American Consignment

 

Photo courtesy Gary Tucker via Flickr

There are no shift changes for a security camera. A 4.0mm cyclops. Perennial watchman. Even with LED lights, tonight is a dim picture: a moonscape parking lot, cracked concrete, slick streams of oil-laced runoff. Sporadically, the sagging streetlights penetrate the fog to coat the mall’s plywood face with their languid rays. A mid-March thaw, premature for Michigan, but not unwelcome. Come sunrise, those ashen lumps of snow will be gone. Melted and forgotten. Out of frame.            

            The camera can’t hear the beast’s groaning approach. Asphalt craters hobble the ten-ton predator’s every step. Screeching and squealing, it sniffs its way forward, toward the camera. Its glowing eyes cleave through the fog before locking on the storefront: rust-red complexion; tatted sleeve of clearance stickers; the lifeless windows and the braceface smile of security bars. In faded block letters, the crestfallen awning spells, “Two Brothers: American Consignment.”

The phantom eyes disappear, snuffed out by fog. The beast skids down the adjoining alley, its corroded knees reverberating off the brick walls like scraping claws. “UNMARKED TRUCK,” the camera reports, the warning firing down its fiber optic spine. “UNMARKED TRUCK.” It’s useless. Embedded to its cornice, the watchman is helpless. It can only flash its ruby beacon and pray. They are on their own.

…

            In her dream, Kayla lives on the big lake. Well, as close as one can get in the Shores. Lakeshore drive and its tree-lined median screen her from the concrete breakers and the white caps beyond. Oh, and don’t forget about that lawn! Enough Kentucky bluegrass for touch football and then some. Pifff, who needs beach access anyways?! This place is divine. A Roaring Twenties fantasy! The twice refurbished villa offers a buffet of windows, and she can never decide which is her favorite! Neither can her celebrated colleagues. It’s a contentious debate, more so on a muggy afternoon like today. But Kayla doesn’t mind; she lives for a challenge. Plus, Charles is on her side - not that her fiancé has a choice. He nods along woodenly, ignoring the black clouds simmering over the lake like smoke. Soon, Kayla reminds herself, the mansion will be filled with the very rich and the very influential. Soon, she’ll be a host! And about time…

The dock seal creaks, shattering Kayla’s dream into a thousand bygone shards. Gone is that million-dollar view. Gone is Charles. The party is canceled. In desperation, she shutters her eyes. She longs to return to that sweet, sweet place…but there’s no ignoring the backroom. That loud, lead-lined loading dock or its plated piece of carpet, the dock seal. Who is responsible? Who can she blame?!           

            A hollow answer arrives as thudding bootsteps. But rather than pounce, Kayla panics. Her glossy eyes flash outside. She searches for sunlight, but the fog has rendered it impossibly dark. Could it be, she thinks, time to open? If so, why are the lights off? And she doesn’t recognize these voices and their hushed, furtive tones. Hysterically, she screams, “RAPPPPPPEEEEEEE!!!!”

            The sleeping storeroom explodes from slumber. “What now?!!” Otto rails while Rex yawns like a baleen whale. Plato, who moments ago was assisting some esteemed academic in Ann Arbor, smacks his lips in stoic disappointment. The rest of her family simply roll their crusty eyes. For them, it’s just another Kray-Kray nightmare. Another whiny, irrational fit. But, per usual, Kayla is blind to dismissive skepticism, and she continues to blow her rape whistle. Whoever is here, she’s positively certain that they’re coming for her! 

Sleep surrendered, Plato muses. And sure enough, within minutes, everyone is an unwilling singer in this chorus of confusion. “The bitch is off her rocker!” Otto blasts. Sabrina and the Squad agree: this is definitely not an ordinary nightmare. However, nobody can reason with her. Just last week, she claimed that Tagara was shipping her home. Then, there was supposed to be that reunion with Prince Charles in Grosse Pointe. All that insufferable talk about mahogany interiors, marble columns, and Mexican maids. Gross. There were not enough eyes to roll. 

            “It’s just Tagara,” Rex yawns. 

            “A.B.A.” Otto suggests. “Another Bender Ashur.” 

            “Here to lose a few more hands of cards?” Frank snickers. “So soon?”

            Nonsense! Blind drunk, drugged, and blindfolded, Kayla could pick those hairy Chaladeans out of a lineup. She can recognize their footsteps: the soft skip of Tagara’s Sketchers, Ashur’s clomping Tims. These muffled footsteps aren’t theirs. These are cheap kicks for clandestine acts.

The alien footsteps cease. From the doorway, plastic flashlights flicker to life. With their blonde cones, the intruders grope the outmoded furniture then fill the old warehouse with giddy laughter.  Before them lays all the second-rate furniture they can haul before dawn. They’re practically drunk on their smashing success. American Consignment is theirs!

…

 “TOLD YA!” Kayla snorts. “TRESPASSERS! RAPISTS! KILLERS!” If only she had hands, well-manicured hands, then the crimson love seat might wave her pink-polished finger at the haters. Storeroom justice. Perhaps Kray-Kray is wiser than you think?! Be they robbers or rapists, their fate was sealed: they were all going to die! 

After scanning the showroom twice, the stunted burglar stops at the entertainment section. A waxen 50-inch flat screen twinkles under his flaccid flashlight. The light pops off. He claps his gloved hands and dashes toward his prize. At a half-sprint, he must goad his crooked leg like a ship’s rudder. However, his excitement is short-lived: the television is paper. This prompts a sharp, cutting laugh from his broad-shouldered partner. Quietly, Kayla joins in. What an idiot! Ashur pawned that thing years ago. Spitting and cursing, the lame burglar whips his flashlight against the display, smashing it to the floor. With his rubber soles, he grinds the checkerboard scraps into the linoleum.

Fingers snap, and the burglars are back to work. Silently, they seize the plywood entertainment center. Tyler stammers, demanding an explanation. Hoisted into the air, he can’t fathom that he is the first victim. And yet, nobody else can explain the obvious. Even Kayla is speechless. What gives?! Why is Tyler first? That pot-faced incel doesn’t say squat. For Christ’s sake, he wears a wig!

Deaf to Tyler’s existential panic, the burglars march on. “You pussies!” Joe, the beige sectional, taunts. The Pit piles on, “Let’s settle this like men!” But most of the showroom is cemented into stunned silence. Stitch-lipped and catatonic, infected by fear. And eventually, everyone is resigned to watching their brother be carted off as if he were on a gurney. 

            “This is all your fault!” Kayla shouts. “You just stood there and did nothing! You ought to be shot. Hanggged. Guilty by-“

            “ENOUGH!!!” Plato booms.

           Otto cheers. Whistling, the leather ottoman claps his steel studs. “About time…” Frank echoes. Rex nods along. “Well said. Well said.” Pouting, Kayla’s polyfill pillows sag like a hollow-eyed Basset hound, her shrill shrieks finally snuffed out. 

            Propped against the wood paneling, Plato straightens his convex posture. He grows, filling Tyler’s void and then some. Cast beneath the green “EXIT” sign overhead, his four oak shelves relax into coarse composure. Everyone assumed that the bygone bookcase was wise in his old ways, but nobody expected this. The Flexed muscle. Domineering leadership.         

            “This is…” he starts, his raspy voice betraying him slightly. It’s been a decade since he addressed a crowd. If only he still owned a dictionary...“Tonight…what’s happening, rather…it’s overdue.” 

He pauses. Like a Victorian playwright, he values the dramatic pause. He lets another minute pass, allowing the creeping tension to gnaw away at his audience like barn flies. 

“What are you even talking about, Boomer?!” Kayla interjects, her fine fabric face grotesque with disgust. 

            “This is overdue,” Plato repeats wryly. 

            “You…actually want to go? You want to be stolen?!”

            The spectators exchange lopsided glances. Years ago, departures were the norm. Business was good, relations were short. But never had a piece settled for theft. For contraband. Even at American Consignment, everyone possessed some sense of value. Self-worth, regardless of stick price. What else did one have in Eastside?   

            “I should say so,” Plato nods. “Indeed.”

            Practically gagging on indignation, Kayla can only scoff. This boomer has gone senile! His stripped screws are loose. Those tired shelves won’t hold much longer. “You’re delirious, demented and-“

            “’Dementia’ is a noun, dear.”

            “Well…well you’re not making any sense! Nobody wants to-“

“To leave?” Plato interrupts, raising a thorny eyebrow. “To find a home? Have you seen the tags lately? This isn’t retail, it’s a yard sale!”

            Barking chatter ripples through the showroom. “Speak for yourself, Old Hickory!” Otto chirps. 

            “You don’t even know where they’re taking us!” Sabrina, the oak table, shouts. “We could be off to a frat house!”

            “I’ve never known a crook to read,” Rex sighs. 

            Embarrassed, Plato gulps. A yard sale, he remembers, is tantamount to a slave auction. With his cloudy eyes, he pans his scuffling audience, his lost listeners. From the backroom, he hears the shuffling approach of the burglars. This is it: curtain call. “A bookcase,” he declares defiantly. “Must be filled!”

…

            They start with the Pit. Employing a crowbar, the burglars split the chenille sectional like a crate of cantaloupes. “Touchdown!” the couch shouts ecstatically. His fanboys, the three-legged barstools, are quick to ape his excitement. “Me next!” one shouts.

            “Don’t mind the wobble,” another adds. “I’m steady!”

            “Fat asses welcome!” 

            But these pleas go unanswered. Panting and drooling, the burglars drift past the stools. Kayla snickers to herself, feeding off their groaning disappointment. Those fuck-boys will just have to wait!

It’s a short intermission; the hunt continues. The wolflike burglars close in, circling their next victim: Carla. 

Bashful and beautiful, the coffee table is not like the Pit. Her balking legs betray her. She cowers. Her tempered glass trembles, obscuring the pack’s perverse reflection. Only Plato can penetrate the panic. He tries to assure her that everything is fine. Everything is going to be fine. She may not see it now, but it’s better this way. Trust him. Trust them. 

            As the salivating burglars reach for her legs, she manages a weak nod. A virgin, she lacks a single water ring. Her immaculately chiseled curves, varnished and delicate, are practically idolized. A generation removed, Kayla hated Carla for those curves. Now, the aging loveseat scoffs at the bow-legged burglars. They don’t even know what to do! They can’t get a grip on themselves, or her… 

            Like an unruly kite, Carla sails into the air. Immediately, her gloved escorts start to squirm and shimmy. This is no triumphant march, instead, it's a nagging retreat. Every step is a struggle. Just getting a grip is a struggle. This frustrating ferment feeds into Carla. Her shivering becomes a shockwave, and soon the three of them are out of sync, veering and vibrating to one’s own possessed rhythm. All while the barstools cheer on: “You go, girl! You go, girl!” Conversely, calmer heads, like Sabrina, try comforting the child. “Just hang in there.” Everything, they hope, will be fine. “Just hang in there. It isn’t much further…”

            The fatal crash comes from the backroom. Split wood. Shattered glass. No screams, just a swarm of bickering male voices. Deflecting accusations. A deranged duel of who did or didn’t do what when he was supposed to. And now the table is dead. Shattered all to shit. 

            The barstools are stunned. Sabrina, the Squad, and others call out to their lost friend. Steaming with disgust, Kayla is tempted to intervene. To tell them that it’s useless. Maybe if they’d listened to her, things would be different. I mean, it can’t get worse!

Puckering with rage, Otto turns to Plato. “Was this part of your plan?!” 

“We’re being sold for scrap…aren’t we?” Rex sighs. 

            Sheened in sweat, Plato drops his sagging gaze. Metal, he might counter, is sold for scrap. Of course, there were bound to be casualties. How does that platitude go? You can’t transfer water between buckets without…such and such? Or that other bit about eggshells and omelets? Where was that ratty cookbook anyways? Not that it matters now. The protests are mutating into mutiny. Capitulated, he can only shut his eyes and drown out the rude noise. An empty bookcase, he offers nothing. 

            Grumbling and panting, the burglars return. They pull up their sagging jeans and remove their gloves. One tilts Plato and hauls him off like a dented ladder while his partner disassembles Sabrina. This time, the grand table doesn’t protest. Nor does Rex when the dolly carts him away. “Good riddance!” Otto shouts after his stunted legs leave the floor. Even the ravenous stools are subdued. Everyone is suddenly resigned to his or her fate. A dour parade for the unpurchased.

            Isolated, ignored for the time being, Kayla can’t acquiesce. Not yet. Not ever! Every departure is a tidal wave, chewing into her sand castle of stability, bite by frothy bite. Bleak premonitions bubble to the surface: a smoke-filled trap house; the stale aftertaste of malt liquor; jasmine perfume, cheap and suffocating. She cringes under the imaginary burn of cigarette butts. Burnt arm rests. A tasteless branding. Cauterized and scarred. There is no class in the ghetto.

            Outside, the parking lot becomes inundated with the guttural squacks of seagulls. Kayla again searches for the pewter gray clouds of dawn. But she only finds more fog, its opaque sheets compressing the earth like a steaming iron. Deflated, she empties her lungs along with any remaining hope. These pesky birds will return, she reminds herself sullenly. Down the line, at the final stop: Pine Tree Acres. The dump. 

…

            When they finally come for her, their backs crooked and arched, Kayla is delirious. They seize her arms. They yank her felt skirting, their jagged fingernails clawing into her hardwood. Weightless, she leaves her sheltered corner. Surrendered without a sale. No receipt. No record. Her sole impression: a dusty imprint on the tile.

            Why were Eastpointers so God damn cheap?! she whines. Five markdowns in as many years?! Maybe things would’ve been different if it weren’t for those hoodrats. Tagara’s mutts beat and bashed her firm upholstery until she was a bag of wrinkles. Customers couldn’t help but lose interest. Same goes for Charles. Having his tag clipped must’ve been liberating. She couldn’t blame him. 

            None of this was her fault, though! That falls squarely on Ashur and his depraved goons, dumping royalty into this spiked pit of misery. She can almost see that slime ball brother now…hunched over Frank, their beer-stained poker table…his cold charcoal eyes dimming as each chip slides from his corner. What can a debtor wager after he bets the house and losses? 

            The unnerving crunch of broken glass greets her in the backroom. It’s a stinging cue for Kayla to seal her eyes, to block out Carla’s shattered and forsaken corpse. But those glossy eyelids can’t eclipse the trauma. Here lies the first casualty. Poor Carla. You poor, poor fool…

 Approaching the loading dock, her head fills with blood. Dizzy, she opens her eyes to find her family dangling from the roof of a truck bed, roasting above a flickering orange flame. The 16-foot bed is packed end-to-end, floor-to-ceiling. The remnants of American Consignment, vacuum-sealed into a two-axle hearse. A mobilized mass grave of fabric, leather, and hardwood. But not me! she chuckles madly. She can’t fit. She can’t possibly leave now!

            Her movers, however, aren’t discouraged. It takes just three violent thrusts to stuff her inside where she lands atop the Pit, her head wedged into his rank jockstrap. The place reeks of black mold and rat excrement, but it doesn’t stop the barstools from snickering teases. These puerile jokes fill the truck bed, reverberating off the sheet metal walls to amplify Kayla’s shame. Packed amongst her peers, she feels worse than alone. Outcast. There is no solidarity amongst traitors. From the loading dock, the burglars exchange a triumphant high-five. Their greedy and ugly cackling drowns out the slamming tailgate. Seconds later, the orange light flicks off, and the place becomes a tomb.

            From below, the truck grunts and rumbles. The engine? Kayla wonders. It’s been years, a lifetime it seems, since she’s been in transport. Why does it feel alive? Monstrous and mythical, like a yawning giant.

relaxxx…

            That voice! But she can’t place it. Nobody can. It’s not like theirs. A foreign language. Alien. Is it even real?!

            you’re safe here…with meeeeee…

            Its course, yet tender. Gravely with its tone, but soft on her ears. Now, her tears abating somewhat, Kayla can dry her bloodshot eyes. 

            you’re in good handssss…

            Her shaking ceases. Inside her fluttering chest, a dim ember of confidence flickers to life. She feels her forehead warm. Her temperament slips and swerves into a livid landslide! Is this voice, this dope, just as delusional and demented as everyone else?! “Oh yeah?!” she snaps. “Let’s see some credentials, Mister All Knowing and All Wise and All-”  

The cabin doors clobber shut, cutting her off. The alien voice, too, goes mute. But she’s winning the argument! She just needs to finish him off. To pin him down! No longer is she dreading trap houses and landfills. Those nightmares are wiped from her solar plexus, replaced by a higher, harsher calling: to shatter this thing’s misplaced faith.         

            Fangs drawn, she’s about to pounce when the six-cylinder engine sputters awake. Caught between its choking roar and the rising exhaust, Kayla is forced into timeout. Another pesky intermission. A rest between bare-knuckle rounds. But no matter, she can wait. She waited five years! 

            The tired gears shift, and, ever so slowly, the truck begins its lurching retreat. While the croaking beast sets off, the mourning doves and chickadees take up their songs. American Consignment, jam packed and tired, is finally on its way. 

END