[thekremlin]

III. Wal-Mart

It was the pride of Howard. The prize given to the town lucky enough to be in the center of Warburton County, and to hold the title as undisputed County Seat. Fifteen years ago, the largest employer in Howard had been Cantor’s Wood-N-Things, a factory which had produced wooden panels, mostly for the sides of inexpensive furniture and the exteriors of station wagons and mobile homes. A fire in ’96, fed by the laminate chemicals in the wood panels, had destroyed the factory, half a dozen homes, and reduced the city’s already-meager industry, along with its future prospects, to zero.

This was all part of Howard’s unwritten history, all known by any resident with a few decades’ occupancy, and quickly relayed to any newcomers. The great mystery of Howard, in the back of even the most optimistic locals’ minds, was why the fabled Wal-Mart corporation bought the land, still smoking and smelling of melamine resin, and began construction on a shining white monolith with three-hundred parking space that exuded megawatt after megawatt of advertising light into the otherwise dark Howard sky.

The effect was immediate. Nearly all the traffic that came through Howard was related to the Wal-Mart. Over a tenth of the town’s adults were employed there. A town on the brink of obsolescence after a devastating fire was immediately saved, a corporate dues ex machina. There was some griping. The five-and-dime was gone, Darryl Johnson’s furniture shop, in fact nearly all of the commercial businesses were completely wiped out. Ben Sloane’s Howard Market barely stayed afloat, mostly thanks to a handful of loyal customers, whose number was fading. But overall, the superstore was an answered prayer. A meaningless title based on luck-of-the-draw geography—County Seat—had somehow led to the town’s salvation.

Howard had become a town with two centers, Christ’s Church and the consumer’s. The three-hundred car parking lot served also as the town’s water cooler, where housewives saw each other once a week on their way out, lugging carts full of plastic-wrapped goods. Inside, shoppers milled from all around the county. These were well-informed consumers, who not only had a preference between Coke and Pepsi, but also Miller and Bud, Twinkies and Ding-Dongs, Marlboros and Camels, Digiornos’ and Celeste, Reese’s and Twix, Cheerios and Cornflakes.

The town’s newest resident, whose name was Daniel Matthews, was rolling his cart up to one of the dozen checkout aisles. In his cart: a loaf of bread, white; two two-liter bottles of soda, Coke; a six-pack of hot dogs; a six-pack of hot dog buns; a bag of potato chips, ruffled; a six-pack of bottled beers, Corona; a twenty-four pack of canned beer, Bud; a package of sliced roast beef; a packet of individually-wrapped slices of cheese, American; four apples, prewrapped in airtight plastic; orange juice, extra pulp.

He arrived at the front of the line. The checkout clerk was young, maybe sixteen years old, but his eyes were faded, fatigued, drooped, bloodshot. His skin was pale and his hair hung in strings over his forehead. Daniel started to place items from the cart onto the counter, and the clerk, who was wearing a pin that said “Kevin”, began to swipe them across his barcode scanner.

“Do you go to Dual Lakes?” Daniel asked, optimistically.

Kevin barely seemed to hear him. His eyes didn’t move up, stayed on the barcode scanner, and he made a sound that indicated assent.

“I start teaching there on Monday.” Nothing. “I’m going to be running the band program.”

The Coronas slid across the scanner. “Didn’t know we had a band program.”

Daniel grinned. It wasn’t a conversation, but it was a start. “You have one starting Monday.” No response. “Do you know anyone who plays an instrument?” The American cheese slid across the counter. “Hopefully we can get a good turnout.” Nothing. The window had passed.

“How do you want to pay?” His teeth were tiny and yellow, unnatural, with gums that nearly overtook them. Although he wasn’t close enough, the idea came to him that this clerk’s breath must smell terribly. He didn’t breathe in. He wanted to be out of the store. But where to? The tiny room in Mrs. Mueller’s home? The safety of his car, which he’d already spent his entire weekend in? Back in Nevada?

“Debit.” He passed his card over and punched his pin into the pad which jutted out from the counter. In the end, he’d spent an hour walking around the store and bought next to nothing; two plastic bags, where one probably would have made do. Unlike the housewives, he didn’t stop to talk to anyone outside the superstore. It wasn’t until he was back at his car, with his bags in the back seat, and set behind the wall that he let go of the breath he’d been holding since the checkout counter.