth the hassle.
Hence why there is a really unflattering review of Reuben’s Records from one year ago in the local paper about the rudest, biggest know-it-all of a sales associate the journalist had ever had the displeasure of meeting, and Snafu has had all her customer interaction rights revoked. It is only under close supervision or due to an emergency Reuben lets her near any customers these days whatsoever. That, or when Reuben needs to chase someone out right away. Snafu thinks that ‘watchdog’ is a more appropriate job title for her during those times.
Now though, ‘cleaner’ is closest to the truth as she gets to work on her assignment and drags out buckets of soapy water, the dustpan and broom and some clean cloth from the little closet in the break room. It doesn’t take long before she realises that there’s nothing to be done about the smoked-down walls without making a disastrous mess of them first, so she decides Reuben either has to do that himself or have to replace the wall paper entirely. It is tacky as shit anyway, so it’d be for the best.
The rest of the room definitely benefits from a good scrub though, and if Snafu is to take her all her frustration out on it then who is to blame her? Not only did her day start off shit but it hasn’t exactly improved as she is forced to clean up after her brother, and on top of all that she can feel unwanted guilt bubbling to the surface for treating Florence like shit that morning. She hadn’t deserved that at all; Florence is sweet and kind, and doesn’t utter a single bad word about anyone. She also makes Burgie happy, most importantly. Yet, for some unknown reason, Snafu just can’t seem to get her head on straight around her, and turns snappy and irritable whenever she’s nearby.
Snafu couldn’t even blame anyone but herself for winding up where she is mentally and physically in this exact moment. If she hadn’t stayed up late smoking and shooting shit with Jay, she wouldn’t have overslept and turned up late for her shift again, and wouldn’t have acted like a dick towards her roommate’s girlfriend. The latter might be a major character flaw on her side though; not exactly an area where she could try to shuffle blame considering that asshole of a journalist’s review that forever immortalized her as an intolerable bitch.
“Fuck,” she mutters and throws the cleaning brush back into the soapy water-bucket. Peeling off the rubber gloves, she rubs at her tired eyes and attempts to still her treacherous, self-deprecating thoughts.
It is difficult to make the self-doubt shut the hell up once it rears its’ ugly head, but thankfully someone up or down there shows him some mercy by providing a distraction: “Hey, Mer,” Reuben’s voice echoes from another room. “Got some people comin’ in. Give ‘em a hand, will you? I ought’a sort some bills and other important shit out in my office.”
She huffs. Called on like a dog when she is needed, what a fucking joke. Reuben mustn’t care too much about these customers then otherwise he wouldn’t be asking her to take care of business. That, or he just couldn’t deal today. Reuben went into a funk sometimes where he secluded himself to the office, and during those times there is no point in even trying to do anything but what she’s been ordered to do. Usually, he would have asked someone else to cover for him, but Snafu is the only other person in today.
Carelessly, she abandons the discarded cleaning supplies and follows the chill beat of the Kinks into the shop. There’s a little group of people that’s entered, browsing casually through the rows of records lining the walls; two boys and a girl, probably students by the looks of them.
The contrast between the two boys’ looks is almost cartoonish in character; one of them is tall and handsome in a boy-next-door kind of way, while the other is a shorter, broader boy with a blond buzz-cut and a very punch-able face, in Snafu’s opinion. The tall one gives off the air of being a tag-along by the uninterested way he is picking his way through records, while the short one is very much crowding the girl of the group’s space, like an overbearing boyfriend.
When Snafu’s attention settles on the young lady in question, her heart stutters a little; she looks like she stepped out of a fashion magazine. Her hair is perfectly quaffed into a short pixie-cut that compliments her pointy features, and her attire – a stylish off-white button-down tucked into a loose pair of high-waist trousers that’s all wrapped neatly together with a sturdy men’s belt – seems too smart-casual to be coincidental.
Snafu doesn’t usually feel conscious about the way she looks – in fact, she actually takes a great deal of pride in being able to rock thrift shop clothes and hand-me-downs from her older brothers; most women her age would never rock the sweater vest or ugly Hawaiian print after all – but something about this girl made her tug self-consciously at the hem of her too-large jumper, as a traitorous voice whispers all sorts of mean-spirited things in her ear. Snafu does her best to squash those thoughts before they get any time to take root in her mind.
“Can I help you?” She asks to catch the attention of the newcomers.
The easy chatter that’d been going on in the group quietens and Snafu feels three pairs of eyes settle on her, making the hairs on her arms stand on edge. Dealing with customers made her blood curdle at times and, if Snafu is ever going to admit to having any form of self-insight, is most likely the reason for her general disdainful attitude towards them. This despite customers being the ones who put food on her table, but her dislike and untrustworthiness towards them had little regard for this fact.
The pretty girl meets her eyes, her gaze assessing if a little uncertain. She looks like she’s about to say something, but the short guy cuts her off before the girl even has a chance to open her mouth to speak. “We’d like to talk to the owner. Is he around?” As the boy says this, he sticks a record back into the row he’d been browsing randomly and without really looking. Reuben wouldn’t be pleased to know.
“My brother’s busy,” Snafu lies, knowing Reuben is probably in his office doing anything but ‘bills and other important shit’, but isn’t about to tell these people that.
“Well, can you go get him?”
“Told you, he’s busy.”
The girl looks like she is about to interrupt, but the shorter boy barrels on. “We wanted to talk to him about a review of the shop that was published in the local paper.”
Snafu leans against the counter in an attempt to appear unperturbed by this unexpected turn, crossing her arms as she coolly regards the boy through hooded eyes. If these assholes wanted to bring that shit from the paper up for kicks, then they’d another thing coming and it isn’t Snafu’s too-patient brother. “You’re a bit slow on the uptake, I take it.”
The boy squints at him, making himself look like an oaf. “What d’ya mean?”
“First of all, I’ve already told you he’s busy. Secondly, that ‘review’, if y’can even call that ass-wipe that, got published over a year ago. I’d say you’re a bit behind on the times, boy.”
“Well, by your bitchy tone I am going to guess you’re the sales associated mentioned in said review,” The short one bites back superiorly. “I can’t imagine you make a lot of sales treating your customers like that.”
Snafu, who already wants to kick his teeth in, feels her own teeth gnashing together. This isn’t how she imagined her day to go. God is in a mood with her today, she can already tell and Snafu wonders what she’s done to her to deserve to be treated this way.
“Bill!” The pretty girl scolds the short guy, whose name is apparently Bill, in response to the insult. She scowls, looking like a disproving mother, before her eyes slide back to Snafu and her face turns apologetic. “He doesn’t mean that,” she tells Snafu while elbowing Bill in the side. “Right?”
Snafu blinks perplexed. She isn’t used to having people defend her, especially when she didn’t deserve it like now where she is intentionally acting like a dick. Still, it’s… nice, and she finds she appreciate the girl’s effort.
There’s a half-hearted mutter from Bill, and the girl – Gene? – elbows him again. “Right, Bill?”
“Whatever.”
It’s not exactly what Gene had been hoping for, Snafu could tell by the way her eyebrows scrunch together with frustration. If Snafu is to guess, this isn’t the first time young Bill has had a bit of a short fuse.
“Ain’t no point in even trying talking to her, Gene. You got what you were lookin’ for; bad customers’ service, a ramshackle shop and the staff is a bitch to boot. This fresh review has practically written itself,” Bill says and heads towards the door.
The girl looks disappointed and Snafu almost feels bad, because it isn’t her fault that Snafu is having a bad day and her boyfriend is acting like an asshole. Still, the short boy’s word stings and Snafu can feel guilt and anger from previous failures bubble up within her and overshadowing whatever else she’s feeling, making her bite out; “Well, if you were lookin’ for some sappy bullshit to fuck in the car to, then this ain’t the place anyway so why don’t you fuck off.”
It’s a bad move. They are barely managing as is, and if these people were journalists then she’d fucked up not only once but twice, and she is starting to wonder why Reuben bothers to keep her around when she fucks up his business so much.
“C’mon, Gene, Oswalt, we’re leaving.”
Snafu watches sullenly as Bill and the tall boy shepherds Gene out of the door, barely catching the apologetic look the other girl throws over her shoulder before she squishes her face in her jumper to muffle her own frustrated scream.