Cashout

I have to go to the Latham Mall tonight and cash a check. I always get the uneasy feeling that I’m going to get beat up or something when I go there, and so I usually try and do my banking elsewhere. The place seems to be some kind of hub for the Albany bus system, and the shady characters abound. It’s routine that you’ll hear some guy yelling at his woman, telling her to shut the fuck up while she cradles a suckling infant in sub-degree weather, because there’s just no way she’s getting a bite of his Slim Jim. And so it doesn’t surprise me tonight when I actually do hear this. I process the scene from a distance: The half-lit entrance sign of the mall bathes the bus stop in a neon glow, illuminating white cigarette tips and gum spackle and garbage encrusted in the ground. Hours and minutes that compose lifetimes have been spent staring at this same ground, and at this same garbage, waiting for the next bus to arrive, for the next trip out of there. The sum total of which has just been totally kicking it to our Slim Jim-eating protagonist, sending him completely over the edge. I hustle by and into the bank.



Waiting in line, I can see that most of the stores in the actual mall are totally closed up, barred by rattley chain fences. In fact, the whole entire length of the corridor, from my vantage point, seems totally closed down. It’s been a while since I’ve checked in on the Latham Mall, and so I decide to up the ante on the getting-jacked-up-factor and take a walk around. As a teenager, I remember my parents used to drop me and my friends off here on a Friday night for the standard go-round of juvenile debauchery. We would steal CDs from Caldors and smash the plastic theft guard on rocks in back of the mall, celebrating with illicitly purchased beer and cigarettes. The “theft guard,” while being large and unwieldy, was easy to put into a large jacket, and never seemed to set off the alarm. I still have some CDs from that period. I don’t know. There was also a KB Toys which was a favorite place to steal from, and a food court with an arcade. Mostly everything else is closed down now. What the mall is rife in, however, is unisex hair salons staffed by young-looking women who you see smoking cigarettes out in front of the bank. Why the mall needs three unisex hair salons is something which is beyond my comprehension. But there are in fact three of them. It could be some marketing scheme on behalf of some young go-getter, trying to capitalize of the vast faction of vagrant-types walking around in need of some grooming. I think about getting a Hair 2000 haircut and wonder exactly what that would entail (do they give you an outdated haircut, too? I wonder.). $10.50, a little out of my range. Another store you see a lot of are these faux-urban places, typically called “New York Style” or something, beckoning the young masses with garish-looking clothing adorned with blunt logory. The sketch factor rises. My favorite place turns out to be the dollar store, which features ski masks right in the window display, a whole barrage of them, just in case you want to jack someone up in the parking lot. What suprises me is that there’s not some kind of vendor selling malt liquor at a kiosk in the middle of this place. It would blend, I think, seamlessly, with the rest of the surroundings. And I wouldn’t be surprised to see someone with a brown paper bag walking around while shopping for the appropriate ski mask.

The entire rest of the mall is in some phase of disrepair and probably only has a few more years left. They will bulldoze it and turn it into a strip mall or something, only to create future ruins. But it’s kind of fun to revel in this moment of decline. And to take it all in. It’s nice to see this in the community that I live in. It’s kind of the inverse gentrification you see taking place in other cities around the nation. Except this is suburbia. My parents live here, and doctors and lawyers probably live in the backyard of this place. It’s pretty wild. There’s probably only a few more minutes left, though, so you should check it out while you can. We can take a field trip, even. I’ll buy you a soda from Hot Dog Charlies and we can play a game of Mortal Combat or something. It’s a good time, if you don’t get killed first.

The smell of you/ that's the lowdown

I am working at my 2nd job today, delivering holiday gift baskets for my aunt. It seems to combine the two things I don’t mind doing, driving and listening to music, and so it’s OK. Mostly, though, it makes me feel like the biggest loser. I take a turn and the baskets in the backseat topple over and onto the ground, the contents spilling out all over the mud-encrusted floor. I pick them up off the ground and compile what is to me, in my unversed understanding of the art of basket crafting, a basket which looks acutely like I ran it over with the car. Showing up to some random office, I produce the most hackneyed-looking arrangement even conceivable. “Oh, thanks,” the woman tell me trailing off, as I hustle for the door. “Happy Valentine’s Day,” I tell her.

I like these things, though, these kitsch arrangements, featuring coffee cups and sundry dollar store items. I like to imagine the people they are going to, and today, wondering about the kinds of relationships they’re having. The largest basket I deliver today goes to a walleyed-looking housewife who stoically answers the door, not returning any of my well wishes. “Bye,” she says, unimpressed. Whatever. Sometimes you look inside the cellophane wrap and see some pretty magnificent stuff, which could just be to compensate for the lack of splendor in the relationship. Although, maybe all those crossword puzzle books and coffee mugs with inane phrases only go to underscore the amazing-ness contained within that relationship. Who could say what those things signify? It feels nice, though, to make someone’s day. Even if I only am vicariously experiencing the moment, producing a basket that looks like it got run over by a train.