Going to miss this place.
Month: April 2012
Story excerpt: Register 3 is Now Open
Four-page excerpt from one of my short stories, inspired by a nightmare of a high school job at TJMAXX and examining the consumer culture and hyperconnectivity of young people.
Register 3 is now open.
Hour 1. A man comes up to me, doesn’t say hello, slams down a T-shirt about as hard as you can slam down a cotton garment. Like he’s got a problem. I don’t deal well with these kinds of customers — mostly I just don’t know how to react to them — so I adjust my nametag and play with that electronic pen-thing that’s attached to the credit card machine. I don’t understand why we have that electronic pen but we still have printed receipts, receipts that need to be signed with ink. Confuses every customer. No, sorry, you have to sign here.
0 unread messages.
Something about that is backwards.
I try to be friendly to this guy. Hello, I’m Jason. Find everything OK? How’s your day going? Beautiful, isn’t it for February? But he whispers something to his kid and doesn’t answer me so I smile and fold the shirt, scan the tag, tap the touchscreen with the pad of my finger.
Just like the manager told me to.
Fold, scan, tap.
The man’s got a salt and pepper mustache and cigarette skin. Rough around the edges. Cut-off Giants T-shirt. You’ve got lots of time to notice a person when they’re not looking at you.
Please, sir — I turn to him. That’s $9.99. Credit or debit? Debit, good, then you don’t have to sign a receipt, which means I don’t have to look for a pen. I hand the bag to the man and the man hands the bag to his kid, a blonde kid in a wrinkly red zip-up hoodie whose head barely reaches over the white counter. The kid wants to eat lunch. The man knows the kid wants to eat lunch but has some things to take care of before they do that. He reaches into his butt pocket for his wallet. For how muscley this guy’s arms are it’s kinda surprising he moves in slow motion.
Please, please, please move a little faster. Look at that line.
I slyly reach into the drawer and check my phone.
1 new message: Heyyyy are you going to Brad McNeil’s tonight? He’s having an America party should be pretty awesome. Wear something patriotic!!!
For a moment I wonder if he remembers I’m here. This guy who’s buying a T-shirt and checking his phone and looking angry. Then the kid gets pissy too about something and jumps up and down in a mini-rage. He wants Mac ‘n Cheese. He can’t have Mac ‘n Cheese till he gets home. So he runs under the line divider, over to the Purse & Wallet aisle and then to the adjacent Housewares. I hear a crash and it’s pretty loud. Sounds like a $15.99 crash to me — probably one of those ceramic platters we got a huge shipment of last Thursday. People have been flocking here to buy those platters.
Thank you, sir, and thanks for shopping at—
I’m so preoccupied with the speech, the speech they literally drilled into my mind during training that I don’t realize the man’s already gone, running after the kid and pinching him on the butt for breaking the platter, then gripping his wrist the way no child ever wants to be gripped. No. Mac. ‘N. Cheese. For. You.
The kid starts wailing — I swear to God I hate when kids do that, plus his screaming voice clashes with the elevator jazz the managers insist creates ‘the most pleasurable shopping experience for our valued customers.’ By the time I tap the touchscreen and prep for the next transaction, there’s already another customer in front of me.
I don’t even remember pressing the button. I don’t remember pressing the button but there’s someone right here.
Register 3 is now open.
The customer smiles at me and I smile back. I bugs me when they do that — come up to the counter before I press the button — I mean sometimes you need to refill the receipt paper or pick up a pen or take a breath or something. But I don’t say anything about it to her because she’s kinda hot. She’s got nice-looking big brown eyes with tons of makeup around them, but whatever. Her lipstick’s bright red. I don’t get why good-looking girls insist on wearing such bright intense lipstick.
She’s hot but Jenny’s still hotter. Jenny Brown who I kissed last night.
Jenny was wearing some fruity lipstick, not nearly as bright as this girl’s, which I thought was cute and complimented her on after I kissed her. But she said she wasn’t wearing any lipstick and that maybe it was the Juicy Fruit she chewed earlier. But I know she was wearing lipstick, she just wanted me to think her lips are naturally like that, which is cute because obviously it means likes me.
This girl at the counter, she seems familiar. She’s super-dark-haired, that almost-black color like she dumped an entire package of hair dye in it and never bothered to wash it out. She’s wearing a matching Juicy Couture burgundy sweat suit with the little dangly J on the zipper.
Dangle dangle dangle goes that silver J, as she talks and moves her hands, dangle dangle dangling, right below her boobs.
Then I realize…I know her. She’s friends with Jenny. Was friends with Jenny, last year at least. I’d see them together at lunch and getting Diet Cokes after school from the vending machine near the theater.
I don’t want her to tell her friends she saw me and I was awkward. I need to make at least a semi-good impression.
1 new message: Where areee you?
We sell those here, the Juicy sweatsuits, for 50% off the original price. Did…you buy yours here? I ask her, gesturing towards her outfit. Wow, of all the things I could have said why did I say the dumbest thing ever? God I’m an idiot. She looks offended. I’m an asshole. Ohhhh you onlybuy housewares at this store, obviously I should have known. I’m so sorry — uh, um Marissa…right! I’m—well you can see it on my nametag here but I’m Jason. We were in…Pre-Calc last year, right!
So. Embarrassing.
I consciously keep my eyes off the dangly J but the more I consciously do that the more apparent it is that my eyes are averting it. The silver J keeps dangling, I can practically hear it, louder than the Register 3 is now open, louder than that goddamn jazz music.
That J dangle dangle dangles, around and around in my head.
Focus on the transaction, not the person, I tell myself.
She’s buying scented candles! She says it like it’s the most exciting thing in the world. Like she’s been looking for the perfect set of candles all her life and here, in this store, she’s finally found them. 20 of them! Which she insists I wrap in tissue paper! Individually! And then a second time! Because they’re for her mother! In case the power goes out!
Marissa literally talks like that, with a perpetual smile and wide-open eyes. Okay, yeah no problem, nice meeting — seeing you again too Marissa, see you in school. Yup enjoy your, um, candles and have nice day. Thanks for shopping at—
Register 3 is now open.
Register 5 is now open.
Register 3 is now open.
A woman approaches, struggling to push two shopping carts to the checkout counter. In the first cart is a framed black and white poster of Audrey Hepburn, for her daughter. In the second cart are 27 pairs of Sevens Jeans. Who are those for? That she won’t tell me. Kinda sketch, in my opinion. I bet she’s one of those women who buys tons of stuff from stores like this and then sells it on eBay. She’s probably also one of those women who show up at the mall during the Christmas sales with two giant pieces of luggage and fill it with loads upon loads of discounted crap.
I reach over to scan the poster and she starts loading all the jeans onto the counter — I don’t know how they’re all going to fit on there but somehow they do. I take a deep breath and begin tackling the mountain of clothing before me.
Fold, scan, tap.
Fold, scan, tap.
They’re all marked down to $39.99. Original price — $129.90. That’s what these people come here, for the prices. Designer stuff they otherwise can’t afford. Coach. Kate Spade. Michael Kors. Marc Jacobs. BCBG. Versace. Oscar de la Renta. Valentino. You name it. That’s why they sacrifice hours of a perfectly good day trekking through the disorganized aisles, inspecting price tags, fighting with that bitch that grabbed the shirt they had already claimed with their eyes. That’s why they drag around three screaming kids, kids who are hungry and tired and just want to go home before soccer practice.
9 down.
Fold, scan, tap.
20 down.
Fold. Scan. Tap.
24 down.
27 times I fold and scan the jeans, tap the touchscreen. 27 times, and I take a deep breath and smile. Now if you could juuust sign on the dotted line—
But no, she thinks I charged her for 28 pairs.
No, no, no look here, it says on the receipt. 28 items. The poster and 27 pairs of jeans. I got it right, I promise. I can’t do them over, that would involve a void, which I can’t do, and a manager to come, and he’s on his lunch break I think, and I’d need to ring the jeans up all over again and who knows how long you’d have to wait.
No, I did not charge you for an extra pair.
Please, ma’am, this is my third day. Technically I’m still training. I know that doesn’t help my case but really, I only charged you for 27. Twenty-seven Sevens Jeans.
Before I know it I feel my manager’s breath against my neck. He asks in a low voice what the problem is and stares at me and then whispers something in my ear. I know sir, I know the customer’s always right, but look here, look at the receipt! The receipt says 27!
The customer is always right.
Podcast with Betsy Cornwell
Notre Dame MFA student and fellow Writing Center tutor Betsy Cornwell was kind enough to chat with me about her two upcoming novels, life at ND and experience with the book publishing process. Betsy’s debut novel, Tides, will be released from Clarion next spring. Her second novel, Mechanica: A Steampunk Cinderella — also from Clarion — will be published in the spring of 2014.
Click here to listen to my podcast with Betsy.
–> Read an article on Betsy published by the Notre Dame Graduate School.
–> Check out Betsy’s website to learn more about her life, writing style and two upcoming novels.
On my mind
“You cannot find peace by avoiding life.”
–Virginia Woolf
Praying for headlights
–Published 4/16/12 in The Observer.
“Wagon Wheel” by Old Crow Medicine Show is one of those songs college students love.
The moment that distinctive introduction blares from the speakers, arms link, glasses clink and the room erupts in cheering.
In true spring break road trip style, “Wagon Wheel” played multiple times on our drive from South Bend down to South Carolina a few weeks ago.
The first time it came on, I was behind the wheel and we had just crossed the Kentucky-Tennessee state line. We had all been silent for awhile, enjoying the green and gold scenery that unfolded before us. The open road softly rose and fell as we sped at 80 miles per hour south down I-75.
The lyrics of “Wagon Wheel” filled the empty space between us, representing all the things we were thinking, but hadn’t said.
In my head, I tried to define what the song is about. On one level, the song is about freedom — having the freedom to pursue what matters most. It’s about remembering the people and places you care about after being away for a long time.
As a senior in college, this aspect of the song seems especially relevant. I’ve spent months abroad and summers away in different cities. In four years, my younger siblings have grown up, and people in my childhood neighborhood have moved out. Like the narrator, I’ve gone away to mature, and will return both different and the same.
“Wagon Wheel” is also about the beauty of simplicity — that life can be reduced to a single person, a single car and a single desire. You don’t need to know the song to relate to it — the music reflects some reality about the future we all can find truth in.
On our way back to South Bend after spring break, “Wagon Wheel” came on again while I was driving. This time, it was about 10 p.m., dark and raining, and the song had a much more sobering effect.
I realized then that the song is bittersweet, even sad. Loneliness and regret infuse the lyrics because the past still weighs him down. It’s possible that after all those years of longing, after seventeen-straight hours of driving, his vision for a new life could be shattered.
At its core, however, “Wagon Wheel” is about faith. It’s about having faith that the one you love will still be there when you come home, about having faith that you can drive straight into the unknown and everything will end up okay.
With May 20 quickly approaching, I feel like I’m speeding at 80 miles per hour towards graduation, and after that, the unknown. But before then, I hope to share a few more swaying “Wagon Wheels” at Finny’s, indulging in one of those rare moments when we all feel exactly the same thing.
Days like this = happiness
Tribute to Yaya
In honor of my grandmother Yaya’s birthday — April 2, 1936 — I’m posting a poem I wrote about her that I read in this year’s Notre Dame Literary Festival.
Today, Yaya would have been 76.
My grandmother, Dorothy Coyne, was one of the best people I’ve ever known. She wasn’t a stereotypical grandmother– we weren’t greeted in her house by the smell of baking cookies (she rarely baked) and her voice wasn’t hushed and gentle. She loved dancing and the bustle of cities. She hated the beach and staying on the phone any longer than was necessary. She was spunky, stylish and confident, and when she had an opinion she made sure it was heard. I admired those things about her.
I can look back to countless nights sitting around my grandparents’ kitchen table with my siblings or spread out across her plush brown carpet, listening to Yaya tell story after crazy story. Like the time in 9th grade the nuns caught her smoking in the bathroom, and she and her friends filled their mouths with powdered soap to mask the smell but ended up with foaming, bubbling mouths as they explained themselves before the principal. Somehow, her stories always reached a level of pure absurdity; she’d have our entire family keeling over with laughter.
Those stories brought us together. Those stories were the best.
But above everything else, Yaya was a beautiful and loving woman, deeply committed to her family. Four years later, sitting around the kitchen table or spread out across that carpet, trying to imitate the high-pitched inflection of her voice, her stories still leave us hysterical with laughter.
We love and miss you, Yaya.
Yaya
There are times I wonder:
had you dyed your hair
that mahogany-red
one last time,
would you still be
alive today?
Because once you let
that hair go dead and gray,
everything else followed.
spunky-bright cheeks
turned pale in submission,
spine collapsed beneath
the winter sky,
and withered fingers hung
from your hands like
dead leaves.
Yaya, if I could trace the
tracks of your spider-veins
back to the start of this nonsense—
I would.
Then, you could tell me
about the time
you poured shampoo
on Billy’s pancakes,
or when the
hair-dye
turned your hair
“freaking eggplant”
SKETCHING A STORY 