Holly Jolly

 

“In the evening the wind stops. A low gray ceiling of clouds hangs over the desert from horizon to horizon, silent and still. One small opening remains in the west. The sun peers through as it goes down.” Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire

I ate too much ham, stuffing and mashed potatoes for Thanksgiving dinner and felt like a real, red-blooded American. Excess consumption, no better than a sow at the trough. I didn’t need that last piece of ham, but there it was, and I ate it. The soldiers who accompanied Lewis & Clark on their exploration of the Missouri river and the virgin west were said to consume seven pounds of meat per day. Salt pork, deer and buffalo. Every day those men did hard, physical labor, always exposed to the elements. On a good day, they made twenty river miles. They required large amounts of protein. 

On the Saturday after the holiday I worked the opening shift for the first time. 6:00 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Lunch break at 10:00 a.m. I left the house at 5:15 and rode my bike under a clear sky with lots of stars. It was a brisk 50 degrees or so, nothing to complain about. I have North Face gloves. By the time I was chugging up Garden Street I was comfortable enough. “Fresh” is how a man I used to train with at the dojo would describe the morning. I was reminded of when I was a very young man of 19, living in a tiny apartment in Tachikawa, Japan, about a mile from the train station. Yokota Air Base where I worked was a thirty-five minute ride and a half mile walk to the west. I had to be out of the apartment at 4:30 a.m. to make it to work on time. It was tough in winter, when the temperature was in the 30’s. I walked to the train station in the dark, my footsteps echoing in the street. At that hour the platform was sparsely populated, with very few headed for Fussa, the station nearest the main gate of Yokota. Smell of cigarette smoke. The usual jumble of bicycles outside the station, a few taxis idling, the drivers leaning against their cars, smoking and talking. A few drunks from the night before, sitting on benches, muttering to themselves. A sleepy-looking JNR employee in a rumpled blue uniform. I’m the only foreigner, a military man, though I’m dressed in civilian clothes. I never wore my uniform outside the gates of Yokota; I always wanted to blend in, not stand out. I’d board the train and find a seat and close my eyes. In the winter the train was warm, and I’d fall asleep easily. There’s nothing like sleeping on a train. 

The morning shift is the opposite of the closing shift. Locking up the shopping carts is one of the last tasks I do when I close, but the first when opening. The grocery team arrives at 4:00 and the aisles are jammed with pallets, cartons, balls of shrink wrap. Music blares from at least three different sources. The store opens at 7:00. The Marborg garbage truck rolls in at 6:30 to tip the dumpster. The behemoth cardboard bailer, my nemesis, is nearly full from the previous night and will need to be emptied soon to accommodate all the cardboard the grocery team will bring out. The giant machine seems to mock me. These processes are like the tides: every day the same. Every job is repetitive to a certain extent, but at the store we’re always racing the clock. I walk the aisles with a long-handled broom and dustpan, sweeping up pieces of wood from the pallets, scraps of paper, price tags that have eloped from merchandise, some flour left from a burst bag. Once that’s done I head for the restrooms to make sure they are ready for customers, reminding myself to check that there is enough toilet paper, seat covers, and paper towels. 

One difference between the school district and the Market is that in the grocery business the managers also work, and what I mean is that when needed they bag groceries, run the registers, deal with Amazon returns, and work on product displays. They have a rudimentary knowledge of every job in the store. One thing they don’t do is spend hours upon hours in meetings, talking, talking, talking, or staring at slide decks, charts, graphs. I hated management meetings and avoided them at all costs. Most were a complete waste of my time. Very few people know how to run an effective meeting. School administrators love to hear themselves talk. 

It gets dark early now. The end of November. Christmas music plays in the store. Holly jolly.