authors note:
the topics in this are a bit intense. features references to mental illness, intrusive thoughts, and an attack on a friend of mine that sent me into a nervous breakdown. if you’re down with that, read on, if not, i’ll catch you in the next one.
with love,
p.s. no allegations are being wagered against any shop, i don’t need them any more upset with my “contentious” behaviour
a customer today asked if we had chicken nuggets.
“only what’s in this fridge, sorry.”
you don’t have any elsewhere?
“have you checked the freezer?”
i wanted these ones specifically
“we’re out of those”
you don’t have any in the back? i’m realllyyy craving them
“no… sorry.”
in all honesty, we might’ve had some in the back, but i was cold and agitated the conversation had elapsed longer than seven seconds. the past version of myself would’ve gone and checked in the walk-in before she even asked. i used to care about that sort of thing, making people’s lives just a little bit easier
im not sure when i started lying to customers
it might’ve been around the time i watched my friend get beat within an inch of his life over a £7 bottle of rosé prosecco. it might’ve been when i felt the air burning in my lungs as i sprinted for someone, anyone to help; the security guard was on break because the store was too cheap to hire more than one. it could’ve been when i held my ‘work mum’ as she cried from the shock of being a collateral punching bag when she tried to tell them to stop, that they would kill him. or when i had to beg her to let me tend to the wound she kept pulling her hijab over to hide, insisting she was fine.
perhaps, more likely, it could’ve been when i was sent back out to sit on that very same till just five minutes after the incident because i “wasn’t directly involved” (meaning i didn’t have a fractured face, black eye, or other visible injury that would put off the shoppers). maybe when i sat down, mid meltdown, my body wracked with sobs, unable to get a word out, hands too shaky to tap in the correct numbers on the keypad to log into my cashier tab. two other coworkers, good friends of mine by this point, took charge, practically picking me up from the chair, “they are not doing this to you right now. fuck this shop, lu. go call your mum”.
i remember feeling so stupid, so inadequate against their composure. they had known our supervisor, our friend, and the victim of the attack, for so much longer than i had. yet here i was, and i couldn’t even get a word past the hysterics i was putting on.
i’m not a crier. contrary to popular belief, i only cry when i’m extremely drunk (or tipsy when it comes from a couple glasses of red), or when something gut-wrenchingly awful happens to me (in this context i am, of course, talking about when my sock gets wet or the neck of my shirt is too tight, or i drop something after a serious of minor inconveniences). the gut-wrenchingly awful context is never something real. i don’t cry at death, only its manifestations in the dark corners of my sleep. i dont cry at much of anything. but in a meltdown, two decades of rupture, resentment, and rage combine into one mess of un-untangle-able string.
it was this type of tears i experienced in this moment as i ran into the car park to search for my mum’s number through a field of blurred vision. this wasn’t just ‘shock from a horrible work incident’. this was years of unprocessed guilt and grief and the unmistakable fear of death, and as i heard that voice answer the phone, it all came pouring out.
“mum?”
“sweetheart? is everything okay?”
everything was not okay, and she knew that because i would NEVER phone her.
not just her, mind you, anyone.
“no they- mum he-”
i couldn’t get any words out
she tried to calm me down. she’s dealt with my pathetic antics for years. i’m sure she thinks this is just another panic attack. maybe my sock got wet. maybe i had a bad dream again where i was being-
“i thought they were going to kill him”
i struggled to form any semblance of a coherent sentence, but that last phrase remained a constant, and i hear the shock in her voice as she realises this is NOT a wet sock incident
***
once she has calmed me down, my mum says “i love you” and we hang up the phone
she checks in on me constantly over the course of the night, and in the morning she reminds me to eat
and the next day
and the day after that
on the morning after the incident, i have to go to work again.
i feel a familiar pit in my stomach, though larger than i’ve ever faced before. i think it might swallow me up too if im not careful. i haven’t eaten but i’m not sure i could’ve kept it down anyway.
i stare blankly at the doors of the northern line opening and closing. a grotesque mouth of grime and warning labels half scratched that now read
Obstruct___ the doors
___ be dangerous
very tastefully followed by a good old fashioned sharpie graffiti that has changed “penalty fare or prosecution” to “penile fare or prostitution”
i wished the doors would slice me in half as i exited, so i wouldn’t have to face what lay ahead. maybe i could fail to mind the gap. i had fantasised about it for years, maybe now was the time when i would be finally justified to get it over with. maybe i would have if i hadn’t rehearsed this journey so many times that my body had lifted itself up and off and out of the carriage before my mind had caught up
my best friend at work was in the break room when i arrived. she blamed herself, since she had been the one to initially refuse the sale and she was the one who called our supervisor, who had spent the night in a&e, over for assistance. in her mind, it was her fault.
she was devoting her full, unconscious attention to the wall in front of her, her face uncharacteristically pale in comparison to her bright pink corduroy jacket, purple hair, and rainbow coloured satchel.
i pass her a small plastic pickle. just felt it might help.
maybe i started lying to customers after that morning, when i jammed my janky laminated paper of an employee card into the box on the wall
BEEP
swipe
BEEP
swipe
BEEP
“oh for fUCks sakes”
the tears were threatening to spill again
swipe
BEEP
“FuCK YOU. USELESS FUCKING-“
swipe
DING
“fucker.”
i returned to the break room.
we sat in silence before she turned to me
“lu. i can’t do this”
i’m not sure what to say, i literally haven’t said a word, save for the profanities i just hurled at the bastard swipe in machine
“we can”
and i don’t believe it
thirty minutes later, she is crying. she hugs me. “i can’t do this, i’m sorry”
“i understand”
“here’s the pickle back”
“no. its yours”
she never came back, though we still meet for a pint every now and then. she works at a school now, and her boyfriend just proposed. me and my two in-control, proportional-reactioned coworker-friends from earlier will be in attendance.
i face the rest of the shift by myself. i think.
i don’t remember, i blotted out most of that week from my memory.
what i do remember, though, is everything getting worse for me.
my manager had given me a number to call, a helpline packed chock-full of thousands of aggrieved workers suffering from workplace incidents. after waiting on hold for an hour and a half one morning before my shift, a few days after the incident, i typed an incoherent email to the HR lady who i had grown to like very much. she called me into the office that day along with the store manager. they gave me two weeks paid leave to go and visit my mum.
three days into that leave, my line manager phoned me, asking when i would come back to work.
“we miss you” and he could’ve left it there “as a [delivery company] person” and he ruined it
i wished again that the tube doors had just spliced me.
maybe i could just walk into the sea and never come back, the way suicidal kangaroos do
maybe the lying began when i came back after a week, following constant guilt-tripping messages from several of my coworkers.
despite all of this, it might’ve been that the store *ALLEGEDLY* never sent the footage to the police, left the guys still walking the street (we’ve seen them once or twice more since the incident), never hired the extra security guard they promised us, and expected us to all just move on.
***
mind you, i have always been a liar.
everyone says so, or said so. i find it nearly impossible to distinguish past from present sometimes.
linear time just isn’t for me. i am, right now, everything i ever was and everything i ever will be. so if i ever stop being a liar, and maybe i already have, i will consequently remain one nonetheless
Blessed is the man to whom the LORD imputes no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit.
(Psalm 32:2, RSV2CE)
You give your mouth free rein for evil, and your tongue frames deceit.
(Psalm 50:19, RSV2CE)
as a good catholic child, i adhered to the psalms. honesty was the best policy.
i quickly realised, the adults do not want you to follow this part of the bible… or many others now that i think of it… and instead learned that ‘a string of white lies is the best policy.’ not got the same ring to it, i know.
over the course of my life, i have become virtually indistinguishable from a selection of masks. i’m not sure i know which one is which anymore. i switch them with a slight of hand so precise, even i don’t notice the change.
so when a customer tells me yet another hilarious joke, i laugh on cue.
when they comment on how i’ve lost or gained weight, i hide the anorexic teenager inside of me with a wry smile.
when they ask me if my parents are hippies because of my ‘weird name’, i say “no.” and do not say “i hate you i hate your stupid hair and your stupid clothes and the way your face moves when you speak because the expression it makes doesn’t quite match the words you say.”
when they ask how my day’s going i say “not bad, thanks, you? great to see you!” instead of telling them i want to throw myself off a building but i can’t because rent is due and i can’t leave my flatmate in financial shit.
the assumption made by many was that my real personality, the one that slipped out sometimes, was the deceitful one. in tough moments, like heart-to-hearts about being suspected of having a neurological disability, people simply assumed i was lying. i wouldn’t look them in the eyes. i got defensive when questioned. i couldn’t articulate my feelings. i must’ve been lying. this is how i lost all of my ‘friends’ following my autism diagnosis. (as i was “clearly faking” autism. for attention. from??? God???)
sob story unlocked!
***
all this to say, i don’t know when i started lying.
perhaps i never started, never stopped
perhaps my whole life could be considered one long stream of performance
if that is the case i would like to request the director switch genres, this tragic comedy dystopia isn’t doing SHIT for me.
tomorrow will be yet another performance, and the next, and the next
i just hope that when it is all done, when i’ve said my final “would you like your receipt?” or “yeah fine thanks, you?”, that people will see the actor behind it, and maybe give them a standing ovation.
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