Impatience Is a Virtue

by Francis Gideon

  “You know,” Jack says to Patrice as they pass through baby clothing. Their second and last break has just occurred and there are only a few more hours standing in Jack’s way from leaving. “The Spanish word for embarrassed is not, as you would have it, embarazada.”

  Patrice snorts slightly. She’s already used to Jack’s sudden non-sequiturs in conversations and decides to play along. “Well, what does that mean then, señor?”

  “Pregnant. It’s quite amusing to go up to someone, say you’re sorry, and then realize you’ve somehow told someone you’re pregnant. That happened to someone I used to work with who wanted to tell a joke. The punch line was built on that pun, though, and he had no idea what he was doing.”

  Patrice laughs, more out of politeness than direct humor. Her eyes scan the floor for Tony, before she leans close to Jack. “Can I tell you a secret?”

  “Yeah, of course. I love gossip.”

  She rolls her eyes. “Keep this between you and me, but I’m very embarrassed right now, if you know what I mean.”

  Jack smiles right away. His blue eyes fill with sudden excitement as he examines Patrice’s body. Under her large white sweater and red Target uniform, she looks the same. “How far along are you?”

  “Ten weeks, seven days, maybe a few hours,” she laughs. “Sorry, probably too much detail.”

  “No,” Jack says his smile wide. I get it. “When you’re excited, you count.”

  She nods and the two of them stop in the baby section of Target. Stray hats and small booties are piled up on the edge of counters, sleepers are off their small plastic hangers, and the place is a general mess. Even the mind boggling task of cleaning up does not seem to distress Patrice. She holds up a small baby T-shirt and smiles as she folds it.

  “I was hoping to score some cheap baby swag while I was here,” she says, then looks around and exhales loudly at the oncoming crowd. “But I kind of doubt it.”

  “You’re not allowed to call it baby swag,” Jack shakes his head. “The next thing you know, you’ll turn into one of the Targé women.”

  Patrice laughs. “You know, Swag made the charts as a baby name this year. Hashtag did a few years ago.”

  “Doesn’t that count as child abuse?”

  Patrice laughs again as she folds a pink shirt and then places it back in a display section. “Just give it time, and selfie will become a name too. Or Buzzfeed,” she adds, narrowing her eyes at Jack. He laughs lightly and begins to fix a large outfit falling off a hanger.

  Though the crowd is still large, it has calmed down significantly in the past two hours. To help fight boredom at work, Jack often breaks out his Spanish or other languages to see how much he can remember. He thinks of all these kids growing up with bizarre names and answering the question of como te llama? Soy Selfie—and he shakes his head again. He’s about to turn to Patrice and tell her how much time they have left in Spanish when his phone buzzes again. Marshall, he reads with a smile.

  “Quick, cover me,” he asks Patrice. “Gracias.”

  Patrice smiles and says, “De Nada,” as Jack reads the text.

  Apparently, just like there is a People of Walmart website, there is also a website for unfortunate ER stories. We can’t take pictures, obviously, but Natasha has been transcribing everything that’s been happening today. You have your Buzzfeed image, and I have my woman who thought she overdosed on mints story going viral. Hurrah for us.

  After the text, there is a link to the website called ERtards.com. Jack finds a few hilarious stories listed right away, including Marshall’s gem about the supposed minty fresh overdose.

  Though I do admit that the name could be better, this is excellent work, Jack responds. I wonder if I can send some people over to you, there.

  Maybe, maybe, Marshall writes. But I’m sure you’re going to be fine.

  Jack tries to respond, but he knows that Marshall is swept up in the thrill of his job. He will come back, but not long enough to stay beyond small talk. He should be happy that he’s at least gotten a link to a website he can browse and feel close to Marshall by proxy. It’s fine, really, Jack thinks. He’s about to become swept up in the last hour of his shift, too. He types a quick message before hitting send. Bien hecho, mi novio.

  When Jack’s eyes scan up from the phone, Patrice is looking at him.

  “What?”

  “You ever think of having kids?” she says with a smirk.

  “I’m not exactly biologically capable of reproducing.”

  “No, but, you could adopt.”

  “We could,” Jack says. He pauses. “But I think I’d like to get us inside the same house before we start making babies.”

  Patrice nods and then takes some of the baby clothing she’s decided will be a perfect match under her arm. She excuses herself to go and “hide” it inside one of the displays in the stores, so that when the employees are allowed to shop again, she knows where the purchase is.

  Greta, a large woman who usually wears two Target aprons to fit over her large torso, moves away from the back wall just as Patrice leaves. Greta waves to Jack with a large smile and nods to Patrice before she makes her way over to baby clothes. She lets out a low whistle as she evaluates the damage.

  “Who knew tiny people could be so much work?”

  “Hi Greta,” Jack says. “You just start?”

  “Yep. Here till closing, though it looks like you two have carried most of the burden.”

  “We have. Be grateful.”

  Greta smiles and turns to Jack, regarding him with the keen eye of a mother. “How are you doin’ sugar?”

  “I’m fine,” Jack says, batting away her attentive glance. “Sugar, though, really?”

  “If I can’t eat it, then some people are going to become it,” she says with a smile. Jack wants to make a joke about cannibalism but can’t get his mind to think straight.

  “You look like a homeless person, you know,” she teases him.

  “No homeless person would willingly wear this Target uniform.” Jack touches his beard and feels the stubble gaining on him. He’s been pretty good with shaving since he started to get real facial hair at about sixteen. Most of the time he could forget about the task in the morning and then not grow a beard for a few days. Now, at almost thirty, his hormones and age is catching up to him and those few extra minutes he wanted to sleep in this morning now are coming back to haunt him—along with his ten hour shift.

  “I’m going for the hipster look, thank you very much,” he teases back. “Besides, I was hoping it would scare away customers.”

  “Never will work, sweetheart. They see the red vest and they run towards you,” she says. Just as she speaks, a man walks over to both of them with large, blue eyes and jean shirt. Really? Jack thinks. He hasn’t seen fashion this bad since the early nineties.

  “This is broken,” he states. He holds up an alarm clock with a crackdown its face. “I would like another one.”

  “Let me just go and check about that in the back,” Greta says. She speaks into her phone as if it’s a walkie-talkie and then gives the man a fake smile. Jack has to hold back his laughter.

  “They’re bringing one out,” Greta says after another moment of fake chatter on her phone. “Go wait by the back door and ask the man with a mustache about it, okay? Grey hair. You can’t miss him.”

  “Thank you,” the man gushes. He leaves the broken clock right by Greta who then lets out a loud chuckle.

  “Some days,” she sighs, “I feel bad for ragging on Tony.”

  “Never feel bad about that.”

  “No rest for the wicked, I guess,” Greta states contemplatively and then eyeballs the crowd. The line-up is the one feature that seems to never change today. All the people come and go, but the queue is always around two aisles. Greta’s eyes go wide and tsk-tsks at the sight. “And patience is a virtue. I swear, some of these people need to keep that fact in check. It’s just an object. It can’t be worth that much, and if it is, then they s
hould cultivate some patience and learn the true value of waiting.”

  Jack nods and mumbles a few words of agreement to Greta, though he’s always hated that specific expression about patience. Stating that patience should be respected or strived for above all else seems so futile—kind of like that biblical phrase that ‘the meek will inherit the earth.’ The meek will inherit nothing. Jack has seen that first hand in his tiny mother, hopping from job to job, and barely conversing and participating beyond what she needed to. Patience is not a virtue, not for those who have deadlines and bills to pay. To Jack, all platitudes may as well be written in a dead language like Latin, they are of no use anymore. Not exciting, not fun.

  It’s just like pick-up lines too, Jack thinks. They were useless when trying to date men, which is why he figured so many guys at the gay clubs didn’t really speak at all. They just hooked their hands together and went out to the back. Jack never had to do anything like that with Marshall. Even something like a wrong number could be made into something better.

  Jack watches as a couple more people fight over merchandise in the aisle. Okay, he thinks again. Maybe those who are anxious about an alarm clock on Black Friday should strive to be a little calmer. But even then, Jack still doesn’t like thinking of patience as a virtue. Greta’s words make him feel nervous—especially since he spends so much of his life around Marshall being patient and waiting for him to have time for their relationship again. He’s been extending his patience and understanding for months, hoping to be rewarded there. And yes, sometimes he is. Sometimes he comes home and Marshall has sent him a long email, meets him for a Skype dinner date, or has sent him a gift through the mail. But most of the time, Jack just feels as if he’s wasting his life here, hanging around in Osh Kosh and trying to listen in on the Spanish grandmother talking to her grandson. Patience may be a virtue for some, but he’s having a hard time embodying it, especially when customers bump into him or follow him into the bathroom.

  “Anyway,” Greta adds. “I have to get off my feet for a bit. Keep your nose to the grindstone, kiddie.”

  Jack nods, barely lifting his eyes. “You know it.”

  Jack finishes what he needs to do in baby clothing, and then he’s about to move onto the kitchenware aisle when he feels his phone buzz again. He does a quick sweep to make sure that Tony is otherwise occupied before he flips it open behind a small poster for the most recent Disney flick.

  So in total, the injuries have amounted to a broken arm and a few stitches, Marshall texts. There is someone else coming in with diabetic shock, though. Please assure my beating heart that you are okay?

  I’m fine! Jack says with a smile. A woman shoves him as she walks past with her arms full of toys. He adds to his next message, Kind of. No real injuries to report here, though I think someone on our staff fainted a while ago.

  Okay, thank you. Just get that person to drink some water.

  Yes, yes, thank you Dr. Quinn Medicine Man, we have it.

  Right, sorry. Doctor in me. You know I sometimes get paranoid.

  It’s because you need to eat dinner, Jack texts. Marshall doesn’t reply right away; probably swept up again in being the savior. Jack sends him a quick sign off instead, so Marshall won’t have to feel guilty for forgetting to respond for another hour.

  I love you and will see you soon.

  Another long pause and then: You too.

  Jack sighs at his reflection inside a pot that is now on the floor. Dios Mio, he thinks. He checks his phone to see the time. Una hora y dos minutos. He tries to embody Greta’s words again, but it only leaves him feeling angry and confused.

  Chapter 5

  The rest of Jack’s shift is spent oscillating from complete and utter boredom as the PA system announces promo codes for merchandise, Target commercials, and bad Christmas songs—and then to sudden and complete panic as people push past him. There has been no sign or message from Marshall in over half an hour and Jack feels that same nervous energy set over him when he doesn’t respond to an email right away. Jack cross-examines all the messages he’s sent before to make sure that he hasn’t said anything bad as he sets up a new display of shoes. He doesn’t notice Maura and Patrice coming up behind him, because their singing voices are drowned out by the PA system. It’s only when he hears the familiar Spanish song that Jack turns around and spots both of them, waving their hands in the air.

  “Feliz Navidad, Prospero año and…” Patrice trails off. “What’s the next line?”

  “Y Felizidad.” Jack smiles at both of them. “You two must be getting loopy if you’re singing.”

  “It’s the only way to effectively scare off customers,” Maura says. Her nose ring sparkles under the florescent lights and her penciled in eyebrows rise in a defiant expression.

  “I can’t believe you’re still singing Christmas stuff,” Jack comments.

  “It’s allowed,” Patrice insists. “It’s after Thanksgiving, after all.”

  “Not quite,” Jack teases. “But I’ll allow it.”

  “So I was teaching my nephew how to sing the songs,” Maura says, raising another eyebrow. “Especially the twelve days song because he’s learning numbers, you know? But I can’t remember half of them. What’s number four? Calling birds? What the hell are those?”

  “Collie birds,” Jack corrects. “A type of bird that calls back—hence why the name was changed over a few years ago.”

  “Ah, thank you, good sir,” Maura states. “I owe you one.”

  “I’ll hold you to that,” Jack states with narrowed eyes.

  “I know, I know,” Maura sighs. “I’m racking up quite a debt with you, Jackie O.”

  Jack shrugs. Two weeks ago, Maura and her boyfriend planned a spontaneous road trip down to New York City and back. She needed more time off to go, and Jack, of course, stepped in. He figured at least one of them should be happy with their boyfriend, and if it wasn’t going to be him, then he may as well take her shift.

  “I never forget my debts,” Maura says seriously.

  “And I never forget the time,” Jack states, glancing at his phone. “I leave in fifty minutes.”

  “And a partridge in a pear tree,” Patrice adds. The three of them work together picking up merchandise. After five minutes of towel folding, Maura cracks and turns to each of them.

  “Let’s rewrite it. The twelve days song, you know. It will help pass the time.”

  Jack rolls his eyes, but Patrice seems interested in it. “What would the first be?”

  “And a TV screen with an LCD?” Jack suggests. The two women’s eyes go wide.

  “Nice!” Patrice says. “Don’t forget about coupons. Seven hours cutting coupons?”

  Jack laughs. “Twelve minimum wage workers about to lose their minds.”

  “Five expired products,” Maura sings melodically. All of them laugh as they begin to complete the song, pulling out every last trope and experience they can think of in all of their retail service.

  Suddenly, mid-song, a man walks in between Maura and Patrice. He moves towards one of the large skids, near the back of the store, filled with Dora The Explorer backpacks. Earlier in the day, Jack remembers Tony yelling at some of the guys in the back because they cut through the plastic over the skid too much and ended up slicing half the Dora bags. These products are still the same bags—with the first layer still slightly ruined. Jack looks around, trying to find Tony or someone else to ask why they’re still out if they’re damaged. The older man with dark hair and a black jacket on also has a young girl, probably his daughter, by his side. She points excitedly at the merchandise. Her father shushes her in the same breath that he grabs two more of the bags for his arm.

  “Sorry sir,” Jack says, breaking away from his trio. “You can’t take those. Most of the skid is damaged.”

  The man doesn’t seem to hear. He turns his back towards the employees at the back before he begins to check the inside of the items, their straps, and price tag. Jack is about to warn him again
about the damage when he realizes that the man has already noticed. He compares the small slice through the bag to another from the same pile, which has the same mark but in a slightly different spot. He’s evaluating them, Jack realizes, to see how easy it is to fix. Sometimes customers will argue with the sales associate about discounts on an item like this. But Tony told the employees to pull the bags entirely, since everyone wanted a discount today and there was no time for special cases.

  “Sir?” Jack asks again. “You’ll have to come by tomorrow for the bags. They shouldn’t be on the floor right now. If you’d still like them, I can put it on hold and…”

  Just as Jack approaches the man, the man looks to his young daughter. He speaks to her in hushed tones and motions with the backpacks. Jack notices him mouth the word Navidad and Jack tries to get his attention again.

  “Ahora, ahora, señor,” Jack says. The man hears, flinching slightly, but ignores Jack. He lowers his voice as he talks to his daughter.

  “Si, Maria…” He leans down on his knees and begins to talk to her slowly, methodically. Jack knows they’re planning something in the middle of the store from the way he looks around and points. He hears “izqueirda” and “derecha” come from the man’s lips before he stands again, Jack walks over.

  “You have to wait, sir. You have to wait.”

  “No habla Inglés,” he says with a knowing glance.

  “Por favor…” Jack tries again.

  But the man doesn’t listen. In a blink, he swipes several of the bags under his arms and then bounds down through the aisles. His daughter is already outside the door and he scoops her up into his arms and runs even faster now. Jack is left in a dull shock after the whole thing has played itself out in a matter of seconds. He doesn’t even bother going to the window to try and find the car the man drives off in. He knows he’s not going to report it, either. No one has seen the man in the sudden chaos anyway, and he knew enough to take a broken item so that the tag wouldn’t go off under the alarms. He probably works in customer service too, Jack thinks, and knew all the right tricks. For a while, he can’t even fault him. Just like that, Jack thinks, and the man got what he wanted. And no one stood in his way, not even the employees who worked there.