(p)age after (p)age

Tonight I was on the Target side of Trussville walking down that big strip of stores right by the highway. I was by myself, walking the sidewalk from Target to Books-a-Million. Observing the parking lot scenery as I walked, I noticed that a few of the smaller stores were already closed for the night. Most of the lights were out inside, and dark silhouettes of chairs and shelves rose from the floors and stood still in the middle of the dim shops. A light was left on as they always are left on in these places, I never have understood why. What is there to see and who is there to see it anyway?

Closed businesses look very strange at night. All the people who work there in the day are gone and the building is just left there by itself to wait until the next day when the people come back to work again. Sometimes when I drive home at night, I go by the place I work and glance at the all-too familiar thrift store with its long aisles of clothing and furniture, all dimly lit by the lights that have been left on. In the daytime, customers are going in and out, walking up the aisles and looking for junk they can buy. At the cash registers, Joan and Fannie are checking out the customers, taking their money and giving them change. Every now and then a customer will give them a tag, and they will call over their radios to a Royal Pine guy, who comes to load up the customer’s furniture for them.

The workers who price the merchandise come out from the doors in the back every now and then with buggies full of more items to sell. They push their buggies to their respective departments in the store, stopping every now and then to put something in its proper place. Sometimes they will get caught up in a conversation with a customer, and after several minutes of gossiping and speculating on what this world’s coming to, they will get on with their duties.

At the back, where we take in donations, sits a pile of unusable junk along with broken furniture and stained mattresses. Eddie and I, on our Mission: Possible Bargain Center box-truck, routinely bring in loads of new items and then haul off all the garbage to the landfill. Eddie eases the truck in to the loading dock while I stare blankly ahead, waiting to get out and go grab a bite to eat next door at Jack’s. We make our way in, making small talk with everybody we meet on our way to the time clock. On good days, when we are feeling well and have plenty of energy, we stop and get into elaborate, detailed conversations. On bad days, or even just normal days (and believe me, there are more of these than good ones), we muster up a “Hey, how are you?” or in Eddie’s case a low, “Alright man” and just keep walking. The only real goal here is to finish the day and go home.

The other day, after everything was finished and nothing was left to be done, Seth and I took a golf club out behind the store and practiced our swings on a few glass whisky bottles. We made a complete and total mess, and I couldn’t help but cringe at the crunching sound the cars made as they pulled up to the dock and right over the tiny pieces of glass strewn out in the lot. I left at 6 pm that day, making sure to avoid the broken glass as I drove around the building to take the side road out to the highway. The sun crept down in the sky and an hour later Seth left along with everyone else. And when we were all gone the place became still and quiet.

For two and a half years I have been working at that thrift store. I stay there until evening on the days I work, and then I return in the morning to do it all over again. Two and a half years. I’ve become pretty familiar with a lot of things that go on there. I know that every time Eddie and I get back with a load, Charlie, who works at the back door, is going to ask if we are going to the dump. I know that almost every night, the same customers are going to come in 30 minutes or less before we close and wait until exactly 7 pm to pay for their items. I know that every Monday morning we are all going to complain about what a mess it is in the back, and about how people who leave their garbage there while we are closed are evil, worthless, trashy, selfish scumbags who should take their crap to the dump where it belongs. And of course, I know that every morning I am going to find a way to get to Jack’s so I can get my morning sausage or gravy biscuit, medium sweet tea, and daily newspaper.

It’s been two and a half years. When I first signed up for this I never thought I would be here for this long.

But I’m still there, and no end is in sight. Sometimes it seems to me that in life you go through seasons and periods where things change but they don’t really. It’s like you are reading a book and there is page after page but you keep wondering when this chapter is going to end and when the next one is actually going to begin. When I graduated high school, I really did begin a new chapter in my life. A lot of things changed then. I had to start accepting more responsibility, I no longer got to see my friends every single day, I had to get a job, my dog died, I started college, and so many other things happened that made life different. But that chapter is still going on, partly because of my indecision and mistakes that I’ve made, but also because of circumstances beyond my control.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate my job. I get a lot of privileges there that I wouldn’t want to go without. But I guess a person goes down a certain road for a substantial length of time and he gets tired of that road and starts wanting to travel a new one – especially if he knows that the road he’s on was never going to take him anywhere in the first place. I think I’m that guy.

So here’s to the day when I drive by the thrift store, see the dim lights on with no cars in the parking lot, and think to myself, “Man, I remember those years I spent there.” And then I will think about Charlie, Metal Man (Ron), Eddie, Wanda, “Black Santa Clause,” Bobby, TeLisa, Seth, all the Royal Pine guys, and everybody else who made my first job a little more interesting or frustrating or tolerable. I will smile to myself, thinking of all the TVs that were busted with bowling balls, the funny looking hats that were tried on, and the many accidents that happened because of carelessness. And I will remember that the years that went by at that place really weren’t bad at all, but the years to come proved that leaving at the right time was the right choice - and the perfect setup for a brand new chapter.