It was 1977. I was alone. I was eighteen.
I left school when I was sixteen. I lashed out at some kids who were playing a stupid prank on me. When I refused to return, I began to study at home. I still hadn’t finished my GED so I couldn’t start college in the fall. I got a job instead. I knew that a job would get Mom off my back. This job was the first sign of joining the “real world,” as Mom liked to put it, since that time.
There was this store that I loved. It specialized in import products from around the world. I would walk over there just to look whenever I was bored with the schoolwork or Mom’s bitching. It was the closest thing to art that I could find anywhere around and I didn't have to pay an admission to enter. My entire life was wrapped up in art at that time. I read constantly. I listened to music when I was not reading. My favorite thing to do though was visit a museum and enter the worlds on the walls but the opportunity did not present itself too often.
It was right near the state college, within a small community of apartments and independent businesses that people called Stateville. Shangri-La was the only national chain in the neighborhood. This place allowed my imagination to travel around the world just by standing there. My hope was that if I worked there perhaps I could start buying a few of the precious items that I had seen in the store during my many meanderings through it.
When I decided that it was time to get a job this was the first place that I applied. Fortunately for me, they needed to replace someone who had graduated college recently. Roger knew me from the number of times that I wandered about so he hired me off the street. I had to fill out the application for sake of the bureaucracy, but he said that I had my first job. It was so easy I was amazed. I was also excited. It was as if I went to work for a museum. Everything that they, now we, sold was a thing of beauty to me. They even had prints of great art for sale. I just loved working there.
I grew to love the people that worked there especially. I worked weekdays from nine to five with two guys named Roger and Johnny. I discovered later that I was really lucky to have those hours while working in retail. This was an unusual corporation which allowed each store to do things that best suited the people who worked there as long as the needs of the store were filled. I was told right away that the hours were flexible if I decided to go to college. The only exception was Christmastime when everyone works and works hard according to Roger. As most people that had my job were college students, flexibility was built into the job format.
Roger was the manager. He ran the place and had one of the apartments over the store. He was a really funny guy. It wasn't because he was always making jokes, like Johnny, it was more a uniqueness that made him stand out in a crowd unashamedly. It amused my rebel soul and made me love him unreservedly. When I found out that he was gay, I wondered if his mannerisms and desire to always be touching people was typical of gay people. He was the first that I knew. When I met Charles, his lover, I discovered that homosexuals were as different as heterosexuals.
Charles lived with Roger upstairs. He liked to refer to himself as the little woman but did so with such a deep bass voice that it made me giggle every time that he said it. Charles was far more typically masculine in his mannerisms than Roger. Still he took care of their apartment and them. Charles quickly became one of my favorite people in the world. He never failed to make me laugh.
Roger was also funny because he seemed so insecure and always seemed to be his own worst enemy. He reminded me of Charlie Chaplin's Tramp in many ways. He was kindhearted yet never meshed with the society around him. He was short on patience, especially with himself, and seemed almost afraid of most people. Fear of people when you work in retail is a major deficit. His favorite time of day was doing the paperwork in the back room. However he was not very good with numbers. He began having me come in and run his numbers after he did just so that he felt comfortable before he sent them into Cleveland where the home office was. He said that he liked me to do it because Johnny made fun of him when he found mistakes. Much as he loved Johnny, he made Roger nervous for some reason.
Also, there was the fact that Johnny would only be here for the summer, and I would be here indefinitely. It was better for me to be able to back him up in emergencies. He liked my quiet way of doing without making him feel like he was incompetent for wanting someone to do what he called "Idiot Checks" on the paperwork before it went out. Roger was a mass of insecurities and I loved him for that. In all honesty, so was I.
