The power elite in Willowbrook Mall February 8, 1985



Back in the saddle again. The Fotomat booth around me like a turtle’s shell, a comfortable little home away from home.

I’m working Pauly’s shift, reconnected to all my old Fotomate friends through the phone.

My other job as a Dunkin Donut baker has grown more difficult with all the changes over the last year, the latest – like a Dicken’s novel – the best and worst, benefits barely outweighing the disadvantages, all in the name of progress.

Jerry, a 40-something-year-old business man, has come on as a new partner in this tumbling, rumbling rock & roll of a place, bringing with him the idea that he might actually make the place make a profit. He is not the first to think of such things, Steve thought as much when he came about this time last year.

Steve got mellow despite his determination to remain unsympathetic. Jerry is of a different breed, having gone this route before, making me think he will not soften over time. He is everything I dislike about a boss – his obsession with the bottom line.

But he’s not the only change; things have changed in me as well and in the mall itself.

Dan, the night guard, is not an afternoon porter, replaced by a new part of night guards that remind me of Laurel & Hardy.

But the mall itself has become less friendly, with a change of management also focused on the bottom line, determined to destroy the culture I saw breeding here over the last few years, outlawing teens at certain hours, maybe permanently.

Bosses on every level seem to follow the same pattern, coming in gung-ho and ruthless, only to mellow, and get replaced by the next gung-ho ruthless boss

Good old Duffy is leaving the mall’s power elite to be replaced some hard-nosed veteran cop, Jenkins, a man so much like Jerry, I doubt he will follow the typical pattern and soften later.

My perspective might be skewed; maybe as time goes on, these two will grow attached to this environment, just as Steve has to me and Wayne, Todd and Bernard.

Perhaps Jerry and Jenkins will get attached, and then have their greedy fever ruined by their sentimentality – that ebb and flow of human emotions, I fail to give them credit for having, slowing wearing them down like water running over the hardest of stone.

Even Phil – perhaps the greediest bastard I ever met – came in like a thunder storm and eventually weathered down into something resembling a spring drizzle, an iron and brass capitalist who eventually left with a number of “favorites” as employees.

Sharon, the black counter girl, is slow and moody, yet for some reason, Phil put up with her when he would not have tolerated anyone like her when he first came.

Maybe Jerry and Jenkins are like Yacenda, a man so heartless and earth quake could not move him, nor could a series of tidal waves wear him down. Yacenda does this by maintaining distance between himself and those he employees, operating through a string of underlings, who yes him to death and let him live with an air of superiority.

This is how the upper class maintain their arrogant status, avoiding emotional attachments that would void their determination for acquiring wealth and building power.

Only by isolating themselves can they truly rule, if you don’t rub shoulders with the unwashed like us, you don’t risk erosion that eventually makes a man soft.

I dislike Yacenda. I hope I’m wrong about Jerry and Jenkins. Only time will tell.

 

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