Matt Cowper - The Clerk

Thankfully, Thomas’s Christmas shopping was out of the way. He went to Wal-Mart the second week of December and spent a fast-paced hour loading up a cart with goods. If he shopped for less than an hour, he felt guilty for having rushed through this supposedly sacred experience. More than an hour, and he felt suffocated by the endless shelves of low-price items, and the pop music playing overhead had turned his mind to mush. It wasn’t like this at Oxendine’s; there, he was a worker and had clear tasks that needed to be accomplished. Here, he was a consumer trying to fight the impulse to buy, buy, buy.

He’d wrapped the presents in his ham-fisted way (His mother, every year: “Oh, Thomas, didn’t I teach you how to wrap better than that? Don’t you remember helping your mother when you were a wee little fellow? Oh, you used to love sticking on the bows!”) and stacked them in his closet.

At work, the yearly Christmas decorating had been completed. Yolanda had ostensibly been in charge, but Vernon hovered close by, controlling his wife’s excesses. If she had her way, she’d wrap the entire store in blinking lights, wreathes, garland, smiling elves, and red-cheeked Santas, and put a 36-foot-tall Christmas tree on the roof. It was her not-so-secret dream to win the annual Carteret County Chamber of Commerce’s Best Decorated Business (Christmas Season) Award, but her husband lovingly squashed her dream every year. She would sigh and say that “a few more lights and maybe an animatronic snowman and this lil ol’ store would look right peachy,” and her husband would respond that “the store looks fine. My workers have spent enough time on all this glowy-glowy stuff. You know this is a business, right?”

So Thomas had bought presents, helped decorate Oxendine’s, and dealt with the most nettlesome and frenzied family e-mails. He anticipated a lull until the Oxendine’s Grocery Christmas Party, which this year took place on the 22nd. In addition to the food and drink that would be consumed, there was the Secret Santa event. Each employee drew a name from a hat, and had to get a gift for that person. No one was supposed to know who was getting a gift for whom, but of course there were loose-lipped people who couldn’t resist tantalizing their giftee, and there were others who lied about who they’d drawn to confuse and frustrate others. It was an elaborate game, with a little bit of malice, depending on who had grudges with whom. To his dismay, Thomas had drawn Eddie. He had no clue what the scatter-brained deli man wanted or needed, so at Wal-Mart he’d grabbed a package of plain white Fruit of the Loom socks, figuring everyone could use more socks.

But a lull was not to be had. When Thomas was stocking up the pickle section one afternoon, he noticed someone approaching out of the corner of his eye. He turned, meaning to greet the customer with a simple nod, or, if it was someone he knew well, to greet them in the ironic fashion most of the locals liked. He did know this person, but there would be no ironic greetings. It was Kara.

He stared, befuddled. Kara had never visited him at work, because he’d told her not to visit him at work. What did she want now, especially since they hadn’t seen each other in weeks? Hadn’t their non-relationship fizzled out?

“Hey,” Kara said. Already a dull word, Kara made it even duller.

“Hey,” Thomas echoed, with equal dullness.

He looked her over. It looked like she’d put on twenty-five pounds since he’d last seen her. Or had she always been this big? Thomas scanned through mental images, trying to compare past to present, but it was pointless. After all, most girls look at least a little desirable when you’re on top of them and ramming them with your penis. When naked, Kara’s hips were sensually wide, and any fat she had was fun to play with. Now, fully clothed, and with their last sexual encounter an age ago, she looked slatternly. Her face in particular struck him: it had been her best feature, but now it was as round as a frisbee, and her lips looked like they’d been injected with far too much collagen.

“What’s up?” Thomas ventured, when Kara just stood there staring at him.

“I need some help.”

“OK — what kind of help?”

“Well — I’ve got this itch, and I was hoping you’d scratch it for me.” She put on what she evidently thought was a sexy smile, but to Thomas it looked like half her face was paralyzed.

“Was that, uh, meant to arouse me, or what?” he asked, genuinely curious.

She sighed and shook her head.

“I try to be sexy for you, and you make fun of me.”

“No, no, I meant that seriously. Your delivery isn’t — well, it’s different, let’s just put it that way.”

“You’re making fun of me.”

“I’m really not.”

“Do you want to fuck then?” Kara asked flatly. “Is that direct enough?”

“Yeah, that’s pretty direct. But we can’t fuck in a public space.”

“Well, in private then. Stop being a smart-ass. You know what I mean.”

He looked at her as closely as he could, but he couldn’t fathom what was going on inside her indolent mind.

“We haven’t seen each other in, what, four, five weeks?” Thomas said. “Haven’t talked either. I thought we were done.”

“I miss you. I miss being with you. It’s that simple.”

“But you wanted to date…”

“Forget about that. We can be friends-with-benefits. I should’ve known I couldn’t push you into a relationship. It’s just… I wanted something more, but I ended up with nothing.”

“That’s… so you haven’t been with any other guys? Since we, you know, stopped?”

“Um.”

“It doesn’t bother me… unless they have STDs, and you get ’em and pass ’em on to me…”

“Thomas.”

“What? It’s a legitimate concern, and we never really talked about it.”

“Thomas.”

“Don’t ‘Thomas’ me. Why are you coming at me like this all of a sudden? You can’t have missed me that much…”

Suddenly the tears came. In many cases, female tears melt right through male defenses, as if they were weaponized acid instead of salt water. This was not one of those cases. It was a sight that filled Thomas with irritation instead of pity. The way her face bunched up and turned red, the way she sob-snorted — it was unseemly. He wanted to slap her, like the men did in those old movies when their women started weeping and being dramatic. He hoped to God no one saw this scene — but just as he was thinking this, he felt a presence at his back, at the end of the aisle. He looked behind him quickly, and just caught Orianna disappearing around the next aisle. There was another issue he had to deal with. They’d barely spoken since “Are You Interested?,” so he had no idea where they stood — or if they stood anywhere at all. But no matter what they thought or didn’t think of each other, he didn’t want her — or anyone — to see him with this teary woman.

“But I do miss you,” Kara blubbered. “You’re the best guy I’ve ever been with. What do I have to do” — face-rattling sob — “to convince you of that?”

Briefly, Thomas’s loins pulsed, triggered by “you’re the best guy I’ve ever been with.” He could say she’d convinced him so she’d stop this damn crying, and they’d hug and make up, and then after work they’d go to his apartment and fuck each other’s brains out. And then they’d rest and put their brains back in, and then fuck them out again.

But deep down he knew it wouldn’t last. Within a week, they’d be right back to “I have a lot on my plate” and “Why won’t you date me?” No, it wasn’t worth it — and his now-soft penis agreed that he was making the right decision.