Winsom

Thought it would be fun to post the first story I’ve ever published. Here ya go. “Winsom.”

WINSOM

Bradenton, Florida, 1997

Hart’s desk shook.

“Hey, my coffee!” Hart sprang from his swivel chair and lifted the mug, wiping its bottom and sides to stay the drips, but the damage was done. He sighed, watching his mess of numbers and charts absorb the brown lukewarm liquid. His pencil holder, a Campbell’s can, fell over too. He was so over this shit.

“The hell, Winnie. What’s wrong with you, girl?” 

“I’m not wearing this,” Winnie said. Her hand was flat on his desk and when she brought it up, Hart saw her nametag. “That’s not what I go by. You know it ‘cause I told you.”

He reached over and picked it up. The white letters were raised like Braille on top of a shiny black bar that was stuck a little cock-eyed on the small square of plastic. They read: WINSOM S.

“Well that’s your name ain’t it?”

“I don’t go by it and I’m not wearing it so you’re gonna have to get me a new one.”

“Look, a computer spits these out.” Hart tossed it at her. She picked it up and threw it back.

“This’s made with a label maker.”

“Look, corporate sends ‘em. And if that’s what you put on your paperwork then that’s what -”

“I told you I don’t go by it. I go by Winnie. So change it or I ain’t wearing it.”

Hart put his head in his hands. “Winnie, come on. I don’t have a way to change it. That one took three weeks to get here as it is. Here, take it and just wear it for now, because I’m not about to have customers calling you ‘hey you.’” He looked at her for a beat and started waving some papers to dry. “Or, ‘hey you with the cursive on your neck’.”

Winnie grabbed a roll of masking tape that Hart was using as a paperweight and took a Sharpie from her apron. She wrote WINNIE S. and stuck it on the nametag. 

“Was that so hard?”

“Looks cheap.”

“So does my paycheck.” With that, she turned and left Hart’s office.

#

Hart got back to the task of cleaning up all that coffee. Fucking Winnie. He didn’t even want to hire her at first – she had no experience on a register – but as the interview went on, he grew to feel she might have potential. Plus, there was just something about her. Something he wanted to keep close. Something to figure out. 

When she introduced herself as Winnie he had to stop himself from saying ‘the Pooh?’. He’d have to be content with only calling her Pooh in his head. It was too clever to just let go. Underneath those tattoos, he thought she was as cute and roly-poly as that silly old bear and looked to him as sweet as a bowl of honey.

#

WINNIE S. was born Winsom Short in 1978 in a little Florida cracker town not an hour from where she lived now. In school, she had battled her way through a slew of nicknames from the middle-class kids that were meant to keep her in her place, the ones that stuck being ‘Lose-Some’ and later, ‘Shorty’, which they found funny because she was the first one in her grade to grow tall. She thought she had won the war with Winnie until everyone started calling her Pooh. She thought Win sounded cool, but that just bought on sleazy men who thought it was clever to start conversations with variations on “So, what do I win?” So she went back to Winnie but not before she toughened up her look. She gained weight; bulked up. Got a few tattoos in ‘don’t fuck with me’ places. Buzzed her hair. Wore men’s jeans all ripped up and Doc’s high tops. Looking hard was her last and best defense and even then on some days it wasn’t enough.

She had to wear tan pleated pants and a light yellow polo for work. Had to smile and make chit-chat and ask people if they found everything they needed and she had to keep it up even when they just grunted (or, in one case, chewed a fingernail off and spat it down on the conveyor) in reply. Six days a week from 6-3 she was without her full suit of armor. It was a lot. She kept as cheery as she could when she had customers and took every opportunity to let her rage fly when she didn’t. 

#

Hart made the rounds. Being a manager didn’t demand much. He put all the hard stuff on his assistant manager which left him with a lot of time to walk around looking important, print out and pretend to analyze profit and loss reports, and thumb through his secret stack of Hustlers. 

He stood across the aisle from Pooh’s register. He liked this Pooh, the one that smiled nice and caused customers to momentarily forget their prejudices about a girl as butch looking as she was the second she let loose with that old Florida charm. Southern charm technically, but not like Georgia southern. Not plantation and cotillion southern. Florida southern had some dirt on it. Made people feel like they could be themselves. 

Some folks, he noticed, went out of their way to go through her line. Even moms and old ladies. The men, though, who waited for her four people back when there were other registers completely open, stuck in his craw. She was his little bear, he thought. Bought and paid for at $6.25 an hour. 

#

Winnie saw Hart lingering again and wanted to stab him in both eyes with the pencil she kept behind her ear. He must have been forty years old; he was balding and she knew he had a couple kids from the pictures in his office but she didn’t know anything about their momma. Never saw any woman come in to kiss his cheek and hand him a packed lunch. Winnie figured she’d either run off or was fixing to.

Winnie never had a boyfriend. She thought she did once but it turned out to be a prank and that scared her off for good. She didn’t mind too much. She’d never been that interested in boys. In romance at all. Lately, she’d been getting more attention from the women. The bulldog-built women who drove trucks and came in at 6am for their 2-liters and packaged donuts, for sure, but also housewives. Pretty ones, too. She got winks and brushes with press-on nails attached to hands that lingered too long when she passed them pens to write their checks. 

That was all well and good and helped the time fly but Winnie just wanted to be left alone. 

#

Hart was looking through a Hustler and almost had put an O-shaped fist down his pants when Winnie walked in. Technically she knocked but it didn’t count if you opened the door at the same time. She knew what he was doing but gave him the professional courtesy of pretending not to notice. He sat up straight and threw the magazine under his desk. 

“Having trouble with the register tape again.”

“Okay. Just – just turn on the red light and go straighten up produce and I’ll come look at it in a minute. I was just about to get on a corporate call.”

“Sure,” she said. 

Hart watched the door close and started up again. He decided he didn’t need the magazine. He’d have to open his fly for this one. Almost getting caught by Pooh-Bear was a rush. 

#

Winnie didn’t go to produce. How could she mess around with eggplants and zucchini after what she saw? She went to the bakery instead, where, as always, Kit was icing cakes. Winnie liked to watch – it was satisfying to watch the icing come out of the little nozzle on the end of the bag. Kit had a different bag for every color and she lined them up in front of her in ROY G. BIV order. Right now she was piping little white scallops on the edges of a big sheet cake. It had light pink flowers and written in thin gel in the center was ‘Congradulations on your new baby girl.’ Winnie didn’t point out the spelling mistake. The customer probably wouldn’t notice. Kit would want to start all over again. And for that, the old bat would make her pay. 

Kit didn’t look up when she said “Kid, why you always in my business? Just lurking like a looky-loo. You make me nervous.”

Kit was one of the rare few at the store who didn’t seem to like Winnie no matter what. That just made Winnie try harder. She knew she should probably just let it be but she couldn’t help herself. She liked Kit and desperately wanted – needed even – the sentiment to be returned.

“Sorry Kit, I just like to watch how you do it. That takes skill. Talent. How long did it take you to learn?” 

Kit softened a tad in the shoulders but still didn’t look up from her piping. “Twenty years, longer’n you been on the planet.”

“Maybe you could teach me a little? Just for fun?”

Kit scoffed. “Teach you? And put me out of a job? They praying for me to retire. My seniority costs ‘em. They pay me eight they pay you – what, six? No way, kid. Go on back to your clickity-clackin’. Git.”

“My tape’s messed up. I have to wait for Hart to fix it.”

“Well just git somewhere else then. Mop something. Fetch carts. Lord almighty you sure are dense. Cain’t see when someone’s busy. That ink there’s traveled up to your big dumb boy-lookin’ head.”

Winnie thought it was funny when Kit got mad. Those mean words coming out of that little old lady, with her fat pearl earrings, mascara on her eyelids and blue hair all up in a net. It was something unexpected. Winnie was so hungry for something unexpected. 

#

Hart found Winnie in the back sitting on the edge of a pallet of Cheerios next to the walk-in freezer. That looked like a good idea, he thought. Florida was hot even indoors and corporate wouldn’t let them turn down the AC. 

She was smoking which wasn’t allowed, but jerking off in the office wasn’t allowed either, so he let it go. 

“Got one for me?” He said.

She looked up. “Shit.” She was about to grind it out on the concrete but Hart said don’t.

“Seriously. Let me have one.”

Winnie pulled one out and tossed it to him. She wasn’t about to risk grazing those nasty hands. It fell next to his ugly rubber soled shoe. 

“I need a light.”

“Out of matches.”

“Well let me light it with the end of yours.”

No way, she thought. That would be even worse. “Hang on,” she said. She dug deep in her backpack and pulled out a little Mickey Mouse lighter and threw that at his feet, too. 

Hart chuckled. “You know, you could be a little nicer to me. I know you’re capable. I see you being all nice and friendly to customers.”

She took a deep drag. “I’m doing my job. I’m on break now so I can be however I want.”

“Most people wanna be nice to their bosses. We’re the ones who set the schedules. Approve sick days and vacations. Dole out raises.”

“Look at me. Do I look like most people? Do I look like I give a shit?”

Hart felt his pulse quicken. He loved when Pooh got fiery. If she got to a certain point, he thought, maybe she’d need a way to get rid of all that energy. Maybe he’d start looking good to her or something.

“What?” he said. She’d been talking but he hadn’t been listening.

“I said let me be. I’m thinking.”

“What could you possibly be thinking about?” Me, maybe? He thought that but didn’t say it.

“Har-har,” Winnie said. “Maybe I’m thinking about putting this cigarette out on your face if you don’t let me have my break in peace.”

Hart’s smile fell. He didn’t know what to say. She’d absolutely crossed a line. If he walked away that would give her the upper hand and he’d probably never get it back. She’d just keep disrespecting him and then everyone would and he’d lose all authority. And then the store would go to Hell, and he’d be blamed, and fired, and then what? Have to ask his brother for a job at the hardware counter again? Make house keys and pretend to know what mulch was best and recoil hoses that people uncoiled because they needed to know how long they were and didn’t or couldn’t read the label? 

Winnie couldn’t believe she’d let that fly, but at the same time she felt justified because he was always staring at her and she had caught him with a dirty magazine and there’s only so much a girl can take. This was the kind of man who needed to be put in his place and she didn’t know any other way to do it except threaten to put a hole in him. 

Hart was still thinking. There was only so much he could do if Pooh had seen him with the Hustler. If she told on him that’d be all she wrote. He’d be shit-canned. And it would be way more embarrassing and immediate than being axed for a store gone to Hell. 

But maybe she didn’t see him?

Anyways, even if she did, look at her. They wouldn’t just take her word for it. 

He decided to risk it.

“Get your ass up off them Cheerios. I told you to fix the produce. And I’m writing you up for smoking.”

She put out her cigarette on the top of her Doc.

“Well, I’m not smoking no more. And good luck proving I ever was. Those security cameras have been dead since you hired me.”

He looked up. She was right. The little red light wasn’t flashing. God damn, did it ever end with this place?

“And you can’t curse at me, you creepy dumbshit,” she said. She stood up to leave and when she bent down to get her backpack Hart pushed her hard onto the pallet with both hands. She sailed through the cereal boxes and landed with her whole body face-first. 

She screamed. Hart ran. 

#

Winnie’s shock didn’t last long. It’s not like she’d never been pushed down before. She just thought the bullying would end after high school. But now she knew. It would never ever end.

She got up and adjusted herself. There might be some bruises later but she wasn’t hurt. Her name tag had come off the magnet backing and was on the floor. The tape had come off, too. WINSOM S. stared up at her. In her mind she heard a swell of voices chanting ‘Lose-Some, Lose-Some, Lose-Some, Lose-Some.’ She kicked the name tag and it flew under the pallet. But the voices didn’t stop. 

#

Hart didn’t know what to do so he went back to his office. His safe space. The lock on the door was broken so he put the lost-and-found box up against it. It looked like it was only full of jackets and umbrellas so he took his three sales achievement trophies off the shelf and threw them in there. He put his bowling ball bag on top of those. It might work. At the very least it would slow her down if she tried to come in and kick his ass.

She might call the cops. The best thing he could hope for was that she’d just quit and never show her face in the store again.

He stayed in his office until the assistant manager turned the lights off. After a half-hour of hearing no sound but that of scampering mice in the ceiling, he opened his door, creeped to his truck and drove home. There was a soft rain.

#

His face flushed when he saw Pooh’s bike chained up outside the store the next morning. “Goddamit,” he said. He thought about turning around, calling in sick. He did feel sick so it wasn’t a lie. But then he caught Pooh’s eye when the automatic doors opened as she walked by on the inside. She turned her head toward him and kept walking. He waited outside for ten minutes before going in and went straight to his office.

Pooh was in there, sitting at his desk. She had yellow dishwashing gloves on. His Hustlers were all spread out on his desk.

“Puh-Winnie,” he said. He caught himself but she noticed. That he was about to call her another one of those nicknames that refused to die made her see a deeper shade of red. She imagined him calling her that to his bowling buddies. To co-workers. To himself, in his head. She got up from the chair and took off the gloves and tossed them on top of the magazines. Then she started talking.

“Here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to pay me ten dollars an hour and promote me to assistant manager starting today and Kit’s going to teach me how to ice cakes and I’m going to do that all day and I’m never going back on the register, even if you’re shorthanded. That’s not gonna be my fucking problem, it’s gonna be your fucking problem. You’re going to let me take home that expired-next-day food and those dented cans you always make me throw out. You’re going to let me smoke in the warehouse. You’re not going to give me shit about how many bathroom breaks I take. You’re going to let me have paid sick days when I’m on the rag. You’re going to get me a fucking name tag that says WINNIE S. on it by tomorrow, I don’t care if you have to go to Staples and pay a rush charge out your own pocket. And you’re never going to talk to me again or look at me again or think those nasty thoughts about me again that I know you’re thinking. Or I tell corporate. I’ll tell them you felt me up, too.” She pointed at the magazines. “I took pictures of all this shit. Don’t believe I will?” 

Winnie pulled down her polo collar to reveal the whole tattoo. He had never known what it said because he could only see the tail end of one letter that peeked out from her shirt. He had asked her what it said a ton of times but she’d never say. In one fantasy, he imagined it said his name. 

But it didn’t, of course. He had to squint. He read it aloud. “I want to believe.” Below the script was a little flying saucer. It was from that X-Files show. He used to watch it with his wife. Before. Never really got it.

“Believe it,” Winnie said. 

“Winnie…” his voice was high and whiny, like a neutered dog that just got smacked. “I can’t do all that. Hell, people will think something.”

“‘Something?’ Dream on, loser. No one’s believing that. I’m getting what I’m due because I work hard. Because the customers like me. Because they come in my line on purpose and when they have to wait in line they grab more shit off the impulse buy rack and I make your dumb ass a lot of money with York’s and Old Farmer’s Almanacs. So this is what’s happening or I am taking you down. And if corporate won’t do nothing I’ll call the cops and if that don’t work I swear to god I will bash your head in with your bowling ball and I’ll laugh all the way to prison.”

With that, she walked out. Before she got to the door she pushed him. With both hands. Hard. 

#

Kit walked out and never came back when Hart told her she had to train Winnie. Before she left she squeezed out all the icing from all the bags in her little rainbow set-up and spit on every cake in the display case. Hart just let her. “You go, girl,” Winnie thought. Winnie told Hart she wasn’t cleaning it up. So he did.

With no one to train her, Winnie had to learn herself. There was a dusty manual on the bottom shelf behind the counter. It looked like it was printed before she was born. It would have to do.

She learned on the fly because she had to replace the ones Kit spat on and on top of that they had special orders coming in every day. For the first couple of months her cakes looked like shit and Hart fielded a lot of complaints and processed a lot of refunds but there was nothing he could do about it. At least Winnie knew how to spell congratulations.

#

Hart got himself fired five years later and corporate promoted Winnie. This wasn’t a meritocracy – assistant managers were always the next in line. Winnie didn’t know why he was let go but she could probably take a guess or ten. It was immediate. He hadn’t even have time to clean out his office.

When Winnie went in there to do it, she put on gloves again. She opened all his desk drawers, ready to be grossed out, but there was nothing in there but a few file folders. No Hustlers, no tissues, no stiff socks. Looking at the near-empty drawers, she felt a twinge of pity. He wouldn’t have had an opportunity to grab his stash before security came to escort him out. They just weren’t there. She wondered when he stopped bringing them in and if confronting him that one day had anything to do with it. 

When her name tag was updated with her new title she had them change her name, too.

WIN-SOME, it said. 

This was it. The variation she’d be sticking with. 

She felt like she’d earned it.