2005-07-27 - 12:27 p.m.
Anyone still here? I started a story. I am posting it here.
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My hands are tight on the steering wheel as I navigate the intricacies of the mall parking lot. Light bounces violently off the giant shop windows creating a sense of utopia that must please the developers to no end. I watch un-sunglassed people shield their eyes with a salute and squint into their wild west.
A parking spot opens to my left and suddenly I am crowded by cars. I want this victory; I can taste this spot. It is mine. There is a moment of chaos as the dust settles and suddenly I feel like an Olympic champion. I see people stare with jealousy and admiration. Several times a day I have to remind myself that it is only a painted piece of gravel.
Here I am. In a car, in a parking garage, in a mall, in this town, in this world. Concrete over my head and under my feet. I silence the engine and sit, listening to the fade out of a song.
The mall is a paradise of shiny floors and bright lights. I listen to my sneakers squeak with the concentration of a burglar. The chatter drowns and rubber versus granite is the only thing I can hear.
Lana greets me at the front, welcoming me to the shop, asking if I need assistance. I wait a beat, considering the phrase that will embarrass her the least (“Um, hey Lana, long day? I’ll be right there to take over the shift.) and then the one that will shame her the most (“Are you fucking serious? You come to me with some sob story about your mother or whatever to cover for you yesterday and you don’t even know that I fucking work here?”). Before I can speak, she processes me.
“Hey, “she says quietly and I know she’s forgotten my name. “What time you here until?”
I cannot believe she has forgotten my name.
The old me would have made this easy for her. The old me forgave people their foibles.
“Oh, you know, normal shift, until close.” I am smiling and I am mean. When did I become this mean? “Lana,” I say deliberately. Slowly. Syllables glide off my tongue and I am grinning. I am a villain. She starts at her name and looks around me to greet a customer. This is my opportunity to walk away feeling unrooted but victorious. I punch in the code (1-3-5-7) and walk into the back, tripping over piles of cardboard. My locker is a grey box in the middle of nineteen other grey boxes. I use it as a target ; I convince myself to keep going at least until I get there.
Steve dances in front of me and whirls, his dreadlocks fanning like an umbrella or a jellyfish. He smiles broadly and leans in for a hug.
In the world of retail, you are forced into assumed intimacy. Trust me, you don’t know these people well, you won’t know them long, you don’t like most of them but you will still have to touch them on a daily basis. I don’t know why this is, but ask any clerk or cashier. Maybe it is because the store is so sterile, you find warmth wherever you can. Or because in some stores, all the employees are pretty and stylish and everyone wants to touch someone like that. Maybe they want to bask in the community light given off by a group of young, perfect people.
But I don’t mind Steve, so I indulge him. He is like a polite child, leaning in for a quick and proper hug, beaming.
“Miss anything exciting today?” I have no clue why I ask this at the start of every shift. Nobody notices that I ask this repeatedly, and they all drudge up some piece of gossip for my sake. I really don’t care; it is just a form of passing the torch. What would you talk about when stuck in a large room for seven hours with two people you sorta know and a million people you don’t?
“Mel’s on a rampage.”
“Coke?”
“Probably,” he sighs and stretches his long, pale, thin arms to the ceiling.
Holy shit. Do I have a crush on him?
“Does she have a target yet?”
Mel screams my name from the end of the long, filthy hallway.
“You.” Steve walks onto the sales floor, charming the masses.
“What can I do for you, Mel?”
“Where have you been? It is 4:05! Do you own a watch? HELLO? Are you listening to me?”
No. “Of course. I do, in fact own a watch, I am sorry but I was held up the parking lot, Mel. You know how it is on the weekend.”
“Punch in. Get out there. Smile. Register two.” Her words come in short, terse bursts and I feel like I’ve been shot.
I pound the soft squares on the time clock. Beep-Beep-Beep-Beep. My name flashes, with the time. It feels like a prison sentence and I can’t even begin to imagine what I’ve done to deserve it.
I gather my leaden cash box from the office and wait for a manager to escort me to the counter. Store rules dictate that an employee carrying $150.00 can’t walk fifteen feet alone. The clock ticks high on the grey wall, minutes pass and I am a living cliché: I can actually feel my life slipping by. Finally, Theo passes, purposefully striding towards the stock room. Theo can’t actually walk any other way but in purposeful strides. It is sad, really.
“Yo, Blondie.”
I sigh and then think of the word “sigh” in my head. As if the sound, the exhalation of breath isn’t quite enough.
“Hey Theo, walk me?”
Theo has beautiful long, black hair. It is shampoo commercial shiny. He is Asian or Hawaiian, I can never remember which, but everyone thinks he is an American Indian. Once, an elderly customer who had been shopping with her granddaughter referred to Theo as that “lovely Native American fellow.”
Maybe you had to be there.
“Sure, hon. Let me just get a medium.” Theo holds up the shirt like something he has recently hunted and killed. It hangs limp in his hand, but I can see splashes of white and I know what it says.
“Are things really bigger in Texas, Theo?”
Theo puts my drawer and hovers nearby as I count the cash. He presses against me as I lean for the calculator. The touching again.
“All here.”
“Joe was short yesterday. $50. Be careful; LP is on our backs.”
LP=Loss prevention=I don’t think I care. Not my money.
“Team meeting!” Shanisa ushers Joe and I into her circle, using a clipboard to swat us into position. Joe smirks at me but I look away. I hate him. I know most things aren’t so black and white, but it is true. From the first moment I saw him, his weaselly face and jock body, I knew that I would not save him if he were dying.
Shanisa has the most beautiful skin I have ever seen. It is this perfect shade of brown so dark it looks black. It shimmers. It looks like an oil slick and I am so jealous.
Her accent is thick, maybe Jamaican? I don’t know, but I have trouble understanding her. She also has this vague maternal quality that she will not drop. Shanisa always wants to talk, to discuss, to ask what is wrong, to counsel, to dispense her wisdom as she is two years older than us.
“We must be more diligent about sweeping! The cash wrap has looked horrible lately.” She slurs her r’s and instead say “hawwibble.”
Shanisa wears a weave that looks incredibly false. It sheds like a long-haired cat. By day’s end there are small nests of her Barbie hair in corners and I am not sweeping it. It is her hair, she can get rid of it.
She reads off a list of tasks that have been diligently ignored by the staff for years. The cashier that preceded me and the one that will take my place will stare at someone they detes, who is giving them orders and think bad thoughts.
It is impossible to be good, to be saintly, when you work at the mall.
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