Chapter 3: Interview

Supermarket carpark fills gradually with families. Trolleys are taken and minds are emptied to roll in slumber. A picaresque trek through the different sections, the circle of life. Oily-skinned juniors doing well with minds out travelling time. Been granted access to inner sanctum of head manager, a creepy-crawly looks five years my junior.

'Can I've a job please?'

Man flinches, face contorts then flops with chuckles. 'What?'

'Can I?'

'Ah... I don't think so.'

'Why not?'

'Serious requests will be considered, but you have to fill out an application with a current address and contact number, and we'll contact you... If you're selected for an interview, which is done on the grounds of your resume, which you'll need to provide, along with references from your previous employers.'

'So involved. I didn't realise.'

'Right.'

'That won't work though.'

'What won't work?'

'The problem is... the part where you write your address... And phone number... I was kind of hoping for a live-in position...'

'You're kidding?'

'You know, like maids and nannies do on TV.'

'That's not exactly how it works.'

'Its not?'

'The store gets shut up at nights... No-one but security allowed.'

'I kind of don't know where to go next... I've been away from home... I kind of got kidnapped...'

'I'm sorry to hear that.'

'Thanks. I didn't mind, there was food.'

'Right...' Suspicious.

'Listen, I'd love to help you out, but I just took on a couple of retarded kids, so my quota's full. I've done my bit...' Pathetic, he shrugs. 'Sorry.'

'I don’t get funny ideas, I won’t expect promotion...'

'I wish I could help...'

'Just somewhere safe... I used to be a hall monitor, I used to be pretty reliable...'

Man just looks at me with a smile filled with sadness.

'I know,' he says, as, from behind, that increasingly familiar sensation: the unnecessarily forceful grip of the security guard. Into the shoulders, find a handle, tear it up if you like, there you go… oops, don’t mind the bones, I’ve got others, whatever's easier...

%

Half way out I find I have another one of those out-of-body experiences. I see myself, Xaviour, elbow a man twice my height and physical fitness schedule, pick up a snub-nosed toblerone and stick it into his back.

‘Okay, motherfucker, don’t move.’

‘Alright just take it easy…’

‘You think this is easy? This is hard, motherfucker.’

Where did I learn a word like that?

Xaviour digs the toblerone so far into tough-guy’s back that enemies flanking him can’t see that its just a prepackaged chocolate product.

‘Get your boss out here, motherfucker.’

‘Alright, I’ll get him. Just keep your tongue civil.’

‘Was I swearing?’

‘Just a little, okay?’

‘Alright, just get your boss.’

Creepy-crawly saunters into the great central aisle of the sprawling supermarket, the central hub of operations for the mammoth shopping complex.

‘What is the situation, Armstrong?’

‘Situation is a Code Red.’

‘No Codes!’ Xaviour shrieks.

‘Alright, alright… Situation is this… customer here… Is a little distraught, doesn’t know what he’s doing…’

‘I know exactly what I’m doing…’

‘He’s not a customer, Armstrong. He’s a vagrant. Homeless. Tried to apply for a job. Disgruntled. Deal with him.’

‘Don’t call me names. I’ve got a fucking gun!’

Force the pointy corner of the toblerone into the muscle-man’s kidney. He groans.

'Like the man says, sir, like I was trying to explain... He's got a gun.'

'Armstrong, you're so fired. I'll deal with this. You, there, vagrant... What do you hope to achieve, boy?'

‘… Give me a minute.’ This has not been well thought out.

‘I want a job. And I want to meet General Chemistry. And I need some medicine – but I don’t know what its called.’

‘I can't help you with any of those things, would you please go elsewhere?'

'Mr Duncan!' Armstrong freaks, suspecting this a reckless course of action for Duncan to take.

'There's a SUPER! Market around the corner that'd suit you fine. You're just their type.'

Heart lifts. 'Really?'

'He's takin' the piss, honey,' some woman says.

'Oh.' Heart sinks.

'Take your gun round the corner, they have drugs at SUPER! Markets too. You can satisfy your habit there.'

‘What about the job?'

‘Come on, you’ll be lucky if you get out of here before the police arrive. Wouldn’t it be a bit awkward now anyway?’

‘I don't mind...'

Relieve the pressure on the mini-toblerone... Quickly... Tear it open and eat a piece! Several enemies figure it out straightaway (which tells me they shouldn’t be stuck in retail) and I bolt for the turnstiles while they blubber away trying to explain to Sir Duncan of Creepsville, Metropolis, Erewhon. But I don't care, my mouth is full of sweet chocolate... Excuse me for a minute...

So zonked by chocolate kind of forget to continue getaway... Tastes so Swiss and good have to enjoy it somewhere private... People staring... Self-consciousness... Ruins the chocolatey goodness... I break up all the letters I have left... OBLERON... Sounds like a mystical land created by science-fiction or fantasy novelist... Or perhaps a device that will destroy the world in just twelve minutes!!! Which is on the slow side, you'd think... I could do it in under ten. I play with OBLERON in my lap while I'm waiting for mouth to process current E... While I'm chewing the E, I see BE... BEN... EON... LEER... And I almost spit out the E, but its already too soft... Still, if I did have that E, could make REEL too... By the time the police arrive I've eaten the remaining OBLERON, and I pretty much don't care what happens next, at this point, I feel that good.

$

Cops are gentle with me. Mainly because, being uneducated, they believe the rumours and assume I'm mentally disabled in some way, which is outright something they're in no position to judge. Men in police car are different from gay men who kidnapped me... Very few phone calls to their dealers, which they must do in their own time like responsible workers... Hardly ever sat on my lap and slapped me... Which was nice. Conversation the right side of pleasant, particularly for arresting officers... Like this, on where my apartment is:

'That's a lovely part of the city.'

I pull a face.

'You think?'

'Well...' Laughs. 'You caught me, I was just being nice.'

'I could tell. Cause its a shitty part of a shitty city.'

'I guess you're right.'

@

It might have something to do with being arrested, or it might just be post-chocolate depression... But everything about the police station annoys me. Huge well-maintained one with frosted-glass foyer in an area where you can't even tell what the rest of the buildings are made of, no-one cleans the pollution off. Wishful representation of police importance in the area... Same principle as churches: using architecture to convey something that doesn't exist. Any giant penis police station could be said to conform to this tradition.

Get feeling potential felons are safe as long as they're polite and subtle... And don't make the police look bad. That's when something gets done. An interesting theory which, of course, I am the exception to being mild-mannered secret identity without superhero cover. I'm so mild Officer McBoring and partner hardly handle me at all, but for some reason I'm compelled by the nearness of their life forces to accompany them, handcuffed, through the frosted-glass foyer.

I'm processed as human, though not asked to prove it... I have very few documents, and even fewer I could say were genuine... And they're all locked up back at City #1. My sanity is not questioned, which appears to show neglect bordering on lack of common sense, till my processing offer says, 'my guess is if you'd waited a couplea days, you wouldn't even have been processed at all...'

'Things are that bad?'

Policeman's face elongates, tongue cramps up, unable to express the level of severity.

'Have you been watching the news?'

'I'd watch it if I knew where to look.'