Wótehda

Normand Gaultier was indifferent to opinion, and as such, lacked a measure of inner perspective that guides the rest of humanity through the turbulent seas of existence. This lack of self-awareness had been nurtured throughout the decades culminating in a hard bitterness to all things. Especially on this rather glacial night as he peered out the window of the Quick Stop service station and convenience store off the desolate portion of converging twins I94 and State 94 on the fringes of Valley City, SD.

As he watched a light snow fall through the thin vertical gap between an advertising banner and the window frame (Coffee brewed hourly!) a pang of jealousy and disdain swelled within him.

He held a clipboard and his eyes ran down the overnight checklist of tasks left for him by the day manager. He had already cleaned the microwave, snack counter, the heat roller for the stale hot dogs and taquito rolls, the ancient coffee maker, and the pop machines. What remained was the floor mopping, updating the gasoline prices at each of the pumps (they seemed to be rising each day now!), and the task that truly conjured his ire – cleaning the scat and semen stains in the unisex public restroom located through an exterior entrance at the rear of the building (the burly truck drivers couldn’t seem to aim no matter what they were doing!).

Gaultier lacked the ability of having any personal regret for his current status in life. Rather than admitting his failures he chose to blame others – humanity’s most common personality trait. This ran the gambit from the people he knew and the people he didn’t. That included the government – both local and federal. It was their fault he had lost his job; assuredly not him, nor any action instigated by him. This was, of course, not entirely so, but like most things the parade of circumstances leading to him now working three graveyard shifts a week – which included most Saturday to Sunday mornings – wasn’t one thing. It never is.

Things hadn’t always been like this for Gaultier. He had once been successful – as successful as one can be in the southeastern tundra of North Dakota. More significantly to him, he had been feared by those around him. Something he once relished.

He had graduated North Dakota State with a Liberal Arts Degree with an emphasis in business. After working various jobs through college he landed quite unexpectedly at the family owned Consignment Unlimited – a retail chain of 21 stores scattered throughout the Greater Valley City region to as far north as Grand Forks.

Gaultier had started as a stock clerk his senior year at NDSU, and in the interests of making some additional money he had enrolled in Consignment’s managerial program – which was nothing more than shadowing the store manager and submitting to his edicts and whims. These were the bull work unenviable tasks that needed to be done by a subordinate in training – assistant store manager. The coordination of unloading tractor trailers worth of merchandise – twice per week, three times during the holiday season – often in the depths of winter. Like anything it had its pros and cons.

The pros in that he got to hire and supervise several stock clerks and, more importantly, dish out a measure of grunt work and sadistic tasks of his own. Delegation of duty is one of the most fundamental laws of the universe.

Some of the cons involved as assistant store manager was the fact he got to hire and supervise several stock clerks – many of which whom hadn’t exactly an exemplary work ethic. Many would call in sick, ironically, on ‘truck’ days. Reasons varied. Some got one of those ‘twenty-four hour viruses’ that seemed to always crop up whenever an eighteen-wheeler pulled into the store lot. Hangovers were also common, and on many occasions Gaultier had to send hazy-eyed clerks home simply because they were drenched in marijuana. This alone was frustrating, but made even more so by the fact Gaultier himself had to step in, bundled for an Arctic expedition in the winter or a Saharan in the summer, and assist with the off-loading of the merchandise from the trucks. The process would often take four to five hours, and by the time it was completed – well after the store’s closing at 9 pm – there was little left to do but to return home, catch roughly six hours of sleep before returning late the following morning for a plate of more headaches served up by the store manager. Weekends were the best – the store manager didn’t work them – for he had the run of authority within the place, and would dish out a little bent up frustrations on the staff.

Ultimately the drudgery paid off and he got his chance being awarded a store of his own through the graces of the regional manager. It was on the outer edge of Bismarck just north of the city. An older store, but its geriatric nature was inconsequential to him. It was his. That’s all that mattered. Something to call his own, and from the outset he enjoyed every bit of it. Elastic office hours, Monday through Friday (finally) from ten to about three. On days he knew the regional manager was scheduled for an inspection he was there promptly by nine, but rarely saw two-thirty to compensate.

He also had an assistant manager of his own to delegate – bully – the tasks that needed done. New displays and re-arrangement of the end-caps to push out merchandise that were sluggish in sales. Not to mention the weekly off-loading of the tractor trailers. Something he once dreaded, but now welcomed with open arms between puffs of a Kent cigarette – that he often nursed down to the filter. He would point at his assistant manager – a sweaty, overweight behemoth of roughly six-five, father of twins having to drop out of UND after the pregnancy of his girlfriend was discovered – with the lit Kent, or at a display case, or and end-cap, or the maze of scaffolding bins in the warehouse, dictate his precise orders, and mutter a measure of dissatisfaction that he had his doubts on whether the assistant, or Keystone Kops of back clerks, could achieve their shift tasks without messing up. Admittedly he played his demeanor up to some extent to exude discipline and fear, but deep down he felt that was the way to manage others and have them respect his authority. This led to his nickname, ‘Nor-MAD Gaultier’ behind his back. If he had found out of the moniker he wouldn’t have cared less.

He had few social outlets other than his regular attendance at Ice Castles – a gentlemen’s club in Fargo known for its ample talent of distressed college girls from UND or NDSU who all seemed to be nursing students for one reason or another. Here he spent his store manager’s salary – the most he had ever made – on drinks and dances with the girls and, when he grew tired of them, drove home as if putting them back in a toy box to play with another day.

For Gaultier life couldn’t have been better. The store manager position was a good gig and paid well when compared to other occupations in such a rural community that weren’t doctors or lawyers. The notion of regional manager was a bit tantalizing, but something he personally had little interest because of the travel involved. It would mean he’d have to plot out his course to hit each of the ten stores in the southern region during the course of the week, spend one day at the home office in Bismarck, and he’d have to do it with his aging Dodge K-car. Not to mention that the luxury of his elastic office hours would also evaporate. No. That wasn’t for him. He was quite content in being the king of his fiefdom, and bossing around his assistant manager and others – striking the fear of God into them.

Then something he hadn’t anticipated that would upset his perfect little life – the World Wide Web.

Gaultier couldn’t be bothered with technology. Apart from his solar calculator and Casio watch he had little use for it. It was the thing of nerds who still lived with their mothers, and when he came into contact with it he barked a hearty laugh at its ridiculousness.

At the beginning Gaultier could afford to mock the whole concept. The tiny store office didn’t even have one. He tallied the sales and payroll on an old accountant’s calculator that spit out rolls of paper receipts that he’d gather and pass off to the regional manager weekly. There were hard copies of store manuals, catalogs, and ledgers in the filing cabinets that shared the cocoon office. However, through no fault of his own, he began noticing a disturbing trend. By the late 1990’s sales were most certainly trending downward. People simply weren’t buying anything – or so it seemed. This he most certainly blamed on the politicians – local, state, and federal, but his ultimate failure was in that he was completely unaware of a greater world around him. Retail sales at stores like Consignment Unlimited were on the decline. On-line sales were starting to trend up, and he was ignorant to this new reality. Therefore, he became perplexed as to why stores were going out of business as he strolled through River Front Mall, and he became uneasy at an uncertain future. He became more of a bastard than he originally was, particularly to his new assistant – a middle-aged former semi-driver from Grand Forks not much younger himself. Instead of feeling a kinship for a man closer to his own age who lost a leg in a wreck just north of St. Cloud he despised him. He felt he was too lenient on the warehouse clerks and balked at the overtime he had to pay out when the trucks weren’t fully unloaded at quitting time. Something the store did not need in uncertain economic times.

Then the regional manager came in quite unexpectedly on a crisp Tuesday morning in the grips of autumn. Gaultier hadn’t expected him, and felt a small measure of distress when he learned that he had arrived shortly after the store’s opening at nine o’clock – weighting some fifty-odd minutes for Gaultier’s own arrival. He sputtered around with nervous mannerisms and attempted to feign excuses for his tardiness, and as his mouth spattered words his mind searched for the next series to explain the dismal sales records.

The regional manager could have cared less of Gaultier’s elastic hours. Nor the sales numbers. His business at the store held far greater concerns.

“Norm, I’m not here to discuss the latest figures. I know their bad. They’re bad everywhere. In the northern region too. The Lennarts are well aware of the situation.”

For the first time in many years Gaultier panicked. The Lennarts were the family that owned Consignment Unlimited. He felt his blood drain and his hands grow cold.

“I’m here with a message,” the regional manager continued, “the Lennarts have sold off their interests in Consignment to one of these Internet warehousing firms. All of the stores are closing, and the current inventory is to be liquidated.”

It was just that simple. In the very near future Gaultier was going to be out of a job.

Gaultier fumbled in finger-less hobo gloves in swapping out the rectangular plastic pricing numbers at each of the gasoline pumps, and the snowfall increased in its intensity. A metallic bitterness of the events returned to his tongue. How ridiculous it all was now! People choosing to buy stuff on-line through these computers rather than driving to a store like Consignment where they could just walk out with it! It makes no sense! He had said as much to the regional manager.

“I can’t believe they’re doing this.” he said. “It’s like they’re caving to the latest fad.”

“It’s not a fad. It’s the future.”

“Nonsense. I refuse to believe that.” he snarled. “Yes, I admit, we’ve had a bit of a down turn, but as soon as people start realizing this on-line shopping isn’t worth it, when they get burned a few times by defective products, they’ll come back in droves. We just have to wait for that pendulum to swing back.”

It, of course, never did, and over the next several years he had lost his cushy store manager position, his home having to severely downsize to a modular trailer park, and the beloved K-car. Now he had barely scraped together enough pennies to afford his current vehicle – a ‘93 Pontiac Sunbird with both exorbitant mileage and monthly payments.

Eighteen-years had passed since he was enrolled in Consignment’s managerial program, and now he found himself back to where he started – training to be a manager at Quick Stop. However, in this scenario, there was little if any future, and subconsciously he knew it and would try to fend off the attacking thought whenever it crept into his mind. Even after ‘graduating’ to the next level on the org-chart he would still be relegated to these same tasks rendering it far from anything like his previous store manager’s position, and for this reason he resented everyone and everything around him. What Gaultier consciously yearned for was his old job back, But that wasn’t in the cards, was it?

The irony of his situation was that his status was a result of perspective and outlook and, quite possibly, the absence of soul – at the very least an empathetic one. However, his conceit lacked the capacity to acknowledge that, too.

It was late into the night. The first icy slivers of dawn wouldn’t reveal themselves on the distant horizon for another couple of hours. Again, looking through the vertical opening of the window frames – now frosted at the edges – he saw someone pull up to the pumps. They were bundled for the tundra of the great plains, and hunching over, slipped their credit card in the slot, selected a pump, and began refilling an alpine green Defender 2.8i that somehow had made its way to Valley City. They don’t even come inside anymore, Gaultier observed. Well, the coffee was freshly brewed should the traveler require a warm up. They didn’t. After several minutes the pump was replaced, and with a muffled growl from the Defender and puff of frozen exhaust it disappeared back into the night down State 94.

He glanced at his watch and sighed. Gaultier always left the restroom for last in the hopes he could use the excuse that a sudden rush of patrons required him to remain at the register. “It was crazy, I hadn’t had an opportunity. Would you mind?” was his rehearsed routine to the day manager. In truth he had only said that once – nothing ever happens to that level on the overnight shift. He’d wait another hour – perhaps after five o’clock – before he’d pull on the sanitary gloves and get it over with.

As if on cue with his thoughts a tractor-trailer suddenly pull in piloted by a sedentary mountain-man and parked on the far side of the lot to avoid blocking the gas pumps. He saw a flash of dark hair toss on the passenger side and assumed she worked at Ice Castles (studying pharmacy no doubt!). Well, hopefully they’d stay in the cab for the heat, and yet he’d give anything to switch places with the truck driver and touch something soft this frigid night as well.

Gaultier was a miserable soul who wanted his old job back. Now jealous of the truck driver. Jealous of the girl. Jealous of the world that continually kicked at him. If he’d display any kindness onto others he might have received some in return, and additionally, it might completely change his sour perspective on life. Some people, however, are more content being cantankerous – embracing the emotion tightly as if a virtue. It’s just easier to blame others, or do any other kind of self-reckoning, and damn near impossible to change.

He watched the beast slide and waddle his way out of the cab – oily hair flowing out from under a faded Caterpillar ball cap – and help the girl down to the frozen asphalt. She wore tight fitting jeans and a heavy winter coat to which long dark hair flowed down the back. No surprise they quickly sprinted to the front doors.

“Do you have a restroom?” she asked with a shiver. The trucker stood behind her sporting a thick beard decorated with permafrost.

Gaultier surrendered the key. “Around back.”

The girl returned an acne smile, but Gaultier remained expressionless standing behind the counter.

They fled back out in a rush, and he was left alone.

It was a good thing he had waited to clean the restroom. Otherwise he would have needed to again.

Then he paused. Looked around the confined aisles of the store with a renewed sense of jealous rage. The bags of potato chips and beef jerky stared back. On impulse reached for his coat, slipped it on, grabbed three bags of Pemmican, a bottle of Coca-Cola, and walked out the door to his Sunbird.

It took three tries before the car finally kicked over. He waited five minutes for the engine to warm. The restroom door had yet to open. To hell with them. To hell with Quick Stop, and with this modern world he didn’t quite understand. Perhaps it was time to move on? Maybe Ice Castles is hiring? Surely they must require a shift manager?

Not caring what happened behind him, he pulled out onto the snow swept State 94 heading west.