Checked Out
Grady VanWright
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Click-clack of the automatic doors, swoosh of conditional air blasting cologne-thick with corporate invitation. “Welcome to Harper & Sons,” sings the perky teen behind the counter, but her eyes flicker, her tongue too quick to swallow the sir. Just a pause–one fraction of a blink too long before she remembers she ought to nod, ought to pretend I am as harmless as the other patrons fondling the discount rack. I step forward, and so does he.
He, the guardian of inventory, the black-poloed priest of retail sanctity, standing at his pulpit of Asset Protection with eyes too still, too intent. He watches. Of course he does. I see him watching. I see him seeing me seeing him seeing me. A taut geometry of glances. The math don’t math but here we are, me existing in his problem set, his unsolved equation, his x-factor of concern.
Aisle one: soap, detergent, and the artificial lemon-stink of cleanliness. The cameras above wink, those lidless metal cyclops straining, scanning, swallowing me pixel by pixel. I reach for a bottle of Fresh Meadow Spring laundry detergent and oh, the calculations begin–pick it up too fast, suspicious, too slow, suspicious, too natural, also suspicious because what is natural when every step is weighed, measured, counted? So I adopt The Casual Grip. The Oh-I-Just-Happen- To-Be-Shopping grip. The What-Me-Steal? grip. I am a method actor now, immersed in my role as Customer #354 Not A Thief Promise.
Pivot. Aisle two. Snacks. Chips crackle under my fingers and lo, the sacred Retail Sentinel appears. Different polo, different face, same eyes, same tune. He walks past me slow, languid, a grazing predator pretending to graze, but I see the watchfulness in his periphery. I crunch a bag of sour cream and onion, pretending to consider it, pretending like I am not considering him considering me. And in the great theatrical absurdity of it all, I wink. Just for fun. Just to see.
He startles. Adjusts his collar. Snaps his head forward as if he never saw me.
Aisle three: medicine. The big leagues. Bottles and packets of tiny miracles, pain relievers, cough syrups, the golden troves of the watchful. I pause here, deliberate for sport. From the corner of my eye, the lurking shadow reappears, adjusting a shelf, pretending to smooth out a row of band-aids that need no smoothing. He is so interested in these band-aids, such a scholar of adhesive healing, that he can’t help but breathe down my neck. I imagine his inner monologue: He’s lingering too long. Why’s he lingering so long? He’s gonna pocket something. Any second now. Any. Second. Now.
Oh, I should. I should pocket something. Just to throw him into existential crisis. Just to watch his whole being quiver with the sheer effort of to tackle or not to tackle.
But no, I won’t make his day that interesting. I settle for a bottle of ibuprofen and turn to leave. He exhales.
Aisle four: wine. I step near it, not toward it, near it, and I swear to God the walls tense. The air shifts. Somewhere, the security team grips their radios like they’ve spotted a tornado touching down. Sir, he is in proximity of alcohol. I repeat, he is in close quarters with the merlot. I can feel the ripple in the store’s bloodstream, the raised hackles of its invisible security detail.
I run a finger along a bottle of cabernet sauvignon just to see if someone will tackle me.
No one does. But I hear a radio static crackle.
Aisle five: toys. I slow. Stop. Consider.
A child, a tiny thing, no more than four or five, bounces past, grasping a stuffed giraffe to his chest, blissful in his smallness, his innocence, his unwatched existence. He looks up at me, bright-eyed, unburdened, and I feel the weight of every aisle collapse on my shoulders. He does not know yet.
He does not know yet.
I sigh.
Cash register. Final boss level.
The clerk blinks at me, fingers poised over the keypad like a pianist waiting for a difficult concerto. Her smile is tight, teeth clenched like they’re guarding a secret. I place the ibuprofen and the detergent on the conveyor belt, and she scans them with rapid, twitchy efficiency. Behind me, he lurks again, arms crossed, performing the sacred rite of Watching the Checkout, because this is the moment of reckoning, the climactic finish where I reveal my true villainy- perhaps I will flee with my receipt, stuffing the bag into my coat! Perhaps I will pay with counterfeit bills! Perhaps I will be.
The card reader beeps.
Transaction approved.
Her shoulders relax a fraction of an inch.
“Would you like your receipt?”
“Yes,” I say.
And I take it, triumphant, absurdly, stupidly victorious in the only war I never signed up to
fight.
I step through the click-clack doors, out into the honest air.
And the watchers behind me blink, reset, recalibrate–ready for the next suspect.
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Grady VanWright lives in Houston, Texas, and draws much of his inspiration from its complex interplay of modernity and history. His poetic influences range from the surrealist tradition to contemporary voices that challenge conventions of form and content.
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Posted in Black History Month and tagged in #boudin, #fiction, Fiction