Читать книгу The Bird Boys - Lisa Sandlin - Страница 18

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BY SIX O’CLOCK Phelan was out on the Bellas Hess floor, selling cameras, tape decks, and televisions. He was boxed in behind a little corral of a counter with a nineteen-year-old named Ben. That night he’d sit in his dark car in a mostly-deserted parking lot at a judicious distance from the back door. That would be his post, in view of the loading dock. A store security guy would cover the locked front door. The manager had furnished them with a pair of walkie-talkies from Radio Shack.

“How come you get to walk all over the store and Ralph doesn’t chew your butt?” Ben complained when Phelan had rambled back into the corral from reconnaissance. The teenager glared at him from Buddy Holly black plastic glasses, hands planted at his waist where his hips would have started if he’d had any. His black gabardines were staying up courtesy of a workhorse belt.

“You’re so sharp with the merchandise he can’t spare you.”

Ben’s sull reduced a little. “Well, I tried to teach you.”

Phelan stared at the kid. Ben went over to the other side of the glass counter and polished.

Ralph the manager had introduced him to the staff. The assistant manager Dean was a short, squat young man with thinning blond hair and a dog-like expression. Ralph had wanted to let him in on Phelan’s role, but Phelan had shaken his head no. There were girls and middle-aged women, both black and white, behind the counters, and an old man janitor for spills. A food area where two bored boys speared hotdogs off a heat-lamp griller, and handed over potato chips and Cokes. A loud, friendly pharmacist in the pill house with a pretty girl out front ringing up the white prescription sacks. Phelan’s guess was the stockroom, since they were the ones handling boxed goods, appliances, knowing the inventory, what was coming in. He’d have to make it back there. Meanwhile, Ben with the slicked-down hair was the only man on the floor proper. And it was easy to get him to talk about himself.

He was the next Ansel Adams, he told Phelan, looking for the impress-o-meter to register. The name rang no gong with Phelan, but he nodded anyway. Ben told him about a trip to Big Bend and all the boulders and wildflowers, jackrabbits and scorpions and sunsets he’d taken pictures of. He’d got an A in his Nature Photography class at Lamar College, and his teacher said some of his shots were good enough to sell.

“Ever take pictures of people? Action shots?”

“Sure. And print ’em. Got my own darkroom.”

Phelan filed that info away while Ben enthused about his series of the Southeast Texas State Fair. Tattooed carnies, couples Frenching, kids with cotton candy stuck in their hair, teenagers freaking on the Tilt-a-Whirl. He was so wound up that Phelan had to step up to a customer and badly advise him on what camera to buy.

“No, no, this one’s better,” Ben cut in, demonstrating features until the customer backed off and pulled out his wallet.

Apparently soothed by getting to speak his piece to his new fellow employee, Ben turned to Phelan afterward. At length and kindly, he repeated the specs for every camera set out around the case and in it.