HOLIDAY BLUES - A Short Story by Mimi Colbert for the BLUE ISSUE

Clint, age twenty-two was a proud ‘nerd’. He had been good at school for as long as he could remember; he was also that guy you could go to for facts on way too many television shows for someone with a 4.0 average. Clint credited reading all of the comic books his dad had read with him growing up to why he was good in school.

Every Wednesday Clint and his dad would go to the local comic book shop and get at least eight comics minimum to read for the week. They’d been doing that since Clint was old enough to read starting with old Superman comics and sometimes Batman just to give him the basics before Clint spread out his reading choices to weirder titles from DC, Vertigo, Marvel, Image, Zenescope and whatever other publisher was suggested to him. He liked all kinds of stories, but he was always a sucker for token superhero ones.

Clint blamed that for the fact his dad named him Clint instead of say, Charles, Josh, Matthew or any other name he could get. The only reason he knew his dad had gotten away with convicting his mom to name him Clint was because it happened to be the same name as her grandfather she’d been close to all of her life. He knew in his gut it wasn’t because of Clint Eastwood either.

Now that was Clint’s childhood and most of his actual ‘adult’ life. He’d been staring wistfully at the NOW HIRING sign in the front window of his comic book store for what seemed like years. Clint had a lot of odd jobs to help chip in with the bills and prove to his family that he could have a job and maintain his 4.0 averages for school. Clint had graduated back in May and was now happily working at his 'go to' comic book store. Clint got paid in cash every Sunday or Monday and worked three to six days a week depending on when he was needed.

The downside? Clint had just gotten the job two weeks before Thanksgiving, so he got the Thanksgiving Day shift. He had only been a customer at the store and popped up every Wednesday and basically every other Friday night to talk with the employees about the comics he’d read and what everyone else was up to. He liked the employees when he was a consumer but now that he worked with them he didn’t know how to feel about any of them.

First, he had Bobbie, a perky brunette who he always liked talking to. She was a few years older than him and he always had a crush on her even though he’d met her boyfriend Tyler long before he started working with her. Despite his one-sided crush, the two got along great and he dealt with his feelings the best he could. By acting like they didn’t exist.

Then he had Jesse, a guy who was as nerdy as he was. Jesse was the ‘hardcore’ geek type that analyzed every movie trailer, photo and article to have an array of theories before a movie came out. They hit it off instantly.

His least favorite co-workers were Kevin and Ryan, they had been working at the store for a few years and Clint hadn’t liked them when he’d been a customer. Kevin and Ryan were college roommates and went to NYU together, so Clint really didn’t get why they wanted to work at the store with the schooling they were getting. Wasn’t NYU supposed to be a certification to get a job at every big-name place ever? Now that Clint knew them on a first name basis he wished he didn’t know them at all. Clint hoped they’d quit sooner rather than later because the stores boss Michael was a bit of a hard-ass.

8 am, Thanksgiving Morning.

‘‘Did you count the register?’’ Ryan was a broad-shouldered jock that not so secretly read comics frequently enough that the boss had hired him. Plus, he looked like he modeled on the side so when he stood as a greeter at the front of the store he brought in a lot of customers.

‘‘Yes I counted the register,’’ Clint was, in fact, logging the amount of cash onto the day sheet as he spoke, ‘‘did you sweep the courtyard?’’ He didn’t look up at Ryan as he spoke. It was just too early.

‘‘No, I was getting breakfast. See?’’ Ryan held up a cup of Starbucks in one hand and a croissant in the other. ‘‘Go sweep the courtyard. I’ll be in the back if you need me.’’ Ryan started to walk off before he added, ‘‘don’t need me.’’

‘‘I wouldn’t dream of it.’’ Clint muttered under his breath before he put his overly worn leather jacket back on and grabbed the broom from behind the counter to sweep out the courtyard.

Thanks to the fact Clint was a born and raised New Yorker, he was used to working in New York City’s crappy November weather. It was damp, and he felt the warmth instantly leave his body when he walked out of the semi-warm store and into the small courtyard in front of the store. His beanie kept on sliding forward and he fixed it obsessively. The only good thing about working on Thanksgiving was that he could stand around and read comics when he didn’t have customers. It was an unspoken rule to do this as much as possible when the boss wasn’t around.

Clint finished sweeping up the damp fall leaves the best he could into the dustpan that they kept outside and tossed them out in the trash. Once he was done, he returned the broom behind the counter and picked his haul to read for the day ahead.

Several hours later, Clint had read all the comics he didn’t buy on Wednesday this week because he knew he’d be working on Thanksgiving. It was over twelve comics now, plus another eight that caught his eye since Ryan hadn’t left the back. Clint preferred to work on his own when he was scheduled to work with Ryan or Kevin.

As he flipped through his thirteenth book, this one on some loud-mouthed mercenary he didn’t really care for but thought was funny sometimes, the front door opened and in walked a family of four. They looked like a family that walked out of an old Gap advertisement. Two adorable little boys, dressed better than the Gap but still dressed nicer than Clint felt he ever looked.

He collected the family’s bags and gave them a bag check label that read SPEEDY. The children ran for the figurines and the mother slowly walked after them. They screamed and knocking comics out of their shelves and Clint internally groaned. The father smiled sheepishly at Clint but did nothing to stop his loud children and instead picked out comics that were clearly for him and not the kids.

Clint rubbed the back of his neck, adjusted his beanie that he hadn’t taken off from earlier and made his way to pick up the comics the children had knocked out of the shelf. As he knelt to pick up the comics, he expected Ryan to come out of the back but thankfully that hadn’t happened just yet.

Instead, Bobbie walked in through the front door with two bags of food in her hands. This made Clint nearly drop the comics he was holding but he composed himself at the last minute and instead gave her a tiny wave.

‘‘Happy Thanksgiving Clint,’’ Bobbie said with a grin as she waved back at him. She had placed the food down behind the register and shrugged off her coat to hang up on the coat rack they kept hidden behind statue displays. ‘‘Sorry you’re working today.’’

‘‘Happy Thanksgiving Bobbie,’’ Clint quickly put the comics away, glanced towards the family who currently playing with the Star Wars figures and making loud sound effect noises. ‘‘Shouldn’t you be off in Cali for dinner with the family?’’

‘‘Yeah, funny story about that, Tyler didn’t buy the tickets like he was supposed to and my parents all kinds of pissed off at him. So, he’s off at his parent's house in Pennsylvania and I thought I’d enjoy it more bothering you at work.’’ Bobbie shrugged her shoulders, ‘‘I’d get a flight out to California but the flights are all booked, it’s not happening. But I’ll see them all for Christmas so it’s not the end of the world.’’

‘‘Oh,’’ Clint tried his best not to smile at everything Bobbie was saying. Tyler seemed like a nice guy but Clint still hoped that they broke up. He seemed like he was using her and screwing anything that stood still long enough when Bobbie wasn’t around. ‘‘Well thank you, Ryan’s in the back and-’’

A high-pitched shriek interrupted Clint followed by the sound of boxes falling.

‘‘Hold that thought,’’ Clint said turning around and running towards the back of the store where the children had knocked over all of the tiny Pop Vinyl figurines that had been growing in popularity rapidly over the past few years. The boxes fell on top of one of the kids that now happily played with the Pop toy that had come out of the box in its hands. The parents were speaking rapidly in French and Ryan was now out of the back-office glaring at Clint.

‘‘Hey um, Sir? Ma’am? Are you all right? Kids?’’ Clint felt that everything he said was completely and utterly wrong. Shouldn’t he have asked about the kids first? It was just a bunch of boxes and they weren’t all that high up but the kids were tiny, maybe five years old. The boxes could still hurt them, especially with the figures inside. Why did they have to open-up all of the boxes that fell on them?

The father still had comics in his hands from before and shoved money from his wallet into Clint’s hands. ‘‘My children aren’t hurt but this is for the damage,’’ the father waved his hand around as if to gesture to everything in the store, ‘‘that my little ones caused.’’

Clint blinked taking the cash even though he had a feeling he shouldn’t. He knew people were supposed to pay for things they broke but really all the kids did was knock things over and open some of the Pop boxes. Of course, his boss wouldn’t see it that way. ‘‘I, thank you. As long as no one hurts, I uh that’s what really matters. I’m happy no one’s hurt.’’

‘‘I’ll take these as well.’’ The father handed Clint his comic and plucked the opened boxes from the floor and placed them into Clint’s hands. ‘‘Come children, we’ve caused enough trouble for one day.’’

‘‘Okay papa.’’ The little boy who Clint thought shrieked said skipping towards the front of the store. The mother took the remaining child’s hand and led him towards the exit and the father trailed off after them, whistling loudly. Clint quickly gave Bobbie the comics and empty Pop boxes to ring up before he worked on fixing the two-dozen boxes that had fallen from the children’s mess.

Ryan hadn’t lifted a finger to help Clint with boxes. Instead, he stood, his arms crossed over his chest muttering words such as ‘‘You should’ve been watching them.’’ And ‘‘You could get fired for this.’’ While Clint redid the display and Bobbie rang up the customers even though she wasn’t scheduled to work.

Clint finished the display, glanced up at Ryan and said in a bored tone, mainly because he knew it pissed him off, ‘‘Are you done?’’

‘‘And then- wait, what? Yeah, okay, I’m done. Fucking asshole.’’

‘‘Language,’’ Clint said shaking his head at Ryan disapprovingly. ‘‘Go back to watching movies in the back. I’m sorry about the Pop incident but they didn’t sue, we should be happy.’’

‘‘You say that now but one time-’’ Ryan began to go into an in-depth story that about the one time a customer did, in fact, try to sue the store but Clint wasn’t all that interested. He just wanted to go up to the front of the store and eat whatever food Bobbie had brought. Clint nodded at all the right times and attempted to look interested before he finally walked back up front where Bobbie was polishing some of the display statues.

‘‘Did Ryan tell you about that old guy that sued?’’ Bobbie asked with an arched eyebrow. Bobbie was a strawberry blonde with bottle green glass eyes that Clint thoroughly enjoyed staring at while they spoke. Plus, eye contact was kind of preferred in conversations instead of listening to hormones and staring at her ample chest.

‘‘Yeah but all I heard was blah, blah, blah.’’ Clint shrugged his shoulders and wished for the up tenth time that the store had a break room, so he could sit down. ‘‘What’d you bring us to eat?’’ ‘‘The stores are basically all out of turkey, so I got us rotisserie chicken and some dumplings from that Chinese food place you like bringing to work.’’ Bobbie smiled at Clint and he couldn’t help but smile back. The store always had a chill ‘vibe’ to it but, as Clint stood around the cashier eating chicken and dumplings for Thanksgiving dinner with the girl he had a crush on, it didn’t feel so bad.

The End