Sunday 18 January 2015

Duran’s Wal-Mart | Theland E. Thomas

People mill around the parking lot in various stages of apathy. Some drive off in their cars, careful not to hit meandering pedestrians. They trickle in and out of the looming citadel before them: Wal-Mart. Its massive shadow pours onto the lot, its form blotting out the sun, giving the illusion of a cloudy evening rather than the blistering summer midday. I enjoy the cool shade on my skin as I walk toward the building. The glass paned doors slide open as I approach, and I step out of the way of other customers exiting. One walks beside the other who wheels in an electric scooter, her tremendous rolls of fat spilling out of her clothes, and over the armrests in the seat. I look away. As they pass, one says, “It’s completely hopeless. You might as well just give up.”
    I feel my mouth dip into a slight frown as I grab a basket. Crap! The one I grab has a sticky handle. “God,” I mutter, the breath slowly passing through my lips. I wipe my right hand on my pant leg, and it leaves a slight red smudge. The residue remains on my palm. Snatch another basket from the pile. The next set of sliding doors reveal an annoyingly smiley door greeter. Noises of scanners beeping and carts rolling and voices talking bombard me. It smells like stale bread.
The greeter stares me in the face, but I am trying to avoid looking at him. I’m almost past him when he says, “Welcome to Wal-Mart! Anything I can help you find?” His tone pierces through the din of grocery store sounds. It’s too cheery for such a miserable place. And now I have to look at him.
I glance up, and feign a smile that comes of as a tight-lipped grimace. “Nope, thanks.”
I’m going to get in and out of this hell hole with what I need. Some school supplies. Notebooks in particular.
I’ve never been a big fan of crowds, and there are people everywhere in here. My game face is on. It’s that blank mask people wear when they’re in uncomfortable situations like elevator and train rides. The aisles are jammed with carts. Looking around, I am slightly appalled to see whole families shoveling items directly from the shelves into their carts. An unshaven man whose belly stretches his plaid shirt has three carts all to himself… each stuffed to the brim with customized beer hats. His face is stricken when he turns from his full carts and notices there are still more hats left on the shelf. Slowly, his head turns from his carts to the shelf and back. I move on.
    As I try to walk past the next aisle, a cart flies in front of my path, forcing me back. A tall, running woman follows. She shouts back to her two obese, jogging children, “We have to get everything! There’s a big sale today!”
    One of the children slows. He has chocolate covering the left side of his mouth. “But mommy,” he whines, a definite fear in his little eyes, “what if we don’t get everything?”
    The woman stops and whirls around on the child, her face contorted into a red mask of rage. “We. Have. To. Get. Everything.” Her eyes bulge as her lips curl into a crazed grin.
I gulp, and a chill runs down my spine as I turn from the spectacle and walk toward my destination. I hate the back-to-school section. It’s always clogged with snotty-nosed children and their helicopter parents trying to get the best deal on designer rip-offs. But I just need five notebooks. Notebooks are only 19 cents here. It’s a better deal than at Office Max or the local grocery store.
I turn into the back-to-school isle, and I'm met by a horrendous sight. It’s completely empty. Which would have been a relief if not for the Halloween decorations everywhere. Orange bags of candy sit on black and orange tinsel-lined shelves. Black and grey spider web stickers adorn the floor. Where the hell is the back-to-school stuff?
Shocked, I step back and look around. A lump gathers in my throat. I’m going to have to ask for help. Ok, let’s get this over with. I start down the main isle. One reason, of many, that people hate Wal-Mart is the complete lack of customer service agents available for assistance. It’s always a goose chase to hunt down the elusive blue-shirts, and when you find one, he always works for another department and doesn’t speak English, but will definitely page somebody else as he walks away from you.
I feel the hard linoleum beneath my feet as I walk from one end of the store to the other avoiding the mad race of carts and bodies and scooters and baskets. Now I’m in produce. Odds are, if I keep walking, I’ll find what I need on my own? Right? I see a blue-shirt! Excited, I wave him down from afar. My excitement plummets when I realize who it is: the happy door-greeter.
    He flashes a full-faced smile as he approaches. “What can I help you with?” He leans upon his toes on the last word, and I notice how young he looks. Maybe 15 at most. Too young to be trapped here. Too young to know what he’s gotten into.
Although I’m not all that much older than he is. Relatively, anyway.
“Um,” I start, “Where is your back to school section? I saw it right at the front of the store the other day.”
He pinches his mouth to one side. “Um, I dunno!” He declares, chipper as ever. “I’m actually new here. But follow me! I’ll find someone who knows!”
He spins around and starts off. He’s walking too fast, He’s too energetic. He needs to take a chill pill. I catch up and walk slightly behind him, off to one side. The kid leads me through a set of brown double doors.
It’s a completely different world over here. Suddenly, the harsh clamor of the store is cut off . The quiet makes my ears ring. Boxes and pallets of materials are stacked up the stories high. The smell of cardboard and sawdust tickles my nose. No surprise, there’s no one in sight back here. We walk in a tiny lane line by walls of brown and white boxes.
“So what’s your name?” the kid asks suddenly.
It takes me a second to extract myself from my thoughts. “Um, Duran.”
“That’s a cool name, Duran. Don’t hear that one too often. My name’s Stephen.”
Well, he’s nice. I should try to be nice. “Nice,” I say, “any relation to Stephen King?”
“No,” Stephen says, audibly confused. “I’m related to my dad, Stephen Jacobson Sr.”
“Oh, okay.” Alright, I’m never going to try to be nice again.
We walk in silence for a few minutes, feet slapping the grey concrete floors that replaced the shiny linoleum on the sales floor. Boxes blend together as we turn right then left then left then right left right left and we’ve been walking for quite some time, so why haven’t we seen anybody yet?
I offer a fake chuckle. “Everyone on break or something?”
Stephen stops and turns around with a smile. “I’m sure they’re all busy helping out. We’ll find someone soon!”
I really want to believe him. But last time I was at a Wal-Mart, I needed to get some keys cut, and no one ever showed up to the desk, so I ended up just going to an Ace Hardware.
The hall of boxes transitions into a gigantic concrete room. The cold overhead lights illuminate a long line of people standing single file as far as I can see into the distance. Everyone in line shuffles and budges and grumbles but no one advances forward.
“Okay,” I say, “What the hell is this? I thought we were going to find someone.”
Stephen offers a sheepish smile. “We did find someone. We found lots of people.”
I look at him and then to the line again. Everyone in line is disheveled and dirty. The ones who aren’t morbidly obese are emaciated, barely even bones and skin. Their clothes hang off of them in torn rags.
“What is this?” I demand.
The man at the back of the line, a huge guy in a dirty, green sweater, huffs and lumbers the 180 degrees to face me. “Welcome to the EternaLine!” he bellows, grinning to reveal rotten, blackened teeth. “What are you here for? A return? A complaint?”
He’s grossing me out a little bit. I just saw a bug jump from his sparse, matted hair to his shoulder. “Um,” I gulp. “I’m actually looking for someone to help me find the back-to-school section.”
HA!” the man spits, warm flecks landing all over my face, “You want help?! Well, get in line buddy! With the rest of us!”
I grimace and wipe my face with my shirt sleeve.
“And don’t you ever think about cutting me in line,” the gigantic man continues. “We all know what happened to the last guy who cut in line.” He gestures to his left. That’s when I notice a pile of bones in a far corner of the room.
“Argh!” I cried, “HOLY SHIT!” I backpedaled frantically. This place is crazy! Someone was murdered here! But there’s not just one. I gasp as I notice the impossibly-large room is littered with decaying bodies and skeletons. “HOLY - AHHHH!”
The man turns around. “Isn’t that right, Blinky?” He slaps the scrawny guy in front of him on the back, and the form suddenly topples onto the ground, a skull with a full head of hair rolling away with the noise of a hollow clay cup.
“OH MY GOD!” I scream as I turn around and run. Stephen’s running with me. By the wall. This crazy room! Slam into the door. Stumble into another room.
What the hell? No time to catch my breath. There’s dead people back there! I’m going to die!
I look around. This room is dim with warm lighting. It smells of perfume and food. It’s not a large as the other one, but the walls are all giant screens playing different scenes.
“WAL-MART IS THE ONLY PLACE I DO MY SHOPPING!”
The sudden blare from the screen behind me makes me yelp. I spin around to see the floor-to-ceiling projection of a sporty woman holding a clearly branded, grey Wal-Mart bag.
The scene fades to black, and another screen flashes to my side.
“WHEN I STARTED NEEDING HEART MEDICATION, I KNEW I COULD TRUST THE WAL-MART PHARMACY!” booms the gargantuan projection of an elderly hispanic man.
More propaganda floats across the smooth tile from the other side of the room:
“SAVE MONEY. LIVE BETTER. AT WAL-MART!”
“WAL-MART: HOME OF THE FRESHEST GROCERIES!”
The gigantic smiling faces bare down on us from all sides. They are no longer just commercials - they are staring at me. Right at me! My stomach twists in knots.
“COME TO WAL-MART!” booms a young, commercially attractive woman to my left.
“YES, COME TO WAL-MART!” pleads the hispanic man with kind, pleading eyes.
“STAY WITH US!” demands the sporty woman behind me. I spin around to see her leaning in towards me, hands pushing on the screen.
“YES, STAY WITH US!” floats the voice from across the room.
“STAY WITH US!” they start chanting, shaking the ground and blowing my hair, “STAY WITH US! STAY WITH US! STAY WITH US! STAY WITH US!”
    I take a step back and turn to see Stephen King standing by the door, curling into himself. He tries to offer me a smile, but he can’t. He’s terrified too. I can barely hear him say, “Let’s try to get some help”. I grab his hand, and we run back through the door leaving behind cries bemoaning our departure.
    We’re back in the room of the dead. My skin crawls as I see the line of people just standing among the bodies. I take a deep breath.
    Stephen turns to me and throws on a weak - but brave - smile. “I really don’t want to get fired, so I’m going to try to get you some help.”
    He’s insane. I’m sweating. “You know what, man,” I say, “If you can just get me out of here, I’ll just go to Office Max and pretend I didn’t see a thing.” In the back of my head, I’m preparing myself the the possibility of death in this dingy circus prison.
    Stephen bites his lip and nods frantically. “Yeah,” he says. His eyes are on mine, but he isn’t seeing me. “Yeah, I’ll do that.”
    With that, he sets off toward the front of the line.
    “Wait,” I call after him, not budging. “Wait, Stephen! Stephen don’t!”
    Hey!” a gruff voice calls out from the line. “What’s this guy doing?”
    Dozens of sunken, angry eyes turn toward Stephen’s determined, marching form.
    “This bastard’s trying to cut in line!” the man shouts.
    Suddenly a chunk of the line breaks loose and runs toward Stephen. He tries to run away from the crowd, but they descend upon him too fast.
    “Look, he’s a blue-shirt!” One of them cries. I grit my teeth as they overtake the poor kid in a mob and start beating him. He only stands for a few seconds, and I see the flash of his blue uniform fall into the pile of grey. I start to step back. The mob won’t stop! It’s horrible. They just keep punching and kicking and punching…
One by one, they begin to peel away and return to their exact positions in line. I have to cover my mouth when I see what’s left of Stephen. Tears well up in my eyes and spill in warm streams onto my hands. Stephen is nothing but a red splatter on the cement. And I’m running away, choking up sobs. I swing open the door and run back into the screen room.
Only it’s not the screen room anymore.
The room is small, and it’s completely white. I spin around, and the door isn't even there anymore. The floor is soft mattress padding. I turn around again and see something peculiar. Sobbing, I try to smear the tears away with my wet hands. There is a head sticking up through the padding in middle of the floor. The face of an elderly man with whitish-grey hair looks up at me as I take a few steps closer.
His eyes swivel toward me. “Kid,” he says in a strained, elderly voice, “kid you gotta help me! Look what they did to me!”
“What?” I sniffle.
“Kid,” he pleads, “it’s me! Sam Walton! You gotta help me out of here!”
I’m… I don’t... I can’t do it anymore. Black spots in the corners. Creeping in.
“Hey, kid!” Sam Walton says again. My vision clears. “Hey, this is all a dream, you know.”
It has to be. Nothing this crazy happens in real life. This has to be a dream. Suddenly I’m happy! I’m rushed with an overwhelming elation. This is all a dream! And tomorrow I can wake up and get my school supplies!
“Yeah, it’s all a dream, kid,” Sam Walton strains, “and if you lift me up outta here, you can wake up!”
My heart jumps. “Really?”
“Yeah, kid, really. Pull my hair!”
I step forward, and grab hold of his wispy, white hair. I pull him up with every ounce of strength I have. Part of his scalp splits, and I see blood seeping. Like Stephen’s blood. I let go and fall back onto the padding. With trembling limbs and grunts, Sam Walton pulls himself onto the padding. He struggles to stand and takes a long, yawning stretch.
Then he walks toward me. “Hey, thanks, for the help, kid. But I’m sad to say… this ain’t a dream.” The door is back, and Sam Walton opens it.
Slowly, the padding begins to engulf me and turn me right side up until it’s my head sticking out of the middle of the floor. As Sam Walton steps through the door, I begin to cry again. Hard, body-rocking sobs from the gut. Tears and snot spill down my face and cheeks and into my mouth. “This isn’t fair!” I cry.
    “Life’s not fair!” Sam Walton sneers. “But I hope you live better at Wal-Mart! Forever.”

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