Essential Services

            My name isn’t really Pippi. It’s Janet. I hate the name Janet, so I re-named myself Pippi when I was ten, after Pippi Longstocking, my favorite book character. I found the books in a box in our attic. They were my mom’s. Dad saved all of her stuff up there, “In case you want them some day,” he said. Like Pippi Longstocking, I practically raised myself, but I didn’t have her courage or adventures. I had to imagine mine, but sometimes imagining fun and amazing adventures just makes real life even more boring and frustrating. Dad once told me, “Adventures aren’t worth the trouble they cause.” But how would he know? He complains a lot about how boring his job is and never does much except watch TV or play basketball with some friends.

            I also have red hair like Pippi Longstocking. My Dad says I’m a “ginger,” like I’m a cat or something. Mom was a “ginger” too. She died when I was three. I don’t remember her. Dad left me in the care of a lot of different babysitters and daycare places. At twelve, I told him I could take care of myself, so I did. He dropped me off at school; I walked home afterwards, did my own homework and ate dinner. It was a lot of microwaved bowls of Chef Boyardee, but, whatever. I’m alive. Now I’m eighteen and work at WaWa. I thought about college, but we can’t afford it. I like to imagine what it’d be like to have a roommate in a dorm to do exciting things with. Ironically, Dad’s now alone at home, trying to work from his computer and phone, while I’m here because I’m an “essential service.” Whatever. I have a job. We still don’t say much to each other. We can’t go anywhere after work because the whole world is shut down, so we just watch TV and eat sandwiches or cans of soup, whatever I can throw together. Which is okay. It’s more than we ever did together, before.

            It’s a typical evening at WaWa. A woman comes into the store, looking kind of worn down and stressed. She’s wearing baggy gray sweatpants, a frayed sweater, and a paper mask. I think I’ve seen her come in a lot in the mornings dressed in a nice pant suit on her way to work. She usually gets coffee. I guess she’s stuck at home now. She looks at me and says, “My kid’s melting down, and I’m hoping ice cream will make her happy again. Where do you keep it?” I point to the freezer section. I guess she’s too stressed to see the obvious. She runs over, grabs a pint and brings it to me to ring up.

            I look at it. “Mocha? For a kid?”

            “Oh,” she says. “I thought it was chocolate.” She looks like she wants to cry. She looks exhausted.

            “Wait here,” I say. I go over to the freezer and bring back a pint of chocolate ice cream. “How about this?”

            She looks relieved. “Yes, I’ll take it, thanks.” She pays. I can hear a toddler screeching as she opens her car. “I’ve got ice cream! Who wants ice cream!” I hear her say.

            I spray bleach on the counter and wipe it. Six white guys with buzz cuts walk in, pushing each other and laughing. They’re a little older than me and dressed in those expensive jeans that you buy with holes and tears already ripped in them. My Dad won’t let me wear those, not that we could afford them. When I asked for a pair, he said, “In my day, holes in your pants meant you were too poor to buy new clothes. I may not be rich, but I’m not so poor my kid has to wear pants with holes in them.”  These guys are probably college kids who had to go home and finish the semester online. They reek of beer. They wander around, looking at stuff, taking their sweet time. They aren’t wearing masks, either. Finally, they gather a pile of junk food and dump it all on the counter. They are still laughing and joking around. One guy says, “Hey, let’s go for a walk and see if that store that sells all those cool t-shirts is open!”

            I don’t even look at them as I ring it all up and shove it into a bag.

            “Seriously, it’s closed. Everything’s closed around here,” one of them says.

            “Yeah,” someone else says, “nothing open here but WaWa. I’m sooo bored.”

            I look up at him as I finish bagging their stuff. “Go home and watch TV,” I say. I know I should keep my mouth shut, but I don’t want to deal with this kind of crap.

            One of them makes a snorting noise. His breath reeks of beer and cigarette smoke. “Oh please. It’s just some kind of flu. It kills old people, not us. Hey, maybe we should hang out in the parking lot here. Let’s have a party!”

            “Yeah,’ the others say. “Party!”

            One guy grabs a newspaper from the rack and starts reading a story. “Look at this, guys! Somebody in Idaho swears he saw a UFO. There’s a photo.” He snorts like a pig I saw in a cartoon once. “Aliens are coming, aliens are coming!” He waves the newspaper in the air, laughing. The others start laughing and grab copies of the newspapers.

            “Hey,” I yell. “You have to pay for those or put them down and get out.” They just go on flipping through the pages, pointing to other stories. “Look,” one of them says. “This article says the coronavirus was caused by 5G towers. Your phone caused all this,” he says, still laughing, pointing to one of the other guys.

            “Okay, you guys are done here. Get out or I’m calling the cops.” I don’t want to do that because my dad works at city hall in the records part and knows all the local cops. Some of them know me. The few things my dad did with me was take me to all kinds of cop and co-worker parties. I think he wanted to look like the poor single dad and get sympathy, or something. He made sure the cops there knew me, so they would “keep an eye” on me, he said, joking with them. He’ll hear about it if one of them shows up here. I don’t want him to think I can’t handle anything that comes my way. I don’t want him telling me I can’t work here anymore, either. He was concerned about my working with the virus floating around. Occasionally he can slip into over-protective father mode. It never lasts, but is annoying while it does. Whatever. I take care of myself, like always.

            Then that mother comes back in. She looks at me. “She didn’t like the chocolate.” I point to the freezer section again. Did she really try to feed her ice cream in her car? She must be really desperate, I think. I wonder why the kid is so worked up.

            “We also have really small, child-size cups of various flavors, including vanilla.”

            “Thanks,” she says. “My husband’s a nurse and is staying at a hotel so he doesn’t give us the virus. I’m not used to taking care of everything myself. He usually reads a bedtime story to Cindy. That’s their thing, but now he can’t, and she won’t let me read to her, so she won’t go to sleep.” She runs back to the freezers. Then one of what I’ve started to think of as The Gang of Six walks over to her.

            “Hey lady, I like ice cream too. Why don’t you join our party? I bet you’re a good dancer.” He grabs her arms and tries to get her dance, shaking her and making kissing noises with his mouth. She screams and drops two of the three cartons of ice cream. He releases her arms, jumping back to avoid the ice cream. Then she smashes her fist right in his face. He yells and turns sideways, holding his nose, which is bleeding now.

            “What’s wrong with you?! What’s wrong with you?! Touch me again and I’ll sue the hell out of you, you little S.O.B.!” she shouts.

            I’m impressed, but also scared. I call the cops, tell them some guys are causing a real problem in the store and please send an officer. I hang up, even though the operator said to stay on the line, and go to the woman, try to pull her away from the guy who is now screaming obscenities at her while she screams back, but the others cut us off by circling around us, shouting their own obscenities and threats. One of them pushes me, so I push him back, just a reflex, really, but I push him into one of his buddies, and those two fall backwards, I guess because they’re drunk, giving me enough time to pull the woman out the door. I’m not even thinking; I’m just reacting. I shut the door behind us. “Just go,” I say. “Now.” The toddler is screeching in the car, calling, “Mommy!”

            “Thanks,” she says. Her hands are shaking. She looks at the car. “I need the ice cream.” She sounds lost.

            “Maybe she’d be better without sugar,” I say. I don’t know if that’s true. I think she should move, and go, now, while she can. I have to stay because it’s my job, I think, wishing I could run home. The guys come running outside.

            “Hey, bitch,” one of them shouts. “You don’t get to leave after that. We were just playing around. What’s your problem?” And I get really mad. I don’t think I’ve ever been this angry.
            “Hey, asshole,” I say. “Leave her alone. The cops are on their way. Keep it up and I’m going to tell the cops you stole stuff, too. Get out and don’t come back. Ever.”

            “F@#$ you” one of them says.

            “Try it!” another one says.

            “My dad is going to sue this store!” another one says.

            “Take your lousy customer service and —” the injured guy mumbles something unintelligible as his nose drips more. “I’m suing you both!”

            Then the cop car pulls up, lights flashing. I’m guessing there isn’t much going on in town today, they got here so fast. And that’s when those guys walk away, swaggering, shouting, giving me the finger, but moving fast.

            “Hey,” one of the two cops in the car says as he leans out of his window. “Are those guys the problem?” He points to them as they stand at the corner, waiting for the light to change, I guess, laughing and shouting at each other. It seems odd they’re waiting for the light since there is almost no traffic, and they haven’t paid attention to anything they’re supposed to be doing, anyway, but I guess they’re too drunk to think even that through.
            “Yes,” I say. “They assaulted a customer. They’re drunk and made a mess in the store.” He drives over to the Gang of Six and blocks them from crossing the street by parking horizontally in front of them. He gets out and I hear the Gang all shouting. Another police car pulls up next to the first, and one of the Gang tries to run away. A cop goes after him, grabs him and knocks him to the ground.

            The child in the car is screaming even louder now, but the woman just keeps staring at what’s going on at the corner.

            I say, “I’ll get her ice cream.”

            I go back in and fill a bag with every child-size container of ice cream, no matter the flavor. I pay for them myself and bring them out to her. “Here,” I say. She takes the ice cream.

            “How much?” She asks. She pulls her wallet out of her sweatpants pocket.

            “Don’t worry about it,” I say. “I hope your kid goes to sleep soon.” I realize that sounds stupid, but I don’t know what else to say. I’m sorry those guys were jerks? It’s not my fault.

            One of the cops walks back over to us. The Gang of Six must be in the back of the cars by now. I don’t see them anywhere. He talks to the woman and gets a statement from her. I go into the store and get a cup of coffee because I really need caffeine right now. She drives away.

            The cop comes inside and says, “Okay, now I need your statement.”

            I hand him a cup of coffee because I figure he probably needs it, too. I stand behind the counter so we can take off our masks to drink while I tell him what happened in detail. He takes notes. Then he asks about my dad. “He’s fine,” I say. “Please don’t say anything about all this to him, okay?”

            “No problem,” he says. “You handled it all well, anyway. Hope you have a quiet rest of the night,” and he leaves. Now it’s once again just another evening at WaWa. The store is empty of people, which is good, because it’s a mess. I start cleaning up. In my head, I imagine all kinds of better ways I could have handled everything. In my head, I am Super Clerk, able to punch each of those guys in the nose and throw them out the door, myself. In my head, I make that little girl smile and laugh, and her mom go home relaxed and happy. In my head, I go home, sit down on the couch next to my dad, and say, “Hi, want to hear about my day?” In my head, he says, “Sure,” and hands me a plate of meat loaf, mashed potatoes, and green beans that he cooked for me. In my head, I tell him everything, and he comforts me, saying, “You did the right thing, baby. You did the right thing.” I know, though, he’ll be asleep when I get home, and I’ll probably never tell him any of this, anyway, ever. Dinner is a can of SpaghettiOs I heat up in the microwave on the sandwich counter.