Richard Lange - Sweet Nothing

“So, uh”—he picks up my application and looks down at my name—“Dennis,” he says. “Why do you want to work at Best Buy?” He barely listens as I give my spiel about how my divorce threw me for a loop, but now I’m back on my feet and eager to use my sales experience at a leading chain like this one.

When I say, “Put me out on that floor, and I don’t care if it’s batteries, I’ll be the best battery salesman you ever had,” Harry just nods and starts telling me about benefits. I notice that his hands are shaking and he’s breathing funny. The guy is falling apart, and I’m pretty sure I know why.

When we get to the part where he asks, “Do you have any questions for me?” I say, “How long have you been manager?”

Harry fiddles with the name tag on his vest, the one that reads Harry Sarkissian, Manager . “Almost two months,” he says.

“It gets easier,” I say. “I know. I used to be a manager myself.”

Harry’s eyes fill with tears. “I bought a book from Amazon,” he says. “ First, Break All the Rules . But it’s like for offices and stuff, not stores.”

“You want a tip?” I say. “Something that worked for me?”

“Okay,” Harry says.

“Blame everything on your bosses, the people higher up than you. Those guys out there, that music. Tell them the district manager got a complaint and said you had to do something about it. Act like you couldn’t care less, but the boss is on your ass, so you’ve got to get on theirs. Everyone understands shit rolls downhill. They can’t be mad at you, because you’re just following orders.”

“That might work,” Harry says.

“I guarantee it will,” I say. “You want another tip?”

“Sure.”

“Hire me. You won’t be sorry.”

I laugh to let him know he can take that as a joke, and he laughs too. We shake hands again, and he walks me to the front of the store and says he’ll call when he makes his decision, either way.

I’m feeling fine for once, even though it’s hot out on the street and the smog leaves a chemical taste on my tongue. I pulled what could have been a disastrous interview out of the fire and did my good deed for the day all at the same time. Baby steps toward something better.

I buy a fruit cup from a pushcart parked on the sidewalk in front of the store. The kid selling them sprinkles chili powder over the chunks of pineapple, melon, and mango, and I eat it sitting on a cinder-block wall in the thin strip of shade cast by a palm tree. My bus arrives just as I reach the stop. If I believed in luck, I might think mine had turned.

THE ONE-EYED COWBOY lingers at the counter after paying for his coffee and jabbers on and on about how he got bitten by a Great Dane when he was eight years old. I pull on plastic gloves and go back to refilling the ham and turkey bins, but he doesn’t get the hint.

“To this day I get the shakes around a big dog,” he says. “With little ones, I won’t pet ’em, but they don’t scare me.”

“Huh,” I say. I cut open a bag of Swiss cheese slices. “Wow.”

The guy’s wearing a black cowboy hat, scuffed snakeskin boots, and a bolo tie with a silver scorpion slide. His empty eye socket is a raw, red hole that made my stomach flip when I first saw it. What he’s doing on Sunset Boulevard at three in the morning, I couldn’t tell you.

“Now this”—he reaches up to tug the eyelid hanging loosely over the hole—“happened in a fight in Kansas City. Motherfucker got me with a broken bottle.”

He’s still telling stories fifteen minutes later as the door swings shut behind him and he swaggers off down the sidewalk. I wonder what it’s like when the dam finally breaks and everything comes spilling out. Maybe you feel better or maybe you drown.

They’re talking about UFOs on After Midnight . Are we being watched? Zalika shows up at four. It’s been a week since I last saw her, and I’m more excited than I should be. My plan is to tell her something about my life in order to break the ice between us, about Troy wanting to lose weight and me trying to help him. The look on her face stops me cold, though. She barely glances at me when she orders her coffee and keeps dabbing at her nose with a Kleenex.

“Rough night?” I say.

She nods, tears glittering in her beautiful eyes. I want to reach out and smooth away the worry lines on her forehead, the creases at the corners of her mouth. Instead, I watch her walk alone to the booth in front of the window, where she slumps over her coffee.

“What could these extraterrestrials possibly want from us?” the host of After Midnight asks the expert. “We’re like insects compared to them.”

I continue with the breakfast prep until Zalika suddenly wails and clutches her chest.

“What’s wrong?” I say as I hurry over and crouch beside her.

“They’re taking Amisi off the ventilator tomorrow,” she says.

We’re in each other’s arms then, just like that, just like when you reach out to stop someone from falling. She sobs on my shoulder, and I rub her back gently while murmuring, “I’m sorry,” again and again.

When she calms down, we sit across from each other in the booth. I hand her a napkin, and she wipes her eyes and fixes her hair.

“I’m ashamed for you to see me like this,” she says.

“I’m ashamed for you to see me like this, ” I reply. “Is there anyone at the hospital with you? Your husband?”

Anger slides across her face like a cloud shadow passing over the desert.

“We divorced three years ago,” she says. “He took our son and moved back to Egypt. I chose to remain here, hoping it would be better for Amisi.”

“A friend, then? Do you want me to call someone?”

“Thank you, but no. That’s not my way.”

I understand. We don’t ask for help, people like us. We do our suffering in private, do our grieving in the dark.

“Let me get you more coffee,” I say. I go behind the counter and refill her cup, but she’s up and ready to leave by the time I return to the booth.

“I’m going,” she says.

To watch her daughter slip away. To say good-bye.

“Stay strong,” I say.

She turns and waves, and the morning of another terrible day creeps up on us like a thug with a lead pipe.

“CHECK ME OUT,” Troy says.

He stands in the doorway to the bedroom wearing a pair of jeans that’s as big as three pairs of mine. He pulls on the waistband until there’s a gap of about two inches between his stomach and the pants.

“I couldn’t even fit in these a month ago.”

I can see it in his face too. The walking and the dieting are paying off. He’s definitely slimming down.

He wants to celebrate by going to a movie. I’m not in the mood, but he hasn’t been to a theater in years, and I can’t say no after he offers to pay my way.

There’s almost nobody in the audience at noon on a Wednesday. A gang of fidgety kids on summer vacation and the harried mommy overseeing them. A worn-out old man toting a collection of battered shopping bags who’s just paying for a comfortable seat and air-conditioning, a couple hours off the street.

The armrests lift up, so Troy has plenty of room. He’s excited, telling me all about the movie before the lights go down. He’s been looking forward to it for months. I don’t know why. It’s a horror film, vampires fighting werewolves. Dumb. One of the actresses looks a lot like Zalika. She’s supposed to be evil, but I root for her anyway. Of course, she dies in the end.

We stroll down Hollywood Boulevard afterward, check out the stars on the sidewalk, the handprints. Some asshole dressed like Charlie Chaplin follows Troy, imitating his lumbering gait while the tourists laugh. I want to punch him in the mouth.