Boxed In

By Vickie Wippel

          Velda just needed to get to the store. Buy something. Anything. A Twix bar. A tuba. A taxidermy chinchilla. She craved the hit of the credit card swipe. A pick me up. “There’s more than one way to wrap a tamale,” Tawny told her yesterday. Velda asked her best friend what the hell that meant. “What do you mean, “‘What do I mean?’” Tawny said. “It’s like that saying- more than one way to skin a cat- but less gruesome.” Tawny was slopping an ice cream scoop of tuna fish onto a bed of iceberg lettuce. 575 more scoops to go before the Chamber luncheon. Convention Center catering gigs are as bleak as they sound, Velda knew this to be true. Mauve tiled kitchen floors, stainless steel countertops. Overheads lights like an operating room. Mexican radio station crackling through overhead speakers. No windows. Enough to make someone pull out her hair, like petals off a flower. Pluck. Velda wiped her hair out of her eyes with gloved hands. If the manager saw, she would have to change the gloves.
          “You sound like a god damn PETA commercial, “Velda said. “Anyway, you’re probably scooping baby dolphins into the salad.” Velda folded to-go boxes. The sound of cardboard scraping against itself as she folded felt a skin graph. 574 more boxes to go. A death march. Velda just needed to get to the store. She could collect cigarette lighters or ball point pens the way her grandmother collected Lladró and Limoge. A whole curio case. Click click click goes the lighter. Anything to stop her from wanting to skin herself, forget the cat. Enough with these boxes! Click click click goes the pen. “You don’t even like cats, Tawny.” Tawny told Velda the boxes were leaking, that she wasn’t folding the boxes right. The boxes, stacked too high, toppled over. A crestfallen waterfall, a tormented tumbling tower.
          “Let’s get out of here,” Velda said. She was on her hands and knees on the Convention Center kitchen floor picking up the boxes. Nobody cleans the floors underneath the Convention Center counters-- black, linty, sticky underneath-- shiny clean for the world to see. Velda could relate to the floors. She had to get out of there. She couldn’t go home, where she’d trip over her dad’s chemo cords and oxygen tanks.
          “We have to work.” Plop goes the tuna. Tawny was as rigid as a late fee.
          “Ok, this weekend. What should we do?” Rat-a-tat-tat. Velda, upright again, played finger drums against the stainless-steel countertops, looking at the exit. Rat-a-tat-tat.
          “Fake laugh. Skip a meal. Die a little inside. That’s all we can afford, Velda.” That’s all they could afford. $11.50 an hour for tuna scoops. 
          But maybe they could go somewhere, or something like that, Velda thought. Tawny asked Velda if she was depressed—more depressed than usual.
          If they could just go somewhere, Velda thought. Buy something. Velda took her gloves off. “I’m taking a break, Tawny.” She untied her loaner apron, grabbed her things, and headed for the heavy double doors. “I have to take a break.” 
          “Where are you going, Velda? Tawny called after her. “What about the boxes?” A futile exchange. Thud go the doors.
          In the Convention Center hall, geometric carpet shapes moved like a wave. Velda felt seasick. Tuna-sandwich eaters gathered in branded polo shirts. Polo shirts that always looked better on the men. Sun poured in— a lighted diorama of the upper-middle class. Middle class in their natural environment, thought Velda. A science experiment, like the clinical trials. The clinical trials that didn’t work. The matching- shirted managers mingled and took selfies. Click. Click. Click. Their lanyards shined like sheriff badges. Velda wanted a lanyard.
          Outside, the sun glared down like a fast-food heat lamp. Oppressive. Stale. Velda headed for the corner market. Maybe she could get sunglasses. Cat eye frames like her mom used to wear. Cat eyes, before the cat scans. Before her mom said, “I can’t deal with this,” and had to go somewhere. 
          The bell on the door jangled like custodian keys. “I need to return something,” Velda told the shop keep. “I need to make a return.” His eyes followed Velda as she handed him things from a grocery bag. A pill pulverizer. A Bible. A protein shake. A bag of Lays. “My dad has cancer,” she said. “He doesn’t need anything.” Velda wiped her eyes. “He doesn’t need anything, and I’m gonna go somewhere.” The shop keep punched in the return. The cash register sounded like an oxygen monitor. Beep. Beep. Beep. “I will keep the chips,” Velda said.
          “I’ve seen you before,” He said. “You buy things, and then you return them.” The shop keep looked at her through his mop of curls. His name was Simon. His name tag said Simon. “Last time, you bought soda crackers and a heating pad, and then you returned the heating pad.” A few more beeps on the cash register. Then return receipt spat out. A lonely ticker tape parade. Simon’s fingers touched Velda’s fingers as he handed her the receipt. “It doesn’t have to be this way.” A long blink from Simon. “My dad has cancer, too. I know how you feel,” Simon said. Like the game. But this wasn’t a game to Velda. Games were fun. They made you happy. Velda couldn’t remember the last time she felt happy. Velda didn’t know how to be happy anymore, and Simon didn’t say. 
          “But I don’t really need anything, Simon.” Velda grabbed the chips. “See you next time,” She said. “I hope your dad’s ok.” Velda tried to smile, but it was too hard.
          “Don’t forget your change.” Velda turned back. Simon handed her $21.75 and told her to take care. Almost two hours of tuna scoops back in her pocket. Velda looked over at the sunglasses before walking away. Velda missed her mom. Jingle-jangle goes the door. She walked towards the bus depot. She crossed an overpass. Grey. Sooty. Overstuffed grocery carts and grocery cart pushers blocking the sidewalk. “I need to get out of here,” Velda muttered. Buzz goes the phone. A text from Tawny. Her break was over. Velda saw a stack of bus schedules. She grabbed one. She grabbed another. Velda wanted a break from convention. An alphabetized list of destinations. Velda scanned the list. Clovis. Delano. Jensen. Kings Canyon. Manchester Center. Tulare. Visalia. She could go somewhere. $19.00 got a Greyhound to Delano. She’d still have $2.75 to buy something. A Twix bar.
          Before she could go anywhere, Velda needed to go home. Grab a few things. Say goodbye. “I’m not going to leave without saying goodbye,” she said out loud as she walked towards the apartment. Velda took a different route so we wouldn’t pass the Convention Center. Her head tucked down to walk faster. She had a bus to catch. Velda reached the apartment and unlatched the door. Rattle rattle goes the chain. But she didn’t want to rattle him, so she whispered, “Hey, Dad, are you awake?” She dropped the grocery bag and the purse and knelt by his bed in the middle of the living room. The room was dark and hot. The curtains shut tight. Cords everywhere. Cords that tethered her dad to the bed. Already, Velda could not breathe.
          He was awake. He smiled and said, “Hey, girlie.” His voice a scratchy whisper. Velda smiled and began to cry.
          “I got to go, Dad. I have a bus to catch.” He reached for her face. “I’m going to Delano.” She smoothed out the bed sheets. She looked for new bruises. “I might have a job there. A better job.” Her dad patted Velda’s hand. “The nurses will help you. I will call the nurses.” Velda kissed her dad’s hand--light as an egg crate—and tucked it back under the blanket. Velda went to her room to look for her duffle bag. Her duffle bag from high school when she ran track. Now she just ran away.
           Velda came back out to the living room with her things. Her duffle packed full. “I got to go, Dad. I got to go.” She leaned down to hug him. “But I will see you soon.” He reached for something on the side table. He knocked over the pill bottles. He gave Velda a crumpled five-dollar bill. Her used to give her five dollars for fun money. She and Tawny would get Cherry Cokes and make prank calls on the public pay phone for a quarter. But it wasn’t fun anymore.
          “I love you, girlie,” He whispered. Velda left the front door open. She wanted her dad to have fresh air. She closed the metal security door. Clank.
          Velda stood in line at the bus station. Concrete floors. Cinderblock walls. Candy and cigarette wrappers spread everywhere like a sneeze spray. Automated voices screamed travel information over the intercom. Velda felt like she was in a prison show she and Tawny watched after work. Locked Up. Velda didn’t want to feel locked up anymore. She recounted her money. The cashier, an older woman in a grey vest, raised her hand and called to Velda, “Next!” She sounded like a buzzer. Her vest had slots for five pens. Velda liked the vest.
          “I need a ticket to Delano,” Velda said. “I’m going to Delano.” She pushed her cash across the counter through a small slot in the scratched plastic window . The counter was as worn down as Velda. Particle board showed through where shiny paint used to be.
          The woman in the vest said, “That will be $27.50.” The woman didn’t look up.
          “A ticket to Delano is $19.00,” Velda’s breath felt hot.
          The cashier looked down at Velda’s twenty-dollar bill. Velda was crying again. “There is a reservation fee, a security fee, and taxes, ma’am.” She looked beyond Velda to the line of customers still waiting. “The total is $27.50.”
          Velda looked at the money on the counter. She pulled out the crumpled five-dollar bill. Her dad’s five-dollar bill. It wasn’t enough. It would never be enough. Velda retrieved her money from the window slot. She took her duffle bag, walked away, and found an open seat in the waiting area. The seat had built-in separators so that Velda didn’t take two seats. Only one seat. Velda would never get more than her share. There was graffiti on the seat. Velda needed to make more money so she could go somewhere.
          There was a wedding reception at the Convention Center. 275 Salisbury steaks needed to be plated by 7pm. Maybe she could get her shift back. She could stop by the corner market on the way to her shift. Say hi to Simon and get two Cherry Cokes. She could use the money her dad gave her. And soon, Velda could somewhere. Do something, or something like that. The voice on the intercom screamed that the bus to Delano was delayed. Velda picked up her duffle bag and headed for the door.