Another mall guard bites the dust July 25, 1985
The man who replaced Dan last December is leaving the night
shift at the mall, one more change taking place, leaving little or no permanence.
His name is Joe, and like Dan before him as a history that
includes being part of the military police.
Not a long career
like Dan had or in Germany, yet when Joe mentioned it, the idea struck me as
odd, and left me with the hope he could fill Dan’s shoes, when as time went on,
proved he couldn’t.
Joe wasn’t the giant, Dan had been, shoulder less than half
as wide, and not nearly as tall.
But he quickly suffered the same frustration when dealing
with mall management.
Joe was younger than Dan and got his military police work as
part of the reserves rather than the regular army.
Joe said he never intended to join at all, but during one of
his weaker moments was seduced by a recruiter who had promised him all sorts of
incentives, none of which actually ever transpired.
Joe arrived full of the enthusiasm and spunk long driven out
of Dan by the day-to-day grind of Mall operations.
Dan laughed a lot, but was one of two potential prospects
for replacing Dan.
In fact, the mall hired both seeing as it took two to fill Dan’s
big shoes.
The other man was Billy. He and Joe made a team that many in
the mall came to hate. They had a lot in common.
Sometimes, the two men would shout and run around like kids
in the dark, late-night caverns of the closed mall, tossing donuts or bagels at
each other.
Both got married while working here. Only Billy could not
resist the shop girls who flirted with him on their way out at night, and he
wound up on cheating on his wife within two weeks of being wed.
It put a wedge between the two men, since Joe didn’t
approve, perhaps a bit jealous. Joe tended not to tell Billy how he felt, but
often told me., claiming Billy would not work out in the job. This wasn’t quite
fair to Billy, who was younger and more child-like than Joe.
Billy got scared of being alone in the dark mall, claiming
he heard strange noises, and believe the mall might be haunted. Joe got annoyed
by Billy’s constant panicked calls over the two-way radio.
Eventually, when Joe told
Billy how he felt, strangely bringing them even closer than before. Nothing
could break them apart -- except finally marriage and the unreasonable demand the
world makes on young people like them.
I got into an argument with the two over their needing to
use one of my ovens to heat their pizza.
But that passed.
Two weeks ago, Billy left for Vermont, ending his Spartan
love affair with Joe, changing Joe into a moody son of a bitch who is convinced
he’ll never see Billy again since Joe has made plans to move to Houston, Texas.
“If I could have gotten a decent place to live here, I would
stay,” Joe told me last night.
I already know he will miss this place and the year he had
working with Billy, and how he will look back on it, giving it more importance
than it actually deserves, and he’ll come to regret having fled. Even now,
before his final day, he fantasizes about someday coming back here with Billy.
“If these assholes in management get desperate enough, they
might just offer us more and we’ll come back,” Joe said, but knows it will
never happen.
He leaves for Texas on August first -- forever – driving south,
away from Willowbrook, farther still from Billy in Vermont.
Good bye, Joe.
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