Discarded Characters

I think sometimes I'm wandering around in someone else's story, written into the pages of some worn out novel, my surroundings concocted to suit the author's needs, the world around me not my own. The characters all have their own stories, their own backgrounds, each one deep and dark enough to hold sufficient weight in their own right, and together a jumbled cast that could only appear through the fantasies of a warped mind.

How else to explain an early holiday Monday morning, the sun already risen in the blue eastern sky, the streets deserted save for the desperate few headed to work on the only day left in the year where most workers are given the day off, yet I find myself with them, one of them, stopping at the mostly empty mall, bound to a duty that requires I be there too? Hell, even the janitors aren't working today. The cold tile floors of the mall echo with faint sounds of workers replacing a rotted, potted tree, its terra cotta pot upturned on its side, the trunk cut just above the rim of the pot, foliage piled on the cart beside, and three burly men in green uniformed shirts wrestle the pot, the tree, and the cart to the waiting van outside the mall doors.

There's Reg, the lone Mall security officer, holding the door and making pleasant small talk, a skill he's perfected for his line of work. Always near, only a two-way radio's crackle away, ready to assist with a smile and a genuine caring twinkle in his eye. He catches mine as I approach hoping to pull him away from the men and the tree, and his face lights up and he turns my way and extends his hand and its obvious he's happy to see a familiar face - or maybe he's just that good at the routine by now - and in his exuberance he calls me 'Rick' and asks "What brings you down here on a holiday Monday?" knowing full well I'd never be around a closed shopping centre if I didn't have to be.

I've become predictable that way. I manage my jobs with enough distance and hands off to fully drive home the fact I'm not one of the trades; that I've left the tools behind; that it's not my job anymore to crank the widgets and actively build the structures or install the pieces. I've been there, done that, and though never fully one of 'them' I did what I had to do to fill in the holes and get to where I am now, knowing enough to be able to schedule the actions and dictate the terms upon which projects will happen, but not enough to think I'll ever have it figured out just right. And so I make the calls, and ask the questions and barter and play both sides as much as is needed to grease the wheels into motion to slide progress ever closer to completion.

Which explains why I'm here this morning, meeting my millwork contractor who has found me a 2-man crew willing to work on a holiday removing, relocating and the re-installing that horizontal grooved maple panelling (we know it as slatwall) from the now empty used-record store (the owner prefers vintage or pre-owned to used) that is relocating to the other side of the mall to make room for future expansion of a key tenant. The store owner complains in passive aggressive tones about 'my guys' apparent confusion about what they should be doing, his way of handling the stress that is a store closing and reopening over a long weekend, and being unable to merchandise his shelves until the 2-man crew finishes putting up the panelling in the new location.

He complains like its our fault he's stressed, when we're doing everything in our power to help him out of a jam, brought on in part by his unwillingness to spend the money on new panels that could have been installed during the week while we painted his new space, combined with a Mall Operations Manager who 'just assumed' we'd be able to relocate that slatwall on a moment's notice, himself stressed beyond his normal means thanks to the constant state of constructional flux his mall is currently mired in, as areas get demolished and reconstructed to suit relocating tenants, some permanently in those new locations, others temporarily until yet further demolition and construction finally creates their eventual homes.

Bill is one of those constantly stressed types, nervously thin, who walks a million miles an hour, making you dizzy with his confusion and indecision, the resident all-knowing, all-seeing sage, who has outlived three or four Mall administration changes, who knows all the tenants quirks and habits and is really the glue that holds this odd community together. He trusts us and likes us and we've worked with him 'forever' it seems, and its one of the reasons why we get trapped like today, we've always been there for him before, and why would this time be any different...

And so I leave Chad, my millwork contractor with his 2 hired men, to figure out and sort out their day's chore and make my way over to another one of my sites where Bill has agreed to take down the construction hoarding wall (that drywall and plywood barrier put up while we've been busy beyond, keeping prying eyes and ears out of our business and safe from the calamity on the other side) for Tuesday morning, even though the tenant won't have telephone or data lines run to her space yet - something the landlord and tenant both overlooked yet something both figure we should have a hand at solving since we're the landlord's contractor on this project, and we've built the tenant's space on their behalf - without phones she won't have access to credit card or banking POS systems which effectively keeps her out of business at least one more day.

I poke my head in around the now-removed doorway to find a pile of construction and moving debris growing between the new storefront glass and the hoarding wall; off cuts and discarded ceiling panels, snips of metal ducting and vinyl baseboard, adhesive tubes and styrofoam packing cubes, coffee cups and paint can lids, plastic bags and sawdust piles, all thrown together in a few boxes or swept into a pile, waiting for someone else to take them away. I shake my head at the trades inability to clean up after themselves, adult children too lazy to take responsibility for themselves, too rushed and too ignorant to care about the image they are leaving behind, too stupid to think that leaving boxes and papers behind that bear their company logos and names would somehow make them invisible.

At least they've left me a shovel and a broom, and I search out Reg once more to ask if I can borrow the large grey plastic wheeled janitors bin parked back by the Security office, and ask if he minds if I use one of the Mall's garbage bins to dispose of my trades messes. He gladly offers whatever help he can, short of driving the bin to the hoarding himself, which he likely would have done if he weren't needed back with the three men in green hoisiting that rotted tree back into the large van out front, and he hustles off down the main mall hall.

Chad has arrived back to offer his help, his three young kids in tow. It's his weekend with the three, an appointment he hasn't always been able to keep in weeks past, the burden of working for himself always forcing him to make wrong choices, and these are the ones who pay the largest price, two girls and a boy, the youngest is about 6 and acts it, wandering around the deserted hallways lost in her own kingdom of fancy scrubbed sights and canned musical soundtracks, the oldest is apparently 12 but the poor boy can't be 5 feet tall if he tried, and looks more like he's 8 or 9, his middle sister taller than he is, though that's no surprise. Chad tells me his son and mine were in the same class two years ago, the 5-6 split, which means his son is headed into grade 7 this week and they could indeed be part of the 7-8 split this year, though mine is almost 5 foot 10, the strong side linebacker with the hairy legs, deep voice and adult sense of humor worlds apart of this child in front of me now.

Chad bargains with his three to go play 'down at the other end of the mall' as I turn my attention to the pile of garbage inside the hoarding, picking and placing items into the plastic bin, careful not to up-end a half-full coffee cup, or topple a paint can onto the newly placed floors. Together we transfer the mess into the bin and roll it all out side and into the blue BFI bin out behind the theatres. Chad sheepishly admits part of the mess belongs to him, hoping his admission might lessen my mood towards the offenders, but I'm not stupid, I now who's put what where, it's what I do, I watch, I see, and I take mental notes as the jobs progress, the small talk and banter a front to my real intent, to discover where the job is really at, to see first hand what still needs doing, who hasn't yet arrived when they said they would last week, and who has done what they shouldn't have, and what needs doing now to make ammends.

I thank him for his honesty, but confide that I already knew, making sure he isn't fooling himself about what I know and what I've let go in order to hit the deadlines, massaging the details as required to allow limited budgets and tight timelines to co-exist efficiently. We place the janitor's bin back where I found it, and dusting off, part ways one last time, him to coral his kids and check on his installers, me to drop the broom and shovel back inside the hoarding where we found it earlier. I toss Reg a goodbye nod and wave from down that way as I see him hustling back to the Security office, another crisis in midstep, before I exit through the west end doors and back out into the mid morning sunshine as it falls across the parking lot of a September holiday Monday, leaving behind a collection of characters I couldn't make up if I tried, and the beginnings of a story just waiting to be written.