just bodies
From the short story collection "What's Left Over: Stories Inspired By Discarded Things"
The metal of Harlan’s hand truck rattled as he followed Greg through the hidden arteries of the dying mall. Windowless, narrow, and white-walled, the ceilings seemed to tower above them, making every word and sound echo.
“You glad to be moving on?” Harlan asked, trying to fill the awkward silence.
Greg didn’t respond right away, thrown off by his question. How could he be happy? Designing and setting up store displays was his dream job. Or, at least, it was as close to his dream job as he was ever going to get. With so many places closing, there was nowhere to go from here. His future remained a giant question mark. He turned to aim a quick glance at Harlan, eyebrow raised.
“Not really,” he offered with a sigh. “I like my job here. It’s fun. The pay’s good.”
Harlan couldn’t imagine liking a job. Every job he had ever had sucked, even this one, which was probably the least terrible so far if we were grading on a scale. Jobs were just something you put up with and moved on—a way to pay the bills.
They turned a corner and were met with another long expanse of white, featureless walls. Harlan had a lot of pickups at places like this lately, now that malls were closing left and right. He’d load up a janky box truck with whatever fixtures had been paid for back at the office and haul it away to be sold on the secondhand market. Who these other people were who bought them was still a mystery. He hadn’t been in the used store fixture business very long.
Most of Greg’s job these days consisted of dealing with Harlan-types coming through— watching helplessly from the sidelines as fifteen years of effort disappeared piece by piece. The mannequins were especially hard. His girls, he called them, only half joking. He’d even given names to some of them—the distinctive ones, the problematic ones. His absolute favorite, Gigi, walked off on Monday, hoisted over the shoulder of a beefy guy with a grease spot on his shirt and warty knuckles.
“She’s too good for him,” he joked to Anne, his assistant, making her cackle. He meant it though. There was a lump in his throat as Gigi disappeared around a corner.
Eventually a door with a sign for Bennett’s Department Store appeared. Greg took them through. The back area of the first floor was divided into multiple different spaces along an internal corridor. Greg went to the first door on the left and flipped on the light, exposing a vast sea of chrome, glass, and pale, lifeless figures.
“Your stuff is this way,” he said, accompanied by a wave of his arm.
The cache of goods Harlan was picking up had been tightly corralled, like it’s own small island on a sea of scuffed, white vinyl tile. A dozen full-size mannequins posed at the center, surrounded by sets of tall, open shelving that made it look like the were in a cage. A belt of bungee cords had been hooked to various poles and things around the perimeter. A sign taped to one of the shelves said in marker scrawl: Retail Warehouse – PAID.
Greg walked briskly toward the pile and began detaching the cords. “You need help with this?”
Harlan could tell from Greg’s tone he did not actually want to help. It probably should have annoyed him that this guy thought he was too good for this kind of work, but honestly—it wasn’t his job, so Harlan couldn’t really blame him.
“Nah, I got it,” he insisted with a vigorous shake of the head.
It took an hour of back and forth down the maze of corridors that led to the dock before everything was loaded. Greg passed through from time to time offering a glance, but no words were exchanged. Occasionally other mall employees would squeeze by Harlan in the hallways, some offering a nod and a grim smile, sometimes even a “hey”. The funeral vibes were strong, like they all knew their days were numbered. Maybe they’d end up just like him, switching from job to job every year or so as the system churned and consolidated and downsized, never on sure footing—just bodies to be bought, discarded, discounted.
The last item at the center of it all was a cardboard box full of mannequin arms. Odd, but Harlan wasn’t going to question it. He gathered the box of arms in his own and exited the storage room one last time.
Stopping near the edge of the loading dock, he dropped the box of limbs by his side. He lit a cigarette and looked out across the asphalt at the border of identical evergreens, wondering what this place would become once the stores all closed.
His thoughts were interrupted by the scuff of footsteps coming up behind him. He turned to see Greg emerging from the doorway into the empty loading area.
“You got everything?” he asked.
“Think so,” Harlan confirmed with a nod.
Greg stopped at the edge—just a few feet away—and put his hands on his hips. Harlan watched through squinted eyes as Greg looked left and right, pulling in a deep drag of air.
“You know what the plan for this place is once you’re gone?” Harlan asked.
Greg turned to him, revealing a small smile in one corner of his mouth. “Oh, you know. It’ll sit here empty for who knows how long. Maybe they’ll try and rent the anchor store spaces out to some fly-by-night venture or another? Eventually it’ll probably get torn down.”
He paused briefly then blurted, “Oooh! Maybe they’ll turn it into a distribution center for one of the online stores that put me out of a job?”
“Maybe you could get a job in one of those?” Harlan offered, teasingly.
Greg shuttered. “Ugh. Hell no!”
Harlan chuckled. “There’s probably not a lot of jobs like this anymore, huh?”
Greg shook his head.
“Do you know what you’re gonna do?”
“Not really.”
“How about Retail Warehouse?”
Greg recoiled instinctively. Harlan rolled his eyes and clarified. “Not for what I do. Like, as a buyer, setting up deals. I bet with your experience they’d have you. It ain’t glamorous, but it’s a paycheck.”
Greg had absolutely no desire to work for Retail Warehouse, but he found himself strangely touched by this random guy being unusually earnest with him.
“That would sorta feel like feeding off of the corpses of my friends, you know? Not much better than working at whatever warehouse moves into Bennett’s a few months from now.”
Harlan smiled, then shook his head and shrugged. “Everyone’s got to survive somehow, man. Not a lot of options anymore. Me? This is my tenth job in so many years. Sometimes it’s just about a paycheck. Not worth thinking much harder about it.”
Greg studied Harlan’s face while he pondered this pearl of wisdom. If only it were that simple. Greg’s brain didn’t work like that. He turned back to the view and muttered, “Maybe you’re right. Job won’t ever love you back, so...”
Harlan raised an eyebrow, asking for explanation, so he added, “It’s something my mother used to tell me to keep me from putting too much of myself into a job that could fire me tomorrow. She’s a bit jaded.”
“Sounds about right though,” Harlan declared with a nod.
Greg capitulated. “Took me awhile, but I’m starting to get what she meant.”
An awkward silence followed. Harlan needed to get back to the warehouse before his supervisor got anxious and radioed him.
“What’re they gonna do with just arms?” Greg asked suddenly, noticing the box by Harlan’s feet.
“No idea? Replacements maybe?”
“Ah,” Greg nodded. “I don’t know why we have all those in the first place. I didn’t order them and all my girls have...excuse me...had their arms.”
“Your...girls?” Harlan asked slowly.
Shit. Greg cringed internally at the slip. This guy being unusually friendly had his guard down. “Uh, I kinda call the mannequins “my girls”, give some of them names. To be funny, as a joke.”
He watched Harlan process this with a grin on his face. “Heh. That is funny. I might steal that, actually. Make the job more entertaining, you know?”
Greg had not expected his response and remained speechless.
“These one’s I’m picking up got names already?” Harlan continued. “Wouldn’t want to call ‘em the wrong thing and hurt their feelings.”
Coming from someone else Greg would think the guy was being an ass, but Harlan’s tone made it clear he got the humor in it. Greg laughed.
“Ah…let’s see.” He looked up, trying to remember which mannequins he took. “The only one that’s got a name in your batch is the glossy grey one with no face and the hair molded onto her head—“Carly”. Otherwise, the naming rights are all yours.”
Harlan shook with a silent chuckle. “Excellent.”
Another moment of still, awkward silence passed before Harlan sprung to life.
“Greg…” He stuck out a hand and they shook. “I gotta head out, but good luck with the job hunt. Don’t be a snob; think about Retail Warehouse. I’m serious.”
Greg didn’t know how to respond, so he just smiled. “Thanks.”
With that, Harlan picked up his final box under an arm and walked toward his truck, patting the rear door.
“Time to go ladies,” he joked before turning to climb down to ground level.
As the truck began to idle, Greg took Harlan’s goading to heart. The job market was looking grim. He’d probably have to retrain regardless. But for what? He was almost forty.
Frustrated, he raised his arms and clasped his hands behind his head. The truck pulled out and disappeared.
“In the end, it’s all just bodies. Bought and sold,” he quipped, letting his hands slip back down to his sides before heading back in.
Maybe he would end up working with Harlan one day after all.