You Only Live Once

by Haris Orkin

  “Go. Get going. I got some Christmas shopping to do. I’ll see you soon, all right?”

  Flynn nodded and headed off. He glanced back to see Sancho staring at him. He looked so sad.

  Chapter 5

  For over one hundred years, the traditional holiday shopping season always began the day after Thanksgiving. Black Friday became the moniker of that first official day of Christmas shopping because retailers hoped that all their heavily promoted sales would push them into the black for the year. They advertised like crazy to create as much foot traffic as possible and sometimes some of that crazy infected the shoppers.

  In 2008, a seasonal employee opened the doors at a Long Island Walmart and two thousand people stampeded inside, knocked him to the ground and trampled him to death. Since 2006, twelve people have died and one hundred and seventeen have been shoved, poked, punched, pepper-sprayed, slapped, kicked, choked, stabbed, tased or shot on the first day of “the most wonderful time of the year.”

  In the weeks leading to Christmas, the Glendale Galleria played a nonstop selection of holiday music over the PA system. At first, Flynn thought it was fun, but over time the endless loop of happy and joyful Christmas carols turned into a grating and ironic counterpoint to all the stress and angst emanating off the shoppers. As Flynn slaved away, hand-stomping lemonade, Bobby Helms sang, “Jingle Bell Rock.”

  Flynn’s supervisor at Hot Dog on a Stick, Mrs. McKinney, told him that twenty years ago the Galleria used to be even crazier at Christmas. With the opening of the Americana at Brand and the ease and the popularity of shopping online, Black Friday at the Glendale Galleria didn’t see the same crowds as decades past. She claimed that indoor malls were less popular in general and the Galleria was a prime example.

  You could have fooled Flynn. He couldn’t imagine how the mall ever held more people. At 2:00 p.m. on Black Friday, every table in the food court was occupied by shoppers carrying multiple bags. The lines at Hot Dog on a Stick were longer than ever, and Flynn’s arms and shoulders ached from hand-stomping all the lemonade those thirsty shoppers needed to wet their whistles. Ashley worked the cash register, Emma made the fries, and Becky dipped and deep-fried the dogs.

  “We’re getting low on lemonade!” Ashley shouted.

  “Come on, Jimmy. You’re slowing down!” Becky barked.

  Juice squirted in Jimmy’s eye. “Sorry,” he mumbled.

  Mrs. McKinney stepped out from the back office and took charge when she saw the crush of customers. She opened the register next to Ashley. “Jimmy, take this register. Becky, you start cutting and I’ll hand-stomp. Let’s go, people.” She clapped her hands three times and Becky just stared at her. “What are you looking at missy? Let’s move!”

  Flynn took over the register and people rushed over from the other line. First up was a harried thirty-something mom with panicked eyes and two wild toddlers yelling for attention, each on their own bright blue leash.

  “I don’t want a hot dog! I want McDonald’s,” the little girl screamed.

  “The line’s too long at McDonald’s,” Mom hissed.

  “McDonald’s! McDonald’s!” the girl shouted.

  Her dirty-faced brother chanted along, “McDonald’s! McDonald’s!”

  The mom looked at Flynn beseechingly and shouted over her screeching kids. “Three hot dogs on a stick, three fries, and three lemonades!”

  “McDonald’s! McDonald’s! McDonald’s!”

  Flynn had to shout over them as well. “What flavor lemonade? We have cherry, we have lime—"

  “McDonald’s! McDonald’s! McDonald’s!”

  “Regular! Whatever!” The mom’s voice was hoarse from too much shouting and too many cigarettes. The kids tugged on their leashes and pulled her off-balance.

  “McDonald’s! McDonald’s! McDonald’s!’

  The mom jerked both leashes, pulling the kids off their feet. The little boy cried and the girl joined in. Flynn took the mom’s money and rushed to fetch their food and drinks. His hands trembled as he hurried to assemble everything. A high-pitched buzzing filled his ears. The stress was overwhelming, and he struggled to keep it together.

  When Flynn returned with the tray, the mom shouted at both her kids, “I’m telling Santa how bad you’ve been, and you’ll get nothing! Nothing!” The kids cried even louder as Flynn handed her the tray and she dragged away her offspring.

  Next in line was a sixty-something woman carrying an incredible array of shopping bags. She stared up at the menu board, totally perplexed. Flynn posed a question, “What can I get you, ma’am?”

  “How many calories are in the veggie dog?”

  “Um…” Flynn consulted a plasticized sheet with ingredients and calorie counts. “Two hundred and twenty.”

  The woman stared at the menu board some more. “How many are in the turkey dog?”

  “Um…” Flynn consulted the sheet again. “Two hundred and forty.”

  “Hmmm,” the woman said. She stared back up at the menu board.

  The hulking forty-something man in line behind her sighed loudly.

  “How many calories are in the all-beef dog?”

  Flynn consulted the sheet. “Three hundred and eighty.”

  “Okay,” said the woman.

  “You want the beef dog?” Flynn asked.

  “Do you know how many grams of fat are in that?”

  The huge man behind her sighed in exasperation and mumbled, “Jesus.”

  Flynn checked the sheet again. “Looks like twenty-three grams.”

  “That’s a lot of fat. How many are in the turkey dog?”

  “Lady, I gotta get back to work,” said the hulking guy behind her. “I know what I want. Can I just order please?”

  “Wait your turn,” she said.

  “There are fifteen people behind you, ma’am,” said the man.

  “Would you please stop interrupting me?”

  “Thirteen grams of fat,” Flynn offered.

  “Well, that’s quite a bit less. What about the veggie dog? How many grams of fat are in that?”

  “Jesus Christ!” the man shouted.

  “Eight,” Flynn said.

  “Great. I’ll take the all-beef.”

  “Can I get you anything else?”

  “How many calories are in the cherry lemonade?”

  “Unfuckingbelievable!” The hulking man behind her stalked off and Flynn, for the first time, saw the man standing behind the disgruntled patron.

  Francisco Goolardo.

  And he was smiling.

  Flynn nervously consulted the calorie sheet. “One hundred and seventy in the small cherry lemonade.”

  “Give me a large,” the lady said. Flynn rang her up and took her money. He handed her a tray with a hot dog on a stick and a large cherry lemonade.

  Goolardo now stood first in line. He rested his hands, flat on the counter. He wore a charcoal gray Armani suit and a blue and gray Hermes tie.

  “I almost didn’t recognize you, Mr. Flynn. You put on a few pounds since we last met.” Though his accent was Brazilian, his English was perfect.

  Flynn smiled the same insecure smile he smiled at all the customers. “What can I get you today?”

  “I’d like the last year of my life back. I’d like all the many millions of dollars you cost me. I’d like my reputation restored.”

  “I’m not sure what you’re asking me, sir.”

  “Your very existence is an embarrassment to me. That I was taken down by a fat, balding, pimple-faced, mental patient who works at Hot Dog on a Stick is simply…unacceptable.”

  The twenty-something man behind Goolardo tapped him on the shoulder. “Are you going to order or what?”

  Goolardo slowly turned his head and focused his angry eyes on the young man’s employee tag before raising a furious gaze to his face. “Mr. Garza, I don’t believe I was talking to you.”

  “If you’re going to order, order. There’s a lot of people waiting in line. That’s all I’m saying.”r />
  Goolardo hit Garza in the throat. He stumbled back in shock, grabbing at his neck with both hands as he struggled to breathe. His face turned red as the rest of the line scattered in fifteen different directions. That’s when Flynn saw Mendoza and two more dangerous-looking men behind Goolardo.

  Ashley and Becky, Emma and Mrs. McKinney watched in stunned silence as Goolardo turned back to the counter and offered Flynn a charming smile. “Your bill is due, Mr. Flynn. Today you pay for all the pain and trouble you caused me. Today you die a slow and agonizing death.”

  Flynn backed away from the counter, tripped over a bucket, and landed on his back, spilling lemonade everywhere.

  “Take off that stupid hat and come out from behind there.” Goolardo leaned over the counter to look at him. “Please don’t make this more difficult than it has to be. We wouldn’t want anyone else to get hurt, now would we?”

  Flynn saw the flash of anger on Mrs. McKinney’s face. She was frightened, but the insult to the Hot Dog on a Stick hat was more than she was willing to take.

  She strode up to the counter and glared at Goolardo. “Who the heck do you think you are, sir?”

  Goolardo eyed her nametag before meeting her indignant gaze. “I am chaos, Mrs. Kinney. I am darkness. I am death. I am the anarchy that underlies the artifice of civilization and civility. If you ever hope to live to see another day you must run away.”

  Tears filled Mrs. McKinney’s eyes as terror gripped her heart. Ashley, Becky, and Emma were all equally terrified and teary-eyed.

  “Run, Mrs. McKinney. Run!” Goolardo shouted.

  And she did.

  Flynn tried to stand and slipped and landed on his ass in the lemonade. He tried again, and fell again and crawled on his hands and knees for the back office. The dangerous men with Mendoza leaped over the counter and pulled him to his feet, but they didn’t see the lemon halves in his hands. He raised them and squeezed, squirting them both in the eyes with juice. They shouted with pain and surprise, clawing at their eyes as Flynn disappeared into the back office.

  Flynn’s mind emptied of anything but fear and adrenaline. It was a familiar feeling. As a ten-year-old orphan living in foster homes, he was often bullied and abused. Other kids, older kids, bigger kids stole from him, beat him and terrorized him. Fat. Afraid. Alone. Helpless. Defenseless. The fear pushed out any rational thought and completely immobilized him.

  The deafening clap of a gunshot brought Flynn back into his body. Christmas shoppers ran and screamed as panic gripped the Glendale Galleria Mall. The heat of a bullet passed by Flynn’s face before he even heard the gunshot. When he glanced back, he saw Mendoza and the two dangerous men not far behind.

  One fired at Flynn and the rotund man next to him went down. Surprise flashed in the man’s eyes as he fell. A bullet hole in his yellow shirt. The blood. The man mouthed the words “help me,” but Flynn didn’t stop. He just kept running.

  Up on the second level, Flynn looked down on the Santa stage and all the panicked parents and kids running for cover. He ran past Baby Gap and Apple and The Lego Store and joined the terrified crowd fighting to get on the down escalator.

  People shoved and punched and pushed each other. An old woman fell. Some tried to scramble over her. Others slid down the metal separator between the up and down escalator. Flynn followed one of them and dove headfirst down the slide-like separator. He tobogganed all the way down to the first level and belly-flopped on the linoleum floor.

  Someone stepped on his hand.

  Someone else kicked him in the head.

  Flynn tried to get up, but he couldn’t. People kept stepping on him and kicking him. He curled into a fetal position, the same way he used to when bullies beat his ass on the playground during recess. He tried to cover his head and squeeze into a ball as small as possible. The screaming and shouting and crying and yelling overwhelmed him. Paralyzed.

  Flynn thought he heard someone call his name. But it was distant. Faint. Then he heard it again. Louder this time. “Flynn! Flynn! Flynn!” Santa loomed over him, grabbed him by the arm, and pulled him to his feet. Only it wasn’t really Santa. It was his roommate, Rodney Shoop.

  “We gotta move! Let’s go,” Rodney shouted.

  “They want to kill me,” Flynn said.

  “They want to kill everybody!”

  “No, just me. They want to kill me!”

  “It’s not always all about you, you know!” Rodney scolded as he pulled Flynn through the hysterical crowd of people running every which way. “Fucking terrorists hate our way of life! They hate us for our freedom!”

  “Santa! Santa!” A five-year-old boy, his face full of snot and tears, clamped his hand on Rodney’s red sleeve and held on for dear life. “I can’t find my mommy!”

  Rodney grabbed the kid’s wrist and pulled him along. Another gunshot boomed and Flynn glanced back to see Mendoza aiming at him as shoppers scattered. The muzzle flashed. The shot cracked. Rodney spun around and looked at Flynn with surprise as all two hundred and ninety-five pounds of him fell to the ground. He clutched his arm. Blood leaked between his fingers.

  “I’m shot. I’m frickin’ shot!”

  “They shot Santa,” the five-year-old cried.

  Rodney watched Mendoza advance and shouted at Flynn, “Go! Go! Get out here!”

  Flynn scrambled to his feet and ran as fast as his fat ass could carry him. Gunshots echoed behind. Flynn didn’t know which way to go. The stampeding crowd made that decision for him. He was buffeted back and forth as he struggled to stay on his feet.

  The human wave carried him through the doors of Target where he crashed into a large display of holiday wrapping paper. He fell and crawled behind a customer service counter. There he hid, helpless and alone, a high-pitched buzzing filled his ears as sheer terror overwhelmed him.

  From the time he was twelve, Sancho agonized over what to buy his mother for Christmas. That was the year his father disappeared, and Sancho and his mother moved in with her parents. They never had much money, but Sancho always insisted on giving his mother something. Having been abandoned by his father, he didn’t want to lose his mother too. At twelve, he felt responsible for his dad’s leaving. At twenty-seven he knew that guilt wasn’t logical, but as a student of psychology he also knew it was common for children to feel like they were the cause of their parents’ breakup. Because of this, Sancho was extremely devoted to his mamá and that feeling was never more intense than around Christmas.

  His mother claimed that just having Sancho there for Christmas dinner was enough, but Sancho always wanted to give her more. He couldn’t afford much, but he would save all year to buy her something he hoped she’d love. His mother worked hard all her life cleaning other people’s houses and rarely spent any money on herself. It was enough just to buy food and pay the rent. She would always gently scold her only son for spending his money on a present, but he loved the look in her eyes when she’d pull off the wrapping paper.

  Since September, she’d been raving about her friend Blanca’s Instapot, so this year he decided to buy his mother her own Instapot. Now Sancho just had to pick one. He was in Target, trying to choose, but it wasn’t easy. The six-quart Instapot seven-in-one came with seven functionalities and fourteen smart programs. The Plus 60 had a more advanced interface with a mode indicator and a pressure gauge. He finally decided on the eight-quart Ultra because it was also a rice cooker, a yogurt maker, and a warming pot. It was more than he could afford, but if he put it in on a card he could pay it off over time.

  He stood waiting in line at the cash register when the first gunshot echoed through the mall. Everyone in line looked at each other as they weren’t immediately sure what the sound was. But then came another shot and another one and everyone in line left in a hurry. Even the cashier disappeared. The shoppers converged on the exit and Sancho joined them, but then he remembered Flynn. His old friend seemed so distant and depressed, confused and helpless. What if those gunshots had something to do with him?
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  What if they had something to do with Goolardo?

  The mob pushed Sancho for the doors and Sancho tried to fight the flow and swim against the tide. He shoved his way back through the crush of panicked shoppers. People were irritated and terrified and angry, but Sancho kept saying “excuse me, excuse me” as he pushed and elbowed his way through. He was just about back to the mall when another gunshot rang out.

  More terrified shoppers stampeded into Target and nearly swept Sancho away, but he stood his ground and finally made it through.

  He found himself by Santa’s throne on the raised platform with the gaudy red, green and gold lights, and tinsel. It was where Santa sat to have his picture taken with all the hundreds of sticky-faced kids. The line usually stretched forever, but at the moment there were no kids waiting, no elves to usher them forward, and no Santa.

  Sancho headed for the escalator that led to the second-floor food court and Hot Dog on a Stick. That’s when he saw Saint Nick. The big, bearded, red-suited symbol of the holiday season lay on the floor, bleeding out. A crying five-year-old boy sat next to him, sobbing and holding his hand. Sancho knelt on the ground beside them. “What the hell happened here?”

  “Some asshole shot me,” Santa snapped.

  “Where’d you get hit?”

  “Left arm.” Santa kept pressure on it with his right hand even as blood leaked through his fingers.

  “I’ll get you some help,” Sancho said.

  “Get this kid out of here first. Get him somewhere safe.”

  “No,” said the little boy. “I wanna stay with you.”

  “Don’t be naughty! Go with the man. Go!”

  The boy nodded as tears streamed down his dirty face. Sancho took the boy’s hand, but he also had a question. “Which way did the shooter go?”

  Santa raised a bloody finger and pointed across the mall. Fifty feet away, Sancho saw Mendoza. Fear filled his guts like ice. The last time Sancho saw the burly enforcer was the trial where Sancho testified against him.

  “Shit.”

  Mendoza saw Sancho as well; and Sancho could tell that Mendoza knew exactly who he was. As Mendoza raised his weapon, Sancho leaped to his feet and turned to run, pulling the boy with him. That’s when he bumped into Francisco Goolardo.