Honestly, I’ve lost most of my spirit in the fight against the Emporium. When we opened, we were cutting edge, we were thinking franchise. Our customers were middle class, people like us; they still wanted to believe but understood that, hey, once in a while you needed a little insurance. Their lives were normal, but nobody went out on New Years without a vest. To buy a vest ten years ago was to admit defeat, to say what’s out there isn’t just knocking at the door — it’s upstairs, using your toothbrush, saying good morning to your wife.
As the sun sinks lower, we watch the first pizza delivery boys of the evening zoom off in their compact cars, and it’s a sight that hurts to see. These are high-school kids, most of them too poor to afford or too young to appreciate the value of a vest. I mean, they’re going out there every night as is, which makes them all the more alluring to Ruth.
People used to make excuses when they came in to rent a vest—vacationing in Mexico, weekend in the city, reception at a Ramada Inn, flying Delta. Now they’re haggling over expired rent-nine-get-one-free coupons. Now they’re going to the Emporium to buy sixteen-layer Taiwanese knockoffs for three hundred bucks. The Emporium is 24-hours, something I’m philosophically against: you should see the tattoos on some of those guys coming out of there at 3:00 A.M. These days people are making the investment. They’re admitting the world’s a dangerous place.
Across the parking lot, we see Ruth pedaling toward us. She’s wearing a one-piece red Speedo, her training vest, and the Kevlar backpack. Her hair is still wet from freshmen swim practice. She meanders over, awkward on a Schwinn she is now too big for, and pedaling big, easy loops around us, announces that she’s an outcast. “Only dorks wear their vests to school,” she says. “You’re killing my scene.”
It feels good though, the open-endedness of the day, the last light on my feet, being the center of my daughter’s universe for a few minutes. Ruth pedals then coasts, pedals then coasts, the buzz of her wheel bearings filling the gaps in our afternoon, and I almost forget about the Emporium.
Later, after Jane leaves to find Ruthie and take her home for the evening, I’m sitting in the shop when Mrs. Espers comes in. She looks a little down, is holding the vest like it’s made of burlap and I know the feeling: it’s been one of those days for me too.
“How was the support group?” I ask as I fill out her receipt.
“I’ve crossed the line,” she says.
“How’s that?”
“I’m not afraid of flying anymore.”
I’m not sure what this means in terms of her group, of whether she’ll no longer be needing my services, but you know, I say, “Great, congratulations.”
“I’m not afraid of anything,” she says with a certain formality.
“Wow, good, good.”
She pauses at the sight of her held-out receipt and shakes her head no. “I’m sorry, Bill, but I’ve made the decision.”
She says this and leaves, and I’m left thinking she’s decided to go to the Emporium to make the purchase. I figure some flying counselor talked her into the idea of permenant protection, but it is when I go to throw her vest atop the “in” stack, when I remove the titanium trauma plate, that I know she will never wear a vest again. The shiny titanium is lead-streaked, and as I rub my thumb in the indention some bullet has made, I can still feel her body heat on it.
I float out into the parking lot and watch her red taillights disappear into the night, and know that she’s right, she’s free, that nobody gets shot in the heart twice. I stand in a handicapped parking spot, rubbing the titanium, and I lean against the old shopping cart bin. The faint laughter of distant gunfire comes from the direction of the rail yard, and I look at the lighted windows of the few shops left in the mall, but can only see the darkened stores between them. In my hands, the bright titanium reflects the stars my fourteen-year-old already knows by heart, but I no longer have it in me to look up, to lift my head to the place of our dreams, Jane’s and mine, when we were eighteen.
I wander the mall, waiting for my wife to return, something that takes longer and longer these days. She gets a little melancholy now and then, needs a little space to herself, and I understand; these are hard times we’re living in. Leaving the shop wide open, I head for Godfather’s. But when I get there, I’m confused because I see my daughter through the window, the girl my wife said she was taking home.
Ruth is leaned up against an ancient Donkey Kong machine, talking to a delivery boy on a backward chair. She is wearing her training vest with nothing on under, you can tell, and this boy stares at the exposed plane of her stomach. She has her cheek against the side of the video game, chatting about something, while the boy subtly marvels at how the fine hairs around her navel hum pink in the neon beer light, and I am roaring through the door. I walk right up to my daughter and thump her trauma plate to hear the squish of a cigarette pack and the crack of a CD case. Out of the pocket that should cover her heart forever, I pull Aerosmith and menthols.
I grab her by the wrist. “Where’s your protection?”
“Jesus, Dad,” she says and starts to dig in the backpack at her feet.
The pizza boy looks like he’s about to pipe in, and I wheel on him, “Your parents don’t love you.”
“Dad, nobody wears their vests to school. I’m a total outcast.”
This is my daughter. This is the age she is at.
Jane eventually returns, finds me watching Cool Hand Luke in the dark store, and neither of us says anything. She puts her hands on the counter when she comes in and I ask no questions about where she’s been. I place my hands on hers, stroke the backs of her fingers, and then turn out the lights, closing up shop a little early.
Lately we have taken to cruising late at night under the guise of R&D. We’ll pull the tarp off the ’72 Monte Carlo her mom left us, the car Jane used to run wild in. It has the optional swivel passenger seat, black leather, that can turn 180 degrees. We grab the foam cooler and Jane swivels the seat all the way around so her feet are on the backseat and her head reclines to the dash, so she can watch me drive her wherever she wants to go. We’ll glide by the boarded-up Ice Plant where we once drank on summer nights, feet dangling off the loading ramps. We prowl past by the Roadhouse with our lights off and count the Ninja motorcycles lined up out front. The cemetery these days is fenced and locked and a security guard cruises the old stadium in a golf cart, but we circle nonetheless.
Midnight finds us rolling through the waves of the old Double Drive In, the gravel crunching under our tires, the Monte Carlo’s trunk bottoming out like it used to, and all the broken glass, beer caps, and bullet casings now sparkle like stars.
We park and sit on the warm, ticking car hood and look off at the Emporium across the street. We have his-and-hers binoculars, 7X40s from her father on our tenth anniversary, and we sit here, side by side in the dark, as we check out their customers. We train our lenses at the bright displays. Jane rolls her focus in and out.
“Is that Fred Sayles?” she asks. “By the baby armor.”
I focus in on him fondling the competition’s goods. “That son of a bitch.”
“Remember the night he streaked through the second feature?”
“We all turned on our headlights. The Day the Earth Stood Still, right?”
“Plan Nine From Outer Space,” she says. “Remember window speakers?”
“Remember high-point beer.”
“Nash seats.”
“Trunkloads.”
“Keys left in the ignition.”