The Wal-Mart parking lot was chaos. Angry teenagers mashed their horns with impatient fists, and mothers dragged scurrying children through the melee to get to cars that would inevitably take them nowhere. I vainly looked for a place to park, a rising gush of laughter dancing and mingling in my chest with an unobtrusive, socially conditioned impatience. I decided on an unoccupied handicapped stall at the door of the shopper’s church.

Of course, I had to hop out of the car first and push two shopping carts out of my way. Carts were everywhere - clogging up lanes and impeding the natural process of parking and unparking. I escaped the seething anthill into the cool fluorescent glow of consumerism. On the inside, it seemed that the chaos of the parking lot extended unmercifully into the harshly lit aisles of the store. But at a second glance, the disorder was just an illusion - people rushed this way and that way, seemingly aimless and in pursuit of nothing, but for each person, an identical mission was carried out: enter, grab what you want/need, check out. All under the heading, “Attempting to fill the emptiness.” It is a mission I understand well - maybe better than most.

Shopping, however, was not my objective this time. Brooking no distraction (twizzlers 77 cents! File that fact away!) I walked purposefully toward the section of the store near the back which housed the bathrooms. A yellow “Restroom being serviced - thanks for your patience” sign forbade entrance to the man’s can, but I only hiked up my skirt and stepped over it, pushing the door wide and ignoring the leers of two men waiting outside the door.

The eerie thrill of standing in the formerly forbidden space gave way almost immediately to a quick, compulsive sizing-up of the situation at hand. A girl in a blue smock was less than feverishly scrubbing graffiti off the wall and paused to look at me, wide-eyed and not comprehending my sudden appearance. I lifted my voice shrilly in the reverberating stillness.

“Andrew?” No answer. The graffiti girl pointed, wordless, at the middle stall. I bent to look under the closed door but could see no feet. I rolled my eyes and walked over to the next stall, climbed up onto the toilet seat and peered over the edge, trepidation about the possibility of falling in making my movements stiff and cautious.

Andrew sat sideways on the toilet, his bum on one side of the seat and his feet on the other. His arms were clasped tightly about his folded knees and his mess of brown hair was bent forward, altogether fetus-like. His back touched the wall which I peered over.

“Andrew, it’s me, Trish,” I said, more softly now, switching to nurturer - mode. I saw his head move slightly. His muffled voice rose to greet mine mockingly.

“Ooooh Trish to the rescue,” he said, and began to hum the theme from the A*Team. His sarcasm, while completely expected, left me not knowing how to respond, so I started to hum along, which made Andrew stop humming immediately.

“Marcie phoned me on my cell to tell me of your little coup. The parking lot’s a mess, you know. I would have known something was up with you - even if she hadn’t called. Hey, you’d think they’d send someone else out there to get those carts. I didn’t realize understaffing was a prob –“

“It’s no use, Trish,” Andrew cut me off. “They’ve already sent the Wal-Mart cult brainwashing artillery in to try and talk me down. I’m resolved.”

“Resolved to what? Sit in the can for the rest of your life having a nervous breakdown?” I said, not without a dash of ridicule. Nurturer was never my strongest role.

“If it raises people’s awareness, then yes.” Andrew stepped off the toilet and turned to face me. “Wal-Mart is a goddamned cult. Shopping is a cult,” he was warming to his topic and fulminating vehemently. “Consumerism is the world’s greatest, number one fucking religion. The bloody capitalists sell us dissatisfaction and then try to sell us the supposed cure. I’m a drone in this system, don’t you see? I’m not just the ‘cart boy’ – I’m a tool to help brainwash people.”

I nodded, conciliatory.

“Don’t pretend like you understand, Trish.”

“Andrew, quit it with the sermon,” I said. At this point, I just wanted to get out of that bathroom. The otherworldly fluorescent ceiling cast halos into the stalls and it was giving me a headache. The world was harsh and hopeless for Andrew and I felt guilty for letting shopping comfort me. I needed to quickly shut the door on that guilt. “Maybe I agree with you, okay? So we’re all both victims and perpetrators of society’s demise. What I don’t understand is what that has to do with you taking a mental vacation in a Wal-Mart bathroom stall.”

Andrew shook his head, unpleased by my flip manner. “I just want to let people know that there are some ills that can’t be remedied by money. Getting and spending are believed to make people happy – well, I’M – NOT – FUCKING – HAPPY,” Andrew shouted, punctuating his last words by banging against the walls of the stall.

“Obviously, your job is making you hate the very world you live in. Just walk out of here and don’t come back,” I said, “Not even to shop.”

“The world will still be the same. It’s all one big goddamn Wal-Mart. People keep buying into it.”

“Do you think you’re helping any? Look around you, Andrew. No one’s listening. Even the people waiting to take a piss are just going to take it someplace else.”

Andrew paused, thinking, and I imagined I saw him mentally shrug. “You got a point,” he opened his stall’s door, “let’s go then.”

I had not expected so rapid a capitulation. “You’re too smart for this job anyway,” I said, and hopped down from my toilet, stumbling blindly on platform sandals into Andrew’s suddenly unmoving back.

“Flattery will get you laid for sure,” said Andrew expressionlessly.

“Huh?” I said, blushing, wondering if I was hearing things.

Andrew turned and strode out the door with an air of purpose, and I turned to look at the graffiti girl, who had neglected her job to listen to our (no doubt) engaging discussion. My eye wandered to the jiffy – markered wall, which read,

“ATTERY

LL GET

U LAID

R SURE”

Embarrassed, I ran to catch up with Andrew.

We were delayed getting into my car by a fat, purple-faced woman who asked us, accusingly, whether we were indeed handicapped. Andrew replied by making obstreperous ‘retarted’ noises and getting too close to his questioner, drool threatening to fly anywhere. The woman, looking disturbed and a little disgusted, hurried off. We entered the car unhindered by conscience.

“You’re a paragon of political correctness,” I chided sarcastically, unable to suppress a smile.

“Let her engage someone else’s social conscience,” said Andrew, dryly.

Our exodus from the lot was painless. I was impressed by the order already imposing itself on the once cart-infected parking lot, although I could not see anyone running around, collecting carts. Maybe the purple-faced woman gathered all the carts, in between her handicapped stall policing activity, I thought blandly.

Andrew was snooping through my shopping bags, which he had displaced as the passenger of my car. He pulled out a new CD from an orange and red bag, perfunctorily read over the song names, then held the disc up. “Can I put this in?”

“I haven’t even opened it yet,” I snapped, grabbing the CD distractedly and shoving it back into its bag, all the while barely diverting my eyes from the road. Andrew let out a short puff of air, which I could have read to mean several different things, but I decided not to worry about it. He turned on the radio, zealously flicking the buttons to find the college radio station. Satisfied that listening to a Nick Cave song affirmed his coolness, Andrew sat back deeply into the gray upholstery and closed his eyes, as if to shut out the events of his day.

“Where to, sir?” I asked as we made a clean break from the mall.

Andrew shrugged almost imperceptibly. “Your place,” he said, matter-of-factly. I wondered, only partly in jest, whether having a newly unemployed person in my house would affect the feng shui. Andrew looked like he was about to hibernate. I hoped he would make it back home before settling in for the winter.

The drive home was silent save for the droning moan of malcontent from the radio. I rarely feel nostalgic for the rock music of the early 90’s. How bleak, how depressing, how apathetic and whiney that music was! Andrew was enjoying it, though, so I let the dial rest. But I knew I was going to have to listen to some pop music to wash the grunge from my ears.

My home is my haven from the world, and I felt the peace of sanctuary rush into me as I opened my door. Andrew lingered in the doorway, as if unsure whether the incense atmosphere was breathable. Eventually he took a breath and crossed the entryway, apparently finding his new surroundings acceptable.

“Just sit wherever,” I said, motioning towards the small space that served as both the living room and the dining area. “You want something to drink?” Andrew shook his head as he sank unenthusiastically onto my small couch. The time it took me to hang my keys on their hook and open a cherry 7-up was all the time it took Andrew’s posture to degenerate from a half-reluctant rigid perch on the corner of the couch cushion into a whole-hearted slouch, replete with partially closed eyelids. So as not to encourage permanent residency, I sat next to him, forcing him to straighten slightly. It was a tiny love seat.

“Uh, so… is everything okay?” I asked, stupidly. I felt required by friendship law to make conversation, but Andrew was not being exactly verbose, so it was up to me to jog the talk-o-meter and I wasn’t sure how. Andrew only shrugged in response. “That shrug is fast becoming your trademark gesture,” I joked.

“I guess I’m done pontificating for the day.”

“Oh but I barely even got a taste of your politics in the bathroom. I was sure there must be more.” I knew there was more. I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear it, but I felt like I was obliged to ask.

“I wore myself out before you got there. If you want, you can get an instant replay from just about anyone lucky enough to be employed by Wal-Mart and working today. They all had a crack at me.”

I paused. I thought he might say more but he was uncharacteristically reserved. “So did you make any headway? Change anyone’s mind?”

He rolled his eyes. “Everyone’s already got their mind made up. Nobody wants to admit that the things they’re doing to make themselves happy are having the opposite effect. Nobody wants to hear me tell them that they value the wrong things and disregard the important stuff.” I could almost hear Andrew’s political engine revving. He continued talking while I reached to grab my shopping bag from the black lacquered coffee table. I listened to the heated timbre of Andrew’s voice, occasionally nodding when I thought it was appropriate. The plastic that sealed my new CD from the world beckoned me. The light glinting off its surface made tiny blind spots on my retina. I slid my thumbnail underneath the tab that would release the disc from its bondage and tore gently as the plastic gave way.

I have many, many CDs. The one I had just unwrapped was a greatest hits compilation, and accordingly had to be placed in the ‘compilation’ section of my CD wall unit. Everything is arranged in alphabetical order by artist, and this particular CD was by the Police, so everything from P to Z had to be moved one space down on the totem to make way for this new entry. It is a ritual I enjoy, but this time I had an audience. I noticed that Andrew had been silent for a few moments.

“Look at you with that thing,” he remarked, sounding a little vexed and a lot disgusted.

“So?”

“So, it’s sort of ironic that I’ve been sitting here trying to make a point, and you were there with your material things, perfectly illustrating my point. How often do you buy a new CD?”

“Once a week. So what? I like music.”

Andrew snorted in derision. “You aren’t even going to listen to the goddamn thing. You’re just making a place for it on the wall. Shit, that wall is like a shrine to consumerism.”

“You know what, Andrew? So what. I like to buy little things. I like CDs. I have a crappy job in the service industry that I hate, which I think you can relate to, and I don’t have a lot of money to throw around. But I like using the tiny bit of cash I do have on something I enjoy. Music – it’s not like I’m buying crack for chrissake. It’s a small vice. Leave me alone.”

Andrew shook his head, eyes rolling. “You can’t even possibly listen to all these CDs. Not if you listened sixteen hours a day for two years.” I wondered where he came up with so precise a number. “It just seems to me that, somewhere along the line, someone, some – corporation,” he spat the word like it was absolute anathema to him, “put the idea out there that you should spend the small amount of money you have on something you don’t need. And you bought into it! You don’t see that they mollify you with products. If you spent your energy trying to make the world better – if everyone like us spent our time trying to make things better, those corporations would be in trouble, because smart people don’t support companies that screw over the world.”

“So what you’re saying is that capitalism works because people like me are too stupid to see past the brainwashing?” I felt like Andrew was ridiculing me. I felt … out of my depth in the conversation. I felt tears threatening me from behind my meticulously mascaraed eyelids.

“Patricia, I never called you stupid.” I sensed Andrew backing off from his attack. It was weird to hear him call me Patricia – he only used that name when he was really serious about something.

“How about exhausted? I work ten hours every day in a bar, for chrissake. I don’t have any energy left for subversive thinking. Maybe I’m not as goddamn over-educated as you, okay? The world needs people like me. You need people like me to make you feel smart. The bloody intelligentsia needs someone to bring them drinks.” That cursed tear fell out of my eye.

“Aw…” Andrew put his hand on my arm and hesitatingly, as if he felt that at any moment I could explode, drew me into an awkward embrace. “Look, I didn’t mean to make you feel bad about yourself. I certainly don’t think of myself as superior to you in intellect or in any other way. Shit, look at me, I’m a recently unemployed nobody. Fucking cart boy.”

I wanted to prove to him that I could continue a deep conversation. I wanted him to respect me intellectually. But most of all, although it sounds weirdly sophomoric, I felt suddenly very comfortable with his closeness. For half a second I considered playing the ‘damsel in distress’ card to see if I could get him to kiss me, but then decided that he would probably sense he was being manipulated. I would feel like a sellout if I started to cry anyway. So I simply turned my head to face him and looked him in the eyes. He encouraged my brazenness by not looking away. Suddenly we were in a moment like you see in the movies, where the leading man and lady’s heads are moving together, and you are sure that they will meet in a kiss. But before we could reach that conclusion, Andrew spoke. “I really think you’re too smart to spend your life serving people drinks.” His breath smelled like chocolate, which was strange, as I had not seen him consume anything in the past forty-five minutes. “In fact, I’m pretty sure that you’re smarter than 96% of them.” Again, that accurate number that he pulled from god-knew-where.

I smiled, and with an undercurrent of giggle, said, “Flattery will get you laid for sure.”

Andrew let go of me, laughing, and picked up my new Police CD. He slid it into my stereo, and, with a kamikaze smile, threw the jewel case against the wall, where it bounced once and came to rest behind my couch. He played air guitar to the opening chords of ‘Roxanne’, then started to sing along.

We sat down again on the couch. Andrew apparently decided that he did, in fact, want something to drink after all and helped himself to my cherry 7-up. “I feel emancipated,” he said. “I should have quit that job long ago. At least before it drove me to the brink of insanity.”

I tried my hardest not to think about the CD case sitting forlornly behind my couch, as I tried to convince myself that it was perfectly okay to share a 7up, that there was enough in the can for both of us and that there was absolutely no need to get up and grab another can. I was easier to convince than I thought I would be. I felt peculiarly safe and at ease, as if Andrew was not invading my sanctum, but instead revitalizing it. His attention was focused on me – upon making me understand him – and it was calming to me, hypnotic.

“I loved you since I knew ya… I wouldn’t talk down to ya!” Andrew was getting into singing every second line or so between his haphazard conversation, but it didn’t matter. I was happier just listening to his nonsense than I would have been rearranging my music collection or shopping for new things. It was a puzzling revelation, and I thought that just maybe Andrew had proved some point to me after all.

Andrew’s hand came down hard on my knee. “Slurpees!” he exclaimed. I looked at him blankly. “We need slurpees. How can we enjoy an afternoon inside without them? I’ll go get some, and then we’ll watch one of those movies over there.” He gestured to my growing stack of DVDs. “You probably haven’t watched any of those yet, hey?” he said, this time jokingly.

“Take my car. Keys are on the hook in the kitchen,” I said. He jumped up from the love seat, and I noticed that the side of my body that was touching his felt suddenly very cold. I stood up, the couch’s usual comfort not being enough for me anymore. Andrew grabbed the keys and strode towards the door. He paused where I was standing and kissed me once, hard on the mouth. “I’ll be right back,” he said, and winked.

I watched him run out the door, frozen. I stood there for a minute like a cat basking in the morning sunshine. I wondered if kisses raised your seratonin levels, thinking that, if so, the pharmaceutical companies could be in danger if people found out.

My semi-blissful state was interrupted quite rudely by a loud crash, like metal twisting and glass shattering. I ran outside without thinking to see my car at the bottom of the driveway with the whole back end reduced to about two feet of crumpled metal. With fear creeping like new-forming frost up my throat from my stomach, I ran down the driveway to see Andrew, evidently unharmed, emerge from the heap of scrap that was my car. When I reached him, he put his arm around me in reassurance and we both turned to see two teenagers surface from a brand new Alero, accompanied by some loud, loud music. The two offending brats, gender indeterminate, began to dance, laughing and throwing their heads back as if in some pagan ritual.

“Those two are totally fucking lit!” said Andrew, unnecessarily. It was quite evident to even a casual bystander that they were on some sort of drug. Andrew, however, did not look angry at all. He rubbed his neck, apparently chagrined, but there was some excitement dancing in his eyes. His body was shaking almost imperceptibly, and I realized that, if it weren’t for the wreck of my car and the obvious inconvenience to me, he would probably join in cavorting with the hooligans, who were now singing along to the music coming from their parent’s damaged vehicle. I was about to get indignant, but then I pictured the whole scene as a sequence in some silent film, covered over with white noise. The dancing teenagers were so alive beside the cold warped steel of the cars – the metal that, up until that point, signified status and independence, now resigned to mute inferiority to the vivacity that thrived within two stoned souls. The theme of the silent movie was obvious. The juxtaposition was evident – clear – it made sense to me and it felt like a true thing. Sirens were screaming. Someone in the neighbourhood must have called the authorities while we stood there watching the teenagers exult in their aliveness. We didn’t dance with them, but held hands like two people watching a building go up in flames, feeling guilty glee in its destruction.

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