Following the Nail

Friday is 75-cent day at Dollar-a-Pound. So when I get to work today, 30 minutes before the store is scheduled to open, the line is already around the block.

"Crap," I mutter to myself. I put on my sunglasses, clutch my shoulder bag and my Dunkin' Donuts Coolatta tightly to my chest, and march to the front door. I try to look as officious and disinterested as possible so no one in line will launch into an angry tirade about "cutters." Luckily, Bill, who works the cash register next to the big scale on the first floor, sees me struggling with my key and unlocks the door for me.

"Must be a full moon or something," I say, glancing over my shoulder at the teeming masses as I cross the threshold. "Or something," says Bill, relocking the door behind me and gesturing purposefully to the hours sign while the crowd boos him.

Bill is the closest thing I have to a friend at work. He thinks he's my ex because I used to go over to his apartment after work sometimes to rent movies and eat nachos. He thinks that meant something. I think it didn't. When I stopped going over, I told him that it wasn't him, it was the goddamned Weight Watchers. Nachos are just plain not worth the points. Plus, he's boring, but I didn't tell him that.

I don't know how anyone, even a boring guy like Bill, can stand working on the Dollar-a-Pound floor. There's clothing piled from one end of the floor to the other. People root around in the pile all day long like a bunch of hungry pigs. And on Fridays, there are always pile fights. What happens is, two overeager treasure hunters inadvertently claim opposite ends of the same thing, usually something long like a pair of overalls. Then it's like some dumb cartoon: they discover they're connected and start scrapping and yelling. Elbows swinging, feet flailing, lots of shuffling and the inevitable sound of fabric ripping. Bill keeps a bottle of seltzer under the counter at all times, so once I asked him if he had it to spray it on the pile fights like you do for a dog fight.

"Nah," he said, deadpan, "I just like seltzer."

Five years ago, when I first started working at the store, I thought the pile fights were pretty funny to watch. Now I avoid the lower floors of the store as much as possible, especially on Fridays. Instead, I always go straight up the stairs to the third floor: Employees Only. I have a corner to myself up there and it's my own little oasis. I don't have to deal with the other employees on the third floor because I am the only one there who speaks English. The other third-floor employees sort and press the bulk vintage clothing for The Garment Bonanza, which is the second floor. They are from Haiti, El Salvador, Brazil, you name it. New to this great land of ours and hungry for cash, they seem thrilled to work for next to nothing with perks like all the dry-cleaning fumes you can inhale.

I know a couple of their names, but mostly I think of them collectively as The Lunch Ladies, or The Ladies for short. That's because they bring their lunches from home in old margarine tubs and eat crowded around a card table next to the main dry-cleaning machine. It probably makes their food taste like dry-cleaning fluid, and it definitely requires The Ladies who speak the same language to yell their conversations. Yet it doesn't seem to occur to them to leave the third floor, much less the building.

Sometimes I'm tempted to point out to them that the Dunkin' Donuts down the block where I get my Coolattas each morning tolerates a regular parade of homeless people using the bathrooms and drinking the little thimbles of half-and-half. Surely, this is an establishment that might welcome a bunch of gainfully employed brown-baggers, some of whom might actually purchase a cup of coffee or a baked good from time to time. But since none of them speak English, I don't bother to clue them in. I know they're not sitting there wishing I would offer to be their tour guide in this strange and foreign land. And it's not like I want to get some kind of "be kind to immigrants" merit badge or anything. I just wouldn't mind if they knew that I'm not such an asshole.

By all rights, I should be an asshole after all these years of dealing with the consigners. It's ironic that I hate them so much, since I started out as one of them. See, I had a real shopping problem in the eighties. I was in college in western Massachusetts and there's really not a hell of a lot to do there except buy vintage clothes. The prices were dirt cheap, so it didn't seem extravagant to buy a men's three piece polyester double-knit leisure suit just for a kitschy label that said "Exclusively by Mister Damone." Then after college, waiting tables at the same cafés I frequented as a student, it occurred to me that renting a storage locker for clothing I didn't even visit, much less wear, was perhaps a tad excessive.

So I began to consign. Now, I've always had a thing for vintage clothes. That's why I still have so many, even after all my days consigning. Some of my pieces are like old friends, even if they were never my size to begin with. Maybe even more than friends, more like children. Because I baby them and protect them and fuss over them. Though perhaps it's a bad analogy because I can't stand real kids. They'll just as soon wipe a peanut buttery cheek on your skirt as look at you and I have less than no patience for that. The nice thing about vintage clothes is, whenever you feel like it, you just put them away, zip the storage bag or whatever, and be done with them until the next time you feel like it. Try doing that with a kid and they'll lock you up.

The main reason I hate the consigners is that they don't treat their clothes with respect. They are supposed to bring everything in on hangers, in good condition, but nine times out of ten they show up for their appointments lugging big black Hefty bags. Store policy says that I could refuse to deal with them, but I never do. It's mostly because I always have my eye out for diamonds in the rough: rare treasures buried at the bottom of trash bags under sweat-stained cardigans and mismatched gloves. Alas, combing through the bags yields few diamonds and a hell of a lot of rough.

On rare occasions, I come across an item I can't live without. What I usually do then is just "forget" to log it in. If I snatched stuff on a regular basis, my logs would give me away, and I'd be fired as fast as my predecessor was. But once-in-a-while snagging doesn't really pose a problem unless the consigner is totally anal retentive and notices it missing on the inventory. Luckily, I can spot this kind of consigner a mile off--takes one to know one, as they say--so I know not to take anything from them no matter how good it is. If it weren't for the damned consigners, this job would be perfect: lots of vintage clothing, but no requirement that I kiss up to customers as I'd have to if I worked in an antique store or something.

There's really only one person that I am actually required to interact with. His real name is Lenny, but I call him The Nail behind his back. He's the guy who stocks the second floor inventory. He picks up racks of consignment items from me and takes them to the vintage racks on The Garment Bonanza. I see him only once or twice a week when one of The Ladies or I ring this old-timey buzzer and summon him up to the third floor. There's really nothing for him to do up here except pick up racks of clothing for transport.

Lenny is The Nail because he reminds me of this song my college roommate's boyfriend used to sing. The boyfriend did a lot of open mike, so my roommate dragged me out to hear him play on a semi-regular basis. He was part of this scene that wasn't really a scene that called itself "anti-folk." This was confusing because if anyone had ever asked me what the music sounded like, the first word to come into my head would have been "folk." Anyway, the boyfriend wrote this song about spending a summer working as a carpenter. Apparently, his boss had been an unemployed philosophy professor. The guy would always say to him, "Don't just hit the nail. BE the nail." So the song was called "I Am the Nail," and the chorus consisted of repeating that line a few times while strumming a lot and brooding purposefully.

I found the song ironic, because the fact was the boyfriend had something of a nasty temper and used his voice more for yelling at my roommate than for singing. Clearly, he was more of the hammer type. But as soon as I met timid, squirrelly ol' Lenny, I immediately thought of that song. Lenny is The Nail if ever there was one.

I usually have to ring the buzzer four or five times to get Lenny to move his sorry ass upstairs. I don't know what it is with him. Maybe he's stoned all the time like Bill, but I don't think so. With Lenny, it seems it's part of his DNA. He's about my age, give or take, but he moves really slowly and carefully, like a much older person. Plus he's one of those thin, fragile types. All translucent skin, pale eyes, and ethereal, wispy hair. He walks gingerly, as if he's afraid if he doesn't step each step just so, gravity will lose its hold and he'll just blow off the face of the earth. Which is as likely to happen on Employees Only as anywhere, because there are these big industrial fans cranking all the time to keep the heat from the dry-cleaning machines from baking us all to a crisp.

Today I finish a rack of saleables early in my shift, so I hit the buzzer. I end up having to ring it six more times before Lenny finally appears.

"Hey," he says.

"Yo," I reply sarcastically. Lenny blushes and smiles at his feet as if I've said something embarrassing. "What's up, Len?"

"Oh, huhm, nothing, you know . . ." his voice trails off. Small talk is not his strong suit, though I'd be hard pressed to tell you what is. Lenny starts to inspect the clothing on my rack, which I know isn't part of his job because the guy who lugged the racks before him never did it.

Lately, I've started watching Lenny more closely when he comes up to get the racks. He always seems to be on the lookout for something, which made me start to wonder about him. There are other consignment shops in this town, nicer ones, not to mention all the online vintage boutiques. I've started to suspect that maybe The Nail looks all meek, but has some sort of racket going. I know that I'm suspicious by nature, so I take my own theories with a grain of salt. But then when he does things like sneaking peeks at labels and running fabrics through his fingers, I think maybe I'm not so off base.

Today I pretend to be engrossed in my consignment paperwork, but out of the corner of my eye I watch Lenny. First he fiddles with the bolo tie on a western style shirt I bagged and tagged this morning. He drifts absently to the next item, a campy pair of flannel pajamas with a print of frolicking foxes and hounds. He pulls the collar forward with one thin finger and squints at the label. Then he rolls one of the cuffs of the pajama top between his thumb and next two fingers and closes his eyes for a moment. I can't help it; I turn and look at him. For a second he has this serene look on his face, almost like he's dead. Then he opens his eyes and catches me watching him.

Before I can say anything, he asks, "Do you think I could have these?"

"No," I snap instinctively, though as soon as I say the word I begin to panic that he will ask me to tell him why not. Thankfully, it is as simple as that. He nods sagely, accepting my refusal as if he expected it all along. I should have known he'd want the pajamas. They're from the '30s and would probably bring 75 bucks or more on eBay. But the consigner's completely nit-picky, so it's just not worth it for me. Still, it was hard to put them on the sale rack. I had kept them in the office for two weeks already, waffling. They're pale pink, soft as butter, in mint condition. I fingered the same cuff myself no less than a dozen times. Nothing in this world is as soft as vintage flannel.

Suddenly, I lunge forward and snatch the hanger off the rack. Startled, Lenny lets go of the pajama cuff and the sleeve falls limp.

"I mean, ooops, these aren't supposed to go downstairs yet. Sorry about that."

Lenny nods again and says nothing. Without looking at any of the other items, he takes the rack and pushes it in the direction of the freight elevator.

"Later," I say under my breath like a curse as he leaves. Then I am alone and I realize my heart is pumping. I am jumpy and caught off guard, but also surprised by his nerve. Did he actually think I would just let him take them? That I did not recognize their value? Did he think I would just let him have them, for his profit? That I'd be so charitable as to give in when the little meek guy asked for something so seemingly minor? Did he take me for that kind of sucker?

As the morning wears on, I play and replay the incident in my mind. It occurs to me that I don't really know what happens to my consignment goods when they go downstairs with The Nail. I never go to the lower floors of the store, which Lenny must know as well as anyone. According to Bill, the employees downstairs speak of me as if I am some kind of poltergeist that haunts the building but is rarely glimpsed. I have always enjoyed that, but now it gets me thinking. Maybe Lenny takes tons of consignment stuff all the time without asking and now he's getting a little bold? Because if he does take stuff, who would know? Certainly not me; once I hand a rack off to him, I never follow up on any of the items. And according to the management, the store loses tons of stuff to shoplifters each year (or so they claim each December by way of avoiding paying Christmas bonuses). Maybe more of these thefts are inside jobs than anyone has ever realized until now.

By lunchtime I'm all worked up about this, but of course there's no one on Employees Only to talk to about it. The Ladies are gathered around their table, leaning in and shouting, laughing riotously at each others' jokes, shoveling food to their mouths. I decide to go down to Dunkin' Donuts and get myself another Coolatta. Fans or no fans, it's like an oven up here today, so diet be damned.

I get there and I see that Bill's already in line. I poke him from behind. He turns.

"Oh, hey, Ronnie," he says. "What's up?"

"Nuthin. You?"

"Not a lot."

We both nod and wait. Bill gets served, then he comes and stands by me.

"You walking back?" he asks.

"Looks that way."

"Cool. I'll wait." He goes out front. I wait some more, order, get my drink, pay, and walk out. I find Bill smoking on the sidewalk, watching some fire ants attacking a half-eaten cruller.

"So, what are you doing tonight?" I ask him, trying to play it cool and not launch into my rant just yet.

"Hmh? Oh, I was thinking maybe I'd get a video or something."

"Oh, yeah, like what?" I ask, knowing full well what the answer will be. Anything with Christina Ricci in it. Bill is completely her slave. He'll watch anything she's ever appeared in, even crappy indie stuff like The Opposite of Sex. One time he insisted that we rent Casper, and in the middle of it I looked over and saw he had his hand down his pants. Reason number 713 why he never had a chance with me.

"I dunno," Bill says, though I can tell he does. The skinny caterpillar sitting on his upper lip twitches. "I was thinking about maybe Buffalo 66."

"Buffalo 66?" I roll my eyes. "Man, you SO don't want to see that movie. Beyond unwatchable, seriously."

"Oh, huh. I dunno. I didn't think it was so bad."

"You've already seen it?"

"Sure, a few times. Anyway, Christina only took that role because . . ."

Bill begins to launch into an impassioned speech about Christina the artiste, but I don't really hear him because a block away I see someone leaving the store and starting to walk in the opposite direction. I can tell, even from a distance, that it's The Nail because of that odd walking-on-eggshells way he moves.

"Man, what is with that guy?" I gripe, but Bill is busy rhapsodizing about Christina and not listening to me. The gap between us and Lenny closes a bit because of his tortoise pace, which is why when we're almost in front of the store I see it.

"OH MY GOD," I say.

"Sorry?" says Bill.

"He fucking stole them." I tell him, pointing. Bill looks where I am pointing and sees what I see: Lenny The Nail walking with his backpack on one shoulder, a pink flannel sleeve hanging out of the top flap. "That asshole fucking stole my pajamas!"

"Why do you keep your pajamas at work?" asks Bill.

"Look, I gotta go," I say. "Can you punch me out sick?"

"Yeah . . . sure."

"Thanks."

I leave Bill in front of the store and start up the street after Lenny. Lenny moves like a snail, so I realize I will catch up with him in no time. At which point it dawns on me that I don't want to do that. I'm not sure why . . . it just seems too easy or something: running up to him on the street, yelling accusations, pulling the incriminating evidence from his bag, stalking off triumphant. I want to blow the lid off his entire operation, show him I'm hip to his whole charade. I have a vision of the scene playing out, and it's all very spy thriller. I want to follow him to his lair.

So I do. I walk behind him for eight long blocks, hanging back to keep out of sight, draining my Coolatta by block three and badly needing a bathroom by block seven. Lenny walks so slowly it isn't funny. You'd think he was somebody's grandfather. Finally he comes to a three-story house and goes inside. I wait a minute, then I go stand in front of it. On the right hand side, there are three buzzers, one of which reads: L. Castor. I have arrived at the Lair of The Nail.

I step back and survey the building. The second floor, which I'm guessing is Lenny's (since his buzzer is the middle one) seems to have dark curtains drawn, despite the fact that it is August.

"Veronica? What are you doing here?"

He sounds genuinely puzzled, but I am not one to be toyed with. I want to be the one surprising him, and I refuse to let go of my moment.

"Oh, I think you know." I use my most suspicious, haughty voice.

"I do?" he says. "Do you want to come in?"

I pause, but I don't really have a choice. I am about to wet my pants.

"All right," I say. We go inside and I follow as he carefully climbs the stairs. He opens his apartment door, puts his keys, backpack, and mail down, and turns on the entryway light.

"Bathroom?" I say.

"Down the hall, on your left."

I stagger there and barely make it. Ahhhhhh.

When I come out, I get my first look at Lenny's apartment. It has that sparsely furnished, post-collegiate look that my place can't seem to transcend no matter how many pretentious shelter mags I read. He has the same vintage sci-fi film festival poster from two summers ago that I keep on my bathroom wall.

What I don't have, however, is a living room full of fish tanks. Lenny has them on every available surface in the room, plus two big ones on the floor. I look around and do a rough count. There are maybe 15 of them. The curtains are drawn and the lighting in the living room is poor, except for some fluorescent bulbs in the tanks. He must raise some kind of weird, nocturnal fish. Except the tanks all have mesh tops that are held on by what looks like duct tape. Weird nocturnal jumping fish? I crouch down next to a tank and peer inside. There is no water and I come face to face with this big black and orange striped thing. . . .

There is a moment when it feels as if everything happens at once. The thing raises its head and looks at me, and I try to stay cool and not scream, but instead I end up making this gurgling noise as I run into the next room, which turns out to be the kitchen. Lenny, who has his head in the fridge when I burst into the room, fumbles and drops the bottle of Snapple he is getting. Then there's glass on the floor and a puddle of lemonade running down the sloping linoleum and collecting under the stove.

"Oh, shit! I'm sorry! Are you okay?" I say.

"No problem. I'm guessing you saw my pets, huh?"

"Uh, yah!" I say. "What the hell?"

"It's no big deal," says Lenny. "They're all totally harmless. The lizards and all but one of the snakes have had the venom removed. And they can't get out unless I take them out. So there's really nothing to worry about."

"Oh, okay. I feel much better," I say in my most ironic voice.

"Good," says Len. Irony seems wasted on him. "Listen, why don't you sit down so I can clean this up?" I don't really want to, but my heart is pounding and there's a chair right there so I sit. His kitchen table is yellow and it has the same boomerang pattern as mine. I trace the pattern with my finger, something I do at home when I'm feeling anxious.

"I'm sorry," I say, "about freaking out and the lemonade and all."

"It's really okay," he tells me again. "It's my fault, really." He notices what I'm doing. "Do you like that table? It was my grandmother's."

"I have one just like it."

"Really? Wow, that's some coincidence. I've never seen one like it before."

I look at him suspiciously. "Ha, ha," I say.

"What?"

"Len, this is, like, only the most popular '50s Formica pattern ever made. There's like a zillion of these in the world."

"Huh, how 'bout that?" he says as he goes and gets some tweezers. He carefully picks up the pieces of glass and puts them in a paper grocery bag. His precise, methodical manner is well suited to this kind of task. While he works, he is completely silent. I hear the refrigerator hum, and I can even hear some of the fish tanks bubbling in the next room.

I can't help it. I ask him about the tanks.

"Someone gave me a turtle when I was a little kid," Lenny tells me. "In a year or two, the turtle died, but by then I also had a gecko, an iguana, and a rat snake. And then in high school I started collecting rarer breeds, like monitor lizards, stuff like that. My grandma was okay with it, and after she died, I began using the living room for their cages. But I really need to find homes for some of them. I'm running out of space here."

Lenny stands up, steps on the garbage can pedal, and tosses in the bag of glass.

"Maybe you should think about taking one of the snakes," he says cheerfully. "I'd help you get set up with the cage and stuff."

"Uh, no, thanks," I tell him. "No offense, I'm just not big on slimy things."

"They're not slimy."

"Slimy, scaley, whatever," I say. "It just creeps me out, okay?"

"They're not scaley either," says Lenny.

"Yeah, okay. Whatever you say, Lizard Boy." So help me God, it just slips out. For a second I dare to believe that he didn't hear me.

"What did you just call me?"

The eyes of The Nail are still the color of dirty water, but the water has a current to it now. I'm tempted to apologize, something I rarely do but which seems like the right thing to do at a time like this. But then I see his backpack sitting in the hall, with the pajama sleeve almost waving at me. It's like a cape in front of a bull.

"I said Lizard Boy." The volume of my voice starts to build. "But, you know, what I really should call you is Thief! What the hell makes you think you can go taking other people's stuff?" I go to the hall, pull the pajama top out of his bag, and wave it at him for my finale. "ESPECIALLY when you ASKED ‘Can I have this?' and the answer was NO!"

"Get out of here," says Lenny coldly.

"No problem," I say. "But I'll be taking this with me." I ball up the pajama top and am about to stuff it in my bag when Len suddenly grabs hold of it.

"Hey! Let go! What the fuck is your problem?" I yell, and begin to pull.

"You don't understand," Len begins mumbling, pulling back. Or maybe what he is saying is "You wouldn't understand." I can't tell because I am too busy yelling all kinds of crazy shit at him. It feels very, very important that I win this struggle.

I should know, after all those Fridays at the store, what is going to happen next. But I'm so wrapped up in the moment, bracing my foot to get the best angle, watching The Nail's hands turn red as he tries to twist and wrench the pajamas from me that the sound the fabric makes when it finally gives comes as a complete and total surprise to me. What's worse, it rips on a seam and I fall backward, holding everything but one sleeve. The fall hurts and I struggle to retain my outraged demeanor but somehow the ridiculousness of sitting on the Nail's kitchen floor, my ass wet with lemonade, clutching my prize begins to dawn on me.

"Oh my God, are you okay?" asks the Nail. He looks horrified at the sight of me on the floor. I remember the glass and hope that Len really did find all of it. I reach behind myself to adjust my dress and am relieved not to find blood on my hand.

"I think so," I say. He reaches to try to help me up, but years of being a big girl have taught me not to let people do this. I carefully get to my feet.

"I'm sorry," says Lenny. "You're right, I shouldn't have taken them."

"Damned right," I say. "I could lose my job over something like this." Which isn't true but I'm pretty sure he doesn't know that.

"I'm sorry," he says again.

"Good," I say. "You should be. If I ever catch you taking stuff again, I'll totally bust your ass, got it? I mean, I don't care how much reptile food the money pays for . . ."

Lenny looks confused, and his chin begins to quiver.

"I was just trying to help Violet," he says.

"Violet?" I ask. Lenny nods and leaves the room. I blot the seat of my dress with one of his dish towels while he's gone. It occurs to me that I could just get the hell out of his apartment before he comes back, but unfortunately my curiosity is piqued.

Just then, Lenny returns. He seems quicker and more sure-footed here in his own space. He has something curled up in the front of his t-shirt and at first I mistake it for a kitten. Then I realize that it is the lizard I saw before. The animal seems very comfortable resting in his embrace and I notice for the first time how beautiful its markings are. Most of its skin is black and it has tiny black nails on its toes, but all over its back and head are dots and dashes in shades of orange ranging from pale peach to deep sunset. It opens its eyes and blinks, and Lenny strokes its head.

"This is Violet," he tells me. "She's a Gila monster. She's got a rare bone condition and I'm beginning to wonder if she's going to make it."

"That's so sad," I tell him, and I mean it.

"You can pet her if you want. Go ahead, she's not slimy or anything."

Against my better judgment, I tentatively touch her tail. It is muscular and cold, but he is right, not slimy. Lenny pets her head some more. I touch her again, on the back this time. Lenny smiles and exhales deeply.

"She likes you," he says.

He totally gets to me when he says this. I can't help it; I suddenly start thinking about the cat I had as a kid, a silver tabby named Spud. I have some old photos in a box somewhere of me grinning like an idiot, hugging Spud around his neck and him hanging compliantly from my chubby arms. A few years later, when Spud's kidneys failed and my folks took him to the vet and returned empty handed, I swore I'd never get another pet because I never wanted to go through that again.

"Look," I tell him. "Forget about the pajamas. I've got some pretty valuable vintage clothes of my own that you could sell. I'll bring them in on Monday and you can make a few bucks off them on eBay. Get Violet her medicine or whatever."

He turns his red-rimmed eyes at me and gives me a confused look.

"Make a few bucks?" he says.

"Sure," I say.

"Veronica, I just wanted to make Violet a blanket out of them. She's in a lot of pain, and I thought if I had something nice to wrap her in, she'd be able to rest and stay warm. They seemed really soft and all."

I look at him, and oh my God, he's serious. He was seriously planning to make some kind of lizard sleeping bag out of the top he swiped. As if he's reading my mind, Lenny adds, "She's not that big. That's why I only needed the top."

I realize that I have two choices. I can walk out the door, break out into the light and the heat of the day, and run back to the store, gasping for breath, my feet slapping on the pavement all the way. Get myself yet another Coolatta, report to Dollar-a-Pound, find Bill, roll my eyes, and say Man oh Man. And Tell All.

Or I can stay right where I am.

The lizard--Violet--blinks her beady eyes again. Cautiously, I extend my hand and touch her head. She is cool and sleek, not the least bit slimy. I close my eyes and pet her again. Her skin feels softer than vintage flannel.