The Perfectly Average Charlie Banks

Charlie Banks pushed the glass door and stepped past the threshold; the glass was foggy and scratched, making it hard to see through. A bundle of bells on a string rang from above the door. It looked like a perfectly average thrift store, with shelves and racks lining the walls. Some seemed to stretch so high that they reached into the void-like fog of the ceiling, with items going out of sight. Some of the shelves were metal, some shelves were wood, and some were made of thin wire; others were made of pure stained glass. The shelves were covered in objects: little knick-knacks and trinkets, glass bottles of sealed water, jars with vinegar and red pepper flakes in them, statues of owls and foxes, crystals that looked like they were made from velvet because they were so dusty. Masks were hanging on the walls, staring down at him, as though they had a soul, despite being black, empty, mesh voids. Charlie’s eyes followed the wall and they hit a fluffy white cat, with eyes a bright pale blue-- almost white-- that made it seem like it didn’t have a soul at all.

There was a man behind the counter, leaning back in his chair, two of the legs balanced precariously. His feet were kicked up onto the counter. Charlie didn’t know why, but the man inexplicably gave off the energy that he was a Preacher, aside from the big, floppy hat that was somewhere between a sun hat and a cowboy hat, and the long duster jacket he wore that was covered in flower embroidery.

You see, Charlie Banks was looking for a job.

Charlie tended to dress in a bright, cobalt blue, but he wore black pants to go with it, and, as though he didn’t clash enough, he wore brown loafers with mismatched socks that looked like they were stolen from a child’s closet. He also wore a series of keys around his neck, though he didn’t know where a single one went. He went to church on Sundays, had an average bachelor-pad apartment for a man in his mid-twenties, and spoke with a heavy, country accent that made him a little bit hard to understand at times.

Despite being perfectly average in every single way that mattered, Charlie Banks had been laid off from his previous job for unprofessionalism, because he didn’t match and because he wrote on all of his documents in hot pink pen.

He called his father on the phone and said: “Daddy, I don’t know what to do.”  

And his daddy said: “Well, son, you gotta take your resume, and walk right into them shops, and you gotta give a firm handshake to the manager, and you gotta say ‘well I would like a job.’”

No one could bother explaining to Charlie or his very old father that the world no longer spun that way, but Charlie knew his father wasn’t lying to him.

This is how the perfectly average Charlie Banks showed up in the nondescript store with the windows-- except for the door-- painted black with his resume clutched in a purple and pink hanging folder, wearing his usual attire.

He knocked on the counter. It looked like a hollow box, weirdly enough, and Preacher Man’s chair came slamming down, the other two legs hitting the ground with a clatter-bang. The wooden chair shrieked like a banshee every time Preacher Man moved his body ever so slightly.

“‘Ello sir,” Charlie started, “I don’t suppose you’re the owner, err, the manager?”

Preacher Man glanced up at Charlie from underneath the shadowy rim of his hat. “Are you going to complain?” Preacher Man’s voice seemed to be some kind of Australian accent, but Charlie couldn’t be one-hundred-percent certain; his voice was deep and throaty, as though he had something stuck in it that he was trying to hack out.

“I don’t have any complaints, sir,” Charlie said, and he pushed his resume onto the counter, closer to Preacher Man’s hands. “I’m just looking for a job, sir, and I’ve come to drop my resume off. I’ll be on my way now, sir.”

“Now, wait a minute. Who the fuck told you that you could just waltz on in here and ask for a job?”

“My daddy, sir.”

Preacher Man snorted, his amber-yellow eyes glanced to the side to look at the cat. “I need a fucking clove.”

“A clove-?”

“A clove cigarette. What? You’ve never heard someone just call them cloves?”

“I don’t really know people who smoke clove cigarettes,” Charlie admitted. “I only know of a few dishonest men who smoke normal cigarettes. Cigarette flavored-cigarettes.”

“I used to be a goth back in my day.” Preacher Man said. Charlie laughed a little; he couldn't help it. The notion just seemed so ridiculous. He couldn’t imagine the Preacher Man in a face of white and black makeup, or in a dress covered in lace. Something about it just seemed wrong. “Me and my friends called them cloves.”

Preacher Man twisted his hand in one quick and fluid motion, and a black cigarette ended up between his two fingers. Preacher Man rubbed his thumb and forefinger together for just a moment, and with a snap, a flame appeared at the tip of his finger before lighting the cigarette. It would be accurate for Charlie to have said that it smelled like the suffocating spice of cloves, thick and heavy in the air. Preacher Man gave out a wheezing cough as he inhaled a grey watercolor plume of smoke; he sounded like a death rattle, something wet weasling its way into his lungs. The sting of the smoke started to creep near Charlie’s eyes, rainclouds creeping towards the edges of the horizon.

“Do you even know what this place is?” Preacher Man leaned back again in his chair, starting to balance on the back two legs.

“A thrift store.”

Preacher Man started laughing. He sounded like a broken record, the same sound hacking out of his throat in steady intervals, and he lifted the black cigarette to his lips again, taking a long drag. He tilted his head to the side a little, and Charlie could see him a little better. Grey Mad-Hatter hair in tight, coiled strands. His skin was darker, too.

“You’re going to kill me.” Preacher Man cracked up again. He motions to one of the shelves-- a pale green one that seems to be speckled with dark green and black, to the point that it looked like leopard-printed jade. “Why don’t you grab something from that shelf? Anything off of the shelf.”

Charlie turned his whole body to look. There were a lot of peculiar things on the shelf. A pair of earrings that looked like they were made of water, a half-used candle, a diorama of a circus, a small statue of a ghost playing a cello. Though Charlie felt an odd connection with what seemed to be a tiny mannequin. It looked like a runway model at the end of the runway, striking a pose to show off the best elements of themselves. But the mannequin was boxy, even if all of the limbs and fingers were fully articulated.

It was like grabbing a cannonball. It was metal, covered in a matte finish, and painted perfectly to look like it was made of wood grain.

“Shit, this is heavy--” Charlie dropped it down onto the counter, leaving a splintered indentation in the wood. “I’m sorry for the language, sir.”

“No offense taken.” Preacher Man took another deep lungful of smoke, and this time his eyes seemed to glitter as it floated around his eyes. “Fuck me, I’ve got to quit smoking, honestly. It’s going to kill me.”

Held up by imaginary strings, the metal mannequin sits up on its own. It stretched its hands above its head, and then rose slowly in the crater that it left on the wooden counter. It flexed its fingers, and then “looked” at Charlie. The head looked like a rock, and it completely lacked a face. It started walking around the desk, swaying its hips side to side, reaching the edges of the box, and turning when it hit the edge, like it was the screensaver on a DVD player. Charlie watched it like how a child might watch ants. His eyes were wide, and he simply stared at it, watching as it wandered, wondering if it was going to hit the corner.

As Charlie was reaching to grab it again, it dropped, leaving another indent in the grooves of the wood. Dropped like a wind-up toy going dead. Charlie felt his mouth go dry. It was like there were worms in his stomach, trying to crawl up his throat in the sour-sweet taste of vomit. If he looked down, would there perhaps be speckled blood on his hands, like tattooed scars on his sun-aged skin?

“She’s alright.” Preacher Man said, motioning to the lifeless doll. “Go on, try something else.”

Charlie wandered between the rows of shelves until he found two crystal shot glasses. They look like mini whiskey glasses, a matching pair, and he picks them both up. They’re jagged in his hands, and he has the inexplicable urge to hold them up to his eyes. Text started appearing over his vision, written in symbols he didn’t understand, but they almost looked like Nordic runes, which Charlie very much did understand. He watched as text danced along his vision, over objects, thread-thin arrows pointing at the items on the shelves. He put the shot glasses down.

Charlie went around the shop like this for what felt like an hour. A blanket that made you cold instead of warm, a Magic Eight Ball that only says “maybe,” a cup that gives you the liquid you “need,” but it kept trying to give Charlie vodka. 

Charlie didn’t even like vodka. 

“My favorite is this one.” Preacher Man reached into the duster jacket and offered Charlie his wallet, a worn thing made of leather. It felt slightly slimmer, and Charlie could see the veins in the leather. “Pick something you’d want to purchase.”

“I’m not really looking into purchasing--”

Preacher Man clicks his tongue and chides. “Act like you’re going to.”

Charlie reached for something at random, a jar filled with cloth beads. He puts it on the counter.

“That would be…” Preacher Man thought for a moment. "Let's say five hundred dollars-- cash only. Let's say that.”

“But I don’t have five hundred dollars, sir.”

“Open the wallet.”

Charlie hesitantly opened the wallet. He felt like he was snooping through someone’s bedroom. He expected to see something like family pictures, a series of business cards. Maybe credit cards all lined up nicely, but the only thing in the wallet was five hundred dollars cash.

“Let's say these beads are twenty dollars, let's say that.” Preacher Man said, and the wallet, once plump with money, slimed down until there was only a singular twenty dollar bill. “It gives you exactly what you need to pay for something, not a dollar more, not a dollar less.”

Charlie stared at it for a moment, reaching in and touching the bill with his finger. It felt like a real Jackson, slightly soft but still crinkling like paper being folded.  

“What is this place?” Charlie’s voice had the high lilt of childlike wonder.

Preacher Man hums, then motions for him to look around again before holding the filter of the cigarette back to his mouth. “We sell magic.”

“We?” Charlie prompted. But Preacher Man doesn’t say anything. He pursed his lips together until they were a thin line in the center of his face, flicked out his tongue to wet cracked lips, and then went back to smoking.

Charlie continued wandering, going between the shelves and listening to the crawling echoes. He felt the way the smoke weaseled down his throat and started to burn the inside of his lungs, as though he was running away from something.

Charlie was reaching for what seemed to be a small bottle of clear liquid, ready to pop open the lid in his curiosity, when Preacher Man spoke, causing Charlie’s hand to quiver and then freeze: “You want a job?”

Charlie cleared his throat, emerged from the hallway of objects that he was looking at, and tried to smooth down his suit, instead smearing a line of grey dust down the front of it. “Yes, sir. And if I’ll be honest, one that pays well.” Though Charlie was admittedly intrigued by everything around him, he might accept the job even without the money.

Preacher Man laughs, another dry, gruff thing, and he tilted his head down a little, staring at the ground. “Don’t we all, Banks? Now, let me tell you, this one pays very well. Handsomely even. Why don’t you come here for a moment?” He lifted a hand and twitched his finger in a quick ‘come here.’

Charlie’s footsteps sounded hollow against the ground, almost like he was walking on linoleum. When he looked down, though, it looked like concrete.

Preacher Man pressed a smooth metal orb into Charlie’s hands. It was perfectly spherical, aside from the keyhole in the front of it. It didn’t even look like it had a scratch on it, no amount of cross-hatching on the metal. Interestingly, when Charlie looked at it, he couldn’t see any reflections in it aside from the light. It was like his own personal star, showing nothing and no one but its own gleam.  

“What do you do with it? It looks useless.” Charlie said.

“But it’s not!” Preacher Man said, “And it’s the key to your new job.”

“But it only has a lock on it.”

Preacher Man shrugged.

Charlie opened his mouth, and like a gaping fish, he closed it again. He stared down into the sphere again, trying to catch a sight of himself in the mirrored surface. He felt like he was grasping at straws.

“That is,” Preacher Man let out another deep exhale. A world-weary sigh, like he was Atlas holding up the entire world. “That is, if you even want the job to begin with.”

“What would pay look like?” Almost instinctively, Charlie went to tuck the orb into his pocket. The movement came so naturally to him, like muscle memory. It reminded him of the fact that he used to play guitar, and he wondered if he were to pick up his old acoustic, if the warmth of song would flood back into him and if his fingers would remember the movements even if he did not. Why did his fingers remember this movement?

“Pure gold.” Preacher Man said, “And whatever you might find in the wallet.” His tone was almost sardonic.

“That’s it?”

“Gold can be worth a lot, Banks.”

Charlie lifted his hand, as though trying to silence a child. “I never told you my name.”

“You didn’t need to tell me, Banks. Not when you left your resume on the fucking counter.”

“Oh.” He responds, dumbly. “So- so is there any onboarding paperwork?”

“Are you taking the job?”

Charlie nodded.

The cigarette was nothing but a bud now, and Preacher Man reached over to dump it into an ashtray resting on the counter corner, a crystalline thing that looked like a whiskey glass chopped in half. Preacher swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing in his throat, like an apple in water at a fair. Inexplicably, Preacher Man stood, every bone in his back cracking like pasta, and he lets out a “hm.”

He shrugged off the old duster, draped it over the back of the chair, revealing dark and toned arms covered in fading blue tattoos. The one that caught Charlie’s eye is of a woman with slick black hair and bug-like eyes, taking up part of his forearm.

“It was very nice to meet you, Charlie Banks. Good luck on your first day on the job. I know you’ll do great.”

Charlie opened his mouth, getting out only a “Mister?” 

But Preacher Man only smiled and then he started to melt. His face was oozing into a puddle at his feet, and like a candle, he slowly started to dissolve downwards. His face was elongated like a stretched-out image. He started to flicker like a tape from an old VCR, and then he started to dissolve into a puddle of ash on the ground. Black like soot in the bottom of a fireplace.

All of a sudden, it swirled around Charlie, spun around him in a hurricane made of nonexistent wind, and then settled; another layer of dust on the furniture and the product. And all of it smelled like burning clove cigarettes.

“Sir?” 

Charlie simply stared at the place where he had been. His mind kept trying to put the pieces back together, but there was nothing. 

His entire mind hit the brakes, a hand being clamped down on the throttle until it was being choked. In a quick crescendo, his body felt like it was on the edge of a precipice; his heart started to ring in his ears, throwing itself against his rib cage. Charlie felt like he was about to throw up, the taste of bitter-sweet bile crawling up his throat along with the burn of cigarette smoke.

The orb felt heavy in Charlie’s pocket.

Like a chunk of lead that he wasn’t allowed to get rid of, he suddenly felt tethered to this place, and everything about it felt so extremely small. He was trapped in a closet, throwing out his arms to try and get the walls to stretch, and nothing was letting him out. It felt like a womb he was being strangled in.

Charlie tried to take a deep breath, only getting a sharp, stabbing inhale instead, and turned to the door with the bells. He reached for the bronze handle, and tugged, and then pushed.

The door was locked.

The door didn’t even rattle at all.