She grew up in a small town in the south, the atmosphere of ever-larger, ever-louder unmuffled trucks with confederate flags hanging onto the beds. She always thought it was ironic that they never taught about racism or white privilege in school, while the pale kids surrounding her bragged about decorating their daddies’ new tractors with blue lives matter stickers. Now she works in the industry, selling her time and her brain for just barely the amount of money it takes to not completely lose hope.
It’s already been a long day, but she skips out of work ten minutes early to drive to the superstore and beat the rush-hour traffic already squeezing onto the parkway. She needs infant diapers, formula, and produce. She walks what feels like a mile through the Bezmart parking lot to get to the sliding glass doors. She never liked the place, BezMart, but they had slowly and surely bought out the local grocery stores, so it is the only option that doesn’t require 45 minutes of driving. The fluorescent lighting contrasts wildly with the afternoon outside. In the transition, the atmosphere inside the store appears more green than it should, but her eyes adjust gradually.
She feels the low thrumming pulse of anxiety, it’s been there since she got pregnant, she hardly perceives it as something outside her sense of self. She wanted to be an inventor, she had these ideas for cough drop gum and customizable chapstick and jeans with reinforced thighs for other curvy goddesses. That space in her mind is now consumed with thoughts of nannies, daycare, breastfeeding, playdates, and of course, Jamie and his health. She never wanted to be a mom, but she never lets it show. It doesn’t matter what she wants anymore, she has a different life in mind for her child, one of hope and joy. She pushes these thoughts down and carries
on. She has to pick up Jamie from daycare in 20 minutes.
She’s the frugal type, not necessarily by choice, but often forced to choose between pay days which bills to settle and which will wait. The main fruit of her household is the banana due to the soaring costs of most other produce. The Cavendish banana she ate in her teenage years is now extinct, the species pulverized by a contagious fungus, and she misses the flavor. The new version is twice as expensive and tastes like apples. She sighs, and places a bunch in her cart, her thoughts still roaming around those unpolluted days of her youth, when she still had dreams of her own. She takes a deep breath, trying to push out the fatigue that constantly hovers just inside her skin. The past is over, I just need to get out of here, she thinks as she scans her last item and swipes her BezMart card. Only 5 minutes left to get to Jamie on time. She didn’t want to be late again, so she started jogging toward the glass doors.
She starts as a man in red grabs her arm. He’s an employee here, she notices the man’s sewn patch on his shoulder that says “Loss Prevention”. He must have been right behind her in order to her scare her like that, but she was so deep in memory that she hadn’t noticed him.
“Where do you think you’re going?” says the man.
She meets his eyes, glares at him for a minute then at his hand, which is still clasping her wrist. He loosens his grip, but doesn’t let go. There’s a moment where it seems a curdling scream might burst out of her, but instead she clears her throat to make it go away. It’s difficult, but she calms herself.
“Is there something wrong, sir?” she replies as politely as she can.
The wispy hairs on his upper lip stretch with his skin as he smirks.
“You’ll need to come with me, ma’am.” he says, revealing yellowing teeth and onion breath.
He starts to pull her back through the checkout to the jewelry section, and the scream stuck inside of her rises in her chest at the feeling of his fingers locked around her arm.
“Excuse me sir, but you haven’t told me what’s wrong.” she says, making her voice sound much more pleasant than she feels.
“Don’t lie, you know what’s wrong.” he snaps.
“No, I don’t know what’s wrong. Do you think I’ve stolen something?” she questions him.
He smirks again and says, “Just wait until we get to the lie detector, okay hon?”
“You don’t need to pull me, I can walk on my own”, she says, acid creeping up in her tone.
He doesn’t let go. Instead, he ignores her and keeps dragging her until they are across the aisle near the jewelry section.
The loss prevention officer presses her palm into the sensor and his stubby sausage fingers transfer sweat onto her hand. The sensor is disguised as a mirror-coated stand for necklaces, hard to notice without drawing the eyes to it directly, but once familiar with them, it’s hard not to see them everywhere. A red, blinking number pops up, fonted like an old digital alarm clock. This cannot be happening, not today and similar thoughts start to block her mind, like swimming through deep seaweed.
He looks at the red blinking number, then at her, meeting her unblinking eyes. “Okay, what’s your name?” he starts, falsely sweet.
“Charlene Vargas”. The red number continues blinking slowly. It appears she passed the first test.
“Okay Charlene”, he repeats her name like it’s a pseudonym, “what have you stolen from BezMart today?”
“Nothing”, she replies, and the sensor lets out a small chirp.
He sneers at the chirping sound. “Is this the first time you’ve lied to me?” he says. Panic starts to rise in her, the scream inside her rising closer to her throat.
“I haven’t stolen anything, and I’m not lying.”, she replies, now with an undertone of nervous frustration.
“Okay, let me see your receipt and we can compare it to the items in your bag. Take them out.” He finally releases her hand from the sensor and she flexes her fingers to promote blood flow in them.
She looks in her bag. Resting neatly on top of her bananas is a porn magazine, Playgirl, with a very muscular shirtless man on the cover, lounging back in a speedo. Repulsed, she stares motionless at the magazine. She never even liked muscular men, especially shirtless. She preferred a lean and flexible type of lover. The way the magazine man is posed, you can see 8 sets of abdominal muscles. There was something about that photo that could have been funny, but all she felt was sickness and disgust. Her stomach was turning into a pit of churning acid, and her seaweed-thought-filled brain was becoming more congested. This isn’t happening, I just need to convince myself this isn’t happening. I’m not really here, I’m really with Jamie and we’re about to snuggle up on the — her thought is cut short by the chuckling of the LP officer.
“Well, I guess we’ve got a naughty girl over here.” He smiles the widest yet, finally revealing his receding gums as he peers inside her bag.
The feeling of sickness multiplies in Charlene’s body, now combined with a thick dizziness as she looks up at him.
“This isn’t mine, I didn’t put this in my bag!” Her voice starts to rise in pitch with her level of panic.
He places a thick hand on her shoulder as he says, “Don’t fret now, we’ll just get my manager over here, have a little chat, you can pay for your slutty magazine, and we can all go on about our days.” He gives her a wink as he utters the last few words, like he knows what she is up to.
The scream is just millimeters from escaping her now, she hears it in her mind, a high pitched train whistle blowing the words “DON’T TOUCH ME”. Instead, she ducks out of his grasp and steps backward. The crinkle around the LP officer’s eyes disappears for the first time since she pulled the magazine out of her bag. Out of nowhere, he blows his whistle as hard as he can and Charlene flinches. He smirks as she does. A manager comes over. Charlene tries to speak to him, but the manager doesn’t pay attention, only focused on the LP officer.
“Ralph, you’ve caught another one today? You must really be pulling for employee of the month!” The manager praises the LP officer.
“This one here tried to steal some porn.” starts Ralph, handing the manager the magazine.
“I didn’t take it! Someone else put it in my bag!” Charlene yells, interrupting.
The manager, ignoring Charlene, lets out a long low whistle as he takes the magazine and flips through. “Not the way I roll, but… “ he trails off.
“Alright, let’s see your BezMart card”, says the manager. She hands it over and he scans it.
“It looks like this is your first infraction, so the punishment is only an in-person public apology to the Board members of BezMart.” he pauses and looks down at his scanner again. Gesturing to the magazine, he mumbles “and you should probably bring this, they will want to see it.”
“An apology? Are you serious?” Charlene retorts. Her blood pressure is rising to a crescendo.
“You could refuse, but they wouldn’t let you or any of the members of your family into any BezMart ever again.” replies the manager softly.
“I didn’t go anywhere near that section, I didn’t even know BezMart sold this type of thing. Check the cameras!” she nearly screams.
“Okay first of all, of course we sell porn, it’s one of our most popular products these days! And second, you may request we check the cameras by filling out a form, but that will go on your BezMart record and be mentioned in all future infractions. Still, only BezMart employees are able to view the recordings per our procedure. Either way, to leave from here you’ll have to pay for the magazine and schedule your apology meeting at the customer service desk.” says the manager, but the volume of his words turns down in Charlene’s brain and begins to slip away. Meanwhile, the volume of the subconscious train whistle in her mind increases and increases. She loses her grip on it, and the scream finally rips out of her, almost unexpectedly, high-pitched as a hot tea kettle, ringing and ringing as she drops her bag, runs out of the store, and on.
