Chester suddenly stopped sweeping. He leaned the broom against the bin of sheetrock screws, hung the dust pan on the hook by the paint brushes and turpentine, leaving the pile of dust and debris in the middle of the wooden floor and without a word to his boss, Norman, walked out of Nichols and Son's Hardware Store where he had worked for the last five years. The bell over the door jingled when Chester opened it and jangled even louder when he slammed it behind him.
The urge to quit his job had been building for months, but he would shove the thought aside and mutter to himself, "How can I quit? What would I do? I'm stuck!" He heard how bad the economy was from the six o'clock news, people losing their jobs, their homes, the worst recession since the crash in twenty-nine they said, but Chester didn't care anymore. He had to get away. He was fed up with his life, the boring job, the emptiness, the loneliness. He wanted to feel alive and most of all he wanted to be in love; he wanted a girl friend but felt helpless and had no way to make that happen. Most days, it was all he could do to get up and go to work. Before leaving home that morning he almost called Norman to say he wasn't coming in but came anyway, hating his reluctance to do something daring. He knew he was trapped in a rut and wouldn't be able to take this much longer. He was desperate.
Several times he started to tell Norman he was quitting and giving two weeks notice but lost his nerve. He needed the job. His mother's disability check and his eight-fifty an hour was all they had to pay the $500.00 a month rent for their tiny, shabby apartment above Dominic's Pizza Shop. Then there was the electric and telephone bills, his mother's prescriptions for depression, the monthly payment to the dentist for the root canal he had, leaving barely enough to buy the simple meals they ate--even with the food stamps his mother received.
Chester wished he didn't have to live with his mother. "Damn, I'm thirty-five. I should have my own place, a family, a car," he'd say to himself while taking the bus to work or lying in bed at night looking up at the ceiling. He didn't want to spend the next twenty years working in a hardware store, but he saw no way out.
Norman was Mr. Nichol's son and with the way business was, there was no chance for advancement. Norman was a year older than Chester and graduated from Thomas Edison High School the year before Chester. Mr. Nichols, now in his seventies, came in once a day to check how things were going, count the money in the register, shaking his head in disgust then leave, hardly paying attention to Chester. Norman was lazy, except when his dad came in. He'd read the newspaper at the counter, tell Chester what do, wait on the occasional customer that came in and usually took a long lunch break.
The hardware store had been there for forty-five years and was barely making ends meet because of the Home Depot that had opened just outside of town.
This was a dead-end and the one year of community college didn't qualify Chester to do much more than maybe work at the super market or at one of the gas stations which were all self-serve now--though some had convenience stores. He could be a cashier, he guessed--not much of an improvement over the hardware store. He thought about joining the army but hated that idea--especially with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and then what would happen to his mother. Though she was fifty five, she was depressed and took a variety of pills that kept her in daze.
Over the years, she had several part-time jobs that didn't last long because of her mental condition. The last job she had was a year ago working for a florist but again she got fired for being chronically late or not showing up. She divorced his father when Chester was ten. He was an alcoholic, rarely home and when he was around he went off on tirades, throwing chairs and turning over the kitchen table. The last he heard, his father was in Las Vegas working as a black jack dealer. Chester never even got a birthday card from him and his mother rarely spoke of him and when she did, she'd get upset and start calling him that son of a bitch, or something like that.
Chester was chubby, his brown hair was thinning and he had a bald spot in the back of his head. He rarely smiled except when he waited on customers and said, "Have a nice day," as he handed them their change and a receipt. He'd then sigh and go back to dusting the top of paint cans or counting the screws or doing whatever Norman put on the list for Chester to do.
"Why don't I have a girl friend," he's say to himself while sweeping. "Even Donald Evans has a girlfriend. What's wrong with me?" He thought about women a lot, wishing one would smile at him or look at him. He had a crush on Rita, the cashier at Larry's Bakery where he stopped for a doughnut and coffee before going to work. She always wore tight t-shirts and jeans or a mini skirt and she'd always say, "Hi Chester" and smile but he was too shy to say what he wanted to say which was, "Hey Rita how about you and me having a date?" He liked looking at her body while she reached for the chocolate covered doughnut he liked or sometimes the blueberry muffin and fantasized making love to her. Often he would go in the bathroom in the back of the store, soapy up his hand and masturbate thinking about Rita. But on this day, he had it and suddenly in a burst of nerve walked out, leaving the dirt in the middle of the floor.
After storming out of the hardware store, Chester walked the three blocks to the Greyhound Bus Station and bought a ticket to New York City. The bus would be leaving in ten minutes so Chester went into the men's room to relieve himself. He looked in the mirror while he washed his hands and hated the way he looked. "I'm fat," he muttered, looking at his belly hanging over his wrinkled khaki pants. He moved his face closer and could see the beginnings of wrinkles around his eyes. His skin was pale and looked worse in the florescent light. He unbuckled his belt and tucked in his long sleeved red and green plaid flannel shirt. He took a deep breath, tightening his stomach muscles so that his belly looked flat. He turned sideways wishing he could always look that trim. He remembered the look of men in the Playboy ads or on CSI, his favorite TV show and on Dancing with the Stars--his mother's favorite. He let out his breath and saw his stomach bulge forward, rolling slightly over his belt.
Chester had fantasized many times about coming to New York, going into a bar and picking up a chick and having a night of romance and mad, passionate sex like in some of the stories he read in the Playboy magazines he kept under his bed. He imagined a gorgeous blond with a tight slinky dress, looking into his eyes, playing with his hair, her leg touching his leg, her hand on his thigh then whispering in his ear that she'd like to take him home with her. Sometimes the woman had blond hair, sometimes black, sometimes it was Rita, but always they were all over him, looking deep into his eyes. He'd place two cigarettes in his mouth and light them, handing one to the woman then he'd blow smoke rings at the ceiling and snap his finger at the bartender for another bourbon on the rocks and a martini for the lady. There was one Playboy girl of the month named Vanessa that he'd jerk off to and dream about, but Chester at thirty-five was still a virgin. He thought about the prostitutes he'd see in tight hot pants or short mini skirts on State Street when he borrowed his cousin, Walter's car but chickened out. Anyway, where would he get the fifty bucks he heard they charged for a blow job in an alley?
The bus ride from Bayonne to New York took a little over an hour. This was his third time in New York and he didn't know his way around. He got off at Port Authority and walked outside into the crowded, noisy street and humid air. Now that he was here, he didn't know what he was going to do. He couldn't just walk around all day.
Chester walked down the street. People rushed by him in both directions and he noticed every other person was talking into a cell phone. He saw women carrying shopping bags, a man standing on the curb with a brief case, his hand waving for a cab, people waiting for the bus at the corner, a fat woman pushing a shopping cart with a plastic bag filled with soda cans and plastic water bottles. He noticed her going through a trash receptacle by the curb. It was noisy and everyone seemed pre-occupied as they walked by not looking at him. "Why should they look at me?" Chester thought as he weaved in and out of people on the crowded street. "I'm nobody," he muttered. "I might as well be invisible." Everyone seemed to know where they were going. "Where should I go now that I'm here?" he asked and continued walking, noticing his chubby shadow on the sidewalk or in one of the department store windows.
Suddenly, he stopped and looked into the window of a men's clothing store and saw a red vest on the plastic torso of a mannequin. It had three gold buttons and Chester imagined what he would look like in it. He looked up at the sign above the door, "Garfield's Clothing--for Men of Distinction." He couldn't take his eyes off of the red vest and wished he could afford one. "I bet it's really expensive," Chester thought, staring at it. He then felt the urge to go into the store and try it on and find out how much it cost. "Why not?" he asked himself, putting his hand on the door handle, glancing back at the red vest then took a deep breath and walked into the store.
Inside, he looked around at a neat pile of colorful sweaters. He walked past a table with white dress shirts and another with wool flannel shirts. He noticed a glass counter with a dark velvet lining and an assortment of cuff links and another display of neck ties with knots as if they were being worn. Along one side was a long rack of suits and in the middle of the floor was a tall mannequin of a man wearing a pin striped blue suit. The mannequin had slick black hair, a sharp chin and red lips painted into a smile. Then he saw the red vest on a hanger towards the rear of the store.
A salesman wearing a blue blazer with a handkerchief in the pocket came up to Chester and asked, "Can I help you, sir?"
"No, thanks, I'm just looking," Chester responded, noticing the thin neatly trimmed mustache. "Just looking," he repeated wondering what he would look like with a mustache.
