6. Any More Receipt Booklets?

"Let's see if Don Enecleto is here," Ervey said to Chonito as he parked the Kodiak partially on the sidewalk  in front of the El Pascualeño store to avoid blocking traffic on the street. The establishment was housed in an old adobe building that seemed to stand alone amidst shorter more recently-built slap-dash cinder block structures. The adobes were partially protected from the elements by a coat of cement stucco that had cracked and lost several large pieces.  The whitewash on the stucco had all but eroded away along with the  black and blue capital letters spelling the store's name and the subtitle 'Paper Goods and School Supplies'
which were now legible only from a distance and in the good light of the day.


Ervey stepped down from the big truck and led the way. He pulled open the front door and quickly noted that the glass counter had moved from the center of the store, where he had last seen it, to the wall immediately to the right of the entrance. Furthermore, behind the class counter was a short clean-shaven young man with round features and olive skin, not Don Enecleto. Ervey greeted him with a quick slight backward nod. The young man looked up from a magazine he was reading and responded in kind. Ervey walked past the counter, and the young man went back to reading his magazine.


The entire store was contained within a single long cavernous room with a tall ceiling that showed signs of once harboring a partial mezzanine. All of its stock was on display. There was no door leading to a storage room, only a rollup door to the outside and a bathroom door to a tiny bathroom jutting into the middle of the storeroom from the back wall. Every wall and display table was crowded with merchandise. What was not hung on the wall was either leaded against it or piled onto a long tables that made a middle display aisle. The attendant's glass counter was just as busy. Under the glass surface facing upwards was a catholic calendar surrounded by an assortment of prayer cards that offered a wide assortment of images of Jesus Christ. In some, he was a pale-skinned man with a long flowing brown beard and hair facing the directly facing the viewer. In others he was an olive-skinned man with a cropped light brown beard and collar-length hair and a halo holding hands with a group of children as if he was leading them to school. On the front and sides of the counter was dedicated to lottery tickets and associated paraphernalia.


Every quickly scanned the counter and walked further into the store. Across the aisle in front of the counter there were school supplies and textbooks. At the end of aisle on both sides he saw cleaning materials. He looked to his left and saw Chonito leafing through what looked like note books, and he walked over to him.


"See any receipt booklets," he asked Chonito in a light voice.


"Oh, you're looking for that," Chonito responded.


Ervey did not say anything. He looked everything over carefully. In the middle island next to where Chonito was standing, he found receipt booklets. There was only on kind, however, and they did not at all resemble the one in the Kodiak's glove compartment. He kept walking down the aisle until he reached the end. That end of the store was also full of cleaning materials. Rounding the island, he saw maps, rulers and textbooks, nothing at all that looked like receipt booklets all the way to the other end of the store. He slowly walked the full length of the back aisle just to make sure.


"May I help you with something," said the attendant.


"Yes, receipt booklets," answered Ervey, "about half the size of a sheet of notebook paper, paperback."


"If we have them, they're in the back aisle on the tables at about the middle of the island," said the attendant, pointing in the direction he had just described to Ervey.


Ervey walked back to where he had just been. Chonito heard the attendant and met Ervey at the indicated spot. Together they scrutinized every part of the table.


"I just looked here and didn't see anything," Ervey whispered. They kept looking and sure enough, underneath a pile of rolled up wall prints was an assortment of more receipt books. Ervey rolled his eyes in disbelief. He and Chonito made an item by item inventory of what they found. Only one candidate emerged. There was a clutch of several dozen half-sheet receipt booklets, but they were all hard backs.


"You bought the one in the glove compartment, güey, did you find it here?" asked Ervey.


"I don't remember, but I think it they were in the front aisle," said Chonito.


"Well, anyway, look through them to see if they have any handwriting like the other one," Ervey instructed.


The attendant noted their delay.


"You find them?" he asked.


"Yeah, we found the section you mentioned, but not the types of booklets we ween," said Ervey, continuing to leaf through the booklets he had found.


The attenant spoke up again when Ervey and Chonito had not budged.


"Will any of the ones you see there work? Is there anything else," he asked.


"We're trying to see," answered Ervey, looking up and indicating to Chonito with his eyes to continue leafing while he tried to settle the attendant.


"We need ones that match the ones we've been using. They're slick blue, fifty receipts per book with carbon pages in the back to make duplicates on the spot," Ervey told the attendant as he walked up to the counter.


The attendant thought for a moment, then shook his head. "No, if you don't find them there or over hear in the front aisle, then we don't have them," he said.


Ervey looked at him a long while, as if he was deciding something, then he said, "what do you think, güey, wil any of them work?"


Chonito took a few seconds to respond. "No, I just checked them all, and didn't find any one that works," he said.


"The first ones we bought were from here. I think they were in the front aisle," Ervey said.


"Must have been a long time ago," said they attendant.


"How long ago, güey," Ervey asked Chonito.


"About two years," Chonito responded.


"That long ago?" Ervey said, shaking his head.


"Yeah. Don Cheto was here then," said Chonito.


"Hmm. That's quite a while ago. We've gone through many re-stockings and re-arrangements of the merchandise in that time. What sells the most is up here in the front aisle. What you're looking at back there is old stock that never moved. The old man got that stuff, and he's doesn't mind the store anymore," said the attendant.


"That's too bad. I was really hoping to run into more of the same stock," Ervey said, "you know where we can get more like the kind we're talking about?"


"No," said the attendant.


"You think the old man would know?" asked Ervey, "we're related somehow.


"I don't know if he would. And I don't know anything about his family. I'm only his son-in-law," said the attendant.


"Is he close or somewhere you can call him to ask?" asked Ervey.


The attendant hesitated to answer. "He lives close by, but he's out right now. Up north in the US attending a funeral.


Ervey frowned. He got the message that there was not going to be more information forthcoming.


"OK. We'll stop by another time. When you see him, please tell him Ervey Armendariz came by and asked about him. That I'm a relative from Ciudad Chihuahua, and that I occasionally come by and say hello," said Ervey, "OK, güey, let's go."