Midnight Lunch

The mall food court is dead by nine. Everyone still at the mall is in a store shopping, or trying to look like they're shopping. The teenagers are biding their time until the security guard asks them to leave.

I'm in the food court because I don't have anywhere to be, and I definitely don't have anything to buy. I'm sitting in a booth with my phone out. The screen is off and I'm watching girls from under the brim of my hat. There's a beautiful black girl with natural hair that works at Subway, and a cute girl with crooked teeth at Orange Julius.

The only girls worth checking out at the mall are the ones working here. I want a 20-something like me. Someone who's out of college and used to the idea of being into girls. I'm done with the giggly, squeamish ones. I want a girl who wants to fuck.

Truthfully, I can get a quarter of what I want just by staring at a girl. Because sex isn't about orgasms. I don't know why everyone thinks that. I don't really care about orgasms. If you want to come hard, do it at home, alone, with your fingers.

People talk about "wanting to get off" but if someone's looking for a hook up, it's not because they want to come. People go looking for sex because they want sex.

And what the fuck is sex? This fragile, violent thing. So obvious in our heads, so ambiguous in reality. Full of vulnerable highs and anxious lows. Why would anyone ever want that? What is the point of sex outside relationships? If it's not to strengthen some bond, to trust, to share, to love. If it's just to get off, then it's just a few defenseless hours wrapped up in another person's arms. A dangerous surrender, with little gained.

It's all the hope and fear, the 'how is this possible' head shaking, of connecting with another person, that goes out like a match as soon as you stop. Sex alone doesn't lead to anything. Except maybe more sex, if it's good. Because sex doesn't require presence. At its best, it's an out of body experience where pleasure is driving and you're just along for the ride.

So why would anyone ever, ever, ever want a hook up?

I don't know. But I want one. It's like I think it'll be shiny and new this time, not awkward and difficult to steer, like it always is.

I feel the want behind my ribs as I stare at this girl from across the food court. A pretty brunette with skinny legs that knock together at the knee. She's sweeping the floor. When she turns my way, our eyes meet. She flinches away. No one ever stares back like I stare at them.

I'll be thinking about one of these food court girls next time I come. With my fingers. Alone. At home.

I put Tinder on my phone as a concession. I acknowledged that I wanted sex, and that's it. I haven't opened the app. I see it on my home screen and it feels like the urge to drive off the side of the bridge. Just some passing, weird thought. Don't look too closely.

I leave the food court before they have to kick me out, and walk to work. It's three lit blocks, two dark ones, a quick cut through a drug store, then a half-block-long jaywalk to get to my Mini Mart. I shove my hat and jacket in my bag and drop it in the back. Now I look like every other badly uniformed Mini Mart employee. Red shirt, black pants, black shoes, and a name tag. Personality-free and ready to serve.

This is only my third night shift, so I'm still on probation. My boss, Parteek, makes me show him how I unlock and lock the register, how to read the delivery schedule, and the how to check IDs. Then he leaves me on my own until six in the morning.

My body is already getting used to the hours. I feel more awake when the sun sets, and tired when I watch it rise. It's hard to be nocturnal. You have to make the leap all at once and not look back. I did it by staying up for forty-eight hours, then crashing as the sun came up. Most people who come into the store look like they're caught in between. They're not tired enough to sleep, not awake enough to work. They're just up at one in the morning for whatever reason, staring at the single-serve cereal bowls.

I'm all instinct when a sleepy girl walks in. Seeing girls sleepy is half a step from seeing them in bed. Loose hair, loose clothes. Tired eyes and quiet faces. I'm always fantasizing about wrapping them up in my sweatshirt. We'd lay right down on the tile. It's clean; I just mopped it. We'll just rest, all body heat and slow breathing. Take a nap like stacked spoons. I'll tell them, 'You need to rest. I'll keep you safe while your eyes are closed.'

In between the customers, the window shoppers, the shoplifters, and the sleepy girls who need a nap, I'm alone. I sit behind the counter, which faces the front doors, and look out at the sidewalk. Watching people through the glass feels like watching fish in an aquarium. They're in front of me, but separate. They're the busy ones and I'm the one who's just sitting here, watching. They couldn't possibly be watching me back.

In the quiet hours, between two and five in the morning, I'm truly alone. The sidewalk is empty and when there's a pause between songs on the radio, I can't hear anything but the whoosh of the air conditioning. I walk around the store like I'm in an indie film. I pretend the world is black and white and full of jokes. I pretend this is poetic simplicity, not a waste of time for shit money. But it's hard to pretend when the radio just plays top 40 and there's no one around to laugh with me.

Parteek calls me during the quiet hours. He's paranoid because the last guy working graveyard kept falling asleep. I pick up on the first ring and try to sound wide awake. But voices are difficult things to control. I can cover up the boredom but I can still hear that lonely note under my words. The sound a body makes when it hasn't seen another body in hours.

—————

On the fifth day, I pass the quiet hours decorating a soda cup. I write, "Tips are like hugs without all the touching," on the side and set it by the register. It's like I'm working at an artsy coffee shop, without the irony.

By the seventh day, I'm recognizing the clockwork regulars. The ones who come every night. The slightly less tired ones. The people buying coffee. They're working late like me. I'm just another step in their routine.

Then there are the irregular regulars. The ones who keep coming around but always seem surprised to find themselves back in this overly bright Mini Mart way past midnight again. The college kids who never take out their headphones, like they can't get mugged. The guy with the leather jacket who always asks me to break a five or ten into quarters, and never buys anything. The girls with black-rimmed eyes hanging out with tall guys who think I'll sell them beer without an ID.

A chubby girl comes in with one of these guys. I'm sure I've seen this guy before. I might have even rejected his fake ID before. They walk straight to the liquor and he pulls out a bottle of wine. Weird choice.

As they walk up to the counter, I see the white-and-pink print on the front of her shirt that reads, "Bi Bitch!" My eyes snap to her face. She's staring at the floor. He puts the wine on the counter; I ask for ID. He produces the same bullshit ID he gave me last time. Parteek wants me to confiscate all the fake ones and give them to the cops. I was willing to let this kid slide the first time but this is ridiculous.

I take the wine off the counter because I hate having to clean up broken glass. He starts talking all the sudden, "Hey, what's the problem? What are you doing? Come on..." The girl's watching me silently. I use a pair of steel scissors that must have been around since the 70s to snip the license in half. He grabs for the ID and I step back, out of arm's reach. I hold the two halves of thin plastic between my fingers and say, "Don't ever come back in here."

He stares at me, trapped between anger and fear, and I stare back. I'll win, because I don't pick fights I can't win. This isn't the kind of kid who carries a weapon. He's all talk. Confidence is making a judgement and acting on it. I throw the pieces of his ID past him, onto the floor by the door.

He turns, cursing at me as he leaves. He's too proud to pick up the pieces on his way out. She's right on his heels but I hope she hears me say, "The fuck are you doing with that guy, huh?"

The doors swing shut behind them and I see my reflection in the glass. My hair is short and messy, shadowing my face and shining in the fluorescent light. My friends say it looks more gay at night. I agree. I think my facial expression gets harder at night too.

There's something else there—I can barely make it out in my blurry reflection—that's almost apologetic. It says, 'Yeah. I'm thinking about fucking you. Sorry.'

I'm undressing you in my head. Sorry about that. If it's any consolation, I think you're beautiful. I love all your stretch marks and I'll kiss them from one end to the other. I love your dry elbows and the way your inner labia flare outside the outer like a flower. I'll make them bloom with my tongue.

There's an endless parade of older guys, coming and going. They rarely speak to me. They look tired in that long-game kind of way. Not like they haven't slept in a while, but like they've maybe never slept, like they're never going to. I say, "Have a good night," and sometimes, "Be safe out there."

A woman in worn out pajama pants comes in. She looks hungover and sad. I sell her a pack of cigarettes and two gallons worth of milk in pint-sized containers. I say, "Be safe out there," and she walks out without a word.

They say working a service job makes you hate people. You'd think the night shift would be ten times worse—and maybe I'm just lucky—but it's making me softer, not harder. I feel like everyone's mom. Even the loud, drunk people who shoplift don't give me any shit. They stumble in and stumble out, the way drunk people usually keep to themselves on the last train of the night.

You'd think Parteek would stress about the shoplifting, but something must have happened once, because he says over and over, "Just let them go. Do you understand? You don't ever call out to them, or ask them what they're doing, or fight with them, or approach them. Just let them go. If they threaten you, hit the panic button. Otherwise, just let them go, then call the police, then call me." Right before he left me alone on my first night he stopped me again, "Do you understand what I said? Don't ever go after the shoplifters." I said, "Yes. I understand."

An old black butch comes in. Her hair is buzzed, just starting to go grey, with a pair of sunglasses resting on top. She's built short and stocky and her sweatshirt hides the curve between her breasts and her stomach. She walks with her weight heavy in each foot, like her knees are bothering her. She nods at me and I nod back.

I think of the first woman I knew who left the hair on her chin alone. She called me a baby butch and said, "We take care of our own." I felt out of place, like I'd never be recognized as a part of that club by any other member. But time is slowly proving me wrong. I feel like gay women are the only people who don't care about where I work or what I do or where my degree is from. They see something in me that they see in themselves and we reach for each other like a reflex. That's family.

My mom won't ask me about anything in my life except, "How's school going?" I say, "It's going." I take one class a week in the summer just so I have something to say to her.

The butch pours herself a cup of coffee and adds two little cups of Hazelnut Vanilla cream. She pays the $1.50 with a twenty dollar bill. I hand her back $18.50 and she drops it in my tip cup. She says, "Make sure you get enough sleep, baby."

I smile broadly, unafraid of being misread. I say, "Thank you. I'll spend it on college."

She laughs with a smoker's cough and says, "Buy yourself a dozen coffees."

I take the money out of the tip cup when she leaves, and put it in my back pocket. I put it in the left pocket, where I keep my phone, not the right, where I keep my wallet. I don't want to spend her money on something stupid.

—————

On the day I stop counting the number of days I've been working the night shift, I decide to rearrange the cigarettes behind the counter. The case is a mess because no one who works during the day wants to take out all the packs to stock a new carton in the back.

I open the glass door and start pulling out the plastic-wrapped cartons. I reach for an awkwardly shaped one that's supposed to double as a display and feel a sharp cardboard edge slide across my palm. It doesn't hurt, but when I pull the carton out, I see my hand is bleeding.

I leave the case open and wash my hand in the bathroom. There's a clean slice down the side of my palm. I walk back into the store and head to the first-aid section, next to the roadmaps and magazines. My head is bowed, surveying the band aid options, when she walks in.

I see her pale hair first. It glows under the lights, like it's brighter than the white floor and the white walls and the white ceiling. She reflects the light back up at itself.

Her head drifts on an even level; it doesn't bob with each step. She moves with a dancer's skill for illusion, the way they skate across the stage. I'm staring. Her hair looks whiter than bleach, but her tan complexion makes me think her hair is naturally black. She's so beautiful.

She looks at me and I flinch. I blindly grab a box from the shelf and stride back to my post at the register. I bandage my hand and watch her walk the aisles. She's wearing a knee length skirt and Converse. Her white-gold hair falls over the shoulders of a big black sweatshirt that's unzipped in the front. She looks small under all that cloth but I can't be sure. The way her hips swing when she walks makes think she's got nice curves.

I watch her pick up a container of Tic-tacs and put them in the pocket of her sweatshirt. I am completely unfazed. This turn of events does not surprise me. Go ahead, beautiful shoplifter, I won't stop you. I watch her drift around the store, picking things up and setting them down. She never looks up at me. I watch her put a box of tampons in her pocket, then a packaged danish, then a keychain decoration shaped like a Maneki-neko, those waving cats in Asian restaurants.

Only then does she look up at me. I stare back. She has dark eyebrows and dark eyes. She looks so awake I can't imagine her next to me on the floor. I smile at her, feeling flustered. She's too lovely; her gaze is too steady.

She walks up to me and slowly takes everything out of her pockets. She dumps it on the counter in fistfuls. The Tic-tacs are there, along with the tampons, the danish, the keychain, and about half a dozen crumpled receipts, a tiny hairbrush, a dollar bill, and some change. She swipes the receipts and such off, and back in her pockets.

I'm grinning at her, stupidly, like this is some kind of crazy performance, but she doesn't smile back. I ring up her purchases slowly while my eyes crawl over her body, looking for some sign, some kind of flashing signal or tiny rainbow.

She pays with cash. I touch her hand when I give her the change. I say, "Be safe out there."

She says, "Thanks," over her shoulder as she leaves.

I feel like my ribs are stretched beyond the door. I think I just missed my chance. My panicky heart tells me to run after her, to at least get her name, but I stay put.

The store is still and stifling. The radio has turned itself off again and the silence berates me. I walk my heavy stomach to the back room and restart the radio. I think the lights are drying out my skin. They're too bright.

I stand behind the counter in a fog. Now that she's gone, I call up her memory and join her in a daydream. I undress her. The hoodie falls right off her shoulders and onto the floor. She's curvy alright. Thin tank top, two bras, full breasts. Her skin is a pale brown; I think she's Latina. It's darker around her wrists and elbows. I take off her tank top with both hands. No tattoos that I can see. No piercings. Not on a girl like this. She's perfect, not the kind of girl you can puncture.

I daydream and my hand bleeds. I put another band aid on top of the first one. By the end of my shift I've Scotch-taped gauze over the whole mess and still, there's red leaching through. I put a five dollar bill from my wallet in the register for the band aids and gauze.

Parteek sends me home as soon as he arrives, about half an hour before my shift ends. My hand looks a lot worse than it is, covered with three layers of red and brown bandages.

When I get home, I shower with my hand resting on the glass door, up and out of the water's spray. I clean it in my sink, careful not to break open the skin. Paper cuts are the worst because they have to scab all the way up inside the slice. It takes forever for that deeper stuff to heal.

I dream of her in my sheets. I keep calling up her face, so I'll remember it. But it's an uneven landscape. Her eyebrows are crystal clear, but I didn't see her ears. I try to focus in on that blurry part and know I'm just seeing whatever my mind wants to put there. There's no memory to draw on. It doesn't really matter though, what her ears look like, when what I want to know is how they feel against my lips.

But just for a hook up—something sour in my throat reminds me—just for the night. Just sex. Just once.

—————

The next day I'm tired like the first day I worked the night shift. My body doesn't believe me; we should still be asleep. I get dressed and eat breakfast in the dark, so I won't bother my roommates. With every step, I feel like I'm stumbling off-balance, like my brain is stubbornly refusing to wake up my inner ear for this shit.

The old butch comes around again. I think her schedule is four days on, three days off. She buys a medium coffee, I charge her for a small, and she tips me too much. I tell her it's all going into savings and she laughs. I fold her bills up and slide them into my phone pocket. I really am saving it all, nearly $150 now.

The beautiful girl came in around 2 am last time. I'm biding my time, counting the minutes I need to pass before I can start watching the door. My eyes are on the clock when she comes in.

I see her, forget the time with my relief, and look up at the clock again. 11:23 pm.

Whatever the opposite of a 'my heart stopped' is, that's what it feels like. The inside of me pops larger than my skin for a second. I don't know if I truly wasn't expecting her to show up again, or if I'm flimsy and so easily tied to beautiful, new things.

I can't look at her while I'm losing my cool. By the time I get my eyes off the counter, she's looking at the packaged hardboiled eggs in the refrigerators. She stays longer this time and I spend every second trying to think of something to say to her.

I slip between tongue-tied with attraction and distracted by the sight of her. She has on a tight jacket today. Her arms are thinner than I thought, but her hips are just as round as my lust-swamped mind imagined. The zipper is pulled down to her navel, so the edges of the jacket flare around her breasts. When she walks up the chip aisle, I can see her nipples through her shirt.

She's not wearing a bra. I feel the first real lick of arousal race through me. It's dangerously strong. Oh my god, her breasts look that good with no bra? How can that be? I stare at her chest. They're so full, stretching delicious tension lines into her shirt at their fullest.

Her nipples are big and pointed slightly away from each other. My body tears from interested to ravenously horny. She's walking toward me and I still haven't thought of anything to say. I'm thinking about jumping the counter and meeting her halfway, my hands scooping inside her jacket, under the curve of her breasts, so I can run my thumbs over both nipples when I kiss her.