In one week past graduation, it seemed to Gears like time had stopped, stuck in a Mobius strip of checking out groceries and mindless stocking of those same groceries. In a grocery market tucked away between a law office and an abandoned pencil factory, there sat Gears McSpoons upon his perch, his piercing green eyes stretching across the sea of columns filled with neatly stacked groceries. It was a paradise for all things cuisine, an homage to the mother goddess of nutrition. This was “Dougie’s”.
There must have been a Dougie at one point in Donahue’s life, for it seemed strange to Gears that the founder and owner of “Dougie’s” was not named Dougie or any variation of the boyish name. Instead before Gears stood Donahue Crockett, a man as tall and slender as a 6’6″ tree sapling, and about as lively as one too. He towered solemn over anyone that managed to hold a conversation with him and had a funny and unsettling habit of looking straight through people. He was there in front of Gears, and then in an instant he wasn’t. This was a common habit for him, and that left Gears all alone for most of the day each day.
It was absolutely maddening being in an empty grocery store for eight hours a day. The only thing that brought Gears any excitement is the people that would come in to get groceries. Maybe it was just Utensilsville, but the people that came to Dougie’s had to be the most interesting people there ever were. Not interesting in their own right, but interesting to an outside observer. Some were interesting people that had interesting stories and that was all well and good, but Gears’ favorite type of people was the type of person who is interesting in their absolute delusion. He knew most of the people that came in the store by name, but if a new person came in Gears could read them like a seasoned psychoanalyst. The target at the moment was a brute of a man that burst through the doors and started pilfering through the fruit like he was trying to disarm a bomb. It would be brief, but Gears could tell that this encounter would prove interesting. He stood up a little straighter and looked at the man.
Stout in length and broad in width, the man reminded Gears of one of the giant rusted iron bolts he had seen on those humongous barges of the great Mississippi. That trip had taken place when he was nine but he hadn’t ever forgotten those ships, the great leviathans looking proud on the river. Lost in thought, the iron bolt had appeared before him with an even more redder hue than when he came in. He threw the fruits on the counter and looked at Gears like an expectant beggar.
“How’s it going, did you find everything alright?” Was Gear’s stump speech he recited to most newcomers and it wasn’t even a conscious decision anymore to let it slip. In moments of self-criticism he realized that it was kind of confusing and it was like asking two questions in a single sentence but he had never changed it.
“Well it’d be a lot better if this town had an effing Cheesecake Factory.” The man said in such toxic sincerity, it was as if all of his worldly possessions had been taken from him except for a coupon for Cheesecake Factory, and now that too was ripped from his clutches.
Gears was stunned by the statement, and looked at him silently for a couple of seconds that felt like way too long. “Uh, fair enough.” He managed, as he scanned the last of his groceries, a can of baked beans. “Sixteen twenty six” Gears read, as the number bounced across the screen in front of the man. The man wordlessly handed him a twenty dollar bill and Gears handed him his change, and that was that, but the man didn’t leave. He waited until Gears looked up and they met eyes. It only lasted a second, and then the man nodded subtly and walked away. Gears shivered after he left and thought about it for a second. “That was weird.”
One of Gears’ favorite hobbies when he was left alone in the store was worrying. He wouldn’t worry about a lot, of only one subject: his future. He was accepted at Dartmouth and planned to attend
in the fall but he just didn’t feel like that’s what he needed right now. He had thought about it for years, and he had come to a conclusion. He wanted to do one thing, just one, one thing that would make people happy, but he had absolutely no clue what that thing was, and it seemed like it tormented all the time. It hung around him like a necklace made of lead at times he couldn’t predict or control. Everyone has asked themselves at one point in their life what were they to do and I’m sure many have struggled with finding the answer, but this struggle was particularly trying to one Gears McSpoons, the hero of our story.
Gears McSpoons’ most identifying feature was his indecisiveness, and second to that was his black hair that was darker than an edgy teenagers slam poetry. Other than that, he was pretty general in all of his features and with the aforementioned exceptions of bouts of worrying and indecisiveness, he was generally happy, and he was the happiest when he was with friends at Romeo’s, a pizza place in Vicetown him and his friends would frequent after work.
There was Tony Baloney, the wiliest of the bunch, a real character and a real stand up guy even though he was actually a pit-bull, and not in the metaphorical way, but in the way that he was a biological dog. He had a temper that rivaled those of the most voracious dictator. He was born in Southside Vicetown and abandoned on his first birthday, so he grew an steel fist fast and used it often. Then there was Billy Two-tone, the best keytar player in the tristate area. His rhythms could soothe the most tempestuous of souls. Next was Rocco Macaroni, the most Asian of the bunch. They were all Asian, but he was the most Asian of them all, being of Chinese, Japanese, and Mongolian descent. Rounding out the bunch was Pauly. He didn’t have a last name and he never wanted one. They would talk in that corner booth for hours after each of them got off work, letting all their worries drift away. They would talk about everything, girls, cars, baseball, and more recently, the two town’s rivalry.
There were two towns sister to each other, so close that you couldn’t tell when one town ended and another began. Those towns were Utensilsville, the more dignified town with the most money, and Vicetown, a hard knocks town were the only schooling available is the streets. Both towns were mostly populated by Asian Americans, mostly those of Chinese descent, but in Vicetown, the residents had a certain obsession that permeated their culture and way of life. That obsession was in Italian mobster life. The whole town of Vicetown romanticized mobster and Guido culture so much, not speaking in an Italian accent in city limits is punishable by a small fine of $3. Its not much but its usually such a nuisance people just speak in an Italian accent. Well the two towns had never particularly gotten along. Then one day Utensilsvilles’ mayor Cheesy Malone steps across city lines and is talking on the phone to his wife when wouldn’t you know it he gets fined for not talking in an Italian accent by a Vicetown police officer. Ever since that day, its been all out war between the two towns. But the boys didn’t care. The friends were from both sides, and they didn’t belong the political rivalry into this. And when they did, they talked about how stupid it was. They just talked about whatever happened to pop into their heads that day and it was nice.
Although eternity could be spent in those inconsequential forums, time was an unruly mistress and refused to stop. So Gears was on his way home, and on the way home, the lead necklace came to be draped back on him. He walked by the post office, city hall, and then the grocery store. Ah his mixed feelings on that place. He didn’t like to get up work, or maybe the idea of work, but after an extended absence from it, he started romanticizing it and missing it. It was serene, the days there, but if the rivalry between the towns wasn’t mended, Dougie’s may be out of business. Dougie’s is located near the border and used to get business from both sides equally. Now with dwindling vicetown business, it looked as if Dougie’s was on the out.
The abandoned Pencil factory. He had been inside a few times, and walking past the drab building, Gears decided on a whim he would add to that total. It was a nice enough facility, if not a bit old fashioned. There were still pallets of yellow paint, wood, lead and erasers scattered across the campus, and a giant conveyor belt of machines adorned the middle. He was examining the machines when he realized something that made him exclaim.
“HOLY S***.” He said it loudly, as no one could or cared to hear him. A second ago, he had a million thoughts running around his head, and now he only had one. He knew what he was going to do. With his life, with the abandoned factory, with the town. He was going to make a shot-for-shot remake of the movie Footloose.
To be continued…