Other People (Part 3)

And as I'm sitting in the security office, watching the video playback ten minutes later, I'm grateful there's no audio.

Randall is talking over the video, asking me about my life, while I fidget, scratching my neck and concentrating on inhaling. I'm starting to think maybe I took a little bit too much.

"What's going on, Greg?"

"That guy had twenty-"

"Not that. I don't care about that. Are you doing okay?"

Why does everyone ask me that? I don't constantly ask people if they're okay, if they're going to freak out and start cursing and crying alternately. Why do people always ask me if I'm okay? Of course I'm not, but what do they expect me to say? No, Randall, I'm dead inside. I'm broken.

"Yeah."

Before we came into the security office, he led me to a checkout where a fat woman with long curly brown hair pulled into an immaculately tight ponytail rang up my three items. Randall said, "Is that all you want to purchase, Greg? Just those?"

I hate respect, because it makes me feel like this. You can't feel bad about disappointing someone you don't respect.

Yep, this is all I need tonight, Randall.

As I walked behind Randall, his uniform untucked and wrinkled, his gray hair shaggy and damp in the back from where the flesh of his neck presses together when he reclines in his chair in the warmth of the security office, I felt like shit, like an irresponsible disappointing piece of shit.

He's looking at me across his desk, where I used to sit asking about his family, where I used to be the one pretending to believe his brief, affirmative responses. "Everything's okay at home?"

"Sure."

He's nodding, and we're at the part in the video where the guy is looking at me over his invisible sunglasses. He's about to reach for the Altoids, and I'm wishing I could see my eyes in this angle, in this tiny black and white dramatization of my life.

I want to see the subtlety the actor employs in bringing my emotions to life, the way his fingers tense slightly, curling into claws for the briefest of instants, but without going overboard and theatrical and actually balling them into fists, and actually projecting a vulgar hostility.

I want to see the way his eye teeth glint, pointed and firm, as the actor speaks my line, carefully forming the syllables to cloak the rage, my brazen hatred just behind them, the way the word "fucking" comes out just a little slower and steadier than the rest.

I'm literally fascinated by this tiny reproduction of me on the monitor, and I'm sweating in this cramped office, wiping my palms on the legs of my old cargo pants.

Randall sighs. "All right, Greg. Get out of here."

The illusion shatters, and now I'm just watching myself being led away by Randall Joyce, Loss Prevention Supervisor.

"Just take care of yourself."

I stand up and shake Randall's hand.

"I'm sorry, Randall. You take care of yourself too. I'll come see you soon, so we can catch up."

"Yeah, okay. Just knock this off, Greg. Please."

"Sure, man. Have a good night."

"Yup."

As I'm walking to my Corvette in the parking lot, I'm taking a hairbrush out of my cargo pocket and tossing it into the air. I'm fishing my keys out of my pocket and dropping the hairbrush into the bag beside the candy bar and scotch. I'm driving out of the parking lot and down the freeway and I'm watching myself do all of these things with the clarity and love that only a heavy dose of high grade opiates can give you.