Inside the Belly of the Beast: Wal-Mart

I had to get new batteries for a key chain. Not even my key chain; my sister’s key chain. It was a little, rubber, blue elephant she picked up in Spain. Many of the shape’s features had been worn off from the constant friction of being bombarded by phones, tampons, loose change, make-up bags and whatever other assorted things my sister carried around in her purse. When squeezed, a little light deep inside the elephant’s stomach lit up and illuminated the tiny keep sake. It was very special to my sister. Something about a drunk gift from a friend that was good luck because she finally nailed a guy she was after the day she got it, how this little blue elephant had become an inside joke with her and her friends, and how it could not be simply replaced.

And so I was placed with the sacred task of finding a new set of batteries when the light burnt out (and changing the batteries since my sister is far more inept at these sorts of things). She said I owed her. She said, “I’m always letting you hang out with my friends, um, I let you have some of my leftover Carona, you owe me.”

“Where the fuck am I going to get batteries for your stupid thing?”

“I don’t know. Shit…Wal-Mart? And it’s not stupid, you asshole. Here, take these.” She handed me her precious blue elephant. “Take out the batteries and ask someone who works there to get you a set of replacements. Hurry. I’m going out tonight.”

Why Wal-Mart? That place makes me feel so uncomfortable. There are a million other stores I would rather walk into. That includes second-hand gun stores operated by guys who were too stupid for military service (“The fuck you doin’ here, faggot?” the guy wearing a green wife beater behind the counter would say) and stores that specialized in selling pajamas for pre-pubescent girls (“PERVERT!” their mothers would scream). If I need to go to a whole-sale store where I can buy both a plasma screen T.V. and a barrel of pretzels, I’ll go to fucking Target.

I’ve heard some horror stories about Wal-Mart. Like the kid who grabbed a bunch of magazines titled Pregnancy or Maternity Living and ran off into a plastic fort for kids to jack off. Or how about the guy who stripped naked in the middle of a checkout line to drop a duce on the conveyor belt? Then there’s always the running stereotype of the majority of their patrons; the teeming swaths of the damned, a mixture of NASCAR tank tops, complex carbohydrates, Coca-Cola, and IQ’s of ~85. Certain characters come to mind, like The Mother; the slow moving sow on her 5th kid, breast feading in the store as her little hellions run wild, knocking over merchandise because “dey haf da ADD”. Or The Professional Jailer; the scrawny gentleman dressed in near rags, scruffy facial hair and assorted tattoos ranging from a crucifix he picked up in prison to the rebel flag his dad gave him at 8. Under his arm is his pregnant girlfriend. She’s 15.

Fucking savages.

I have it in my mind that Wal-Mart brings out the worst people and the worst in people.

I park my car and approach the door. The Wal-Mart greeter, hunched over old man, looking even more frail in the blowing wind, coughs into his hand. The Harbinger stares at the contents for a minute before turning around and heading inside. All this happened under a display of the store’s mascot; a giant, yellow smiley face with the words “Have a nice day”. A bad omen.

Wanting to get out as soon as possible, I grab the first employee to cross my line of sight. He’s about 17 and looks like he's probably really into Offspring. I make note that the front door, in addition to leading to the gates of Hell, is also a time portal. His nametag reads “David”.

“Hey David,” I say trying be as inoffensive as possible. “I’m looking for batteries, but not like double A’s or triple A’s or d-cell. I’m looking for like, these special little ones that are like tiny, sliver disks.” I pull out my sister’s dead elephant batteries to show. “You know where I can find some?”

His gum chewing slows to the pace of a fucked-up cow. He turns slowly to a small stand of Energizer batteries, the ones next to packs of candy and DVD’s of Jingle All the Way and Heat. Smiley face mascots were telling me these hits were marked down from $12.99 to $10.99.

“No. Not, like double A’s or triple A’s. Like theeeese” I said, now trying to not sound like a curt dick; like I’m pissed off. David mumbles something about the back room and to check with people in the back room, before turning away and heading off to play one of the demo games of Madden ‘09 in the electronics department.

I head for the back of the store. On my way I pass a mother and son. The boy is trying on sweaters. For some unexplained reason the mother slaps him upside his face. He manages to get airborne, hovering just off the ground before crashing into shelves of shirts with Sponge Bob Square Pants’ image on them. He begins to cry. The mother angrily marches toward him, I assume to finish him off. Yellow smiley faces are displayed all over this area.

Around the corner in an aisle of the toy department a girl in her early teens and a guy in his early 20’s are furiously making out. She’s standing on her toes. The guy reaches around, grabs the girl’s ass, not so subtly lifting up her skirt, and then goes further. He lifts her off the ground by her vagina to get better leverage and a better angle of attack on her face. She's sitting on his hand like it's a bicycle seat. Probably no less than a dozen yellow smiley faces are watching them go at it.

Someone left a used diaper in the middle of the corridor I’m walking along. Condensation formed on the tile from when the shit was so hot it was steaming under the air conditioning vent. It looks like it had been there a while. More yellow smiley faces.

Finally I reach the entrance to the back room; the storage area adjacent to the loading docks where they receive and store merchandise before going out on the shelves. Guarding the gate, which is adorned with tiny, yellow smiley faces, is the old man from before: The Harbinger.

I reach into my pocket to pull out the batteries, but The Harbinger is too quick for me.

“Batteries?” he gently asks. A twisted smile cracks across is craggy face. I pause; weigh the question in my mind, before nodding slightly.

“Right this way.” He pulls back the plastic sheeting to allow me in. As I pass we make direct eye contact. He still smiles at me. I notice the hand he coughed into. His palm is stained a deep burgundy. “Have a nice day.”

This is a completely different world. I’m in a warehouse. I’m in a Victorian-era sweat shop. I’m in a futuristic power plant. I’m a seedy ally in Beijing at night. The pale, fluorescent ceiling tiles of the store give way to a few scattered, yellow incandescent bulbs which poorly illuminate this new realm. Towers of boxes and crates stamped with the Wal-Mart logo form a twisted landscape; half city block, half labyrinth. Steam seems to shoot out of every corner. Inside it’s muggy and damp. There are puddles everywhere. It’s like a gym locker room. I am almost overcome by the putrid smell of rot.

Not sure where to go, I pick a direction and follow it blindly. The ceiling is surprisingly high. This…place…is surprisingly large. Anxiety inside me forces the idea of getting lost in here forever into my mind. I clutch my sister’s little blue elephant close to my chest.

I am treated to a cadre of macabre sights. In one of the nooks and crannies of the towers I spy David. He is out cold, splayed belly-down over a crate. The Xbox360 controller is still in his hand. A large, shirtless, pot-bellied man wearing a NASCAR hat pulls down David’s pants and begins to sodomize him very roughly. I can’t tell if the man is sweating or if it’s all the steam but his grunting at every awkward thrust makes it obvious that he has not gotten laid in quite some time. Further down my path the floor becomes sticky. Large open containers of bloody remains are everywhere, and it is now evident that I am behind the butcher's shop of the store. A horse is held off the ground high in the air by its hind legs, attached to an industrial pulley. It is still alive. A very haggard looking woman, thin from either mal-nutrition or constant stress, walks over to a controller and lowers the horse to just above the cement ground. She lifts up an axe and begins to dutifully smack the horse. She does not appear to be aiming for any specific body part. Both she and the horse are wearing NASCAR t-shirts. The horse’s shirt, and to a lesser degree the woman’s, are soon stained with blood.

Somehow I make it through. Somehow I find myself standing in front of a small, well lit manager’s office. The manager is a fat man. He is wearing a white, sleeveless, dress shirt with brown vertical stripes and a lime green tie. He is balding, but his hair still keeps its rich, dark tone. I bet he believes his comb-over is convincing. A little bit of tobacco saliva escapes his mouth and lands on the paper work he is mulling over, since he seems to like chewing his cigar more than smoking it. On the wall is a calendar. Ms. January is some super permmed, super feathered blonde bikini chick standing in front of an orange Mustang hot rod. The calendar is from 1988.

Without looking up he barks at me. “You the battery kid?!” More tobacco saliva lands on his paper work.

“Y-Yes. Yes I am. I’m looking for-“ He cuts me off.

“I know, God damn it! I know exactly what you’re looking for. We all know what the Hell you’re looking for.” He opens up a drawer in his desk and pulls out a packet of batteries. They look like the kind I need. At this point I really don’t care. “Here, ya go.”

Almost as if a curse had been lifted off me, I could feel myself get lighter. This is what I wanted, and now it’s finally here. I walk over and take the pack from his hand. But as soon as that’s done the curse descends once more, this time in the form of the manager’s meaty hand grabbing my wrist.

“Now you listen to me,” he said in a low, angry tone. His beady eyes are dead locked on mine. His hand is crushing my wrist. “You get out of here, and you best forget what you saw in here today. Do you understand me?” A moment passed. “I said do you fucking understand me?!”

“Yes!” I stammer. He lets go and I fall backwards. The whole time he was speaking I was desperately trying to get away; completely unaware I was doing it. It was a natural reaction, a subconscious response mechanism left over from a more primal time in our ancestry. I was able to pivot on the ground and about face. I'm in fight or flight mode. Without hesitation I sprint through the door, through the darkness, and through the chaos. The manager’s voice echoed in the cavernous dungeon.

“Oh yeah! Have a nice day!”