Luis heard the page over the loud speaker in the store, “Customer needs assistance in Plumbing”, and headed to the plumbing aisle. Luis rounded the corner to see several people in the aisle. He approached the first couple, an urban couple, probably in their late twenties, he saw the big rock on the young woman’s finger and assumed they were married. “Do you folks need some help?” He asked in English. His English was very good, but it not being his native tongue, the women could hear the slight Spanish accent in his voice. She smiled at him. Pretty lady, Luis thought.
The husband said no, they were fine, he had found what he needed, but thanks anyway. Luis bid them a good day and thanked them for shopping at Armstong’s. He approached an older Hispanic man, and spoke to him in Spanish. Luis and the older man spoke for a moment, then Luis said, “Gracias.” And walked the short distance to the next customer. Luis asked him if he needed help, and he said yes.
“I’m looking for a washer for my shower, it keeps leaking.”
“Do you know what size?”
“Size, uh-no, I didn’t know they had sizes.” The man responded.
“Yes my friend, many sizes. Do you know the manufacturer of the faucet?”
“No…”
“Is it single lever or two knobs” Luis asked.
“It has three knobs…”
“Does the middle knob turn the water from the tub to the shower head?”
“Yeah! It does. Does that help?”
Not really, Luis responded, he continued trying to help the guy, but without knowing the brand, size or any other information, there wasn’t much he could do. He explained this to the customer, who looked disappointed and said thanks. Luis went back to the front of the store to tend to his other duties.
Brian finished his first cigarette and immediately lit another. He grabbed his monster drink from the cab of the truck, and took a sip: “Blaah!” he said spitting the contents in his mouth to the ground, the drink was warm. He walked back around to the bed of the truck and laid back down, he looked the clock on his cell phone, he had another couple of minutes before he had to get back in.
He thought about school, he had enrolled in some math courses and wasn’t doing that well in them, wondering if he should drop them. He figured he might as well stick with them, even if he got a poor grade, maybe he would learn something. He wasn’t sure that he was going to learn anything new in school, but thought this is where he should be, for now anyway. He hadn’t quite figured out where he was going or what he had wanted to do with the rest of his life, so he thought this was the best option. He snuffed out the cigarette in the bed of his truck, throwing the butt in a box full of trash in the bed. He closed the tailgate, locked the cab door and headed back into the loading dock. He needed that break.
Luis handed him the phone and Brian went back to his aisle, he spent most of the day helping customers and putting the small packages back on the proper pegs from where people had taken them down and then put them back in the wrong place. Jordan had the afternoon shift and came strolling down the aisle a half hour before Brian was to clock out. Brian told him how the day had gone, what was left to be done, and joked about some of the “stupid” customers.
Jordan went to the stock room to check for boxes of items they were out of, leaving Brian to man the aisle for a few more minutes. Brian bent over to pick up some items that were laying at the bottom of the display, he didn’t notice the guy come up behind him, “Hey.” He heard the voice say. It startled him for an instant, he spun on his heels and looked up to where the voice had come from, before him stood a guy in his early thirties, in jeans and a white tee shirt. Brian stood, “Hi.”
“Hi.” The guy said and smiled.
Brian smiled back, “Can I help you find something?”
“Yeah, I need one of these…” He held up a small metal part.
Brian looked at it, “What is it?”
“It’s a bearing from a Price Fsiter faucet.”
“Oh, ok, I’m kinda new here. I think the bearing things are down here.” He led the guy down the aisle to the section that held the small parts in metal trays and drawers. “Can I see that?”
The guy held out the bearing in the palm of his hand, Brian picked it up and examined it, “This is a bearing?”
“Yea, that’s what they call them.” The guy was amused that Brian didn’t know, he smiled. Brian felt embarrassed and started opening drawers to make up for his lack of knowledge. “I don’t know why they call them bearings, kind of silly if you asked me…” the guy continued, trying to put Brian at ease.
Brian laughed and immediately felt a little better, the guy came next to Brian and started looking in the bank of drawers next to the ones Brian was looking in.
“You’re new hunh?”
“Yeah, that obvious?”
“No, I just haven’t seen you here before, I usually come in on the weekends, one project or another…I’m Chris…” He put his hand out to shake Brian’s.
“Brian.” Short, curt but not impolite.
Brian and Chris looked through all the drawers, “Well Brian, I don’t think we’re going to find it, I’ll probably have to replace the whole damned thing.”
“Yeah yeah, maybe. Sorry I don’t know where to look. Ernest will be here tomorrow if you want to come back and talk to him, he knows this stuff a lot better than I do.”
“Will you be here tomorrow too?”
“Nah, they’re still trying to figure out my hours, but they said I could have tomorrow off.” Brian tried to be as casual as he could.
“Well, it doesn’t matter anyway, I was going to replace the faucet sooner or later. I guess it’ll be sooner.” Chris smiled at Brian. “What do you do Brian?”
“Hunh?”
“I mean when you’re not working, are you a student?”
“Oh yeah yeah. Down at SMC…”
“Cool, what are you studying?”
“I don’t know yet, I’m just taking some of my general ed stuff, then I’ll figure it out.”
“Probably not a plumber then?”
“Hunh? Haha, nah, I don’t think so. Just paying the bills, you kow…”
“Yeah, that’s what we’re all doing. Hopefully having some fun in between.”
Brian and Chris were standing in the aisle talking, another customer came up to Brian, “Can you help me?” The customer asked.
“Oh, yeah yeah, sorry…” he said to Chris.
“No problem, I need some other stuff…”
Brian turned to help the other customer and Chris continued to look in the drawers for the other things he needed. Chris was listening to Brian and the other customer, Brian clearly did not know what the customer was asking for and was struggling to understand the man who was speaking broken English.
To be continued…
© 3/20/10
Jaunty-Rabbit 