Maybe it was a mistake to see the adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s No Country for Old Men at the mall Multiplex last weekend. I’m not upset that the screen was no bigger than my microwave; I’ve discovered that my students watch entire films on their iPod Nanos and somehow find it amusing. No, I have larger philosophical issues to weigh in on — or simply to weigh.
The problem, you see, came from watching a decidedly guy movie after undergoing some undeniably girly shopping at Ann Taylor, J. Jill, and Victoria’s Secret. The juxtaposition of these gender-specific activities was perhaps disorienting, and it made me wonder what Mr. McCarthy (and the Coen brothers, for that matter) would do if their protagonists, instead of being a soul-searching sheriff, a conscience-burdened psychopath, and a stunningly naïve fugitive thief, had been my fellow Christmas shoppers and myself: vaguely middle-aged ladies, overworked, overanxious, and overfed.
The result would still have to be, of course, pure McCarthy.
Spare, violent, clipped.
Contest with fate. Moments of the irrevocable.
Self-awareness at a cost, but what cost?
And could you have found it wholesale?
It might go something like this:
The “20% Off” signs shimmered on the polished quiet of the salesfloor. A brightly-lit world. No visible shadows, not with them new halogen overheads. The big woman, dressed in black except for one lone flower pinned to her lapel, stood next to the register with her manicured hands crossed in front of her.
These are her thoughts.
There would be nails broke by the end of the day. For what? Nothing. For a holiday rush, for women buying stuff they didn’t need for folks who didn’t want it. Yeah. Well. Everybody gets what they deserve at this time of year. Retail ain’t no place for sissies. She breathed her last deep breath, then the bells rang. Them front doors opened and the stampede started.
I dont know if retail work is more upsetting now than what it used to be or not. I know when I first starting selling women’s separates, you’d have a bad time somewheres near the sale counters during the holiday season and you’d go to break it up and they’d offer to fight you. And sometimes you had to accommodate em. They wouldn’t have it no other way. And you’d better not lose, neither. You dont see that so much no more, but maybe you see worse. I had a woman pull a cellphone on me one time to contact the corporate headquarters and it happened that I grabbed it just as she went to fire off a text message and the charm on her bracelet left a mark on the fleshy part of my thumb. You can see the imprint of Minnie Mouse right there.
I sent one gal to the dressing room with a size M when I knew for dead certain she was an L. Maybe even an XL. I sure didn’t want to. She wasn’t no more than 35 years old, neither. She deserved better. But I couldn’t make myself say the raw truth. Not in front of all those itty bitty ladies, some XPs even, who was glancing at her sideways like, snickering under their breath and wondering why she was holding Dolce & Gabbana pants when she was packing those thighs under that wide, vast landscape of a waist.
That 35-year old lady, well, she told me that she had been planning to meet her high-school sweetheart for lunch. Said she would wear these here Italian slacks. Told me out of her own mouth. Didn’t stutter a bit. Not like my idiot assistant Thelma who don’t know how to say Dolce & Gabbana without making them sound like one of them Ben & Jerry ice-cream flavors.
I thought I’d never seen a person like that lady, not in 12 years of working retail, and it got me to wonderin’ if maybe she was some new kind. A fat woman who didn’t know she was fat.
What about me, I started wonderin’. Was I one of her kin without knowin’ it? I looked down at these thighs of my own, the ones I been sportin’ since I was a girl.
They say for a woman that the thighs are the windows to the soul.
I dont know what them thighs on that lady was the windows to and I guess I’d as soon not know. Wondering has done brought me to a place in my life I would not of thought I’d come to.
And that place ain’t anywhere near Hollywood or the best-seller list of The New York Times. It ain’t even near the ladies’ room which is up on the fourth floor. Damn.
(Hmmm. . . . Maybe next time I’ll shop after going to the movies . . . )
(Ann Taylor shop image from unionsquareshop.com and movie still from http://davethenovelist.wordpress.com/)
