Lord of the Ringers

I was passing through central Illinois one winter and got a chance to stay in a small town with a well-known retail store out on the edge of it, around Christmastime. And sure enough, I got a job as a bell-ringer for the Salvation Army, standing there outside of that store, with its enormous parking lot, as it snowed repeatedly, and the people kept pouring in to do their Christmas shopping and whatever else, red-sweater people, the true believers, and other ordinary people, all shapes and sizes, all hours of the day. At first, I didn't know a soul, but I was glad to have a job, and stop traveling, if even for a few weeks. I worked the night shift- got there at three in the afternoon, watched the sun set over the parking lot, and finally packed up around midnight, almost every night.

Pretty soon I got to know some people, and I have to admit, I first judged strangers by whether they dropped a dollar in the little bucket, or looked away as they walked by. It makes a difference, when you're standing there, freezing, when they at least recognize your existence. Worse, I noticed that some drove close enough to me, and fast enough, to hit the bottom of my leg with the slush and snow and water that shot up under their tires as they drove by in front of me, and I began to believe they did this on purpose, though they could have just been in a hurry to get out of there. But as I stood there, and came in occasionally for breaks, lots of people, coming and going, in and around the store, became acquaintances and even friends fairly quickly, especially people who worked there or around the parking lot.

Roger the security man, slightly overweight and puffed up with self-importance, came by one day and intimated that there was trouble afoot, and sure enough, some policemen came around asking questions right around sunset. They didn't even stop to talk to me; they walked right by, so I took advantage of the fuss they caused to step inside to warm up my hands. I rang my bell right outside the front doors, but stepped inside occasionally for a break, and from there, right inside the door, I could see old Parker the greeter, with his line of shopping carts, and all the way back to the back door, where the stock men kept coming and going with boxes of all sizes. About halfway down that center aisle was a woman in the lingerie section that I was interested in; I called her the lingerie vixen; but I was taken at the moment, and that's a different story anyway. I went back out, started ringing the bell again, and watched some old truck throw its slush up on me for the second time. This truck was occupied by a man with a permanent sneer, ugly, dangerous, and the woman with him looked scared to death. When they walked in together, five minutes later, I could see that she was pregnant- now that was even scarier. Mr. Sneer got worse, and of course, didn't put a penny in the bucket.

It was snowing again, and snowing hard, and more cars actually splashed the slush up on me every time they went a little too fast. Finally Matt, a cashier and perhaps one of my better friends, came to offer his version of what was happening inside. Apparently a kid had been caught with some meth, a terrible kind of drug out in these country towns, and the kid had told the police that the people he got it from were getting some of their materials right here at this very store. These were bad people, but the police couldn't seem to get a handle on them, where they were, how they did it, anything. The manager said, yes, some supplies had been missing, especially last week and the week before, and he was unable to track them down; he suspected they were being stolen; but he had put a camera on the proper aisles, and found nothing. Matt said we were all supposed to keep our eyes open for suspicious characters. I said, what "we," I don't work for this store, but in fact I have no sympathy for meth dealers either, or thieves, whether they're hanging around retail chains, or wherever, and, being somewhat bored, I was willing to watch anybody. Actually I was grateful for the excitement; it gave me something to keep my mind off my frozen fingers, while I was ringing my bell into the snow and thanking the few random people who stopped to drop something in the bucket.

Old Parker the greeter was getting kind of surly, like he had some problem having these policemen hanging around, but he was still giving the big smile to everyone that wanted a cart, doing his kind of small talk. Stepping inside the store I would get away from the bitter cold, the snow and the slush, and the constant clanging of the bell in my ears, but the inside of the store was chaos in its own kind of way, too, with every register beeping away, a constant flow of shoppers, impatient, vast rows of fluorescent lights above, an occasional bird caught up in the warehouse rafters while people furiously wheeled carts below, through the toy aisles in particular. Old Parker clearly didn't let it get to him, was nice enough to me, but wouldn't say much about what was going on. In fact he, like me, seemed to be looking down that center aisle quite a bit. The manager, a red-faced, portly man named McAllister, came by to ask me if I needed anything; he was friendly enough, but my sense was that nobody really trusted anybody, and he would just as soon I stood outside where he didn't have to have someone watch me.

I tried to remember that I represented the Salvation Army out there, and I put on my game face, rang that bell solid for several more hours. Earned my keep. The cars kept rolling in, but slowed down a little late at night, when my hands started to freeze off even under my gloves. Fortunately Matt came around at the end of the shift, and offered to take me to his house for a beer, an offer I accepted without hesitation. I needed to thaw out my fingers before I made another move, anyway. He said that they really had very few leads, but that it was mighty unusual that with a camera planted at each of the aisles that were scenes of the crimes, they had seen nothing, not picked up on any thievery. This was unusual for this store- they were pretty good at this, in his experience. Someone was pulling a fast one on them, and they didn't like it. I could tell by Matt's description of Wilson, the indoor store detective who I knew by sight, a man who looked like a rat, but who had never so much as said hello to me. This Wilson guy brought in shoplifters regularly, about one an hour, and took pride in the fact that people didn't get by him. But someone was making him look bad under his very nose. And some local kid was suffering for it. I asked Matt who he thought was doing it, and he said he thought it was an inside job, but he really didn't have any idea. He said any one of those people could be meth fiends, for all he knew. I thought of Mr. Sneer right away, perhaps hiding meth supplies under his wife's coat.

Returning to work the following evening, I looked around at the usual suspects. McAllister the blowhard manager was imploring some worker to keep his eyes open. Parker the greeter was his usual self but as usual looking down the aisle where my beautiful vixen was sorting lingerie. Beyond that, the stockboys, Jared, Pete and Sammy, kept up the endless march outside and back in with the boxes, empty and full, all sizes. Jared was an ex-con, but Sammy was actually scarier, having a kind of dark, permanent scowl. Roger the outdoor security guy came walking by looking serious and talking into some little cell phone. Two cashiers, Pieta and Candace, always gave me a suspicious look when I stepped inside the store, to warm my icy fingers and exchange the ringing in my ears from the bell, along with the cold, for the sound of a hundred cash registers beeping at once. I didn't know what their problem was, except that they noticed everything- and didn't seem to have any particular warmth for anyone. I didn't trust any of these people, let alone know them. Most would at least say hello to me; my sense was that they didn't trust me much either.

Back outside, I looked that the steady stream of customers coming in from the lot, through the snow, and also coming steadily back out of the store, with entire boxes of goods. I saw mostly grandmothers, arms full of bags of toys and other things, housewives with a hurried look on their faces, and red sweater people, with Christmas bears and green reindeer on their sweaters, the true believers, though I must say, some of these I came to like, as they sometimes parted with their dollars if only for a moment. I saw young guys buying food, motorcycle gangs, sometimes young sorority girls, in packs or gaggles or whatever. I did see a couple of older guys who had that hollowed-out meth look, speedy, thin, not eating well, not going out in the sun- but they were buying such small stuff, they couldn't be the ones, I figured. One had a Cadillac, but had bought only a package of bacon, as if he were taunting the security, or maybe hiding something in his big old boot. But even with him, I saw Roger spring into action and use his cell phone; the indoor store guards surrounded him; surely he couldn't have taken anything without them knowing or catching it on camera. He, however, took that low-slung Cadillac and sprayed slush right up on me on his way out the parking lot, as if to say, here's something for you to think about.

Upon hearing that supplies were walking away, and nobody getting caught, Roger was certainly agitated; he wasn't going to let any thief get by him this time. Whenever he saw anyone, he called McAllister; called Wilson or the other store guards; called McAllister again; and paced around looking important. He clearly felt it was his moment; his reputation was at stake.

Now an old guy with an "I" cap walked up, and he seemed to set everyone's alarm on standby. The "I" of course would be Illinois, but who knows what kind of cap a real meth maker would wear; how would I know? Anyway Roger had his cell phone going, and I followed him into the store again, noticing that I had no feeling in my fingers and the ringing in my ears had spread down to my jaw and the fillings in my teeth. Inside, I was just in time to watch Wilson the gruff rat store detective bump into the lingerie vixen, about halfway down the aisle; this started an uncomfortable round of apologies as he danced around trying to maneuver to where he could follow the "I" cap man, who had headed straight back toward sporting goods. Pieta made a cruel remark under her breath, directed at the vixen, as if she resented running a register on a day like this, when she could be back folding underwear, in the warmer center of the store. I don't need to get in the center of this, I thought, blowing into my hands and trying to follow the movement of people back towards sporting goods. Pieta, I guess, had a sharp eye on all the customers, trusting none of them, especially the men, who, in her experience, were all louts and thieves.

Though Wilson the rat and McAllister both had made it back toward sporting goods, nothing seemed to come of this I-man incident, except that the lingerie vixen had come forward to lodge a complaint against Wilson, perhaps having no idea that he was a detective, and Pieta had given her a sharp reply telling her to get back to her lingerie and shut up. Pieta used the fact that she was older, had some authority, and I turned away to go back outside rather than stand by and watch, as old Parker the greeter was content to do. I could see people like the lingerie vixen stealing meth supplies just in order to get back at Pieta, McAllister, and the whole setup, which forced her to stand at a table for hours on end and be bumped by dirty rats like Wilson. But she didn't do it, I was pretty sure. It had to be someone who had better access to that back aisle.

Back outside, Mr. Sneer and his wife came in for the second night in a row, and this time, the sneer was worse; the wife looked like death warmed over. This was not a happy household. I felt like he was ready to knock me over, just for watching, but I was still mad at him for soaking my heels; I kept track of that stuff. I wondered if Roger was on him, and if Wilson would catch on and at least follow the wife, who was less likely to be watched but had more reason and more ability to steal and get away with it, I figured. I was ready to throw the guy in jail just for soaking my heels, but driving fast through a puddle isn't exactly a crime in central Illinois. Socking an old Sally bell-ringer is a crime, but I wasn't sure he'd do it, even if I baited him. He walked with purpose, as if he had greater goals in mind. That's what bothered me.

On break I pumped Matt for more information about the store people; he didn't respond to my description of Mr. Sneer, I-man or the Cadillac-bacon man, all of my customer-suspects, since he didn't know any of them or keep track of the customers very well. He did confirm Wilson as a pretty low guy, a rat, a thoroughly untrustworthy operator who could very easily be working with the true thief. McAllister, the portly drunk, probably not, he had a wife and two kids, and had just left to give them a ride to some Christmas pageant. Didn't sound like a meth fiend to me. Could be Pieta, he said; she cussed all the men but kept falling in with sleazier and sleazier specimens. Candace was even worse; she'd had ex-cons like Jared for boyfriends, and even got Jared his job as stockboy at one point. And the way the two of them stood at their registers, right near the door, eying the people who entered, that was suspicious.

It was at that moment, our break about over, and I almost heading back out the door toward the blizzard and the sleet, when I-man came rolling back in, Roger behind him breathlessly. I-man really set off their buzzers, really got people started; he just looked bad, or maybe they knew him, and knew he was bad. In any case the store changed when he arrived, a subtle shift involving Wilson and whoever was working with him, all shifting their attention toward I-man and wherever he was going. He looked just as guilty as he had the night before; same hat, only dirtier. But now, with I-man headed toward sporting goods again (going for the camp stove fuel?), and people in the store presumably heading back in that direction, another surprising thing happened. Cadillac-bacon man returned, alone this time, snow on his cap and evil look in his eye; he stopped to talk to Parker the greeter, and in an instant, I saw Parker's eye connect with that of scary Sammy the stockboy, way down the aisle, way beyond the lingerie vixen- and then, even stranger, Cadillac man turned on his heels and left the store, abruptly What could Parker have told him? I had the sense I was watching something important, even as I headed back outside to the cold, got my gloves back on, started ringing.

Cadillac man got me again with the slush and the snow, soaking my heels to the bone, making me miserable for the rest of the night, and I decided to just tip off Roger the security man, who would at least make his life miserable, if not catch him in the act. And, as it turned out, I was right. They caught him two days later, driving around back, where Sammy the stockboy had snuck meth supplies out and laid them beside the dumpster, for him to just grab as he went by. Parker the greeter was complicit in it; he organized the whole thing. He was arrested and hauled out one day in front of everyone; Pieta and Candace were crowing for days. Immediately afterward I got a little full of myself, Mr. Catch-a-thief, and decided to try to put Mr. Sneer away, that slimy jerk who sprayed me yet again with another huge splash from a puddle that he clearly must have aimed for intentionally. But no, Roger stepped in on his behalf, said he was not a great guy, guilty of attitude and all, but his wife was depending on him, and, most likely he was just in a hurry to get out of there, just not aware of the kind of splash an old truck could make on a frozen bell-ringer, in the corner by the doorway. Roger really kind of went to bat for him, and I had to drop it, being a newcomer and all; I had to admit that perhaps I was delusional, thinking he hated me more than anyone; It was a busy season, after all, and everyone had other stuff on their minds. The I-man turned out to be a reasonable guy; I helped him once with some jumper cables and an old broken-down Buick; but the lingerie vixen turned out to be trouble; Matt actually went out with her, but she'd broken his heart before New Year even rolled around. I could have got on there at the store, maybe, after I closed out at the Salvation Army, but I was already tired of the place; my ears were still ringing, and I needed some peace and quiet. I decided to try someplace warmer, and didn't even look back.

4-2007