Impatience Is a Virtue
By Francis Gideon
Published by JMS Books LLC
Visit jms-books.com for more information.
Copyright 2014 Francis Gideon
ISBN 9781611526776
Cover Design: Written Ink Designs | written-ink.com
Image(s) used under a Standard Royalty-Free License.
All rights reserved.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are solely the product of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously, though reference may be made to actual historical events or existing locations. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Published in the United States of America.
* * * *
Impatience Is a Virtue
By Francis Gideon
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Epilogue
Chapter 1
There are eight hours and thirty minutes until Jack Olmstead’s shift ends. But today is Black Friday at Target, and he knows it will feel a lot longer than he ever anticipated.
After the front doors open to a massive line of people (some of which had camped out the night before), Jack hides in the back. He thanks his luck, however much he has left, that he didn’t need to be on cash today. The entire female staff seems to be there instead. The manager, named Tony, a large man with gray hair that spirals out of the front and back of his shirt collar and ears, strategized in a morning meeting that the women on staff provide a safer and friendlier atmosphere for the customers who absolutely have to have this play set or bowls for Christmas. So they were on cash, which will have the most “face time” of any Black Friday event. Most of the older men on staff are working in the back, unloading skids and trying to restock the shelves as quickly as they can. Some of the taller and more rugged individuals are working the front and keeping an eye on people so they don’t get crushed. Jack, almost thirty and a bit too skinny to provide security or help unloading, falls in between the two crowds. His job for the rest of the day is to “make sure the customers are satisfied” according to Tony. Jack is not quite sure what this means, but he hopes he can complete most of his task while hiding in the towels at the back of the store.
Jack was relatively surprised when the doors opened. People spilled in like flood water, but only one person fell over and they were scooped up immediately by one of the people at the front. The store got crowded in a matter of minutes, but Jack could handle crowds. The Target’s sea of people wasn’t nearly as bad as some of the Black Friday YouTube footage Jack Googled on the way over here to prepare himself. Cases like the man who was stabbed at a Macy’s store, or the woman who nearly tore off another woman’s weave as they pushed their way through a Walmart, are not that common. At least, Jack hopes. This Target could always be an outlier today. His normal shift goes for a typical eight hours, but on this special day, his shift gets extended to twelve. He was here for the opening, but will not be here for closing. Jack scans around the area and doesn’t spot Tony, so he checks his phone. Now it’s eight hours and three minutes. Still a long way to go.
After almost being hit by an errant cart, Jack zigzags his way across the back of the store and picks up stray items as he goes. When he reaches the store bathrooms along the middle of the back wall, he surveys his surroundings again. The bathrooms are available to the customers as well as the staff. There are about three stalls in each one, a total of six places to hide in total. Past the bathrooms, the break room and staff lockers are kept safe behind a door that requires a keycard to access. On the other side of the back wall of Target is yet another door to the storage area where all the skids of merchandise are kept. There is a ramp and a garage door for the storage trucks for when shipment comes in. For a moment, Jack debates heading out that door instead of the bathroom and maybe hiding behind the huge skid of Dora The Explorer backpacks he saw earlier in the day. Maybe he could even toss himself off one of the loading ramps and into the recycling and stay there for the rest of his shift, between foam paddings and packing peanuts.
Before he has a chance to decide, Jack hears the toilet flush beside him over the whir of the crowd and Christmas music. Patrice comes out of the female stall, her bangs wet and sticky across her forehead. She jumps when she notices his red uniform and then relaxes as she scans up and sees it’s Jack.
“Hey you,” she says. “Are you preparing for sneak attacks now?”
“No, I’m counting the hours…and looking for hiding spots.”
“Not fair. You should be out on the floor, greeting people with that winning smile of yours.” Patrice takes a few steps towards him and touches his unshaved face. The stubble runs over her fingers and she seems slightly perturbed by this.
“Were you going for the homeless look this morning?” she questions him as she folds her arms across her chest.
“No, I just wanted some extra sleep.”
“You can sleep when you’re dead.”
As soon as the words leave her mouth, there comes a crash from deep in the store. Her green eyes flash and she smiles. “Which may happen sooner than we both thought.”
Jack turns and regards an older woman who has attempted to take what she has just purchased (and gotten giftwrapped at the front) to the back of the store to presumably, use the washroom before she leaves.
“Oh, God,” Patrice says. “No one has to go that badly and there are a million other places.”
Jack nods. The woman is far enough away that he and Patrice can take on ‘invisible status’ where the woman can’t see them or reach them, and therefore, they don’t have to help. Though it always feels a bit mean whenever Jack invokes this right, there are some times where he just needs to stay a fly on the wall. Patrice, too. She digs into her red apron and pulls out her white iPhone with a jewel encrusted case. It seems bizarre for Patrice, a mother of two, to have such a strange looking phone. So youthful and tacky—when she’s usually not either of these things. Maybe it’s her daughter’s, Jack thinks. Yeah, probably that.
Out of the corner of his eye, Jack spots their manager Tony, in the throes of helping the woman pick up her packages. Jack touches Patrice’s arm and lets her know that “the abominable snowman” is coming. She pockets the phone quickly.
“Thanks,” she whispers and then looks back at Jack with a weary expression. She touches the side of his face again and pushes some of his hair out of his eyes. “You’re such a pretty boy, you know that, right? You need to take care of yourself.”
“And look good for the middle aged women here? No thanks, I’m good. This was a tactical maneuver more than anyway.
“But for your boy,” she states with a smirk. “You should look nice for him. He’s gotta be coming back soon, right?”
Jack’s expression softens. He reaches into his pockets to grab his phone to see what Marshall is up to.
“Guys,” Tony says. He stands with his hands
on his hips, eyeing Patrice and Jack with a weary expression. “Is there merchandise here?”
“No sir,” Patrice answers.
“Oh, well in that case—get back to work.”
* * * *
There is so much red everywhere. The back banner of the store is already the blinding poppy shade that the Target store is known for, then there are the smaller banners that go through each one of the four walls of the store that announce the Black Friday deals. Then, there are the Christmas decorations that line the walls. Even as Jack slips away into the bathroom, he sees decorations and stray flyers from the front of the store on the ground. He kicks most of them to underneath the sink area, rather than risk getting hepatitis from touching them with his bare hands.
“Sir, sir,” a man says just by the bathroom doorway. His elderly wife hangs back outside the bathroom area but still looks in with bright eyes. Jack turns around inside and feels himself blush.
“Yes?” he asks with a shaky voice.
“Can you tell us what the price is for this? The sticker has fallen off.”
“I’m not equipped to do that right now,” Jack states. He catches his face in the bathroom mirror; his dark eyebrows are furrowed and Patrice is right—his facial hair makes him look like a bit of a hobo. But the red smock he’s force to wear, along the nametag that states JACK in all capital letters makes him seem like the only hope for this elderly couple and their blender without a price tag.
“Well, can you help us?” the old man asks. “It’s a real zoo out there.”
“And it’s a bathroom in here. I’ll be with you in a second.”
“Okay,” the old man says. He closes the door on his wife, who remains on the other side while he stands in the corner of the restroom. He still holds the blender in his hands, though a sign right above his head declares No Merchandise Beyond This Point in red block letters. He smiles pleasantly as Jack gives him a weary expression.
Really? Jack thinks. He’s not actually going to wait in here, is he? But when the man doesn’t move from his position, his stupid blender in his hand, Jack sighs. He turns the tap on to disguise some of the noise and then makes his way to the last stall. He locks the door and tries to enjoy as much privacy as he can.
* * * *
Jack has pretty much worked in customer service all of his life. From pizza delivery boy to current Target employee, the furthest away from this type of work has been his short-run stint as the admin assistant in an insurance company. He hated the job with a passion, mostly because he despises the way insurance companies bleed people of money and then try to get out of paying anything when the time comes. Unless, he thinks, the insurance is for one of the major companies and given to someone tripping on their floor. Then the payout was huge enough that Jack could feel there was still some justice in the world.
As Jack watches some of the acrobatics that people will do for toasters and bed sheets that are on sale, he wonders if Target has insurance to cover these types of injuries or if they make an exception for Black Friday. It’s the one day of the year where the survival of the fittest becomes the survival of the thriftiest, Jack figures.
Before Jack settled at Target, he once got a job at the chain retail store named Marshalls. And he only did this, not for the suit discounts like he told everyone else, but because the chain store’s name was the same as his boyfriend’s. Lame, he knows, but it helped for a while when their long distance relationship became too much to bear.
For the first two or three months, Jack and Marshall were inseparable. Marshall was just finishing up medical school and they were both in the same town. The strange hours that Marshall would be in class and studying always seemed to work well with the shift work that had no regularity for Jack whatsoever. Jack even enjoyed hanging out with Marshall even when all he seemed to do was study and obsess over the medical literature.
A few years before they met, Jack had tried going to school. It never lasted long. The confusion and sudden overwhelming amount of work and reading that was required of him had been completely discouraging. Not because Jack wasn’t smart—he and Marshall could often have late night conversations about almost anything under the sun, and Jack would always end up wowing Marshall in some form or another. But Jack was the third son of a single mother who still hopped around from job to job, never quite making a “career” that everyone thought she should have. Jack only went to college for the first year because it was all he could really afford. And it seemed really stupid to him to take out a bunch of money from the bank so he could not work for a long time, get a degree, and maybe someone would hire him later on. Maybe. Everyone had scoffed at his opinion over higher education and warned him that he wouldn’t amount to much. These small retail gigs and the occasional bartending and waiter roles would be all that he would have to his legacy.
For a while, that was true. Jack watched as the amount of chain customer service jobs on his Facebook timeline expand while his friends kept adding promotions at the same steady jobs, engagements, and houses to their timelines. Then the market crashed and many of his high school friends were pleading bankruptcy on those houses they couldn’t afford and having panic attacks over school loans that they couldn’t ever dream of paying back. Jack may not have been the most educated person and he still may be mopping bathroom stalls, but he considers himself very, very lucky. He is not in debt in the least. He never applied for more than one credit card and he doesn’t use the one he has very often. He lives in a small apartment on the other side of town with barely any furniture, but he has internet and food in his fridge. He gets by.
When Jack thinks of Marshall with his soon-to-be-complete medical degree, he doesn’t feel so bad anymore. Marshall has promised to take him all away from the lifestyle of the “thrifty and dangerous.” The only problem with this new miracle lifestyle is that Marshall is on the other side of the state now for his medical residency. It was his first choice and he had only considered applying for it because it was a long shot. So when he was offered the placement, there was no doubt in either of their minds that he would take it.
“Even if it means that I won’t see you as often?” Marshall had asked. He had waited until Jack finished his shift before even telling him the letter had come. Jack had brought champagne to Marshall’s apartment and poured it into his paper cups as they ripped open the seal. Even if Marshall didn’t get in, Jack figured they could at least celebrate the fact that they now knew and could plan from there. Jack was used to celebrating small matters, even looking at certain failures as real triumphs, so champagne was definitely appropriate. But their drinks remained untouched.
“Yes, of course,” Jack said, trying to maintain his usual stoic composure. Marshall was brilliant. He deserved to go to the best school in their state, no matter what. “You do what you have to do and I will do what I have to.”
“And then?”
“We’ll see, Marshall,” Jack said, raising a paper cup. “We’ll see. No point in cutting to the chase.”
The conversation still seems so simple in Jack’s mind. They had only been together for about six months when they were forced to make a decision about their relationship. Was it worth keeping, even if it meant distance and strained late night conversations? Thankfully, it had been evident to both of them that it more than was. The months leading up to the move across state had been better than the first half of their relationship, and even as they said a tearful goodbye, Jack had kept his calm and stoic manner. This was worth it—for both of them.
Marshall has been gone for about six months now. They call and write and text one another obsessively, so bad that Jack went into a minor credit card debt in order to pay off some new phone expenses. But a few new shifts at work—including this Black Friday one he would normally avoid—and things would be back to normal. As much as they could be for a long distance relationship.
Jack had been surprised how much he missed Marshall the first few weeks of his leaving. He knew to expect some type of a
ngst, but the ways in which it filtered into his body and everyday life made him queasy. He missed the talks over morning coffee, the warm feeling of someone else in bed with him, and someone else making dinner for him every so often. Hearing the love songs that the store played over its Muzak was almost too unbearable. Now that the Christmas music has been shuffled onto Target’s regular listening and it only reminds Jack yet again that ‘home for the holidays’ is a difficult thing to think of right now.
Jack sighs. Inside the bathroom stall, he continues to hide from the old man outside the door and the customers on the other side. He holds his phone in his lap, reviewing old text messages from Marshall, before deciding to type a new one—though his last one, sent before work, has still gone unanswered.
You’re busy, and I’m busy, he writes. But my God, this is hard. I really need your help…
The old man coughs outside, as if to hurry Jack up. Jack glances down at his phone again, and realizes how pathetic he’s being.
See you soon, okay? Or at least, talk soon. Keep me updated on what’s going on…Love you, bye.
Jack gives himself another few minutes. Maybe Marshall will reply, maybe, maybe; the hopeful thoughts filer through his head, but all he gets is a blank screen. Finally, he pockets his phone, ties his Target apron again, and counts to ten before leaving.
* * * *
The man is still there when he gets out. Obviously. Jack washes his hands and avoids the man’s eyes. If there is anything that being in customer service has taught him is how to avoid eyes when you’re walking around and talking to someone. As soon as you make eye contact with anyone on the floor, they think you are at their beck and call. It must be the same fate that happens to a genie. They get out of the bottle, thinking that they can live their life as they see fit, and then bam—someone grabs them and makes them twist and turn and move the earth to get what they want. Tony’s voice comes back into Jack’s head. His job today is to “make sure the customers are satisfied.” Jack nods to the elderly man and the two of them leave the bathroom. The wife follows her husband as he leads them out of the back area and towards one of the scanning stations located by Bed and Bath.
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