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| photo: Chad Urso McDaniel 2002 |
Thaddeus watched the rain fall in scattered pools of streetlight as he turned his sign and switched the latch closed. For a moment he was those sparkling bits of light in the darkness, falling and falling all over again, silent, glowing, unknowing and content just to exist as the atoms they were.
A car splashed past noisily, breaking the silence and scattering the drops of light. Thaddeus sighed and looked without purpose at his watch. His sturdy hands worked to smooth the thoughts and worries from the depths of his face out the tips of his hair. He let out a deep sigh and turned to straightening the aisles, which was work he had always found comforting even in the best moments, due both to the rote simplicity of the work and the pleasant and immediately tangible reward of a visible restoration to order from the world of chaos. It was a therapy especially needed on this day, as his world was tipping, he felt, dangerously close to the point of no return to order.
Avoiding the thought and creativity demanded by the display and play table, which he had over the years made a point of rearranging each day into a new scene, he moved instead to restoring the costume shelves. After untangling and rehanging the cowboy vests, tutus, animal tails, and various uniforms, which was particularly acceptable work this evening due to the singular focus it required, he fell into the rhythmic pace of the hats and masks, which soon fell dutifully in line under the swift familiarity of his hands.
Thaddeus soon became pleasantly thoughtless, stopping only for a moment at the end of the aisle to assess with pleasure the calm order his work had created. Perhaps, he began to consider, things will be okay after all, as he adjusted the bin at the end and moved around to the stuffed toys.
As a young boy, especially before he had learned to decipher and appreciate the quiet comfort of imaginative escape afforded by his storybooks, Thaddeus found that his favorite toys had always been those with smiles and soft fur. Their quiet and accepting love was unconditional, providing comfort in the darkest of moments and sharing happily in his moments of greatest joy. Unlike people, who he knew could sometimes also provide such understanding, their friendship required no conversation or explanations, and never provided unwanted advice or judgement. And unlike most people he knew, these mute friends were always ready to embark on any adventure he might think up, on a moment’s notice, and engage in them without argument in a fully enthusiastic manner.
This preference for soft, mute companionship continued despite his father’s disapproval, and was in large measure the reason behind his choice of vocation. As he grew older he learned to take cues from his mother’s quiet and surreptitious approval of such sentimentality, which proved useful in warding off potential difficulties with schoolmates. As the years passed and he had been able to collect a sufficient number of real life friends who at their best possessed all the quiet introspective qualities he had found most attractive in the toys, his need for stuffed companionship waned, though his general affection for them never had.
It was for this reason he had placed the plush display so close to the register, so that even on the most quiet and lonely days, he might look up and find an army of loving comrades smiling warmly back at him. And while as a man he didn’t hold the animals close for comfort the way he had as a child, he nonetheless found himself, whenever they were underhand while unpacking from their boxes or arranging them on shelves, absentmindedly patting them affectionately on the head or foot, or scratching behind the ear, in the way one would a favorite household pet. It was for this reason on this evening in particular he found himself taking more time than usual to complete the aligning and rearrangement of his family of loyal companions.
As he finished the shelves and turned to the large spin rack with the monkeys, dragons, and hand puppets, he noticed one of the monkeys was missing. He knew he had not sold any monkeys that day, as that was rather unusual, and on this day in particular remembered the contents of the rack distinctly, since it was one of these monkeys he had turned to this morning to get him through his dread of having to face the cashbox again. Was this a sign? His mind raced. The very symbol that had returned his hope this morning gone? He knew the second he had a moment to reflect on it, that this thought was utterly irrational, those sorts of symbols didn’t exist, and in any case the idea he should even for a moment consider a stuffed monkey to be the bringer of salvation or symbol of doom seemed immediately foolish.
The truth of the matter was, he immediately recognized, he was using these more frivolous fears to mask his greater, very real fear that he may again have a wave of shoplifting on his hands, which while he had weathered in its sporadic occurrences in the past, was exactly the sort of thing he knew he would not be able to weather this time around, the finances being such as they were.
“Thaddeus, Thaddeus, keep it together,” he ordered to himself. “You don’t know anything yet, don’t jump to conclusions.” This did calm his nerves a bit, but he soon realized he was, all the same, clinging for dear life to a mis-shelved doll he had picked up somewhere in his reorganizing. Upon discovering himself, he immediately straitened his posture and placed the doll under his arm. He tried to wipe the worry from his face and regain his composure. He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly as he returned to his work, heading first to the wooden toys and then on to the cars. While as before, he kept at his work primarily without thought, he nonetheless found his fear continuing to creep in and out of the back of his mind as he caught himself inspecting each aisle for missing items.
Having finished with the cars, he stopped for a moment to survey the neat order of them lined up like some miniature supergarage. Not a single item had seemed to be missing since he had left the plush animals, and this allowed him to relax just a bit as it probably meant his fear had been an unwarranted, over-exaggeration.
He turned past the noisy promotional monitor to the murmuring and blinking of the windups and electronics aisle. Deciding he’d leave the replacing of the batteries of the display units until morning, he took to realigning all the shiny, beeping objects. This was generally his least favorite aisle, which is why he had placed it all the way in the back of the store, but all the same he still had to place it near the register to discourage theft of these pricier, more desirable items. Unlike the quiet, stoic calm of the plush aisle, this aisle seemed to be filled with noise, pointless noise, both visual and aural, which it seemed to him largely existed for the sake of making noise for noise’s sake. No, he had never had many toys like these as a boy, and the few he had been given sat unused and unwanted at the bottom of his toychest until he grew old enough for his parents to justify giving such expensive items away to someone else.
All the same, they did have some of the highest margins, and in the end he had figured one small aisle of select items that weren’t too terribly noisy should be worth it if it meant he could continue having the rest of the store around. Today, though, he wasn’t so sure. The power required to keep all of it running surely cut into his margins, which he supposed he hadn’t considered before. He wondered if perhaps he just didn’t replace the batteries on the displays at all, if people would still be attracted enough to buy them because, he considered, that would certainly save him some precious bits of much needed money right now.
“Aha!” Thaddeus said with glee, having just that moment noticed, down at the far end of the aisle, the monkey he had been worrying himself about. “There you are, my monkey friend! Boy you sure gave me a fright. What are you doing all the way over here?” In his relief, and because he knew he was in the far back corner of the store where no one would see to think him foolish, he put the monkey to his shoulder and cradled it, patting on its back like a child.
“Yes what a fright. But its all okay now, isn’t it,” he tried to reassure himself. He let out a deep sigh. He took the monkey off his shoulder and looked at him in earnest.
“Yes, if I do say so, you’re the same little fellow that helped me out this morning,” he said to the monkey. “Now what do you say I send you direct express back to where you belong?” Thaddeus pulled the monkey’s arms and eyed up his aim to send it up & over the aisles back to the plush department. As he did, the promotion screen caught his eye. Zorro was just arriving over the hill on his horse with the moon behind him. His cape fluttered in the wind as they jumped down from the hill. He placed the monkey up by the screen for a moment next to Zorro and made come visual considerations.
“Hmm... yes!” Thaddeus said, turning the monkey’s head to look at him. “I do believe that’s what you need! Why, Mr. Monkey, I knew there was a reason I said hello to you this morning. You may be just what I was needing right about now!” Thaddeus walked the monkey over to the checkout counter and seated it next to the register.
“Yes, from now on I’m keeping you right here where I can keep an eye on you.” He patted it on the head, “You’re my good luck charm now!” He started fishing around on the shelves behind the counter for some paper, pen, and wherever it was he left his directory of business contacts.
“Yes, Monkey my friend,” he said as he continued digging, “today may just be our lucky day!!”
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