The Part Time People (5 page)

He had been debating whether or not to tell her, he thought Gwen would think the explanation for his previous behavior would be even weirder than himself. But he just had to explain,

“You know, about the other night, with Santa Claus, and after? I can explain. It's really nothing to worry about.”

“Who said I was worried.” Gwen replied, and she really didn't care. I don't want to hear his story, she told herself, but he was going on with it.

“It's just that sometimes when I see a drunk like that, well, it's kind of like a warning, It has to do with things that happened in the past.” David said.

Great, she thought, now it’s confession time, oh boy.

“So what?” she said, “Your father was a drunk or something?”

“Not my father, David said, not him. The others. I don't even know them. You see, there’s this problem that I have...” He stopped and turned to stare at the wall. He didn't quite know how he should say it, whether to go ahead and spill it out or dress it up a little bit.

Gwen didn't want to hear about his problem. She was about to say, look, if you don't want to go to lunch, then I will, okay? But she didn't get the chance to because he started in again.

“There's this man,” he said, “He talks to all the crazies and the drunks, and he’s one of them, so it's easy for him to talk to them, he knows them all. Even in a new town it doesn't take him very long to get to know them all, and that's why moving doesn't work. It doesn't help. I know. I've tried. But anyway, he talks to them and they tell him where they've been and who they've seen and where, and I think he must like finding out these things, like he's playing spy, and he finds things out and then he goes around and looks for the people he was told about, you know?”

Gwen just shook her head slightly and allowed David to continue.

“Well, what happens is he does these things to them, to the people that he finds that way. He follows them around and he does things so he ruins what they have, you know, their jobs, their homes, their girlfriends and all, he does these sneaky little things and you never see him doing them, you never see him at all. You wonder why things are going wrong. You think that maybe you’re going nuts, or else it's just incredible bad luck, this cloud that follows you around, but later on it's just too much, and you figure out what's really going on is this guy doing these things to you. It's the only explanation. So what happens is that I have been observing all the patterns since it started and I noticed that as soon as there's a drunk who talks to me, he must go tell him afterwards that he’s found out where I am, and then he starts again, ruining everything the way he does. So that's why when I saw the drunk I got that way. You see? It's really very simple.” David stopped, and he hoped Gwen understood what he had just said.

“You're out of your mind,” Gwen said. “You're just another nut. I knew it. I knew it the moment I saw you coming in the door last week.”

“Christ! No, I'm not,” he said, “I know it sounds like maybe I could be, but I'm telling you the truth, I really am. I don't want you to think that.”

Gwen lost all her patience with him, she just turned around and started in with “You don't want me to think that, huh? You weirdo! You think I can't tell? You think that I have no experience with people like you? Well, let me tell you, David, you're just another in a long line of absolutely psycho loons I've had to deal with in this store. If you weren't nuts, you think Joe would have hired you? Huh? What do you know? He only hires sickos! Every single of them. You're just the new freak on the block.”

“I don't understand.” David said, and Gwen just laughed.

“Oh, you don't understand. I get it. You’re just a total innocent and some strange man just decided he would come and ruin everything for you, Right! You think I have never heard that kind of shit before? You don't know anything, do you? Not a thing. Well, just listen, all right? Every part-timer is a sicko here. But you know what else? They all start out just like you, a little quiet, a little shy. Maybe just a little nervous too but that’s only natural, we always think, on anybody's first day at work. But soon enough, out come the sicko stories, the crazy little fantasies. I know what's coming next. I know all about you people.”

David was astonished. It was too much information all at once, too much was going on here that he didn't know about, and he didn't know what to say. He stood there looking stupid and confused, and then Gwen said,

“Every time Joe drags that stupid sign out it attracts the crazies.” She stared right into his eyes. “The last guy in here, Martin, you want to know his story?”

David didn't really want to know, but Gwen was going to tell him anyway.

“That creep,” she said, “That piece of shit still follows me around, he makes phone calls in the middle of the night, he sends nasty letters in the mail, he hangs out by the subway stop. We called the cops on him, but they won’t do a damn thing about him. He's still out there. I've got enough to deal with without your crazy story. So I don't want to hear about it. I don't even want you here. You could do me a favor. Just get lost. Just go away. Right now.”

She got so worked up she started crying and before he could say a word or lift a hand to comfort her she had fled back to the office, and she didn't come out again for hours. David just stood there at the counter, absent-mindedly selling things to people. He tried to put their entire conversation out of his mind.

CHAPTER FIVE

Gwen decided to put the whole DeBarrie's scene behind her. David was just the last in a long string of insanity. She decided to talk to Mike before she left though, and when he came in to work that morning she went right to it. There was nothing Mike could say to change her mind. When he did find out, he knew that he was partly to blame, but the more he thought about it, the less he felt responsible. What did he really know about her anyway?

David stood behind the register, ignoring the customers and thinking, what if Gwen was crazy? How could he know if she was telling him the truth about this Martin person? And wasn’t she saying the same thing about Martin that he was saying, that there was some crazy man who followed her around and tried to ruin her life? Why couldn't she see that it was just the same for him? Only he didn't know his follower, and she did know hers. That was the only difference, as far as he could see. If it was even true. She sure seemed normal, though, but maybe that's because she hadn’t been living with it long enough. We'll see what happens to her after this Martin guy's been bothering her for a few years, following her all around the country, everywhere she goes, we'll see what she's like then. She’ll end up just like me, he thought. She'll be nervous all the time.

The signs were clear. First there was the old man puking in the street. And then Santa Claus, just a few hours later. And then on Saturday he'd seen a woman pushing a supermarket cart around, piled high with stinking rags and plastic cans. She had no teeth, and she was muttering fiercely about something, he couldn't hear what it was because she was outside on the sidewalk and he was in the store behind the counter. But she'd looked at him. She'd looked straight at him and then she started to yell and shake her fist. She said, ‘you're the one, god damn you. He's going to send you all to hell!’ It was the clearest sign that there could be. It had really freaked him out. It took him all of Sunday to calm down again, and he didn't know why he bothered any more. He was tempted to just give up and run away while there was still time.

He did go back, though, And he was stunned when Joe asked him if he wanted to go on full time.

“Now that Gwen's gone, we really need someone to work her shift. It'll mean a raise too. And you've done all right so far. I guess you've got it down.” Joe was almost mumbling. This was a reality. David was there, he was doing okay, and they needed him full time.

Joe knew that David needed the money, needed the job. He didn't like having to talk through with all the details. Just say yes, Joe thought, and David did say yes and that was that. There was only one more thing to do. Joe went over to the cabinet and picked up the sign.

“One more thing David, could you put this sign up in the window, please?”

David took the sign and went up front. As he bent to tape it to the window he looked up and saw, across the street, an old man climbing into a taxi cab. He saw a woman waiting for her dog to finish pissing on a wall. He saw a city bus go by. He saw the traffic light turn from red to green. He saw nothing unusual at all. He couldn't get over it. This isn't what I thought would happen today, he thought. A fulltime job. A raise. And here I am putting up the same sign in the window that first got me here. He smiled and felt relieved.

“How's it going, Dave?” Mike said from somewhere off behind.

“Just great,” David said.

“Good,” said Mike. “I hear you’re taking Gwen's old place. Too bad she's gone. She was really great. Well, after Martin, you probably know about all that. Can't really blame the girl. That kind of thing can really get to you.”

“I guess so,” David said. And suddenly it occurred to him that now he was going to get a chance to really work with Mike, and not just stand at the register while Mike was helping customers. This is really good, he thought, and he felt that Mike could teach him how to get along more than anybody ever could. All I need is someone who can show me how, he thought, how to be normal. It's been a long time since I really had a friend, and he felt that Mike could be the best one he could have. Things are going to work out fine, he told himself. And he went to work. Later, as he priced stacks of legal pads, he felt like he had been full time his whole life, and those part time episodes had never really happened.

The next day Joe picked up the stack of applications they had received. There were four of them. He took them back into the office and slowly looked them over. He decided that this time he was going to go about it differently. One was from a teenage girl who needed a summer job, but it was almost August already and she'd be going back to school before too long. Another was from a guy who made twenty bucks an hour at the bank and wanted ‘a change of pace’. He also wanted fifteen bucks an hour. The third was from a woman who plainly stated that she had an offer for another job but it didn't start until October and she needed something in the meantime. Joe could understand that, and he was also tempted to call her because she was so honest about her situation. But then he thought we really need someone who's going to stick around. He wanted his next part-timer to be the last.

That left only one more application, It seemed straightforward enough. A man named Jim, He was in his early thirties, and had been in the army several years ago. Since then he'd worked as a veteran’s counselor, but now, he wrote, he was tired of the war, and he wanted a totally different atmosphere. He'd always wanted to work in a little shop like this, he wrote, because it seems so ordinary, normal, and sane. All he wanted, he wrote, was an honest job for honest pay. Joe thought he sounded promising. And, he was curious about the man. He wondered what it would be like to be a counselor. Surely that was more rewarding than a little retail job. He wanted to ask about it. He wanted to know this man. So he called him up and made an appointment to see him in the morning. Joe hoped it would be the last interview he ever had to do.

CHAPTER SIX

Joe told Mike about the man and the interview, and asked if he could help Joe with the interview, and Mike agreed. Mike wasn’t thrilled. He didn’t like those situations any more than Joe did, but since his brother had asked, he couldn’t refuse. Then, when he took a look at Jim's application, he felt that maybe it wasn't going to be so bad after all. The army usually weeds out the crazies. And when the man arrived, he was actually impressed with him. Jim was tall and rather handsome, though his face showed traces of old bruises he assumed he'd gotten in the war. They weren't enough to ruin his appearance, but gave him a sort of rugged look. His hair was dark and thick, his eyes were brown and set back deep. He had an air of confidence about him. Mike always liked that in a man. It showed he knew his mind, and he was never comfortable with people who seemed unsure about themselves.

Jim was polite, and took the offered swivel chair. Joe sat back behind the desk and as usual, did not know how to start. He looked over the application once again, but didn't speak for a minute or two. He didn’t feel as nervous as he'd been before, with David and the others. Mike smiled at Jim. He smiled back.

“So,” Jim said, “You’ve got a nice place here. I like it.”

“Why thank you,” Mike said, “So do we. It’s been in this family for more than eighty years.”

“Is that a fact?” He marveled. “I didn't know there were places like that anymore. Are you the present owner?” he asked.

“We are,” he said, “My brother and me. Our grandfather is the one that started this place off.”

“Eighty years,” Jim said, and then he looked at Joe and said, “So, you guys must have spent an awful lot of time in here over the years. Been working here since you were a kid?”

“Oh, well, sort of,” Joe spoke up. “Mike's the one that really, the one who does, the one who's always..”