Clerk and Janitor (Winter Rowley)

[Thomas Legrand II]

((Takes place the Monday after New Years))

SuperKwik was one of Thomas’s favorite places to be. It was not only because his family wouldn’t be caught dead there, but also because the coffee was good and it was open during interesting hours, which fit more with Thomas’s schedule than just about anything else in this small town did. Plus, the more he’d come, the more he’d gotten to know the man behind the counter. Winter Rowley was…interesting. Had Thomas been more of the writing type and less of the reading type, he would’ve encouraged Rowley to let him write a little bit about him. The man was brilliant and quirky in all the ways that modern literature loved. However, Thomas was not a writer and, furthermore, preferred older literature, and so Rowley was perfectly safe from Thomas’s prying attention. Instead, the older man had decided to offer the younger man friendship in whatever way the other one would accept.

So far, that seemed to be chatting over a counter while drinking free coffee. Free pretty good coffee. That was always nice. And he’d been debating whether to challenge the man to chess. He’d never been that good—more of a literary man than a master tactician—but every time he came in Rowley was always huddled behind the counter, (behind the energy shots Thomas regarded with distaste from his days actually working in business) playing online chess. That probably meant he liked it. But who knew with the enigmatic Rowley?

So Thomas came into the store with his recyclable cup in hand, glanced around to find the store empty, and then went to the counter and leaned over to look at Rowley.

“Hello,” he greeted. “Are you winning again? Don’t let me interrupt if so.”

[Winter Rowley]

In many ways, working the counter at the Pilot Ridge SuperKwik was Winter Rowley’s ideal job.

He usually worked the late shift, which meant that everything was quiet, save for the gentle buzzing of the wall refrigerators and the fluorescent lights overhead. The phone never rang. Things broke less, on account of there being less idiots around to break them. Every handful of hours, he made a fresh pot of coffee and wiped everything down with a clean rag.

Most importantly, though, he got to play chess.

The SuperKwik’s sole desktop computer was an ancient, off-white Gateway that still ran Windows XP. The mouse and the keyboard were both connected at the back via wire, and there was no sound, because the original external speakers were long dead and lay forgotten in a dusty cardboard box at the back of the break room. In point of fact, the only useful, modern thing the computer could do was use an Ethernet cable to connect to the web. Rowley didn’t mind; it was the only thing he really needed it to do, anyway.

His thin, angular nose was no more than three inches away from the screen when the bell tied to the front door signaled someone’s arrival. The sound was accompanied by a rush of cold air from outside. He leaned back in the chair and craned his neck around at the same time Thomas leaned over the counter to look in. Rowley afforded the man a small, tired smirk.

“Your Highness,” he replied. His voice was thick with amusement, but it was not unkind. “I’m about to win on time. I don’t think this kid knows how to play bullet chess.”

Beyond him, the Gateway’s aging monitor displayed a white-and-beige chess grid. Rowley was playing black. There was a counter at the top left corner of the board that was ticking away, with ten seconds to go.

“Left pot’s fresh,” he said, after a pause. He gestured over his shoulder toward the old-but-dependable commercial coffee machine, which had three black-handled decanters on warming plates. “Just brewed it twenty minutes ago.”