Zel-kun’s Words

The year was 2004.

The town was Merrillville.

Or Hobart, depending on who you ask.

The place was Wal-Mart.

I used to work in electronics, it was what I knew, and I liked to think I was good at it.  Unfortunately, the sea of backstabbing had finally taken its toll on me, and with a swift strike of the knife, I found myself removed from electronics.  Away from video game systems I have personally dismantled and reassembled to clean and repair, away from computers that I could actually use without a manual, taken away was the last hope customers had of getting any useful information out of that department.  They were left with a manager who has, on more than one occasion, put gamecube games in the playstation case because, “It doesn’t make a difference.”

I was then given the most mind-numbing job I’ve ever had the displeasure of accepting a dollar for.  I was made a cashier.  For eight hours a day, I swiped various products across a scanner.  I called for price checks, and I stood in one place, the constant *beep beep beep* echoing in my ears, each time announcing the death of another one of my brain cells.

I had no real break from it.  Every minute of my day was catalogued by ‘Customer Service Managers’, and if I was even one mnute late from my fifteen minute break (the time of which was written in stone), I would hear about it.  Paul (a friend of mine I met at Wal-Mart, and who remains one of my best friends to this day) had quit, and Pete had moved to Ohio, so I didn’t have any friends left there.

My one solace?  Reading.

I had finished reading ‘Song of Susannah’ by Stephen King, which was the second to last book in the ‘Dark Tower’ series.  I had been reading the ‘Dark Tower’ since I was a sophomore in high school, and to this day, remains one of the best series of books I’ve ever read.

The thing about ‘Dark Tower’ is that characters and events from Stephen King’s other books would be mentioned, and being the bookworm I am, I made it a point to pick up those other books.  Eventually I picked up ‘Salem’s Lot’, which sat next to nearly every other King book on my father’s bookshelf.  It was a well-worn hardcover, printed sometime in the eighties, with a young King on the back of the sleeve.  Along with the leather portfolio I carried everywhere, I carried this book to work, to read during my breaks.

After a day or so of this, the manager pulls me aside to talk to me, and asks what I keep stashing behind my register every time I come back from break.

“Oh, just this book I’ve been reading,” I hold it up.

“Yeah, you should leave that at home.”  He said.

I tried to jump back, but it was too late, I didn’t see the giant wave of stupidity coming towards me, and now I was soaked in it.  “Why?  Its just a book I read on my breaks.  That’s not against the rules.”

“Well, you shouldn’t be having it by the register.”

“Well… you only give women lockers for their possessions, so I really don’t have a choice.”

“You could keep it in your car,” he says.

“You make us park in the back of the lot, a round trip takes ten minutes.  My break would be over before it began.  Why can’t I just keep it here?”

“How can we be sure you didn’t steal it?”

I am stunned, I have no response for that that wouldn’t get me fired.  Because it is completely within the realm of possibliilty that I stole a hardcover book printed in the eighties from Wal-Mart, even though the expansive book section of one half aisle doesn’t carry ANY hardcovers, or any paperback copies of Salem’s Lot.

“Because I didn’t.  I just want to read a book I brought from home on my breaks.”

“Leave it the car, make sure it doesn’t happen again,” and with that he walked away.

Despite the dire warnings, I did not heed.  I continued to bring the book to work.  I must have been pretty pompous, I must have thought I was an adult or something.

Oddly enough, I never heard anything else on the matter again.  I’d like to think the other managers just laughed at my manager when he told them of how I might have stolen a book printed decades ago.

I’d like to hope that maybe… just maybe, there was still, tucked away deep inside, there was some intelligent life in that place.

Zel-kun out.