Closer to the end of the night, Dom, from the sports store, came over and gave Carl and I the update about everything Tarantino did before he left.
“Yeah, it was cool,” Dom said. “He denied all photo requests and when somebody asked him what he was doing here, you know what he said?”
“What?” Carl and I said.
“He said, ‘eating pizza.’” We all laughed, but Dom was really cracking up about it.
“He was such a dick, it was great,” Dom said. “Some girl told him to smile and tried to take a picture on her cell phone and he put a napkin in front of his face.”
Dom smacked the countertop to emphasize how funny it was.
When the mall closed, I hung my nametag on its hook in the backroom and placed my store keys in the lockbox and removed my personal keys. Carl lowered the gate and held the latch for me as I locked it closed. Carl was always doing things like that. It was ten at night and I had to be back to open the store eleven hours later. I didn’t think about Quentin Tarantino once.
The next morning, as I was unlocking the doorway gate, I heard my name.
“Good morning, Adam.” It was the woman who worked across the hallway, at the eye care store. She was also crouched down, unlocking her doorway gate. It had happened many times before over the last few years and we sometimes chatted there in the hallway.
“How was your night?” she said. She stood and started walking over to me.
“Okay,” I said. “Nothing too exciting.”
It was early and I was hungover. Her approaching like that made me nervous and I began to squirm and press against the gate, as if she were going to eat my brains when she finally got over here. Instead, she grabbed my forearm and started to talk. She had morning breath and smelled like cigarettes.
“You know what I did last night?”
She obviously never cared how my night was, I realized.
“What?” I said.
“I made out with Quentin Tarantino.”
“Oh really?” I said and chuckled. I didn’t know how to process something like that at 9 a.m.
Once again, my response was irrelevant. She wanted to tell a story.
She told me how she went with some friends to Club Café and Quentin Tarantino was sitting behind her, but she didn’t realize it until he interjected into her conversation. She said she didn’t remember how she was separated with her friends or when exactly she moved over to his table. But her leg was in his lap and he gave her a pill, speed she figured. They had an invigorating conversation and kissed and kissed and touched a little. She told me how he asked for her phone number and she didn’t give it to him.
She was talking faster than I could care. Her breath was bad and the whole time she talked there was dry spittle in the corners of her mouth. It was white and stretched anytime she opened wide.
“He was here, at the mall, yesterday,” I said.
“I know,” she said. “I was off but he told me he was here and I said, ‘No way. That’s where I work.’ and he said, ‘Why?’”
She stopped and laughed. The spittle in the corners of her mouth stretched as she opened her mouth. I wasn’t sure if I believed her or not. I was more concerned about the spittle and keeping it away from me.
“I just thought that was so funny,” she said and began to walk back to the eye care store.
I lifted the doorway gate up halfway and ducked into the novelty store. I walked to the door at the back and lifted my nametag from the hook and opened the lockbox for my store keys. After locking my personal keys in there, I turned on the lights and punched in, just like I always do.
Adam Matcho writes true stories for the New Yinzer. Names have not been changed and distinguishing characteristics have not been altered. They are all just as guilty as Adam.