Retail workers think there’s nothing worse than working retail during the holiday season. And they might be right, but! Who do they call when Mr. or Mrs. A-Hole gets completely out of hand? Right, the supervisor or manager. And who do those folks call when their customer recovery tactics fail? Security.
It’s not a competition, but at least the store-roaming sales associates and cashiers get some mild-mannered customers and the occasional jovial gem. All we typically get are people so pissed off that they’ve dug deeply into their opinion and are demanding to speak with the owner, or with corporate, or with whoever can right the grievous injustice of them not being able to ride roughshod over the staff.
My name’s Gavel Chavez. Yes, Gavel is an odd name for a woman, but—if you couldn’t tell—my parents wanted me to be a judge. And, in the most pedestrian and underpaid way possible, I sort of am.
A radio call for an entrance violation at the new Games! Games!! G-G-Gamez!!! store—or Six-G as we called it—on the second floor had rumbled my radio. Because it was only one footprint unit wide, I had walked right past the cluttered, overstocked niche gaming shop with tall narrow rows twice before dispatch finally said it was between Hot Topic and Foot Locker.
I had heard security departments in Las Vegas were better, but so far they had the same barely competent people as Dallas, as Albuquerque, as Flagstaff…
Playing “Last Christmas” by Wham!, Six-G smelled like cardboard, paper, and packing peanuts. A few weeks ago, they had rushed to open for Black Friday, and it still showed in the never-dwindling stack of collapsed boxes they were trying to move as Build Your Own Games on one side of the sale sign and Disposable Game Boards on the other.
The keep-us-from-going-under desperation was strong in here.
Six-G uniforms were baby-blue smocks over blue jeans, which made the employees look like they should be working in a fabric store. Then again, I shouldn’t jab. Modeled after Las Vegas Metro Police Department, the mall’s security uniforms were tan polyester and equally unflattering.
Even if all the employees weren’t pointing to the tall, broad-shouldered, bald black man facing the corner reading a book and wearing a worn-in brown leather mid-calf trench coat, black jeans, and black sneakers, I knew—from the id’imp standing on his left shoulder—that he was the problem.
Being a manifestation of the person who crafted them, id’imps had a bad rep because—as the name of their kind implies—they are mostly id. Yes, as in Freud’s theoretical constructs. Which, for the imps, usually meant barely controlled impulses, embarrassing displays of how the person felt, and Freudian slips.
Because of the normal lack of control, there were some stores that didn’t want id’imps inside. Usually they were highbrow places like art galleries or fancy-dress shops. Other stores, like Octavia’s Secret and Cosmos Candy, encourage shoppers to bring in their id’imps. Six-G probably didn’t want them to knock over any of the high stacks of dust-gathering merchandise.
Mine had humiliated me so often that I regretted making her and always left her in her sanctum—mystical word for cage—at home. Of course, I could always call her to me, but why would I ever do that?
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