Streets of Pyrite, Nickel Lining

  In the past year or two, I have realized that my favorite places to shop-or simply browse-are quiet little stores that you often find in the historic districts of most towns or cities. Perhaps it is because I enjoy mysteries so much, or maybe my loathing for commercial franchises like Wal-Mart and Target are growing. Regardless, if I am presented with the choice to investigate a tiny store with a creative name, or instead take a trip to stores similar to the aforementioned chains, I will almost always prefer the smaller business.
     I think small businesses have a personal touch that larger industries lack. They are tied into the community they exist within, rather than being a bloated emporium of commerce. Take a look at art galleries promoting local artists, or bookstores with owners who work their own tills, and know every customer by name. These businesses do not content themselves with shoving an overpriced, potentially unnecessary product into your hands and sending you on your way. No, the smaller stores are the ones that take their time, offering advice when asked, and a (more) honest opinion than associates working for larger chains.

Before my vitriol earns me criticism, know that I worked for a large electronics chain for almost three years selling phones, computers, and the occasional television. I will not name the company, but over the course of 988 days wearing the blue polo shirt with a yellow price-tag sewn into the breast, I learned just how mechanical and ruthless big business can get in the pursuit of profit. In morning meetings, the other employees and I would group in a circle and discuss the weekly deals (which were, in effect, advertisements of products rather than actual sales, more often than not) and selling strategies. “Make the customer see the value of the product,” was the advice the sales team was given before the store opened. “Get to every customer, and get them what they need, including the things they don’t know they need yet. They want a computer? What about a printer to go with it? What about ink for the printer? What about a new monitor for that computer? What about protection for the item (We’ll come back to this one.)?”

This strategy was-and remains-a double-edged sword. Yes, it’s beneficial to understand a customer’s needs. This practice ensures that their needs are satisfied, and that when they get their purchase(s) home, that they are ready to function as anticipated. Personally, I would ask a few questions to understand the person I was speaking to, and their situation, then offer a few additional items if I truly thought the customer needed them.

My problem stemmed from an ethical crisis I faced about a year into working at the store. Employees at many of the major chains are evaluated based on their salesmanship. Put simply, my peers and I were given a quota to meet in order to be profitable for the company. While this is an understandable need (being profitable), the situation complicates itself if sales are slow, or not bringing a profit to the store. As an employee whose hours and chances for promotion were dependent upon selling skills, I must admit that there were times when my need to make a good sale for my own benefit outweighed my interest in the customer’s needs. I am not proud of this fact, but it is a harsh truth of retail life: If you work for a retail company long enough, you eventually grow desensitized to customers financial limitations, or the risks they are taking with their money at your recommendation.

Imagine being told to sell a computer to a family around the holidays. You greet them, the husband, wife, and two children. The want a new computer for family use. They tell you up front that they are looking to spend no more than $400; you try not to wince when they say this. Here’s a poorly-kept secret about economics in retail life: Profit doesn’t actually come from the core product alone. The real money is in the accessories, the software upgrades, and the protection plan.

Now, in order to do your job as the company requires, you have to convince that family to break their spending limit, and feel satisfied having done so. The options you present to them are not cons, simply offers heavily emphasizing the benefits vs. dangers of having each selection. Dozens of times each day, this cycle will repeat itself, often following a small number of patterns which, within a few months of holding the job, you the employee will recognize and learn to follow when possible or shift when necessary.

Neither I, nor anyone who worked with me at the store ever fully lost our moral compass, but each day ate away at us as a group, with little to no genuine support from management. A few tried, I will give them credit, but in the end the endless pressure, given enough time, wears well-meaning employees down to emotional dust. We were not heartless, simply conditioned.

I do not believe working for, or owning a business is ever easy. Quite the contrary, it requires an iron will, adamant work ethic, and an endless supply of patience and ingenuity. Setbacks appear with uncanny timing, while unexpected challenges and variables can swing the course of an entire day of sales. However, any work should bring a measure of satisfaction to those putting themselves to the task, and you recognize that deep appreciation for the job in the small businesses which focus more on the quality of the experience than the number of customers who make a purchase. This is not to say that a good business should slow its work to a lethargic pace, but that each customer, each person, should be made to feel as if the interaction truly is entirely about their peace of mind, not the money they have available.

Even working my former job, I found times of excitement, when the rhythm of an interaction felt like standing under the open sky during a thunderstorm. Adrenaline ran through my body, and I knew that, not only was I doing my job well by management’s standards and my own, but, most importantly, the man or woman I spoke with felt better for having worked with me. Sales like that, days like that, are what made the retail job bearable for the time I stayed.

Choosing to go into business for oneself is a risky proposition. I have considered on several occasions opening a bar-and-bookshop (called ‘Books & Booze’) to cater to the inebriated philosophe that lives inside us all. (Unrelated Sidenote: A pet peeve of mine is using a word correctly, spelled properly, and the spellcheck highlights it as an error. Ref: Philosophe) I think it is a great idea, though unlikely to ever become reality. I am sure, however, that it would be a place open to all, with the express purpose of creating an appealing atmosphere for my clientele.

When I walk through my local mall, or peruse the small shops that have struck out to earn the respect and attendance of a community, I feel pride, followed by a sadness that coils inside my chest. I fear for these bastions, worry that the corporate titans will likely choke the independents of their success until the shops are forced to go elsewhere, or close entirely. Seeing a dream broken in such a way, only to be called “progress,” that is an American Tragedy.

A Dialogue of Flesh and Stone

I come back to you now, at the turn of the year...

     I'm borrowing from Gandalf on that one, but it truly has been almost a year since I posted on this blog, though what a year it has been, filled with glorious triumphs and a fair number of pains as well. The words have been building up in my chest for some time now, rattling around in their cage, screaming for me to put them to paper (digitally, or otherwise).     

     Speaking with an amazingly talented new friend and peer (check out her work here: http://kimmith709.wordpress.com), we fell into the topic of what it would be like if we could speak with inanimate objects. Specifically, we wondered what we would discuss with a house if it were capable of thought and communication. We asked questions both insightful and playful, nostalgic and melancholy. "Do you get cold in the winter?" "Where do you keep the things I have lost over the years?" "Do the other houses treat you well?" "Where are you hurting?"

     Perhaps the years of reading Calvin and Hobbes, or more recently Neil Gaiman's "Sandman" collection (specifically, Volume Eight, titled "The Wake.") have led me to start shifting my own perspective when viewing the world. One of the stories in "The Wake" involves a dreaming city, with individuals slipping between the cracks of the city's dream, lost for years until they find their way home. The piece is a poignant work against a backdrop of masterful storytelling.

     When I asked Kimmith what she would want to talk about with her house, I considered the topic playfully, smiling with her over the idea of a home as a storyteller of lives across the generations, akin to the bards and skalds of the ancient Celts and Norsemen. Something troubled me about the question though, some nagging proto-concept swirling through the atmosphere of my perception, lurking in the shadows of my smile until I got home from work and found myself walking through the halls of my family home, remembering the years which have passed since I was a child visiting my grandparents in this very same home.

     Perhaps a house is a living thing, becoming as integral to our lives as a member of our own family. Parents, siblings, children, always remembered along with the family home. Individuals move through its body like blood cells traveling the arterial paths of a slumbering giant. Memories and emotions seep into the walls, recalled at the touch of a hand, or the sight of an imperfection caused by ornamentation or accident.

     I love the house my family lives in. We have lived in this house for fifty years, and it is the one constant place I have felt safe in all my years. I know every creak in the floorboards, every nail-scarred pockmark in the walls. I know every apple tree in the yard, where the wasps and bees make their nests in the summer...one August not so long ago, I spent every night for two weeks dueling bell hornets that infiltrated my room from their nest outside my window, drawn by the light in my room. Many fell before me, be certain of that!

     My grandparents bought this house when it was first built in the 1960s. It sits atop a small hill,  between the forking paths of a road running from one end of our tiny community to another. The first house in the line of homes leading into newer parts of the community, it has the honor of being the closest house to a not-insignificant lake on the other side of the road. 

     When the seasons change, flocks of geese and ducks will pause in their journeys and take respite upon the lake beside my family's house, preening their feathers and feeding as they glide along its surface. As a boy, I often chased them from the lake's shores, trying with all my power to pet the geese. Once (and to my continued shame, I admit), I threw a soft apple,-fallen from one of my grandfather's trees-into the flock, catching the goose atop its head. Years later, I watched a flock of ducks and geese leave one of their injured members behind (able to swim and catch food, though enough feathers had fallen off of the wing that I could see spokes of bone exposed). One duck remained with its companion, standing guard while it slept, helping it to groom itself, and offering support as they swam together during the day.

     My home has watched the turning of seasons and years for half a century now, from behind a veil of trees my grandfather planted in his years. Apple trees mostly-he'd collect their fruit every summer-though a few chestnut trees can be found along the hilltop at the edge of the yard closest to the forking road. One spring visit, with his help and encouragement, I planted my own yearling, taking extra care for the rest of the visit (and all subsequent visits from the age of eight to ten) to make sure my tree grew strong, with just enough water and sunlight. 

     In the backyard, a wall of trees fences the back slope off from our yard, veiling them in shadows. Here is where collected brush and fallen branches are set aside to be broken down for firewood in the winter. At times, deer or other creatures will travel through this last vestige of wilderness, feeding on the fallen apples and berries from our bushes. As a child, I considered the furthest corner of that shadowed area an ominous land, as intimidating for my bloated imagination as the entrance to a dragon's cave. Only when I came to bury a pet on the property (two cats, Moose and Suzie) did I brave the borders long enough to pay my respects. The wooden cross I fastened with a small length of rope stood for three years after I buried Suzie beside Moose, serving as a marker for me to find their resting place.

     The house itself is humble yet dignified, with only a single floor and an unfinished basement, holding small rooms designed for a family of no more than four. Portraits of men and women long since passed adorn the walls, with an 18th century map of Colonial America dominating one wall in the living room. A sealed fireplace serves as the spine of the room, with the bricks of the chimney rising past the ceiling. Photos and antiques serve as furnishings for the mantle and just about every other flat surface in the room. This is the heart of the house, and for my grandparents and parents, has been and continues to be the location for many of their activities. At night, Jeopardy or Frasier plays on the television, the voices of the actors funneling through the main hall of the house, straight to my room at the rear.

     My room is plainly ornamented, with a Geisha painting from the 19th century, and a copy J.R.R. Tolkien's "All That Is Gold" hanging on the walls. Temperatures are difficult to manage in my room; in the summer, the hot air collects, while in the winter, the heat is siphoned from the back of the house toward the front.

     Despite that small imperfection in design, this is my home, my family's, and it carries the legacy of each generation that has lived within its walls. I do not feel that I am indulging in hyperbole to phrase my feelings that way. A few years ago, due to financial difficulties, my mother asked me to take the house into my name so that it would be kept in the family if her situation worsened. Being in college, and fearful of my academic career being sacrificed-I required student loans, and believed that by having a home worth such an amount, I would be unable to continue receiving financial aid-I told my mother that I could not help her. 

     This decision damaged me, to put it plainly. I remember being in my home for what I thought would be the last time, running my hands over the walls, feeling their texture, then laying on the floor and crying for the enormity of my choice, my shame and loss. My grandparent's home, my parent's, one day mine...and I had (in my mind) sacrificed it all for a chance at something I thought I wanted more than my own family. In that moment, I knew that if the house ever left my family's possession, if it ever went to someone else, or there were none in my family left to claim it...that I would in all likelihood burn the house down.

     Fifty years of memories between this home and my family, and, having considered the question between Kimmith and I for the better part of the day, I know now what I would ask, if given just one question only. "Do you know how much we love you?"

Listen on Four and Eight

I hear a cadence in the air, a quiet whisper which grows

from a slow heart-beating pulse, to a thunderous lilt.

Music, knit from the frayed cloth of distant memories,

a half-remembered tapestry of percussion, strings, wind

and a boy’s voice, calling out to seagulls who rise in flight,

madly cawing as they flee the furious drumsteps of his pursuit.

Thump!Thump!Thump!

Feet stomping in tune to the pounding notes.

Thump!Thump!Thump!

Crossing and leaping, arms as pale as ivory piano keys

thrown out for balance, spinning in place, faster, faster!

A storming crescendo of sand, scattered seashells and impish glee,

until the child falls to his back, the sinews of his instrument reverberating.

Thump!Thump!Thump!

The bass line thrum of a heart beating.

Thump!Thump!Thump!

Watching white wings circle in duets to the rhythm of the tide.