Andy Bodinger
District Red
It was the 90s, baby. My first job was wearing a fire hydrant suit for a short-lived novelty shop in the mall called District Red. I was supposed to stand out at the entrance, but I had just enough pride to not do that. Instead, I camped in the corner of the store, awash in neon that glowed like a Hong Kong fog. Our wares were sirens, lamplights, light-up sneakers: trinkets red or warm. My curly-haired co-worker had a thin and tall philtrum and was wearing heart-shaped glasses as she lounged behind the counter, crowding the landline and holding a smoldering chess set where it wasn’t clear what the colors were anymore.
She told her friend on the phone, Rose, that she thought she didn’t play for either team. I play for my own team, my co-worker said, team me. I felt this was a dig, that this was a thing co-workers slyly announced to one another so no one got any ideas. I was offended. I had no ideas. But also, I wanted ideas. I was shy and desperate and would’ve joined any team who’d have me.
Do you think this internet thing has legs? she asked Rose, and apropos of nothing, I sneezed a blissful little sneeze. She put her hand over the phone’s speaker and looked around the room, mystified. Can I help you, sir? She thought she was totally alone. Between her glasses, which were rose tinted, my getup, and my face, a swirling stop sign of cystic acne that could’ve mapped the interior of an ant hill, she couldn’t see me one bit.
She lifted her sunglasses and squinted in my general direction and hung up. I think the internet is a lousy fad, I told her. It’s too good to be true, she replied. Are you some kind of specter? Because I’ve met ghosts. The scariest part was how acquiescent they were to the whole enterprise.
After our shift ended, we flipped off the neon lights, tossed the hydrant suit in the back, and convened out front, where in the tiled mall plaza we saw one another clearly. She was maybe 5-10 years older than me. She touched her face. She looked me up and down, eyes registering me with sleepy pity. When I told her this was my first day in the working world, she dragged me to a Tex-Mex restaurant on the other side of the mall, where the workers in black t-shirts all knew and embraced her.
The hostess directed us to a booth, and every server we passed stopped what they were doing to put their hand on her arm and ask her how she’d been doing. A blustery guy whose uniform was a size too small took our orders and didn’t check my ID. My co-worker ordered cervezas and a pile of nachos as big as my head and paid for all of it.
I asked her, your friend Rose, is she on a team? I have a paycheck now, you know. My co-worker shook her head. Rose is an odd duck, a real strange player on the field.
What about ghosts, I asked? What team are they? Ghosts are lone wolves, she said. No happy ending there. Before I could ask anything else, a concave of black shirts arrived at our table, clapping their hands and singing Feliz Cumpleaños to me. In his gigantic palm our waiter carried a plate. On it was an on-the-house tres leches with a single beaming candle.
When they departed, I asked why my co-worker quit this job; everyone seemed happy to see her and it was a fiesta every day. As if on cue, the manager materialized with her hands on her hips. She told us we needed to clear the premises. I asked her if I could get a box. She said, curtly and politely, no, sir, I need you to leave post-haste.
We wordlessly complied. Out front, I asked, what was that about? She said, I’ll see you tomorrow. The next day I came to work, put on my fire hydrant, and sat in my corner. I wanted to ask her what the story was there. I wanted to ask her for advice. How to proceed, we, the teamless ones? She didn’t come in, then or any other day. Instead, we had some busy body who fussed over the merchandise and later the boss stomped in, squinted in my direction, and pointed at me: you, outside, right this very second.
Andy Bodinger
Andy Bodinger is a fiction writer, essayist, and PhD student at Ohio University. He earned his MFA from Oklahoma State University where he was an associate editor at The Cimarron Review. He is formerly an ESL teacher, having worked in The Czech Republic and China. His essays and stories have appeared in Willow Springs, South Dakota Review, and The Pinch, among other places.