My friend's periodic e-mails to me about nothing spurred me to see The Store today. He said in the message that the last time he dropped by they weren't selling lottery tickets anymore. Father told me so, but being reminded of that change prompted me to find a way to head to The Store.
I was able to not only do that but to kill a second bird, namely escape My Fucking Father's exhortations to clean my room. Fuck that. And I got a reason when I finally heard back from this guy who was casting extras for a shoot over the weekend. They needed spectators for a circus this afternoon. This wasn't a paid gig, but it was an excuse to get out of the house. And since I hadn't even seen them since Friday night, I could drop by The Store, tell them I had to "go to work because they called me in," and avoid them till Monday after work.
Even though things looked largely the same as they had, The Store still felt entirely different from the last time I saw it, when I helped Father get to The Store when they had to open up for business. As I approached the front door (whose screen door was propped open) it was dark. I really could think my parents were there but just didn't open up The Store. But the lights were on -- well, one of them. The Store has three aisles, and each is lit up with six pairs of neon lights. Usually the main one, the one that leads from the front door of The Store (the left one) and the middle one are turned on; the last one, at the end, has been turned off for years just to save money. But this time only the middle row of neons were turned on, and of them, two sets were burned out. That means a lot of darkness, fitting for something about to die.
I saw Mother hanging out at the desk, just on the business side of The Store, right where the swinging door, that reliable ol' swinging door, swinging for decades when my folks or one of their employees hauled some foodstuffs out for our vendors on a two-wheeler. Ah, trusty swinging door, I'll miss you.
Mother was diligently doing something. Father was out in the back, working. He came up, sat down, wanted to talk about going back to school, which was as painless as it could go, but I quickly changed the subject to printing out a form for him to claim money from the state. He was pleasant enough, not the overbearing nag I was afraid I would face if I said no to being an extra and just decided to stay home.
The big freezer was still working, which is surprising. I guess as long as there is still stuff here, it has to remain frozen. But if things are shutting down, that thing has to shut down too. We'll see, but that whir gives me hope.
I told them I would had to go, but just not yet. I just wandered away from my folks because I wanted to take one potentially last walk around The Store. Because of my sentimentality and my OCD, I follow this pattern: I walk down one aisle, come back through the next, then go down on the third. I repeat the process, but since I am on the other side of the first aisle, by the time I'm done I would have walked through all three aisles twice, once each way. It's the least I owe The Store.
What I saw was an emptying of once full shelves, though they had been largely untouched, some parts for years. Rows upon rows of still foodstuffs and household items. Some of them had signs on them with clearance prices. There were also piles of other things my parents just put out there, in carts or on the floor. And speaking of the floor, it looked pretty dirty. My Father should start cleaning up The Store instead of yelling at me to clean up my bedroom.
When I came to the front desk, the place I had hung out at all these years, my breath was taken away. There it wasn't -- the lottery machine. It, and the previous machines it replaced, had been at the top of this desk ever since the lottery began. And it truly is gone. And so was the sign showing how many millions for each of the jackpots could be won. Behind the desk there were piles of envelopes from the lottery; now they're all gone, and the area behind the desk is as empty as I've ever seen it. The only sign that we had ever sold lottery tickets is the bag of sample scratch-offs lying on the woks in front of the desk.
It all looks the same, and yet it's all different. And there was a call time of 1:15, so even though I was overwhelmed, I had to leave. After saying so to my parents, I stopped at the bottom step of the back door, turned around and looked back, sighed at what I could be seeing for the final time, then left. And then I had to turn back to see the old lady one last time before I got in my car.
Still trying to make my peace with it.
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