[This is my last post to LickHaven.com. I’m moving the ruminations to substack, so if/when you get to the end of this chapter of Jenny’s life, please subscribe to me there, if you can stand to read more.]
Customers have a sure knack for wanting what isn’t available or what they shouldn’t want in the first place: Congratulations to send to people they hate. Birthday cards for relatives so obscure they can’t identify the link. Ugly gift cards to match the ugly scarves received. Heliotrope tissue paper. Glossy red and blue sacks embossed with the British royal crest.
Jenny will spend the rest of her days dropping greeting cards into paper bags with little ribbons flapping off the handles.
She’ll suspend one of the bags from her neck. Bag lady.
“I’d like a condolence card.”
The man is thin, stringy, compressed by his out-of-date business suit.
“For someone in the family?”
“Yes, but…”
“?”
“It’s not a death or sickness. It’s a wedding.”
Jenny scratches the side of her nose.
“My brother is marrying the wrong woman.”
Snort. “I’m afraid we have nothing for misapplied affection.”
He points to a rack. “Isn’t there something that would be appropriate even if not exactly… you know?”
Jenny assumes her concentration face while concentrating on nothing in particular. “Perhaps if I knew the details?”
The man raises his right palm to his neck. “He’s marrying a floozy.”
“A prostitute, a female reprobate?”
“She isn’t his class. She hangs around in bars.”
Jenny elevates to her full five-foot-eight. “With your brother or without?”
“Both.”
“Then she’s making her own choice, and so is your brother. You want your brother to be better than he can be and see yourself as the keeper of his sullied purity. That’s pitiful. Perhaps you need a condolence for your own blinderedness.”
The man’s shockwave registers in an inner region he seldom visits. He backpedals, then turns toward the door.
Jenny trails softly behind him. “Though perhaps I can offer a solution.”
“No! No, that’s… never mind.”
“Humor,” she says softly.
He stops. “You were making a joke?”
“Not at all. I’m suggesting you approach your unsettling situation with humor.”
“I don’t think it’s funny.”
“Of course not – it’s a clear case of tragedy. But, if you present it to your brother and his intended in the form of humor, they would hardly see it as an attack. They would enjoy a small external chuckle, while you – you would be laughing inside like a hyena.”
“I don’t see how…”
She touches his suited shoulder as softly as a fallen leaf. “Let’s look at the humorous condolence selections.”
She shows him several examples of sappy goo with unfunny side drivel to which, predictably, he has little reaction. Then…
“Now this one – the poor fellow is being swallowed by a crocodile. See the gentle sentiment expressed? ‘How did you get yourself into this? Hope you recover soon.’”
“Heh heh.”
“Browse for a bit. There are several more with a similar flavor.”
Jenny moves to the register. Pam materializes by her left shoulder and leans in, lowering her brassy voice in attempted sotto voce. “I don’t know what you’re doing.”
“Selling cards to nitwits. It’s what I’m hired to do.”
“You almost chased that man out of the store.”
“Almost doesn’t grab the ring. Shush.”
Pam backs off as Mr. Condolence approaches with a fistful of cards, places them on the counter.
“It’s hard to decide.”
“Let me see… Ha, you did pick the crocodile, I thought you would. This one’s quite good too. Not too sure about this” – she pushes a reject slightly to one side – “but either of these might do the trick, don’t you think? And… these others have a similar… outlook.”
“But which is the best? The most convincing, without… I mean, considering?”
“I couldn’t say. I don’t know your brother or” – leaning close – “his floozy. What I might suggest is that you buy these, all of them except that first outcaste, take them home and make your choice on reflection. It will be clearer in the proper setting.”
“I could return the ones I don’t want – don’t choose, I mean?”
“You could, of course. But the others might come in handy later, don’t you think? You never know what opportunities might arise.”
“Well, heh heh, they might. Yes.”
Jenny bags the pile of six, swipes his credit card, extends an ingratiating smile. Mr. Condolence exits.
Pam stares into Chestnut St. “How do you do that?”
“Stlange secret rurned in Olient. You know, you should fire me. If I were in your position, I’d fire me.”
“I don’t want to fire you. How can anyone be so goddam self-defeating?”
“Effort and dedication. And you can’t fire me because I quit.”
Pam deflates. “Really?”
“Long time coming. Maybe I can find something more useful to do in the world. Crochet doilies.”
“Shit. OK. If that’s what you want. It had to happen. I can replace you, but it won’t be easy.”
A lightbulb flickers over Jenny’s head. “No, it won’t. Be easy.”
The women look at each other from an undefined distance, then the distance vaporizes and they merge in a hug. Pam writes out Jenny’s final check. Jenny picks up the few traces of her existence at French’s and leaves, determined never to return. Not even for a condolence card.
If I could
I surely would
Crap on the rock
Where Moses stood.
Pharaoh’s air force got grounded,
Oh Harry, don’t you weep.
So many jobs in so few years. She swept hallways in a tumbledown public school in North Philly. She typed reports for a lawyer with a bellow so voluminous his dictations stopped conversations two offices down the hall. She concocted grilled cheese sandwiches for hours on end in the last pressed-aluminum diner in the city’s Northeast. She inoculated the eyes of rabbits with a variety of brutal irritants for a cosmetic conglomerate. She cashed the checks of the down-and-out through a bulletproof window and charged them an exorbitant fee for the privilege. On the corner by Rittenhouse Square she hawked fliers for the ever-so-cleverly named Condom Nation. She shelved used books for a strange old man who seldom sold a volume. She called patients to remind them of dental appointments.
Etc.
Few of these sojourns lasted more than a month or two, some a matter of days. French’s has been her mainstay for the past five years, because of Pam, who bullies and berates her with a peculiar acceptance, because Jenny has the absurd gift of convincing dolts that they should purchase overpriced stiff-paper celebrations for any occasion. And because Pam is an honest-to-god decent human being in a world of homogeneous assholes.
What now?
“So many putrid things happen… in the world… I want to do something useful.” Jenny gestures to the woman whose Formica desk plaque reads “Maria Sanchez, Human Resources.” Which resources does she classify as human?
Maria Sanchez picks up the paper in front of her. “You have a good background, sales, excellent clerical skills it seems. Good grades, superb grades at Penn. You didn’t finish?”
“No.”
“May I ask why?”
“You may. I didn’t want to. Finish.”
“Well. We do have clerical openings that you certainly look qualified to fill. Once we check references.”
“Not that.”
“I’m… confused. What is it you’re looking for?”
“I’m looking for hospital work. Working with patients.”
“We have only a limited number of floor openings, you understand. They require training.”
“I can be trained.”
“I mean medical sciences education, previous experience in health care.”
Jenny waves her hands, chasing invisible flies. “Look, I was selling cards, providing stupid crap for stupid people. I don’t want to push more crap around. People get mashed, they get gargoyles dropped on them – gargoyles – and what do I do about it? You see?”
“I’m not sure –”
“I’m in the world and the world doesn’t work and I don’t try to change it. The bad stays just as bad. I can empty bedpans. You dump somebody’s shit, it makes a little difference, or you… change their bandage, or. You just listen to them. What kind of training does that take, listening? Or somebody can train me. I learn fast. Every day, what do we amount to, you know what I mean?” Jenny slumps in the uncomfortable plastic chair. “I’m not articulate when I get excited.” She leans forward again. “Do something for me, OK, so I can do something for somebody else. That’s what I’m asking.”
Maria Sanchez smiles an infuriating (condescending?) smile and holds up Jenny’s slim resume. “You’d have to come in at the bottom, maybe below bedpans. In a sense.”
“You mean…?”
“I can’t guarantee anything, but I’ll see what I can do.”
“Jesus. Thank you.”
Obsequious Jenny. Ha.
Outside, she wants to dance, get drunk and dance, or dance and get drunk. Ms. HR Sanchez acted like she wanted to help. Was it an act?
A pigeon craps on Jenny’s head.
Children hate school. Drunken men tumble down stairwells. Women call for help and the world disconnects. Shouldn’t it all work better? Alternate universes, multiverses, bubbles of new existence ballooning inside local reality, isolated realms adrift on their own rafts of alien physical law, a universe where oxygen’s stability disintegrates like a wind-blown puffball but good intentions boil up from the sea.
Are the building blocks of universes up for grabs? Grab them and celebrate.
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