Pirates of the Retail Wasteland (12 page)

“Okay,” I said. “We’ll be open in fifteen minutes, so let’s do a quick review. Anyone comes in and asks for a drink, we tell them we just do accounting and management strategies here.”

“All right,” said Troy. “But if they still want a drink—and they will—I’ll make it for them.”

“Don’t be a pussy, man!” said Edie.

“I’m just saying, is all,” said Troy. “You guys can bug them all you want, then I’ll bug them a bit if they get past you, but if they still want something, I have to sell it to them.”

Edie sulked a bit.

“Don’t worry,” said Andy. “Even if they get past you guys, I’ll give ’em some more trouble.”

I filmed Andy making the coffee—he kept getting that bugged-out serial killer look in his eyes and chuckling while he did it, like it was giving him some sort of real thrill to make the coffee. Then he abruptly stopped the chuckling and started whistling “Big Rock Candy Mountain.” He was a weird guy, that Andy.

When he was done whistling, I asked Andy to explain what being a McHobo was all about for the camera.

“It’s about being bigger than the lousy job,” he said. “About finding the dignity in an undignified life. And pretending there’s something noble about working for lousy pay. Or at least not letting the overpaid jerks from corporate get you down. Most of these places want you to base your whole life around the job. I’ve seen people quit school, break up with significant others…just wreck their lives over these retail and restaurant gigs. McHobos don’t let that happen to themselves.”

“Are there a lot of other McHobos in town?” I asked.

“Practically everyone working on Cedar Avenue could be one,” he said. “Most of them just don’t realize it. There are only a few of us who really get into the whole culture, but the number is growing just as fast as the strip malls go up. And those who don’t embrace the McHobo code will follow the rules, get a raise, get promoted, and end up stuck in one of these lousy joints until they rot.”

Outside, dawn was breaking over the retail wasteland. There was no sun in sight, just snow that was falling harder and harder, but it wasn’t as dark.

Edie told Brian to follow her outside with the camera, and she stood out in the middle of the empty, snowy street and stuck up her middle finger at the Wackfords sign. Then she gracefully turned to the side and flipped off the Burger Box sign. Then she arched her back and pointed her middle finger up at the Mega Mart sign, which loomed large above all the others. She slowly turned around, sticking up both middle fingers at the whole street, then, slowly, began to wave both hands around, like she was conducting an orchestra with her middle fingers while the white snowflakes stuck to her black shawl and her black and red hair. Brian filmed the whole thing.

Ten minutes later, the store opened and we got our first customer.

I must admit that I was nervous as hell when Troy unlocked the door at six o’clock. I mean, there was nothing to guarantee that the first guy in the door wasn’t going to be a cop who hated commies and wanted to make an example out of Edie by taking her downtown for breaking in to the store. And he might take us all with her.

But the first customer was a guy dressed in khaki pants, a denim shirt, and a tie. He must have been at least in his midforties, but he had a dark tan, probably a spray-on, seeing as how it was January, and his hair was frosted. He looked as though he thought that he was pretty hot shit, even though he was probably a yes-man. He probably didn’t realize that his hair was thinning, though we could tell from the store when he was still in the parking lot.

“Oh, perfect,” said Troy as the guy walked up to the door from his SUV. “It’s Johnny B. Important. You guys are gonna
love
him.”

We all took our places as the guy came inside. Anna and I were starting out sitting at one of the “desks,” and Edie and Brian stood off to the side, filming everything.

“Grando nonfat latte,” the yes-man muttered, without so much as a hello, before he was even at the counter. He took no notice of the desks or the cameras.

“Sorry, sir,” I said from behind the desk. “We don’t serve lattes here.”

“Come on,” he said. “I have to be in the city in an hour, and you’re going to make me late.”

“I’m terribly sorry,” said Anna. “But there’s been a corporate takeover. We just do accounting and midlevel management strategies here.”

“What the hell is this?” the guy asked Andy.

“We’ve been taken over by pirates,” said Andy. “If you order a drink, you may have to face the wrath of the crew.”

Anna grabbed a few of the surveys she’d brought and handed them to him. “You’re welcome to stay, but we’ll need you to get started on this paperwork right away. If you want a regular coffee shop, try Sip on Venture Street.”

“Do you guys have any idea who I am?” the guy asked. I didn’t know people actually asked that question.

“Yes, sir, you’re a man who schedules important meetings on the weekend,” said Anna. “If you need to know more than that, perhaps you could try asking the police.”

“Or the FBI,” said Edie from behind the camera. “They have files on everybody!”

The guy looked over at Troy and Andy. “Will one of you
please
make me a goddamned grando nonfat latte before I have you both fired?”

“We don’t sell goddamned lattes,” said Andy. “Only holy, sanctified ones. Would you care for one of those?”

“Whatever. Just give me a drink.”

Troy made the guy a latte, and the guy muttered a few things that he probably didn’t say out loud in front of his mother and stormed off, saying something about calling the guy on the news who does consumer reports or something.

“That was about the friendliest I’ve ever seen that guy,” Andy remarked.

“That schmuck’s in here all the time,” said Troy. “There’s no way he’s got an important meeting. I mean, it’s Saturday. He’s probably off to let his boss beat him at racquetball.”

I suddenly got a bit concerned. “This won’t get you in too much trouble, will it, Troy?” I asked. “I don’t want you to end up on one of those TV news exposés.”

Troy shrugged. “We can get out of it,” he said.

“And if there’s trouble, I’m taking the blame, anyway,” said Andy. “And ol’ Johnny B. Important is too busy having meetings and stuff to bother calling in a complaint. Plus, if a customer swears at you, you don’t have to be nice to them anymore.”

“I’m guessing that’s not in the manual,” I said.

“Nope. Just the McHobo code. Harold would probably have us give the jerk a formal apology or something. But customers don’t get away with that bullshit on my watch.”

“How’d that turn out?” Anna asked Brian, who had filmed the proceedings.

“Got some good shots,” said Brian. “He didn’t end up going to Sip, though.”

“Places!” Edie shouted. “Here comes another one!”

An older guy was approaching the door, dressed in business-casual gear: a button-down shirt, slacks, and loafers. He carried a briefcase. He looked around when he came in, and seemed to nod with approval at the motivational posters.

“Morning,” said Andy.

“Morning, Andy,” he replied. “Nice new look.”

“We’ve changed our image,” said Edie. “Instead of being a coffee shop, we’re now focusing on accounting and midlevel management strategies.”

“Oh yeah?” asked the guy, smiling. “Can I still sit here?”

“Sure,” I said. “Especially if you’re doing accounting or management strategizing.”

“How about finance?” asked the guy. “Is that allowed?”

“Sure,” I said. “That’s close enough. Welcome to the office.”

He nodded. “Can I still have some coffee?”

“Coming right up,” said Andy. “On the house.” He poured him a cup, and the guy took it over to a table in the corner, opened up his briefcase, and got to work.

I stared over at him from the main desk. We’d just told the guy Wackfords had turned from coffee shop to office, and he’d barely flinched. In fact, he thought it was a good idea.

The experiment was a success already.

“It worked,” I muttered to Anna.

“Way too well,” she said. “There’s no way he really believes us.”

“He’s playing along,” Andy said, leaning over. “He’s an okay guy. Comes in every day.”

Anna reached under the table and pulled out a stack of the surveys she’d worked up, then walked over to him. By this time, the guy was busy talking on his cell phone, so he barely looked up, and certainly didn’t protest, when she said, “Here, we’ll need you to get on these right away.” The guy smiled and nodded. Brian, of course, got it all on film.

Five minutes went by before anyone else showed up; the snow was falling hard enough that it looked as though we might actually have a blizzard on our hands, which meant that people would be staying inside.

The next person in was a woman who, according to her name tag, worked at the gym down the street. She was wearing sunglasses and looked maybe one-third awake.

“We don’t sell coffee anymore,” I said as she walked up to the counter. She ignored me completely.

“Mocha,” she said to Andy.

“What size?” asked Andy.

“The big one.”

“You want extra cheese?”

“No,” she said, not awake enough to catch the joke.

“How about fries? You want fries with that?”

“No.”

“What if I told you we’d been taken over by pirates and couldn’t sell you anything?”

“Whatever. Can I have a mocha?”

“If you insist.”

While Troy made the drink, Anna walked up to her and tried to ask her to do some paperwork or something office related, or to get her to go to Sip, but she was pretty unresponsive. She walked out without giving us one decent thing we could put into the movie.

She was followed by a woman who appeared to be about forty. We went through the routine of telling her Wackfords had been taken over, and she responded with a lecture on how she expected to be treated as a customer, then threatened to call the guy on the news who does consumer watch-dog segments if she didn’t get her latte for free. Troy gave her one, but she was still mad when she left.

“You get those threats about the news a lot?” I asked. “That’s already two today.”

“Almost every day,” said Troy. “Even when we haven’t been taken over by pirates. People think it really makes us shake in our boots or something. Some guy on TV apparently did a story once that said if you threaten a clerk and make a big stink, they’ll do anything you want for you. And if I ever find out who it was, I’ll punch his lights out.”

“It’s cute how they think retail clerks really care about them.” Andy giggled. “As though the guy making just over minimum wage is going to be
more
concerned about their well-being if they act all whiny and mean. They don’t realize how easy it is for me to give them decaf.”

“You really do that?” I asked.

“Affirmative.” He nodded. “You can’t give someone regular if they ask for decaf, because that isn’t safe, and violating a customer’s safety is against the code. But if you downgrade someone, they’ll never be the wiser until they fall asleep at their desk. And they can’t prove anything. Let’s see ’em call the consumer reporter guy and say that Wackfords violated their right to be an asshole.”

“Is it true that waiters spit in your food if you’re mean to them?” asked Brian.

Andy smirked. “Of course. And when I delivered pizza, if people didn’t tip me, I’d steal things out of their gardens, or eat the toppings off their pizza next time I brought them one.”

“Didn’t you ever get in trouble?” I asked.

“Nah,” he said. “McHobos never worry about getting in trouble.”

“Well,” I said, “they do say that if you make yourself invaluable, there’s no limit to what you can do.”

Andy laughed. “I’m not invaluable,” he said. “I just don’t plan on sticking around long enough for it to matter. For McHobos, there’s always another job, and no need to put the current one on your resume.”

The customers came in slowly after that. We switched spots now and then, but Brian and Edie weren’t as good at dealing with customers as Anna and I were, so we usually switched back pretty quickly.

Then, just before seven-thirty, something we hadn’t counted on happened—a person we recognized arrived: Mrs. Smollet, the former director of the gifted pool who had resigned shortly after suspending me over
La Dolce Pubert
.

We recognized her as soon as she stepped out of her car in the parking lot.

“Oh shit,” said Brian. “The Wicked Witch of the Midwest.”

“I haven’t seen her since she resigned,” I said, suddenly getting nervous. If anyone was going to call the cops on us, it would be her.

“She comes in from time to time,” said Troy.

“You could have told us!” I said.

“I figured you might have guessed,” said Troy. “Half the people in town come in from time to time.”

“Shh!” said Anna. “Places!”

I sat in my spot at the desk and watched as she came in the door.

“Good morning,” I said cheerfully.

Mrs. Smollet looked at me like a church lady who’d just noticed that there was a naked person standing on the altar, then scanned the room, scowling.

“Well, hello, Leon,” she said, sounding about as friendly as a pit bull. “Working on another avant-garde film?”

“Something like that,” I said, nodding.

“Got the whole gang here, I see,” she said.

“We’ve taken over the Wackfords,” said Anna matter-of-factly. “The entire operation is under our control.”

“I’m sure,” she said. She looked up at Andy and Troy.

“Can I get some coffee?”

“Coming up,” said Troy.

There was a second or so of very awkward silence. She didn’t say anything, and neither did anybody else. Then, for some reason, she went for small talk.

“I suppose they’re going to let you go on to high school this fall?” she asked me, making it clear by her tone that she thought this would be a huge mistake.

“As far as I know,” I said.

“Well,” she said not at all pleasantly, “we can’t wait to have you.”

Without even making eye contact, she gave me a look that was identical to the one Coach Hunter gave me when he was planning to make my life miserable in gym class.

“Is this the kind of project Max Streich is giving you?” she asked. “Acting like terrorists-in-training?”

“Terrorist?” I asked. “What kind of underachieving terrorist starts out by taking over a place in Cornersville Trace?”

“It’s to help us get a good job later,” Anna explained. “In today’s job market, we need interesting things on our resumes. So we’re proactively thinking outside the box. I can assure you that we’re not being value neutral here, we’ve just determined that coffee isn’t delivering the wow factor, and that Wackfords needed to restructure if they were to keep on doing the heavy lifting for their valued guests. As pirates, we’ve done the job for them.”

“Everywhere I’ve worked, they want us to call customers ‘guests,’” said Andy with a sneer. “You know what I call them?”

“What?” asked Mrs. Smollet.

“Idiots,” said Andy as he handed her a cup of coffee.

She gave him a dirtier look than the one she’d given me.

“Well,” she said, “then I suppose this idiot will be on her way. I’ll see you this fall, Leon.”

“I’m counting the days,” I said. And she walked out the door.

“Well,” said Anna. “We’ve annoyed a few customers and irritated Mrs. Smollet. I’d say we’re a success already.”

Of all the people in Skills for the Job Market, I would be the only one who could put “successful pirate” on my resume.