Lost

The convenience store I worked at was in a very peculiar location. In fact, it was the bermuda triangle of crazy. Across the street, there was a low income apartment complex for the elderly. They always came over to demand that things remain the same. They complained about price hikes and slow service. They ruminated endlessly on the way "things used to be". Some were quite sweet, others were downright irritating.

Down the road was a trailer-home type subdivision. These people were notorious for stopping by to pick up a couple of 40's and a pack of GPC's. They were mostly collecting unemployment from some long-forgotten job.

And to our left, we had a halfway house for the mentally handicapped. There were some VERY colorful people who would come over to the store. Sometimes, they would bring over an entire group for miscellaneous shopping and ice cream. This is where our story begins:

There was Chuck. The man who could only talk like a game show host. In the beginning, you wouldn't think there was anything wrong. But if you kept talking to him, you found the six degrees that had landed him in a halfway house.

There was the bottle return lady. She came in once a week to return 20 2 liter Diet Coke bottles. She would accept and clutch her bottle return receipt and then load up a cart with another 20 bottles of Diet Coke. The craziness literally seeped from her skin.

There were the laughing ladies. I don't think I ever heard them talk. Whenever you spoke to them, they would just start laughing.

And finally, there was Wheat Bread. He would come in every few days and grab a loaf of wheat bread. He would wait patiently in line until he got to the cash register, lay his bread softly on the counter and then dump out a pocketful of change. I'm not sure if he knew how to count the change or not. But he liked paper bags. I would bag his bread with uncharacteristic gentleness and he would leave. He never spoke to me.

Ever.

For some reason, I was having a great time that day. Maybe some of my favorite regulars had come in. Maybe I was close to going home. Maybe they let me stock the cooler when it was 3000 degrees in the beating sun behind the enormous windows at our store. I don't know. But I was in rare form. I was grabbing cigarettes here, ringing stuff up there, making jokes over here, scooping ice cream over there. Rare form.

I rang through Wheat Bread and he started to walk toward the door. He left my radar and I started helping the next customer. I don't remember what the customer said to me, but I started laughing. I turned around to grab some Lotto tickets and Wheat Bread was staring right at me.

This was unusual behavior.

I watched him carefully as he gripped his precious paper bag a little closer to his chest with his left arm. He looked torn and conflicted, like he didn't know what to say. He gazed at me helplessly for a few moments and said, "Stay happy." Then he turned around and walked out the door.

I stared at the empty hole he left behind for a second and then turned to finish up with my customer. My good mood was gone.

Wheat Bread was standing on the other side of a wide abyss that I would never understand. He was advising me from across the void. He said those words so carefully and with such painful longing, as if he wanted to say, "You have something that I lost. I desperately want it again, but I can't find my way back. Keep it. Keep it! You won't get another chance at this... And once you're here, where I am, there's no going back."

I don't know when he went across. I don't know how long it took him to pole his ferry into depression. But I knew that I didn't want to go.

Ever.

So I've tried. I've tried to stay happy. Sometimes it's a little bit daunting. Things happen. They always do. Happiness seems close to impossible. But I always manage to struggle back.

Something that Wheat Bread might never be able to do...