Chapter 25 – THE LOST and the RETURNED
Staring out the lounge window through the gaps in the closed curtain, I noticed that Winter was once again upon us; then there would be Spring, followed by Summer, then Autumn before Winter again. Blah blah blah. Goddamn rinse and repeat. The trees that lined the street outside my house had been, just weeks ago, covered in rotten corn-colored shades of yellow, orange and brown, but now stood barren and leaf-less. The Winter bitch was approaching.
A week had passed since my expulsion from high school and I now resided in the lounge of my late mother's house. The television had been running the entire week and only the news channel played on the screen. I also had my laptop setup on the cluttered coffee table (some dirty dishes made their way onto the floor to make room for the laptop to sit). The whole week ticked by in an insufferable loop of anxiety, insomnia and paranoia; the anxiety stemmed from the fact that the last Skype call I had with Jill ended hauntingly and I was terrified at the thought that Jill somehow wasn't coming back. The news channel on the TV and the news sites on the internet failed to show anything refugee camp related. Only the day Jill returns will this anxiety cease. The insomnia was a result of the anxiety, I simply couldn't shut the dreadful thoughts out of my mind long enough to fall asleep; and the paranoia that followed the insomnia seemed like a natural progression in my declination of my overall state, but my paranoia didn't relate to Jill, it had instead focused on the Police and their reasons for believing I had something to do with Sam's disappearance and his severed hand.
What ever happened to Sam - served the fucker right.
The only healthy routine I managed to adhere to was leaving on time for work, even though it had been difficult to tear myself away from my obsession with keeping up with the latest news (F5 refresh, F5 refresh, F5 refresh). And today was no different as my phone alarm sounded reminding me to depart for work.
I quickly dressed in the lounge and stood in front of the small mirror that I had moved from my room and applied my concealer makeup that I had originally been forced to buy, and wear, as a result from receiving a black eye after Sam's assault on me, but now I used it to cover the deepening blackness around my eyes from a severe lack of sleep.
"Breaking news report..." I turned back to the TV and watched in disbelief as the news anchor delivered the report without a hint of humanness. "...reports have just come in... Terrorists have reportedly taken over a western Syrian refugee camp where 'Doctors without Borders' had been operating in, killing hundreds of men... We have reports that are telling us that a small handful of Americans are among the captured. We will report on more information as it comes in... In other news, Kim Kardashian shows us what the latest dress trends for this Winter are..., next on Channel N."
I had left a few minutes later than usual – a small panic attack had ensued after the news about the refugee camp, and now I was going to be late for work, and possibly fired.
Mr Grey, the owner of the Valley Department Store was supervising his staff today, and he was a very strict, stubby man. Staff members warned me that if you arrived one second late, according to Mr. Grey's watch, you were deemed as late to work and would be punished in some form or another. I never could figure out why Quentin was such a dick, until I met his chubby fuck of a father.
Part of my journey to work was through one of the the town's open parks. A painful stitch stabbed my ribs as I desperately sprinted to the store, and as I approached the midway point of the park, I spotted a blue bike that leaned against the only wooden bench in the middle of the overgrown grass, yet a quick glance around confirmed that the park was empty. The pain from the stitch became too unbearable and as I arrived to the bench, I decided to concede and sat down. I glanced at the mountain bike and realized that it hadn't been locked up. Peering around the park that I already knew was empty, a twinge of guilt started evading my morality. Pulling my phone out of my pocket and glancing at the time, I concluded that this bike was the only chance I had to make it to work on time, so after putting the phone away and taking another fleeting glance around the field, I stood up, grabbed hold of the handle bars, jumped on the seat and peddled away hastily, swallowing the guilt that tried to surface; someone had stolen my bike in the past so I was just getting even.
The bike enabled me to arrive at work with two minutes to spare – if it hadn't been for the bike, I would've lost my job. This kind of luck in my life was non-existent and I got the feeling as though someone had planted the bike there for me and that someone had watched me take it. My workplace was situated in the town's west shopping center and it was by far the biggest building in the parking lot, and boldest too with its huge red banners that wrapped around the top of the building. Mammoth-sized capital letters that lit up in yellow were fixed to the front of the building above the entrance sporting the name of the store. Two large automatic glass sliding doors swallowed me into the huge open-plan department store and I pushed the bike inside and rolled it over the gleaming lino covered pathway. The overhead florescent lighting always stung my eyes upon first walking through and it seemed to make every object in the store shine artificially bright, more appealing to customers.
All the other staff members had already started their shifts (it was typical for staff to start ten minutes before their actually start time as this showed initiative or some shit), and they were all on the shop floor looking busy as Mr Grey, the owner, had spent the day in his shop checking up on his staffs' performances. Not one single employee said hello to me as I walked in, but it didn't matter anyway, they never said "hi" to me regardless and I had gotten the impression from day one that no one liked me. It was kind of like school all over again.
I pushed the bike through the overly glistening store, through the aisles and aisles of clothing, sporting goods, electronics, hardware, through the back "staff only" door, through the lino covered hallway and finally into the dark empty staff locker rooms, where I then rolled the bike into a corner. After putting on the faded yellow cleaner's apron, which looked highly embarrassing on anyone, I walked out of the locker room, into the hallway and opened the cleaner's closet.
My work hours were spent cleaning up after customers and other staff members. Ironically, I couldn't keep my very own house clean. A builder's house is never finished, I thought. Most of the job was mopping the floor after someone, usually the elderly or the young after they'd had a bodily accident. Then there was dusting the shelves, keeping the staff kitchen clean and mopping the floors. But the worst job of all was cleaning the staff toilets. I found it hard to believe that the other employees were truly that disgustingly messy in their own toilets and I was pretty certain it was one of the few ways they bullied me at work. The only positive aspect to this job was the amount of time I got to spend by myself and away from demanding customers, although today distraction from thoughts about the news would have been good for me.
Today my shift started off with cleaning the staff area and after a couple of anxiety-induced hours worrying about how the news I'd just seen on TV related to Jill, Mr Grey stormed into the staff hallway and approached me steaming.
Mr Grey was a short man, standing half a head lower than me. He was plump and overweight. He wore a tight white buttoned up business shirt that threatened to pop its buttons, as it was clearly a size or two too small, and slits of hairy belly skin could be seen through the gaps in the shirt.
"Hi Jacob. Have you mopped in here today?" he said glaring at me through his rectangular 80's spectacles.
"Yes sir, just half an hour ago," I replied placing the mop into the hallway cupboard and wiping my fringe back with my wrist.
"Right, okay," he replied in an unconvinced tone as he ran his hand through his receding light brown, sweat-soaked hair. "Well then… since you've cleaned up in here… I have a…err, another job for you… but I'm not sure you're up to the task, but nevertheless, you are my only option that I'm left with, short of a rat... You see, Susan, the assistant in the kitchen appliance section, she had to leave early today… so I'm only left with you to cover the area, but be warned boy, I'll be keeping a close eye on you…"
I glanced at Mr Grey who had pointed his finger at me and seemed to shaking slightly from nervousness maybe?
"Um…Okay," I replied gritting my teeth, after all, what choice did I have? "Um, sir, did you have a think about increasing my..."
"... hours? No, haven't had time. Anyway, so take your apron off boy and put this on," Mr Grey scoffed at me, throwing me a bright red polo shirt, "and wear this with pride boy, as you won't be wearing if for long… I'm calling around to see if I can get one of the other part timers' to come in to cover that area as fast a possible… then you can go back to your... um, cleaning." He then turned on his heel and strutted out the door puffing, "And cut your idiotic emo hair".
"Wow, I get to be a sales assistant!" I silently mouthed sarcastically as Mr Grey's round body waddled off and out of sight. "And what a cunt." But truth be told, Mr Grey's rants felt as though they barely absorbed into my skin - I had bigger worries on my mind.
I stuffed the rest of the cleaning gear into the cupboard and removed the apron, replacing it with the cheesy polo shirt. I then walked hesitantly out onto the shop floor, across the sporting department and into the kitchen appliance area.
Glancing around the department, I was pleasantly surprised to only see a small handful of customers in the store and I was sure I'd be able to avoid them until Mr Grey had found a replacement. I stood sheepishly idle in front of the range of toasters for sale that sat on a bland gray shelf and placed my hands into my pockets. Realizing that I had left the dust cloth in one of my pockets, I decided to pull it out and make it look like I was dusting the toasters – I had the sinking feeling that Mr Grey was watching me on the security cameras above.
Ten minutes later, I had unintentionally zoned out from a mixture of sleep deprivation and the growing anxiety for Jill – god I wished that she was okay – nothing else in existence seemed to matter.
A series of jarring pokes in the gap between my shoulder blade and collar bone suddenly pulled me back into the present. Irritated, I spun around and was faced with a tall stocky man in his mid-forties who could only be described as a hillbilly. Dressed in a dirty, oil-stained white singlet and ripped jeans, the Hillbilly stood at least a head and a half taller than me and brandished a toothless smile between his light brown straw like facial whiskers.
"What toaster you think is good?" the man breathed out heavily and I could smell the cigarette tar that lined his lungs. I revolted and took a step back, but he seemed to notice this and his expression hardened as if he had been offended.
I pointed to a random toaster (as I had no idea, they all looked like the same toasters to me).
"This – this one is good..." I said shakily from sleep deprivation and nervousness while the man locked his wide eyes on me.
"YOU LIAR!" the hillbilly spat angrily. "I BOUGHT THAT ONE LAST WEEK AND IT'S SHIT! IT ALWAYS BURNS MY FUCKING TOAST!"
I took another step back and glanced around in a panic. The few people that were in the store were now all staring intently at me, eager to see how the situation played out, but no one offered to help calm the man down.
"YOU LITTLE LYING PIECE OF SHIT!" the hillbilly continued to shout abuse, spit flying out from between his scruffy beard. "I'LL HAVE YOU HUNG LIKE THE PIG YOU ARE!"
The irate man advanced his huge body towards me in what seemed like slow motion. His face was contorted with fury and he held his hands up with clenched fists as though he was ready to throttle me. He continued to shout abuse at me non-stop, but by the time he was close enough to almost touch me, a rush of what felt like compiled fury within my chest reached its boiling point. My ears rung with a sudden high pitch scream, and desperate thoughts of Jill and my late mother flashed painfully in my head.
"…AND FEED YOU TO THE DOGS!"
That was it, I snapped.
I lunged forward towards the man, and with my hands open-palmed, I pushed him with what felt like an incredible surge of strength against his soft, fatty torso. Then, I watched in disbelief as the man stumbled back as though time had slowed down, and the look on his face had turned to one of horror and surprise. After what felt like several seconds, the hillbilly toppled backwards landing with a thud against a stack of LCD TV's, then like dominoes, the TV boxes flopped over crashing to the floor with heart-wrenching popping sounds as their panels inside cracked.
There was no need to wait around for I knew what was coming next.
I jogged hurriedly off towards the back end of the store through the thick beady stares from the customers and other staff members. Swiping my staff card, I entered through into the "staff only" hallway and into the locker room where I then ripped off the staff uniform and put my own clothes back on. Slamming the locker door shut and swinging my bag over my shoulder, I stepped over to the stolen bike and pushed it at speed down the hallway and back out onto the shop floor.
The staff, who seemed to have swarmed around me now from out of their areas, stared at me with judging eyes and these glares pressured me to quicken my pace as I pushed the bike through the store and towards the sliding doors. As I turned the corner, the entrance, the door to my freedom, emerged, but to my demise, the disgruntled customer and Mr Grey stood off to the left of the exit and it appeared as though Mr Grey was trying to calm the unreasonable customer down.
I saw this as my only chance to escape, hopefully undetected, but as I broke into a run and narrowed closely towards the door, Mr Grey spotted me and started yelling with anger strewn across his fat face, but I could barely hear him above the ringing in my ears…
"…here you little shit!" – "...I'm going to make you pay!"
The hillbilly turned around and also spotted me, but then as I ran past, only a few feet from their outstretched grasping hands, I crossed the threshold of the store's doors of freedom and into the parking lot, where I rapidly swung my leg over the frame of the bike and started to pedal off… but the bike bogged down horribly and each difficult push on the pedal only carried me a short distance.
I glanced down and realized, to my embarrassment, that the tires were flat – someone had let the air out of them – and it could only have been one of the staff members. Fuck them. Fuck them to hell.
Peering back at the store's entrance, where the employees had since gathered to watch the spectacle unfold, the hillbilly and Mr Grey were now in pursuit of me, but they were barely managing to jog their overweight bodies, and as soon as they saw I had flat tires, the stopped breathlessly and their expressions turned to one of great amusement at my embarrassing misfortune – The people that had gathered around the entrance way were now all laughing at me and all I could manage was to heave the bike to the ground and run off across the parking lot and out of sight – Mr Grey was sure to call the police soon.
The sprint back home was adrenaline fueled and it had enabled me to quickly run the distance without stopping once. The glaring sun had since disappeared behind the hills and the cool brisk northerly early Winter air felt revitalizing against my overheating body – but as soon as I made it back to my house and inside its suffocating walls, the adrenaline tapered away and was replaced with the growing sense of dread about the implications of having lost my only source of income.
On the TV that I'd left on in the lounge, a sports presenter on the news channel was shouting enthusiastically about some team winning something - I couldn't care less.
Slumped and defeated at life, I dragging myself into the messy lounge and crumbled on the couch in front of the laptop, and although I was now physically beyond exhaustion, my mind darted to harrowing thoughts of Jill, but this only drove my anxiety level deeper, creating a conflict within myself; my body desperately yearned for sleep, but my mind refused to shut out the bedeviled thoughts.
A second later, my phone vibrated in my pocket. I pulled it out and chuckled loudly with a maddened sort of laugh which started me. Did I just laugh like a crazy person?
Jill: Hey Jake…. finally we've landed at the airport, and I hope this message makes it to you! I can't wait to see you when we get back home. See you soon. XOXO
The anxiety and paranoia that had held me captive since the last Skype call with Jill suddenly lifted its enduring burden off my spirit, and before I'd even had a chance to reply to Jill's message, I collapsed from my exhaustion into a deepened slumber on the couch among empty packets of potato chips.