She looked at the customer longingly, lustfully.
I’ve been played. He thought, watching. Just like all the others, I’ve been played. She used herself as a sales technique.
She moved her shoulders carefully, strategically, the way that made sure that she could show off all she wanted. The man was falling for it, like a dog fell for the same fake throw of the squeaky ball every time. Jim wanted to feel disgusted, but he couldn’t, not when realizing that he had been tempted as well—he had fallen for the same trick, chased the same squeaky ball.
He had walked all the way out there, and he wasn’t going to leave empty handed. Ripping his eyes from the man and Linda to the book bin he headed quickly for it. He was going to grab one book, just one.
The paperback titles glared up at him, some with the telltale crease in the spine of being well read and enjoyed. On others, there was maybe a small mark where it had been cracked open, but not really read, not really deeply read. Some books were like that, their spines going from that wonderful straight line to a kind of crooked U. That was one thing about a hardcover that he had to admit, they didn’t deteriorate the same way paperbacks did, but they cost more, took up more space, and were a good amount heavier.
He was beginning to feel the pull play at the back of his mind again, a faint rattle at the back of his skull. He wasn’t sure what it was, but it was something that he knew wasn’t right to let rule him, but at the same time it felt good—real good. Like forbidden fruit.
He pulled another classic out of the stack, passing over all the pulp that lined the bin, and started to flip through, looking for ruined or missing pages.
Linda laughed behind him. It was a loud laugh, one that was unnecessarily drawing attention to her, a bubbly, fake laugh. It was one that didn’t belong on her, just like the T-shirt, and he was sure that it served the same purpose.
You do indeed sell “anything” Linda, even yourself. You even sell your own morality and decency.
He looked up for a moment and saw a young woman with shocking copper hair staring at him. Her eyes were almost unblinking, he waited, and then saw her lids rise and fall. She was under average height, and something else about her looked small, the way she was standing, she looked vulnerable—afraid.
Why is she staring at me?
Jim almost dropped the book as he looked away hastily, trying to ignore her. He moved to another box conveniently marked: MUSIC.
A CD poked out of it, and he grabbed it, just trying to find a diversion. It was a beat-up classical CD; a man with a comb-over was on the front, hunched over a guitar. He tried to keep his attention on the turtleneck-clad man and away from the woman, but he knew she was still watching him.
Jim swiped a quick sweep in her direction and saw that she was still looking at him, her blue, saucer eyes deep with concern and thought. He noted that she looked afraid—very afraid.
He took the CD along with the book and began for Linda, who had just finished talking with the man that had been there before he was. He set the items down on the table carefully.
Linda smiled, bright and easy. She struck a pose that seemed both ridiculous and sexy at the same time. She was trying to toy with him and he knew it. “Hey, there, Jim. Come back so soon?”
“Ran out of stuff to read.” He said. He dared glance behind him to see the copper-haired girl not looking at him anymore. She was walking around the merchandise, glancing at it and counting, as if she were taking inventory.
Did they hire on workers?
“Oh, I’m sure glad you enjoyed them.” The flicker of her lashes shooting up and down, remaining only slightly lowered was barely registered and only later would he think that she was still trying to toy with him. The way she stood was intended to give him a view that would be enticing, he would realize that only later on as well, and he would come to realize for sure that she was trying to hook him—hook him good.
“It’s like I couldn’t put them down, you know?” He said, half distracted by the woman behind him.
“I know, read a few good books in my time.”
“It wasn’t even that, it was more like just the book itself, I just couldn’t get away from it.”
Linda chuckled understandingly. Jim thought there might be more behind it, but he didn’t pursue it further.
“That’ll be five dollars.”
“The CD that much?”
She shook her head, the dark hair flourishing around her. “The book is a dollar and the CD is four.”
Jim reached into his back pocket for his wallet. “Books went up quite a bit.”
“We’re getting more people coming through, and go through more merchandise quicker, and we’re trying to up our quality. Quality costs.”
“I guess.” He handed her the bill. “The other customers find that out?”
“Well, yes, and for more expensive items we designed an easy-payment system. They can pay it off over time, or all at once.”
“How many use that option?”
“Quite a few. Some people go for one-fifty at a time, or five hundred.”
“People buy that much stuff here?”
“You’d be surprised.” She grinned, those perfect teeth shining. “We do eventually work off a limit, if they don’t pay up after a certain amount of time, or rack up more than enough, then they aren’t allowed to buy any more till them pay up.”
“Sounds fair. What if they never pay?”
“We devised an option for that, if they can’t afford it, then we work out a trade.”
Jim set five dollars down. “What do you trade? Do they honestly have something that would be worth that much?”
“Most do.” Her smile faded. “We don’t give away secrets though. All of our trades are private. Most of the time it takes a little more prompting for them to trade, but we try to work it out peacefully.”
“What do you mean?”
Linda took the money and set it in her little box and passed the book and CD back to him. Her face was changing rapidly as she watched something behind him.
He took the book and CD.
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” She screeched and rushed from behind the table, losing her pose, and baring her teeth in a stare of absolute rage.
Jim looked where she was heading.
“PUT THAT DOWN! WHAT ARE YOU STUPID?”
He saw the target of her rage was the copper-headed young woman, hastily putting down a large pot—it looked like very nice china.
He watched Linda go for the young woman. Her hands were clenched together in fists, and her eyes were bulging.
“Linda?” He said.
Linda flashed a look of rage back at him, and for a moment he wasn’t sure if he was looking at a human, her face had changed so dramatically that he hardly recognized her. Veins stood out, and two tiny protuberances were noticeable on her forehead, or at least he thought they were.
She turned away and back at the woman, shouting and swearing at her. “BEVERLY, YOU RETARD, I TOLD YOU NOT TO TOUCH THINGS!” Her hand flashed out and made contact with the girl’s face, causing her head to jerk backwards. “Get back where you belong.” Linda pointed to a tent.
The girl bowed her head to the ground and started for the tent. Jim watched her a moment. She looked in his direction, her eyes a steamy blue, foggy with tears.
Help me. A desperate voice pleaded.
He did not see her mouth move, but he knew that it had come from her, there was no way that he could confirm it, but he knew that the voice had to have come from the young woman. She ducked back in the tent.
Jim looked back at Linda who was back to her normal self, and turned slowly, composed, and headed back for the table. Her face was completely normal. He looked right where he thought the two little lumps had been, but there was nothing, not on either side. He had to have been imagining it, for a moment he thought he had seen horns. But that was impossible.
Jim looked down and saw that he still had the book and C
D in his hand; he began for the gate, anxious to get away from the place as soon as possible. He didn’t know why, but he felt like someone was watching him.
IV
OVER THE next few days Jim began to notice more and more how things had been changing around the neighborhood. It started in simple ways, there were more people walking around—but then he noticed where they were going.
Then they started coming back with armloads of stuff, stuff that was really only junk that had been resold to them at a bargain price. He knew where it came from, and he didn’t want to think about it.
He saw a man walking down the road wearing a backpack one day. The man seemed in a bit of a daze, as if he really didn’t see anything going on around him. Jim was sipping a cup of coffee at the time, watching the man walk. As he watched him a few moments longer—the zombie like expression never leaving his face—he noticed that the backpack the man was empty. The floppy folds of it fluttered slightly in the wind, the backpack was slumping down on the man’s back, serving him no purpose whatsoever—but Jim knew why he had the pack.
He waited for the man to come back down the road, and sure enough the backpack was full. There were several odds and ends sticking straight up out of it, he saw the ears of a stuffed rabbit in particular, somewhat dirty from use. Why a grown man had bought something like that was beyond him. He watched until the man disappeared down the road, walking slowly, his face expressionless—robotic.
Jim had gone to bed that night, but didn’t get much sleep—all he could think about was the man with the
Merchandise - A Short Story Page 4