Counter Culture : Not It
Adam Matcho
I saw him roll into the store and over to the jewelry case. I had seen him before.
He used a motorized wheelchair to navigate past the staggered shelving units and the cash register, stopping in front of the tall glass cases that display our collection of rings, pendants, necklaces and earrings.
My coworker, Chris, looked over to me, his nose and cheeks scrunched up like he had to sneeze. I understood. I had seen that face before too.
Chris was eyeing the man’s slouched, almost broken posture. The stained, wrinkled clothes; the drool in the corner of his mouth.
He walked over to me, the way all retail employees do when they want to talk about somebody in the store. He got within whispering range, “I don’t think I can wait on him.”
I looked again at the man in the wheelchair. I have always been kind to the guy whenever he came in, which was once every two or three weeks. But he had always been a browser then. Now, apparently, he was solely my customer because I didn’t call “Not it!” fast enough. I wouldn’t have minded, even the musty smell the man emitted wouldn’t have deterred me, but I have a severe aversion to saliva. It’s on a short list of things — along with spiders, cabbage, menstrual blood and eyeballs — that makes me feel like I could vomit upon contact. The last real fight I ever got into was over saliva. (I thought the person sitting behind me in a classroom spit on the back of my head one time.)
Almost all of the other employees in the store completely ignored this man when he came in. That’s probably why he never bought anything; nobody ever acknowledged him. I always smiled when he passed. Once, I even asked him about the Pirates because he always wears a baseball cap with a deteriorating, yellow P on it. I felt that was awfully noble of me. I couldn’t comprehend any of his mumbled response, but his eyes focused for a moment and his arms began shaking. I smiled and spoke empty words like, “sounds good” and “let me know if you need anything.”
I looked at him now. Maybe he remembered our conversation. That could be a nice moment for us. But he just sort of sat in front of the jewelry case staring. His head was cocked to one side, resting on his left shoulder, and his arms and wrists looked useless, arthritic and rigid, crumpling in on themselves like a dying flower. Stray threads from the faded, yellow P on his Pirates hat stood on end, reaching toward the glass case, as if static electricity was drawing them near. A steady stream of drool collected at the corner of his mouth and occasionally dripped onto a damp puddle on the shoulder of his green army jacket.
Chris was whispering to me again. “I seriously can’t do this. I’m sorry. I just can’t. They don’t pay us enough for this shit.”
I shook my head and shrugged my shoulders. I kept making involuntary, jerky motions with my body. I shook my hands, as if they had fallen asleep or were on fire. I cracked my neck. I nibbled on my knuckles. I was preparing myself.
Chris was right. They didn’t pay us enough. But I’d done worse for less. When I worked at a gas station in Johnstown, I’d worked an overnight shift, after I’d been in a car accident earlier in the day. My mother took me to the emergency room at 6 a.m., when my shift ended, and I was told I broke two ribs and suffered a minor concussion. Another time, I was changing my son’s diaper and he pissed right on my face. I blindly recoiled, as if I’d been attacked by a spitting cobra, and swiped at my mouth with my forearm, hoping I didn’t accidentally get some on my lips. The thought of throwing my baby into the dishwasher crossed my mind, but I just wiped myself off and became a father instead.
I would still take a shot of urine in the face, than deal with another person’s saliva any day.
The man sat in front of the jewelry case. He was absolutely motionless, as if he had suddenly gone comatose. I reached into my pocket and produced the keys to the jewelry case. I glared over my shoulder and saw Chris attaching himself to every other customer in the store. He was in a customer service overcompensation frenzy. He floated around the store asking anybody if he could help them find something. Anything. He asked everybody except my customer.
“Would you like to see anything in there?” I said, keeping a small distance between the man and myself.
