Pirates of the Retail Wasteland

by Adam Selzer

  Anna shrugged. “It’s just a gimmick,” she said. “It’s also a redundancy. Her Majesty’s ship Pirate Ship.”

  All of a sudden, the music changed from tango to a fast punk song.

  “Yes!” Edie said. “Johnny Christmas and the Kindergarteners!”

  I looked over at the other corner. Trinity was walking back over to my dad and Warren’s table, where my dad was bouncing around in his seat.

  “This is great!” he shouted. “Who’s singing?”

  “This is Johnny Christmas!” said Trinity as she started to move to the music herself.

  “Totally tubular!” said my dad.

  “Oh, God,” I said as I sank as low as I could in my chair.

  “Do punks say ‘totally tubular’?” asked Brian.

  Edie shook her head, but she was obviously trying not to laugh.

  “Seeing as how we’re pirates,” I said quietly, “did anyone happen to bring a dagger? Because it would really help me out if someone would stab me to death right now.”

  Trinity was really dancing now; I was impressed by her graceful, conservative pogoing. To my great horror, my dad jumped up to join her, and soon they were both jumping up and down, though only Trinity seemed to have a handle on the concept that you’re supposed to jump up and down to the beat of the music. My dad was just jumping randomly. I’m not much of a dancer myself, but I didn’t know you could be bad at the pogo.

  “Rock ’n’ roll!” Dad shouted, in a very bad British accent. I prayed that my dad wouldn’t realize the song was called “Crotchgrabber Junction,” since that would probably inspire him to, well, grab his crotch.

  “Since when does your dad have a Mohawk?” asked Edie.

  “He’s working on a new kind of hair dye that only sticks to hair, not to skin or anything,” I said. “And he tested it on himself.”

  “Sweet!” said Edie. “After I did the red streaks in my hair, I never got the stains out of my towel. It looked like I’d cleaned up after someone got shot or something.”

  “Well,” said Brian, “isn’t that what punk rock is all about?”

  The song sped up a bit. “Leon,” Anna whispered in my ear. “You might want to get him out of here before they start slam dancing.”

  That hadn’t occurred to me. I jumped up from the table and practically ran over to them.

  “Well, this was fun,” I said, grabbing Dad’s arm, “but we really must be going.”

  “But I haven’t had my coffee yet!” said Dad.

  “We can do that another time,” I said, dragging him toward the door. “We need to go home now. You need to get to work on your invention.”

  “Bye!” Dad shouted as I pulled him outside. He settled down as soon as the cold air hit him. “Man!” he said. “That was fun.”

  “It was dangerous!” I said.

  “Oh, come on,” he said. “It was just jumping up and down.”

  “I know,” I said. “But it’s a gateway dance. The pogo tends to lead to slam dancing, and then you could have really gotten hurt. Those safety pins in Trinity’s dress could have come loose and poked your eye out!”

  “Aw,” said my dad. “I can take care of myself.”

  “It’s just because we love you, Dad,” I said. “Mom and I don’t want you to get hurt.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Whatever,” he said.

  And we got into the car and drove back home. By the time we were off Cedar Avenue, I was more determined than ever to take over the Wackfords. There is no greater tragedy than when a child has to lecture his parents about safety. Just a few days before, having him pogo dance while I sat there listening to Edie talk about what a good idea one of his inventions was would have ruined my entire week.

  But things were different now. I was a pirate.

  Fifteen minutes into the school day the next morning, I decided that I never, ever wanted to hear the term “leadership skills” again. It seemed to be by far the most popular topic of conversation among the Skills for the Job Market kids, who were really getting into a discussion about using leadership skills in fast-food and retail work.

  Up at the front of the room, Mr. Morton, who was still dressed as a fruit smoothie, but maybe as a different flavor this time, was going on and on about how to present yourself when applying to work as a customer service representative. From what I gathered, he thought you should show up acting like a slick-talking game show host.

  “You see,” he said, “that’s what they look for when they hire new team members. They don’t just want team players, they want leaders.”

  Yeah, I thought. Leaders who will work for just over minimum wage and can lead the other employees into battle against the store across the street. Call me a snot-nosed commie whiner or whatever, but when I think of leaders, I think of guys like Winston Churchill or George Washington, not the assistant housewares manager down at the Mega Mart.

  Wackfords, I imagined, was probably big on talking about leadership skills. It seemed like their sort of thing. I wondered what they called their employees. No one actually says “employee” anymore—they all say something like “associate,” “teammate,” or something equally dumb. If this was the job market, I thought maybe I’d just become a taxi driver. That guy who’d driven our taxi Saturday night probably didn’t have an ounce of leadership skills in his entire body, and he did all right.

  At the end of the day, Anna, Brian, Edie, and I gathered quietly around the flagpole outside the building. The weather service in the morning had said that it was going to be the coldest day of the year so far, and it certainly felt like it. We’d been able to see our breath hanging in the air for weeks, of course, but this time it felt like it might actually turn into a solid chunk of ice instead of floating away.

  “Perfect,” said Brian. “We’ll have the element of surprise. They’ll never expect to be raided by pirates in this weather!”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Whereas in the summer, it’s something they try to stay on the lookout for.”

  “Why do you think they’re always hiring?” Anna asked. “They need people to stand on the roof with spyglasses.”

  I was wearing my usual jeans and winter coat. Anna was wearing her furry hooded coat, the one that made her look like an Eskimo. Edie was in what I guess was supposed to be a punk ensemble, though it really looked more goth—a rather garish long black coat that blended well with the nonred parts of her hair. Brian was wearing a studded leather jacket that was nowhere near warm enough for the winter over his T-shirt. He didn’t even have a hat or a hood or anything—his only headgear was an eye patch.

  “Take that thing off,” said Edie when she saw it. “You look like a total tool.”

  “Hell no,” said Brian. “If we’re gonna be pirates, then I’m going all the way.”

  “Why not cut off your leg at the knee and get a peg leg, then?” Edie asked.

  “Because the school would expel me if they caught me walking around with a saw, but you can make an eye patch from the things you find around the art room. It’s easy if you know how.”

  So we wandered our way up Seventy-sixth Street, past Flowers’ Grove Park and the pond, with Anna looking like an Eskimo, Edie looking like a vampire, and Brian looking like a dumbass. We would have made a good cast for one of those movies where a band of misfits go on an incredible journey, which, funnily enough, was pretty much the case.

  About midway through the walk, Edie said, “You think we’re far enough away?”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “To be sure we’re not being followed?”

  There were some cars rumbling along down Seventy-sixth, but there was certainly nobody on the sidewalk. The only people we could see were a couple of kids skating on the frozen pond.

  “I think we’re pretty safe,” I said.

  “Obviously,” said Anna. “Who’d follow us? It’s not fit for man or beast out here.”

  “The government,” Edie said matter-of-factly.

  “Arrr!”
Brian shouted at the kids on the pond. No one turned to look.

  It was about a ten-minute walk up to Cedar Avenue, then a few blocks east to Wackfords. We stood around outside the door for a while, sort of staring at it, not wanting to admit we were nervous.

  “Wackfords!” Brian shouted, socking me in the arm.

  “Well,” said Edie finally. “Here we are.”

  “Yep,” said Brian. “This must be the place.”

  “Oh, you big babies,” said Anna. “Come on!”

  And she stomped up to the front door. We all ran after her, not wanting to look like complete wimps. After all, it was cold as hell. No point in standing around in the wind.

  Brian jumped in front of Anna and ran inside, shouting, “Yo ho ho, and avast, ye swabs!”

  No one really seemed to notice; the place was practically empty. Troy was standing behind a cash register in his green apron; another guy, somewhat older and heavier than Troy, with a bushy black beard, was behind the espresso machine; and a plump blond woman was standing at the counter.

  “Hey, guys,” said Troy.

  “Hey yerself, ye scurvy scalawag!” shouted Brian. Edie ran over to him to try to shut him up. I guessed there was probably something in The Communist Manifesto that forbade her to have fun in a Wackfords.

  “Is it International Talk Like a Pirate Day already?” asked Troy.

  “Nope,” said the guy behind the espresso machine. “That’s in September.”

  “What’re you guys doing here?” asked Troy. “I thought you guys wouldn’t come here on a bet.”

  “We’re plunderin’ booty!” said Brian.

  “Just came in to say hello,” said Anna.

  The guy behind the counter put a cup on the counter. “Mezzo caramel freezero,” he said. The plump blond woman picked it up.

  “Awfully cold for a freezero,” said Troy.

  “I have a good heater in my car,” she said, sounding rather annoyed.

  “They don’t come warm enough for days like today,” said the other guy behind the counter. “I should know. I’ve been here for thirty-seven years!”

  “Yeah,” the lady said sarcastically. “You’re what, twenty?”

  “You know something?” said the guy. “You remind me of my oldest daughter.”

  The woman shook her head and walked out with her drink.

  “Guys,” said Troy, “this is Andy Bellow. He’s my shift supervisor. That means he’s in charge of looking the other way when I break the rules.”

  “Pleasure’s all mine,” said Andy, nodding as he slung a whipped-cream dispenser around like a pistol.

  “Anyway, Troy,” I said. “We have a little proposition for you.”

  “Go for it.”

  “Well, as you can see from my dumbass friend’s costume, we’ve decided to become pirates. It’s for a pool project.”

  “You’re taking us over, then?” asked Troy. “I thought you just wanted to set up an office in here and see if anyone noticed.”

  “What’s all this?” asked Andy. “We’re being taken over?”

  “Yes,” said Anna. “We’re planning to make a movie about taking over a Wackfords and turning it into an office.”

  “Are we talking guns and stuff?” asked Andy. “I don’t mind you setting up an office, but no job is worth getting shot over.”

  “Of course not,” I said. “We’ll just come in and set up an office, but we’re going to try to stop people from buying coffee.”

  “What kind of office are we talking about?” Andy was intrigued enough to put the whipped-cream thing on the counter.

  “Accounting and midlevel management strategies,” said Anna, who sounded as though she’d done this sort of negotiating dozens of times before.

  A slow grin spread across Troy’s face.

  “No kidding,” Andy said. “I can’t imagine it would be that different from the way they expect me to run this joint any other day.”

  “That’s exactly the point,” said Anna. “We’d take over the store for a while, turn it into an accounting office, and see how many people notice the difference. Maybe make some people go to Sip instead. And make a movie out of it.”

  “Huh,” said Andy. “What are you guys, like, a bunch of junior high revolutionaries or something?”

  “Just Edie,” said Anna. “The rest of us are filmmakers and devotees of the old downtown.”

  “Well,” said Troy, “technically, it’s in the handbook that we’re not supposed to let anyone film anything inside the store.”

  “Bunch of corporate crap,” said Edie, scowling as she looked around the room. She looked like a Baptist who had just wandered into a Satanic ritual. “That means they have something to hide.”

  “My thoughts exactly,” said Troy. “They don’t want anybody to know about the four-year-olds grinding sugar in the back.”

  “Hey, if these guys take us over, it’s no skin off my back,” said Andy. “And that thing about filming is buried in the back of the manual. You can plead ignorance. As for me, I was getting ready to move on. When you’ve mastered whipped-cream-dispenser juggling, it’s time to be checking on down the line.”

  “This is what I was telling you guys about,” said Troy. “He’s a McHobo.”

  “It’s a way of life,” said Andy, looking away from us and out the window. “I’ve worked at half the places on Cedar. I’ve been here for six months, and now it’s time to move on.”

  “You never work anywhere longer than six months?” Brian asked.

  “Never. That’s part of the McHobo code. If you stay longer than that, you can end up specializing, and to specialize is to settle. Settling in a retail job is the kiss of death to a McHobo.”

  “How many places have you worked?” I asked.

  “Eighteen,” Andy said proudly. “Started getting jobs six years ago, and since then I’ve been at Grocery World, Grocery Circus, Burger Box, Burger Baron, all the major pizza places. Couple of shoe stores. Another Wackfords. The vitamin store. I worked at Mega Mart for about three hours once, but now I’m not even allowed back in there.”

  “You should see this guy’s bedroom wall,” said Troy. “It’s lined with all his name tags from his other jobs.”

  “They’re my trophies,” said Andy. “Some wannabe McHobos just buy old name tags online, but all of mine are authentic.”

  “Show them your tattoo, man,” said Troy.

  Andy put down the whipped-cream dispenser and proudly rolled up his sleeve to show us his shoulder, where there was a tattoo of a name tag with his name on it. Where the store logo would normally have been was the word “wherever.” Below the name were the words “McHobos Do It All Over Town!”

  “Anyway,” said Andy, rolling his sleeve back down, “how can we be of service to this crew of pirates?”

  “Actually,” said Anna, “we were hoping we could interest you in a mutiny.”

  “Mutiny?” asked Troy. “Keep talking. I got two hours less than I need to qualify for benefits again this week. I’m about ready to start a mutiny of my own.”

  “Not my fault, man,” said Andy. “Harold calls those shots.”

  “I’m not saying it is,” said Troy. “If the world being round was a problem, I’d happily blame it on Harold.”

  “You should go union!” Edie said with a smirk.

  Andy smiled at her. “It’s not that easy,” he said. “Many are the McHobos who’ve gone from store to store trying to form unions and failing. But I like the way you pirates think.”

  “What we’re looking for,” said Anna, “is someone like you who can help us take control of the store for a while someday soon, and wouldn’t mind us breaking some rules.”

  Andy picked up a white rag and started polishing the whipped-cream dispenser. “Hmm,” he said. “Harold wouldn’t think much of it.”

  “So?” asked Troy. He looked over at us. “Harold is the manager. He’s very by-the-book about things around here.”

  “Yes. That’s why Harold no
t thinking much of it makes it all the more attractive,” said Andy. “The first time I signed on for a hitch at a Wackfords, over at the Shaker Heights store five years ago, it seemed like they wanted coffee freaks who wouldn’t go by the book. Now they just want people who yammer on and on about leadership skills.”

  Aha!

  “Well,” I said, “why not show some leadership skills and join the rebellion?”

  “I knew when the wind changed that something like this was coming,” said Andy. “The time has come. Troy and I’ll be the only ones here from about five-fifteen till noon on Saturday. Why don’t you guys come by when we open? We won’t stop you. It’s time for me to get fired.”

  “You sure you want to get fired?” Anna asked.

  “McHobos look for signs to tell us it’s time to move on,” he explained. “It’s been time for a while now—moving up to being a shift supervisor is actually a violation of the McHobo code. So you guys coming in here is a sign, or I don’t know what is. But I don’t want to just quit this place. I want to go out with a bang. I’ll even bring you some desks to use in the office.”

  Troy nodded at Andy almost reverently.

  “If you say so,” I said, though I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted someone’s unemployment hanging over my head.

  “Just come by on Saturday. We start up at five-fifteen.”

  “Do you mean five-fifteen in the morning?” asked Edie.

  “Yeah,” said Troy. “That’s when we get here to start setting up. Store opens at six.”

  “We’ll need time to set up anyway,” said Anna. “Five-fifteen’ll be fine.”

  “Just one thing to keep you guys out of trouble,” said Andy. “If Harold comes in, you have to tell him you’re setting up to sell Girl Scout cookies or something.”

  “He’ll still kick them out,” said Troy. “You probably can’t do that, either.”

  “Yeah,” said Andy, “but you don’t go to jail for selling Girl Scout cookies. I’ll take the rap for letting you set up. Good a way as any if I want to get fired.”

  “Should we be in uniform for that?” asked Brian. “We were going to go for business gear.”

  I tried to think of Brian in a Girl Scout uniform. If the cops saw him dressed like that, they’d surely think they’d found a pedophile in Cornersville Trace at last.