But I'm staying away.
So they're they are at the edge of town. Hope the farm fields are safe. This town has done a lot in recent years to get its soul back -- beautification and business revitalization efforts. Hope it all doesn't go down the drainhole now. Wal-Mart has a tendency to turn downtowns into graveyard skeletons.
Oh but Wal-Mart is such a driver of the community economy, the asshat community boosters say. With the giddy little press releases they drop on the city newspaper office like turds falling lovingly into their toilets of pearl. The stressed out reporter's going to have another cigarette and instead of rewriting a damn press release, make a few phone calls and ask a few pointed questions to salvage his soul and add some bite to this happy, shiny whitewash.
But what the hell is he supposed to do? His big boss, the publisher, sits on the rotary board with two or three of these porter house fucks. Last week, they went down the revitalized town hanging yellow ribbons to welcome back the son of the banker, just acquitted in the rape trial. These people have nothing if not taste, class and good old Sunday morning morals.
In many communities, the babbits have used all the powers that be of press and social shitting media to push for a sales tax (the most oppressive kind of tax there is) to pay for a Wal-Mart. I once read about a city that imposed eminent domain to build a Wal-Mart. The Walton corporation in cahoots with the city hired a team of double talking lawyers to get around all the Constitutional arguments. All this before the store got built and brought anti-climactic effects upon the city before screwing them.
Oh my God, the sex will be great! No, not so much.
The community boosters will extol the benevolence
of Mr. Wal-Mart, this American enterprise generously bringing jobs to the community. Factory shut down. People lost their retirement, insurance and life savings. That's okay. They can get minimum wage jobs at Wal-Mart. Mr. I-Love-This-Community is prostrate at their feet. Why not, he won't work there.When Mr. and Mrs. Community Booster are sitting at the one swanky restaurant in town, gossiping over a three-hour lunch, I'd like to ask them how they would like working in a place where their bathroom breaks are monitored. How would they like it if they were reprimanded for socializing with their co-workers and committing "time theft?"
Hatred, like seeds, budded early and grew like a mushroom cloud. Every evening, my mom came home in a foul mood, still wearing her Wal-Mart "smock" as she fixed dinner over the stove.
It wasn't until around eighth or ninth grade that I started feeling embarrassed that my mom didn't have some "important" job like all the Important Popular kids at school, sitting at their own damn lunch table. As if your parents didn't pay a fucking dime to support public schools. Why couldn't my mom be a stockbroker or realtor or at least work in a bank? Why couldn't she have a college education?
I mean, jeez, my mom could be such a bitch, driving us to school in the morning. (Please God, don't let my friends see me riding with my mom.)
"I'm gonna have a better job than Wal-Mart when I grow up."
(Words I would later eat.)
"Good Jeff, I hope you do."
I'm 21, in college, struggling. Said I'd never do it, but I get hired at Wal-Mart. They suck on struggling people like Dracula thrives on human blood. Orientation time.
"Wal-Mart doesn't believe in unions," the blond assistant manager says.
Mind drifts back. Something Mom once said.
"My dad worked in construction and if the job wasn't backed by a union, he would not even think of going there."
I'm damn proud of my family heritage.
Fat blond woman. Feminine-rich voice sweetly dissing those skanky unions that only want your dues. (We'll take care of you.) You and me are gonna have a problem, I think to myself.
"I didn't raise you kids to be ass kissers," Mom told me.
Sometimes I wish she would have. Probably would've made my life a lot easier, being a yes man, going with the flow and not rattling any cages. No questioning of authority. I don't know. My wife has to answer to a board of directors in her job, running a non-profit agency.
"Sometimes I wish I just worked at Wal-Mart," she said.
Years later, I'm a reporter in some piss Oklahoma town, writing for some paper run by some fat publisher-lackey for the corporation who's on the rotary club. Former Top Gun naval pilot turned motivational speaker and "educational speaker" addresses an audience one evening at the high school. Wanna know what's 'gonna happen to your life if you don't get a four year degree? he asks.
(Speaker voice initiated) "Attention K-Mart shoppers, we have a blue light special in the shoe aisle."
A woman in the audience, sitting by the store manager, raises her hand and tells Mr. Joe College, "I work at Wal-Mart, I'm proud of my job and I'm not stupid."
A multitude of sins committed in life and I just revealed to you a major one. Can't tell you how many times I've begged for God's forgiveness.
Mom has dementia now. Remember that Oasis song from the '90s? The lyrics, There are many things that I would like to say to you, but I don't know how.
So yeah, I have a college education. But it doesn't mean much to me anymore. Just a piece of paper, only made special because I dedicate it to ---
Victoria Lou McElroy Guy.
