The Mime

          For 25 years I have run a small publishing company, and made a decreasingly decent living at it. For the last ten of those 25 years I decided that I should be writing novels instead of curriculum and children's musicals, which partly explains my descent into poverty, as I have let the publishing go to seed--though it has been blessedly stubborn enough to still provide a modest income. Last year I sobered up to the idea that I'd better get a  job of some kind or else find a comfortable cave or or a bridge under which I could make my home. The past ten years have found me too often in front of my computer and too seldom on my mountain bike, hiking, walking, or sweating on some implement of torture in some stinking gym. I have five novels, and thirty extra pounds to show for my trouble. Two or three of the novels are good enough to find a publisher, though finding a publisher in this market and climate is like finding gold in a played-out mine. Agents and publishers are looking for one or more of three things: "celebrities" with a story to tell or a confession to make, established authors with a proven market, and "fresh new [read young] voices." My voice is fresh enough, but not so young.
          I had become a man with an overstuffed brain and almost no muscle tone, aware that he needed a job, but with no skills save those he'd developed in running his own, unique business. I'd already been rejected by Whole Foods (for which I am very grateful). Nearing rigamortis, I made one last titanic effort with one of the few muscle groups still working--my ever-typing fingers--and downloaded an application to work at Trader Joe's. I had been shopping there since I moved to Santa Fe and drinking their beloved "two-buck Chuck" like it was two-cent Chuck, though outside California, it is actually three-buck Chuck. I had also noticed that their employees were an eclectic and weird mix of ages and ethnicities. So, I waddled in one day and dropped off the application. They scheduled an interview for the following Friday. I had no idea what to expect. I hadn't worked for or had to bother with anyone else's business for a quarter-century, and I had no interview skills.
          Trader Joe's stores are headed up by "captains," their assistants are "mates" or "merchants," and the rest of the workers are "crew," though, technically, everyone is a crew member. Captain Andy and Mate Meredith interviewed me, both laid-back, friendly, engaging people, the very profile Trader Joe's likes to hire, so I pretended to be laid back, engaging, and friendly. I was fairly relaxed in the interview, inasmuch as I didn't really think they would hire a chubby geezer with no muscles who hadn't had to take orders from anyone in over two decades. Apparently, exactly that particular slot had just opened up. I was hired at a generous hourly wage (for retail) and remarkably good benefits, along with three others half my age, and another starving writer who, I think, is somewhere near my age. Her books languish in the Amazon.com ratings up in the millions, like my one self-published book, my first (note to aspiring writers: don't publish your first novel no matter how good you think it is), Golf is From Satan. She's a landscaper and a clown, a Brit with dreadlocks, a gentle way about her, and tattoos on the fingers of each hand, reading "mum," and "dad." I tried to read one of her novels (Lucky Shot) during my first few weeks of work, but I was too exhausted to read anything. I must give it another shot.
           I was exhausted because I had no muscle tone and had hardly moved my body in a decade; exhausted because at Trader Joe's one really works, and this geezer worked foolishly and much too hard trying to make a good enough impression to be retained. Those first two weeks were two of the more miserable weeks of recent memory, save for all of the weeks after my divorce. (It turns out that the people who said that it takes a year of recovery for every five-to-seven years you were married are dead on. And recovery consists mostly of insanity, despair, numbness, remorse, displacement, loss of meaning, self-hatred, and a wonderful new sense of freedom and possibility that you are too old, depressed, and weak to make use of. These are not good things, unless you are a writer. For a writer, everything is material. For "found-object" artists and writers, ending up in a dump can be a gold mine.) But I was a exhausted writer who couldn't write for a good six weeks as my body adjusted to constant motion, lifting, pushing, pulling, smiling, talking, bending, walking, wrangling shopping carts, regular puke breaks from the exhaustion and stress, and becoming sick at the very sight of food. Which finally brings me to my topic: the mime.
          One of my early nights (3 p.m to 11 p.m. shift) on the job was Halloween. Employees were encouraged to come in costume--any costume. As a new employee, I demurred, but Trader Joe's is a pretty crazy place: that night I couldn't recognize most of the people I'd just met, hidden as they were behind masks and makeup. One skinny young fellow, the one they'd assigned to train me that night, came to work as a mime. This created a problem from the outset. I dislike mimes. I could write pages about this, but I won't. Suffice it to say that I don't really blame the mimes, except for being mimes. Our dislike of them goes deeper and says something unflattering about us. Nevertheless, I fucking hate mimes. I was sore, exhausted, slow of wit, and hard of hearing from days of physical work. He, being a committed mime, attempted train me without using words, with mere gestures; and when he did grudgingly use words, he spoke with a bad French (I think) accent, and so softly I had to ask him three times what he had just said. Maybe his voice was naturally soft, maybe I need hearing aids. Maybe he shouldn't have come to work as a fucking mime. I don't know. As the night wore on I grew increasingly stressed and frustrated--especially at the cash register, my first stint at a cash register since I worked in a department store at age 17. The mime and I parted that night with unpleasant thoughts about one another. When I came to work the following night and learned that I had again been assigned to Marcel Marceau, my heart sank, as his must have when he learned he'd have to spend another night trying to train a weak, mime-hating, easily annoyed, deaf old man. At least the white face, beret, black and white striped shirt, red kerchief, and bad accent were gone. But his voice was still too soft to rise above the ambient noise of the store.
          That second night reinforced our impressions of one another. I was a slow learner who balked at taking instruction. He was a perfectionist jerk who corrected every move I made in a voice so soft I had to ask three more times what his objection was to what I'd just done. After that night, I didn't have to work directly with mime again, though we had parted with a palpable dislike for one another. Carrying these feelings made my otherwise weirdly fun new job less fun.
          About three weeks later, when I looked at my schedule for the day, the word "meeting" was scribbled in one half-hour block. I wondered what the meeting was about. Was I to be praised for my hard work and initiative so soon? Admired for my attention to detail? Promoted to captain already? No, really? Mate Dedrick, as kind and well-meaning a fellow as you'll ever meet, took me aside and let me know that there had been "complaints" that I didn't receive instruction well. Knowing I can be as big a jerk as anyone given the proper circumstances, and my circumstances with my trainer still freshly stuck in my craw, I said "Complaints, or a complaint?" Dedrick seemed reluctant to answer. I said, "Was it Mime?" he affirmed that it was. I didn't know whether to defend myself and talk about how hard it was to work with a perfectionist mime, or take a one-down position and repent in dust and ashes. I took a middle road and said that it really came down to bad chemistry between us--no one's fault, just bad chemistry. In my heart I knew that he was a demon mime who had probably poisoned the whole staff against me. But then, I have a deceitful heart. I knew the truth was probably floating around out there beyond my reach.
          Later that night I was sitting on the floor stocking tapanade onto a bottom shelf in the grocery aisle. I saw Mime coming down the aisle. I cringed, but knew I had to do something to relieve our mutual discomfort. I think perhaps the same thing was on his mind. I mimed a gesture for him to sit down next to me. He was kind enough to do so.
           "We got off to a bad start. I wasn't at my best," I understated, "and I'm sorry that I made things difficult for you. I hope you'll forgive me and we can move on and let this go."
          Mime was gracious--it turns out that he is an ordinary, gracious person--and expressed similar feelings, suggesting he wasn't at his best either. I made no mention of hating mimes, but I had considered making up a story about having been molested by a mime in childhood to explain my poor behavior. To be fair, he made no mention of hating annoying old geezers.
          So, I'm losing weight, gaining muscle mass, and earning a few bucks. Even  better, I have more motivation to write, so I can stop losing weight, gaining muscle mass, and make a few bucks exercising only my brain and fingers.



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