Impatience Is a Virtue

by Francis Gideon

  “This blender,” Jack says, holding the item over one of the scanning guns. “Is about fourteen dollars.”

  The old man seems to consider this as if it is the cure for cancer. “Can it blend everything?”

  “I would assume that it could,” Jack says.

  “Have you tried it?”

  “No, sir. I just work here.”

  “And you don’t blend things?” the woman asks in her tiny voice.

  “No,” Jack states. He thinks: No, I chew my food.

  “What kind of an establishment do they have if the people don’t even know the products,” the old man sighs. He eyes the blender again, touching its plastic top and considering it again. “At least it’s better than some of the Walmart shit I’ve seen.”

  “Thanks,” Jack says, though it’s not a direct compliment. He’s pretty sure that Walmart is still somehow involved with Target in some way. There are really only five companies in the world that own everything. One of them being Walmart, and he’s pretty sure the other is McDonald’s.

  “How about I give you ten dollars?” the old man suggests.

  “The price is fourteen, sir, and I’m not a cashier.”

  “You don’t know money? I can give you money.”

  “Sir,” Jack says. “You need to get in that line up right there.”

  He turns around, squinting against the lights and the large crowd. The line-up is now around two aisles, even though the Target staff has built in extra cashiers and hooked them up to the system. One of the women who was hired in the past two weeks, named Maura, is actually inputting orders the old fashioned way with a slide through credit card device. The store only has those for emergencies, like when the power goes off. Other than the freak black out that happened in the summer, Jack hasn’t seen one of those since he was nine years old and his mother would sometimes have to bring him to her cashier gig at a retail store.

  “I can’t wait in that,” the old man states. “I have bad knees.”

  His wife comes up from the side and she shakes her head sympathetically. “He really does. And with the weather like this, it gets worse.”

  “I’m sorry. I can’t make the line go faster. It’s also what you get for going out on Black Friday.”

  The old couple considers this and begins to move ever so slowly towards the end of the line.

  “Oh, but I have to pee,” the old man says.

  “Well,” Jack says under his breath. “I think you know where the bathroom is.”

  Chapter 2

  Another two hours pass and Jack is finally allowed to leave the floor. He pretty much throws down all the towels he has been trying to fold and maintain some order with when the “shift two lunch” announcement comes on. Tony has assigned everyone to a specific group and made sure that everyone knows their numbers. Whenever their break and lunch time happens, they are paged over the announcements between the Christmas songs and Target commercials. This way, Tony has full control over how many people are on and off shift at a time.

  When Jack heads to the break room, he finds Maura already sitting there. Her dark corkscrew hair is tied back over her shoulders, with an occasion curl bouncing along her dark forehead. She has taken her Target uniform off and draped it over her chair, revealing her almost neon green shirt underneath. She peels back the top of her yogurt and digs her spoon in just before she nods a greeting to Jack. She’s younger than Jack, but not by much.

  “Hey, how you doing sweetie?”

  “Okay. I saw you out there,” Jack says with a smile. “You were in the Stone Age with those credit cards.”

  Maura rolls her eyes. “Did you see me standing on the phone book, too? Because that was classic. Do people even use phone books anymore? Other than for booster seats to help with the decorations?”

  Jack places his soup inside the microwave (averting his eyes from the already present mess) and hits Start. “Not anymore. Just leave it up to Target to have their priorities straight.”

  “You mean the Targé,” she says with a fake French accent.

  “Ugh,” Jack says, feeling his blood boil. “That name makes no sense. You can’t say something with a French accent and think that it will somehow make the place classier. We are in the middle of a warehouse with rats and bugs alike.”

  “Bugs?” Maura says. She stares around at the couch and the lockers at the back.

  Jack takes his soup and sits at her table. Another group of shift two workers comes in, grabbing their lunches or purses from their lockers and then heading towards the back doors. A few of the middle aged workers stay inside the back break room, but for the most part, everyone who works today does their best to leave. They all throw hoodies on over the red uniform to not be accosted, first.

  “At least we’re not as bad as Walmart, right?” Jack suggests.

  Maura shrugs. “I wouldn’t mind it there. I think I’d like a lot more of the stuff. I could also use my discount to get groceries, too.”

  “I beg to differ, even with the grocery incentive.” Jack blows on his spoon before he takes a sip of his soup. “Have you seen the People of Walmart site?”

  “That’s exactly it,” Maura states, pointing with her plastic spoon for emphasis. “I’d like something like that. To have an outlet so I could inflict the images I’ve seen today on other people.”

  “Like what?”

  Maura’s eyes widen as if to say, ‘well you have asked for it now.’ She takes out her green phone that matches the shade of her top and begins to slide through some of the images in her photo album. She flicks towards one with a woman carrying a child by his sleeve and then towards another, with a man in a rabbit’s suit. The image still makes Maura laugh because it wasn’t even Easter when the picture was taken. Jack laughs with her at a couple more, though most are so disturbing all he can do is stare.

  “At least,” Jack states, “there are less parents with kids here. I have a feeling they get stuck at Walmart a lot because of the whole toys and McDonald’s section.”

  Maura makes a small noise with her mouth in agreement and her nose ring glitters in the light. After Jack finishes the last few mouthfuls of his soup, he rises to rinse out his container in the sink. Maura suddenly turns to him, her eyes wide.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m getting ready to go back there.”

  “Why? So soon? We haven’t even been paged yet.”

  Jack shrugs. He looks down at his watch and knows that he has at least another ten minutes left of his lunch. And there are another six hours, give or take a few minutes, until he gets to leave more permanently. Almost halfway there, now.

  “I think working makes the time go faster.”

  Maura nods. “You seem to be waiting for a lot of things.”

  “I just want to go home, you know?” Jack leans on the counter and faces Maura at the table.

  “Oh yeah,” she says in a teasing voice. “And see someone?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Well, gossip with me for the next ten minutes, then. That will make the time go faster.” Maura cleans up the rest of her meal quickly and then stand by the doorway out. Jack doesn’t move. She cocks one of her penciled in eyebrows.

  “Go on,” she says.

  “What?”

  She rolls her eyes. “I want to hear more about this boy, you know.”

  “I’ve told you all I can, really.”

  “Doctor-in-training, I know. One day he will save you from this horrible world of minimum wages and folding large grannie panties that people try on in the aisle.”

  Jack makes a horrified face and twists his brows in a silent question of ‘really? People do that here?’ and Maura just nods slowly to confirm.

  “Yikes.”

  “Do me one favor before you leave, then?” Maura asks.

  “Anything, my good comrade.”

  Maura holds up her phone and then throws her arm around Jack. Before Jack can protest or realize what’s happening, Maura says, “Cheese
” and clicks away.

  “Wait, do it again,” Jack asks. “I think I was blinking.”

  Maura is about to open her mouth and tell him he’s fine, when she reviews the picture. She makes a face.

  “What?” Jack asks. “Really that bad?”

  “Take two is a good idea,” she says and slides the phone back to camera mode. Now ready for the selfie, Jack does all he can to smile and look presentable.

  “All right now,” Maura says. “Show me your feelings for Black Friday.”

  Jack shudders in an exaggerated motion, his eyes closed tightly. He hears the next click of the camera. As Maura reviews the new set, he asks, “Wait. Are you posting these online?”

  “Yeah, but not for the people of Walmart or something. There’s a trend going on right now in Reddit and other places. Selfie Friday for Workers. The Face of Consumer Culture, or something else deep like that. Now come on, show me your feelings on that woman with the panties.”

  Jack twists his face up as if he has eaten something terribly sour. Maura laughs between a few of the takes and ends with a ‘glamour pose’ between the two of them. She goes through the set on her phone and then posts some of the best ones to her online page as Jack watches over her shoulders.

  “Perfect,” Maura says just as the announcement their lunch is over comes on over the PA system. Maura slides the lock back on her phone and slips it into her pocket as she turns to Jack. “Thank you, kind sir. You may now go and serve your customers.”

  Outside, one of the first things Jack sees is the same woman from one of Maura’s photos. The one who was dragging her child by his sleeve. She is now without him, but instead carries a large selection of snacks from one end of the store, some of them half-finished, as she continues to eat and shop. Jack tries to avoid her eyes and turns around, only to hear the smoker’s cough from her lungs and the following words of, “Targé.”

  * * * *

  “Hey, Jackie O,” Maura calls to Jack. “How are you doing?”

  Jack looks down at the bin he’s been sorting—and then unsorting—for the past hour. “Um,” he says as he drops a toy and runs his hand through his hair. “I’m fine.”

  “Well, good, because that picture I posted of us is going viral a little.”

  “How can something go ‘a little’ viral? That doesn’t quite make sense. Viral means it’s spreading fast, so it seems odd to juxtapose that with ‘a little.’”

  Maura smiles. “Your doctor is teaching you well.”

  “He’s not a doctor yet.” Jack places the teddy bear he’s been pawing at in the giant bin. Maura takes a step closer to him so they can hear one another over the buzz of the customers. “And that’s basic grammar. So what do you mean, Maura? Viral how so?”

  “More of a sneeze than a flu? It was on Buzzfeed,” she explains with a smile. She pulls up her phone and shows him. Though the screen sort of compresses some of the images, he sees himself clearly next to Maura’s green shirt, making an over-exaggerated grimace. Above and below their image are a bunch of other selfies taken in the small bits of privacy that other Black Friday workers have stolen during one of the busiest days of the year. There are a bunch of Best Buy employees with blue shirts and pained expressions on their faces. Two Walmart employees holding toy guns to their heads and fake-crying. Then, another worker clad in a Target uniform from another state, smiles with braces as she poses with a worker’s dog.

  “All right,” Jack says. “That’s neat. Good to know we’re not alone. But what does this whole viral thing mean now?”

  “It means you’re e-famous,” she teases him and scrolls through the images down to the comment section. “Marshall better watch out. There are a lot of people here who think you’re a cutie.”

  “Ha ha,” Jack says, touching his stubble. “I’m sure I look cute for a hobo.”

  Maura just smiles at him and touches his arm. “Don’t worry, sweetheart. From the responses I’ve seen to this thing, you have nothing to worry about.”

  Maura leaves him with another wink, before Jack looks down at the pile of stuffed animals to sort. Just as he gets to the bottom of the bin and finds a set of dishes at the bottom, Jack feels his phone buzz in his pocket. He expects it to be Maura teasing him more about the image, when instead it’s Marshall.

  Hey, he texts. Sorry I didn’t reply to your messages before. I just got a chance to sit down.

  It’s okay, Jack texts back almost right away. He knows it’s not really okay—he needed help and would have loved some comfort earlier—but he figures it’s no good to harp on something they can’t fix. And besides, Marshall’s talking right now. He wants to keep him talking for as long as possible, even if they resort to the weather as conversation fodder. Using a teddy bear as cover, Jack responds as quickly as he can. I’m surviving. How are you?

  The same, the same. Is Black Friday all you’ve expected it to be?

  It’s…interesting. Not quite the 20/20 specials we see about it, but I’ve definitely seen some wonderful specimens of human life here today.

  As have I, Marshall jokes. So…one of the nurses was showing me something interesting on my break. Have you been on Buzzfeed lately? I think there’s something you should check out.

  Jack groans and nearly drops his phone into the sorting bin.

  * * * *

  The last time Jack and Marshall saw one another was about three weeks ago. Marshall had a rare three days off in a row, right when Jack had his weekend as well. Seeing Marshall would mean working a double shift before Jack headed on a bus to visit him across the state, but it didn’t matter. He drank a lot of coffee and probably talked as fast as an auctioneer when he was on cash, but Patrice and Maura understood. They made sure he clocked out on time, even when there was a massive spill in the men’s washroom.

  “You go,” Patrice said as Jack stood fixated on the horrible sight left on the tile floor. “I’ll get it.”

  “But it’s the men’s…”

  “And I’ve got a little boy who marks his territory around his sister and a husband. I’ve seen enough.”

  “Thank you,” Jack said, his eyes wide. “You are the best.”

  She waved him away and in another three hours, he and Marshall were tangled in one another’s arms inside Marshall’s even smaller college dorm apartments across from the hospital. It began to feel like the two of them were newly dating again, so enthralled with the other person that they barely left the bedroom and one another’s bodies.

  After two wonderful, bliss-filled days, they were left with the third hanging over their heads. The impending departure time was enough to make Jack want to hide under Marshall’s bed and never leave again.

  “Come on,” Marshall told him. “We’ll buy our tickets for Christmas right now so we can at least be assured that there will be a bus soon.”

  Jack nodded. He always admired Marshall’s ability to turn off his emotions at a moment’s notice. Just hours before, Marshall had been complaining and whispering words into Jack’s ears about all the things he would do to him before he left, and the first things he would do once he saw him again. After they had showered and gotten dressed, however, all romance and sultry tones were gone from his voice. This must have been what he sounded like when he was at the hospital; cool and methodical. They had one more thing they needed to do for the day and they would do it without complaint. So Jack had gone willingly to the station and bought his return ticket. There was never any chance of solicitation for Marshall to come to Jack’s place for the holidays or to stay at his apartment for a night or two in between then. It was always Jack that had to come here, to Marshall’s building. Though he sometimes split the cost of the ticket so it was fair financially, Jack didn’t feel the same way.

  “Why don’t you come and see me next time?” he asked at the station. His bus was running late, and while Marshall glanced at his watch every few seconds, he said he’d stay with Jack until it came.

  “Because I could get called in. You know t
his. We talked about it.”

  “But I could get called in too,” Jack countered. It had happened more than once. Usually he was around when Target said they required his precious assistance, and he had also bailed Maura out of numerous circumstances. But sometimes, even when he had requested the weekend off, his phone still rang with a familiar number while he was in Marshall’s arms.

  “True,” Marshall said. “But when I can’t make it, someone may die.”

  “There’s another resident who will take your place.”

  “That’s the thing, Jack. That other resident will take my place one day and then forever. This is a highly competitive field and I need to always be on my best behavior,” Marshall insisted before he looked at his watch.

  “Yes, yes,” Jack said with a wave of his hand. “I get it. I do.”

  Marshall nodded his head, signally the end of that discussion. And it was, of course, because Jack never liked to leave on a bad note. He saw the bus pull into the station a moment later, and rose to his feet to face Marshall, a large bittersweet smile on his face.

  “I love you,” he said.

  “I love you too.”

  They hugged quickly before Jack rushed inside. Marshall waited at the sideline, only checking his watch once until the bus left. Jack sat with his bag in his lap and held his phone in his hand. When Marshall got back to his apparently safely, he would always text Jack.

  I’m here.

  Thanks, Jack sent back. I’ll do the same.

  But that text would always be another three, four hours later. And in that time, while Marshall went back to his everyday life, Jack was still stuck in the middle way of travel, where his mind wandered too much and he found himself waxing nostalgic while listening to music. Like a bad soundtrack to a film, Jack always thought he was going to have the most wonderful revelation while listening to Sufjan Stevens. But it never happened, not really. Instead he just smelled bad from sitting in cramped quarters for too long, got hungry, and really sad.