Superstore

Marvin Graye had fifteen seconds to decide if he was going to run or remain crouched against the freezer in the dairy aisle of Gretchen’s Superstore. He didn’t hear the initial “get down on the ground” until the criminal, who would later be identified as “Giorgio [Redacted],” yanked the microphone from a shaking teenage attendant and shouted through the overhead fuzz, “I said, get down on the ground!” Now that he was down, shivering, and experiencing an end-of-life craving for pizza rolls that were conveniently stocked in the freezer behind him, he realized that he had a decision to make: be a hero, or be a hostage.

“More like be a fool,” came the stiff voice of his mother, slicing through his thoughts like a sheet of printer paper on skin. “I don’t care if you don’t bring me the groceries on time, even though your brother and father and I currently have nothing in the fridge for a decent meal. I care if you live. I love you, and I want grandchildren.”

Marvin Graye shivered again, both at the cold pulsing against his back and the high probability of his mother’s last words sounding something like what he had just imagined. A few people were wimpering now, and isolated screams could be heard throughout the store. Marvin clunked the back of his head against the freezer and left it there. The air shimmered around him and his eyeballs felt like ice.

What do people do in these situations?

Suddenly, a scream. Two gunshots. Silence followed, punctured by an unending showering of glass.

Marvin Graye suddenly remembered that he was a track star. Number one in the state, a junior Olympic candidate.

He pushed his palms against the off-white speckled tile and launched off the freezer. He pierced the stifling air like a harpoon, rounded the dairy aisle, and dove into the canned food aisle. He bounced up and held his arms wide, his body a letter T, fingertips grazing the rows upon rows of canned goods, from peas to artichokes to peppers to corn to radishes pickles onions capers to fried beans garbanzo beans white beans jalapenos to salmon mackeral and finally tuna, two hefty cans of tuna which Marvin Graye grabbed without slowing down.

He rounded the corner into the World Foods aisle and his feet skidded through a pile of blood and shit, oh shit oh shit he was sliding, he was sliding down the aisle right into the waiting barrel of a pistol and -

He launched both cans of tuna. One smacked the gun just as it fired, sending the bullet into a sack of jasmine rice which erupted into the air, a hailstorm of grain. The other hit Giorgio [Redacted] right in between the eyes.

Witnesses would remember the scene for months to come, until the Triplet Bank Robbery that stole 500k from a local bank through decoys and an ingenious pulley system. They would describe Marvin Graye as a hero and a fool, which pretty much summarized how his mother felt every time she visited the cemetery.

“Idiot child,” she would say, tiptoeing her way through the hundreds of cans of tuna placed around, on top of, and nearby his grave. “My Tuna Hero.”