Mass

 

by Richard Downing

“The superior man understands what is right; the inferior man understands what will sell.”
—Confucius

“There were more mass shootings than days last year”
—ABC News

It’s not like I pulled the trigger. Nat was getting ready to give them away—SOTTERVILLE STRONG!!! t-shirts—at the memorial rally for last week’s mass shooting. Or was it this week’s? He’d been selling the shirts, or trying to, for just twenty bucks a pop. Cheap enough, he thought. But they weren’t getting out there. OK, a few were—but only after he’d knocked them down to ten. Made in China. Bought in bulk online. Ready for a quick iron-on or sprayed stencil, whichever Nat could produce faster—but always emblazoned across the chest with the same sentiment and the appropriate town, city, or school. Ten bucks. Sure, he’d still make a few dollars, but the market just wasn’t there anymore. Not like it had been. Not like the old days—back in April. Like it or not, some things you just get used to. Mass shootings had become—Nat reached for the word—passé. Read about one, you’ve read about them all, and even Nat had to agree there was some truth to that. The old Natter had found himself on the wrong end of the marketing curve:

Mass shootings not trending = Nat’s t-shirts not selling.

Business 101.

Nope, mass shootings just aren’t up to snuff anymore. Nat chuckled at what he knew wasn’t funny on any level then purposefully stubbed the toe of his boot hard three times into the grassy field—shit, shit, shit—uprooting a clump of dandelions and scattering their fluff balls in a delicate, white swirl choreographed by the late afternoon’s chilly, here-then-there breeze. He leaned over and rested an open palm on a bag stuffed with unsold tees—then he looked at the camera. Pretty soon Nat was edging closer to the one news team that had bothered to cover the rally—Action10 Sotterville “We’re on Your Side”—and before long he was giving away, on live television, his remaining t-shirts—which is to say most of them—to a group of Sotterville High School cheerleaders, who had arrived fully uniformed except for their pompoms which had been replaced with small bouquets not unlike the ones being closed out at the Walgreen’s on the corner of Elmhurst and 5th. Nat, himself, before the rally, had considered buying one—to help smooth things over with the landlady—but had opted for a Red Bull instead. Long day ahead.

Nat eased himself and his shoulder bag full of shirts into a position directly between the Action10 camera and the group of non-cheering cheerleaders, who were busying themselves dispersing single flowers from their bouquets to a dwindling crowd more receptive to flowers than imported, polyester blends. A half smile to the camera lens and Nat was busy draping a SOTTERVILLE STRONG!!! t-shirt—gratis, they’re free, girls, from me to you—across the shoulders of each cheerleader, even the black girl, who knocked his hand away twice before accepting that a t-shirt was about to be draped over her shoulders and twisting in such a manner that allowed the t-shirt and only the t-shirt to touch her. The head cheerleader—Nat was making an assumption here—roots aside, she was the blondest one—was soon holding her t-shirt out and open toward the camera. Each hand held up a shoulder of the tee, her orange and white SOTTERVILLE HS megaphone grasped not completely awkwardly in her left hand. It was apparent to Nat that she too would have found herself on the wrong end of the marketing curve had she been marketing anything other than herself. Which is exactly what she’s selling. Just look at the camera take her in. This is someone to take seriously. She certainly seems to.

Nat wondered for the briefest moment Why the megaphone? then just as quickly realized he didn’t give two shits why. He also, briefly, suggested the girls swap their cheerleading tops with the big white S’s on them for his SOTTERVILLE STRONG!!! tees. Boom, boom, off, on, and you’re good to go. Who’s to notice in this crowd? The black cheerleader answered by scrunching up her cheeks then swiveling her face toward the camera—everyone wants their fifteen minutes, Nat thought—while the Nat-anointed head cheerleader started looking around for this newly alleged crowd.

Assuming a crowd that just wasn’t there, the blondest among them was now shouting repeatedly through her megaphone: “SOTTERVILLE STRONG!!! SOTTERVILLE STRONG!!!” A few voices joined in, and then they didn’t, as their owners disappeared into the remaining SUVs and pickups. But Nat was still there, offering up three very distinct “SOTTERVILLE STRONG!!!”s—one to the blondest cheerleader, one to a dispersing—dispersed?—crowd, and a third—his most impassioned—to the camera. Like his megaphoned compatriot, he too held up a t-shirt as he implored a grieving community that consisted of mostly an empty fairgrounds and windblown sandwich wrappers to be a special kind of strong. Nat made sure that www.Nat’sShirts.com, which was printed just below whatever was emblazoned across any of his shirts, was visible to all of Action10’s viewers.

Both of them, Nat thought.

The Action10 team left, which meant the camera was gone. Nat considered snatching the shirt back from blondie, but she still had that megaphone and there was that incident—alleged—from Nat’s past. Maybe just amble over and talk. Ask her how she liked the shirt. Was it her size? He had others. The late-afternoon sun was still burning. Nat was sweating. He was tired. Mostly broke. And he could so do her right now.

•

Solemn face, push not pushy. Solemn face, push not pushy. This was Nat’s mantra, all he would allow into his mind when things were going well, when the tees were going fast. And for a while they had been—and not not because Nat had a slight squint to his eyes, a natural squint, something he was born with—it was just how Nat was—or how he looked, to others, which was … thoughtful, yes, as if behind that slight squint he was pondering something, something important, yes. It might be something you just said … or just did. Nat’s slight squint said that’s important to me, what you just said or did or are about to say or do is important to me … meaningful. Nat was well aware of his eyes, of how they were different—my business partners he liked to call them—of how his upper and lower lids squeezed together ever so slightly and oh so naturally conveyed I care … about you, about you … buying a shirt.

Nat intuitively understood that less could be more—just shut up and let his face—his eyes—do the talking. The selling. This was business. And Nat had spent many hours with his two business partners practicing in front of a mirror to get business just right.

More than once he’d just sat by his display of shirts and his JUST $20 sign and looked up at a rally goer—a candle holder perhaps, or a teen with a cross pressed against her chest, or a mom with a stuffed toy—and tightened his squint just a touch as he had so often to the image in the mirror—The Extra Thoughtful he called that look—and more than once the person, after making eye contact, after holding Extra Thoughtful eye contact, had pressed a twenty into his hand, squeezed that hand in some meaningful way, then lifted a shirt gently from the stack, given a nod that said both of us, we know, we just know, and walked away.

What Nat knew: One more t-shirt sold.

•

Nat was neither proud nor ashamed of the incident—the one that kept him from snatching back a shirt from a cheerleader he could so do. He’d never really gotten a handle on how so do could become so did—he just said so do when he saw certain women. Thought it, to be more accurate. Who doesn’t? And here Nat knew he had a point.

Nat often felt he had a point—and that, combined with an often precarious blend of beer and energy drinks—Nat was a Red Bull man—it was the name—Red. Bull.—he liked the name, he appreciated good marketing, always had, it’s what got him into t-shirts—and that blend of his having a point to make along with his having drunk what would turn out to be too many beers and too many Red Bulls is exactly what led to the incident.

It was the last event—his last event—during the Texas swing. Nat called the post-mass-shooting rallies events. For him, they were. His Brownsville STRONG!!! tees had been moving briskly—and at twenty per. It was still a time when the tears would last though many news cycles. Oh, and there were tears. And flowers. And homemade crosses. And stuffed animals. And pictures—many enlarged—of the precise moments that best captured how a grieving family and friends had chosen to remember, visually, the son-daughter-mother-father-grandpa-grammie-best-friend-neighbor-co-worker lost to a mad man’s bullet.

Mostly, Nat avoided the pictures. Better just to look solemn and sell shirts. That’s just good business.

Nat had found himself feeling pretty good about the day and wanting to feel even better, so he’d been frequenting the always-well-stocked-for-all-events cooler he kept in the back of his van. A beer. A Red Bull chaser. Sell tees. Repeat. Soon enough Nat was feeling rich and wired and righteous. He had a tendency to lean toward righteousness somewhere around the fifth beer and the fourth Red Bull. After that—after the righteousness stage—he pretty much free-based a continuum of emotions until something happened.

He was never sure exactly when the righteousness stage kicked in because he would only try to pinpoint the exact moment, the exact number, the exact parameters—of beers and Bulls—the next day when he and his throbbing, incredibly buzzing head were not really primed for mathematical equations. Five and four. It was his best guess.

And something did happen. At Brownsville. As Nat was becoming rich and wired. He was down to his last tee. All the others gone. Twenty bucks each. Wads of bills bulging his pockets so much he felt he was a rock star. Nat laughed at the thought, the image, him on stage—mic, lights and smoke, girls screaming, Nat bulging. One shirt to go.

A woman, about forty—Nat remembered thinking she didn’t look particularly grief-stricken—he remembered thinking Fuck the solemn face for this one, just sell her the shirt, and she’d asked to try it on and he’d said sure and she was shielded from the crowd by where they were standing behind his van and he thought he was going to get to see something but she gave him a twirling gesture with her raised right index finger, maybe left, and he’d turned around far enough so he couldn’t see her and she’d told him wait until I tell you to look and you can tell me how it fits and Nat remembered thinking he hoped it would be on the small side so at least he’d get to see something but on the other hand it would be good if it fit just right so he’d be done with all the shirts and could drive home or wherever and get a celebratory fucked up on and how could it be taking so long to try on one goddamned t-shirt so he looked and of course she was long gone so he opened the rear van doors and flipped the lid on the cooler and real fast downed as best he could remember beer five and Red Bull four which he figured was right because he could feel his pissed-off-ness blowing right into righteousness but either way he was going to find that bitch which he did over in the parking lot about to get into a blue Chevy Malibu which he only remembered because his dad had been a big Chevy sedan man for as long as he’d stuck around and he, Nat, not his dad, in a single Red Bull motion had snatched the tee up and over her head and away from her now suddenly completely bare upper torso and he remembered in this order breasts, screams, police and what’s with all the money in your pockets and yes he did do some time and yes there is a record in Brownsville for sure and it’s all bullshit the incident all bullshit as far as Nat was concerned.

Plus, he had to give the t-shirt back.

•

The news shows reflected the changing market—it was why Nat watched them. It wasn’t that long ago that at least four persons known killed and dozens injured, among the dead is the suspected shooter would be good for who knows how many news cycles?

A lot, that’s how many. That’s a lot of rallies, a lot of shirts. What’s the matter with people? What’s happened to them? It’s sick. They’re sick. Who cares about so-and-so’s butt transplant, some goddamned boy band breakup, or some jackass tweet? People are being shot! Killed! And I’ve got fucking shirts to sell.

Nat’s landlady was being a grade-A bitch. “Where’s my rent? Where’s my rent?” Sounds like a fucking parrot—except some parrots aren’t stupid, can say more than one goddamned thing. Nat was pretty good with the stories—or excuses as she’d begun calling them—because Nat knew the story didn’t matter—only the delivery mattered, the tone, the eyes, the slight head tilt—down and to the side—at just the right moment—stories or t-shirts, both the same—it’s marketing—business.

Unless you start repeating them—the stories. That’s when they become excuses. That’s where the beer and the Red Bull came in—or shouldn’t have come in. I can smell it on your breath, Nat, just like I can smell a rat. Where’s my rent?

The next day Nat, buzzed, throbbing head, would wish he’d remembered to remember that he already given his landlady the cancer story. About his mother. Right or left breast. Stage 3? 4? Nat wasn’t sure which stage he’d said, he just knew—now—that it was the second time for his mother lying near death, sick on chemo, bald or balding and he’d been spending every cent on gas to visit, to buy whatever he could buy her to make her last days as comfortable as they could be for a mother with either stage 3 or stage 4, right- or left-breast breast cancer and it would have remained a workable story good for who knows how many more months of delayed rent payments had Nat, in a beer, energy-drink hyper state, chosen not to break—for the second first time—the tragic news of his mother’s diagnosis to a landlady about to reinterpret story as excuse as you’ve got three days, asshole.

•

In the right light—natural, not too dim, not too bright—Nat had thought more than once that when his landlady’s head was turned just right, at just the right angle—chin slightly up, jaw line arcing almost modestly back in a curve that made her cheekbones, in this perfect light, seem even higher than they were, that with her hair pulled straight back, severely, in a way that mildly aroused Nat, straight back and tied with a nondescript ribbon that, Nat thought, with the slightest pull would release each strand to cascade over and across two sturdy shoulders draped with the straps—the hint of the straps—of a black lace bra, shoulders that invited Nat to take them, one with each hand, firmly, and pull them—her—out of her light and into his until Nat wondered if it was the just-right light or the beer-with-Red-Bull chasers—no matter, she looked, at these moments, to Nat, OK, available, good even—yes, he could do her.

•

It had, Nat had thought at the time, been a good business decision to lag on the rent, to invest the rent money in new orders of “blank” tees, each new shirt, as per usual, pre-lettered with only

_____________ STRONG!!!

www.Nat’sShirts.com

across the front. A quick spray over a stencil of whatever particular city, school, or nightclub had suffered the shooting and boom, Nat was good to go. The website? He did know somebody who knew somebody who said he could, for the right price, a fair price, make it more user friendly, approachable, engaging—exist. But that was way down Nat’s priority list. The shirts—the stenciled shirts—they were the thing.

On the days before a post-shooting rally Nat’s apartment would be enshrouded with tees—on the bed, over opened dresser drawers, across the back of the single chair pulled out from his small, round table, on the top of that small, round table, the refrigerator, draped over the dishes in the sink, the shower rod, drape rod—all laid out to dry. The next day, after the shirts had dried, as Nat was folding them, he would sometimes sense that a shirt was missing. Hadn’t he put one over the television? Over the back of the sofa? Nat was never sure. Besides him only his landlady had a key. No matter. What he was sure of was—what he had been sure of, at least in the early going—was that even one shirt short he would be making a good return on his investment.

•

Fucking news’s fault and Nat once again had a point. Lead with the sirens, the jumpy cellphone videos of people running, hands in the air as they file by heavily armed SWAT teams, tears, tears, lots of tears and choked words and Why? Why? and the next-day stories of the victims, who they were, what they wanted to be, why each was special to someone, the someone talking on camera, and GoFundMe pages, and rallies, oh dear God yes, show the goddamned rallies, announce the goddamned rallies, show the candles and the acoustic guitars and the arm-in-arm swaying and singing and the make-shift crosses and the finger-drawn air crosses from lowered nose tip to chest to right shoulder to left, show it all—lead with it. Like you used to. For God’s sake. This is business.

And I’m out in three days.

But, no, when the unexpected becomes the expected, it doesn’t lead—it just doesn’t—not on the morning news, the afternoon news, or the nightly news. No lead, no sales. This too was business, Nat knew. Brownsville had been all over, everywhere. Politicians were even making sure they knew where it was before issuing statements of grief and anger and I can protect you a lot better than my opponent could ever hope to. Brownsville had usurped days of coverage. Multiple rallies. Time enough to stencil Brownsville in front of STRONG!!! on hundreds of tees and still pack the cooler and get the van headed in the right direction.

But Brownsville became another border town which became a Dallas suburb which became a series of Walmart shootings or did a mosque come before those or was it in the middle and which mosque or Baptist church, black or white, or school—pick your level, elementary through high—and pretty soon you weren’t sure which came first the fucking chicken or the fucking egg and what did it matter when all that mattered was mass shootings were no longer leading news cycles that only seemed to care which rapper or billionaire or megachurch preacher had molested—how many?—boys or girls or women and who tweeted what and what was tweeted back and retweeted and who’s going to be impeached today and Jesus Christ the rent is due and the business news is not good. At all.

•

The steps weren’t steady—his, not the ones to his apartment. Three days were up—more than enough time for his landlady to have rummaged through his things—which Nat had come to assume she’d always done. He’d come to gather up what was left—what he wanted of what was left, which meant a cursory feel under the sofa’s seat cushions for God knows what, and clothes, and maybe a couple of canned foods not too far past their Best use by dates. Nat was on the fence about getting the remainder of his _______ STRONG!!! t-shirts. Another mass shooting? Too bad. So sad. What’re we streaming tonight? The market had tanked. Nat had missed what was now the obvious down curve. He’d failed Business 101. Too caught up in making easy money and looking in the fucking mirror.

Simple as that.

Best just to leave them. Nat was pretty wired. Best not to have to carry all those boxes down the stairs. He’d stolen a four-pack of Red Bull and a six-pack of whatever beer was closest to the Red Bull—just walked into the convenience store—his regular convenience store—lifted them out of the cooler, and walked out. Just like that. He’d heard a voice—the clerk’s—yell What the fuck, Nat! but he was pretty buzzed going in, and then he was in his van and gone. Just like that. And soon so were the beers and the Red Bull chasers. He knew the surveillance cameras had probably been on, but what the fuck, Natter, sometimes you got to live in the moment.

And here he was. Dusk. He parked the van down the street from his—his?—apartment. Easy in, easy out, he thought. He laughed. He was going to do his apartment. And he was wired and drunk—wrunked—he laughed again—wrunked up. Big time.

The figure up ahead, in the last of the light, leaning against the NO PARKING sign that kept at least some vehicles from blocking the entrance—his entrance—became, as he stepped closer, a woman, leaning, staring up, intently up—at the stars? a bird? a rabid bat? the apartment windows across the street?

Twilight. The last of the sunlight transitioning to early moonlight, glows and flickered shadows strobing through slender elm leaves twitching in the not-quite-still evening air. Nat kept walking as the remaining light filtered through one of the three elms the city had planted in front of his apartment to appease some long-forgotten voices. The figure that had become a woman continued to lean against the sign, her posture relaxed—or was Nat assuming? Her head was lost in the still-trembling array of shadow, light and darkened leaves, long and hanging, swaying to the rhythm of a dying breeze. A single shaft fell on the figure’s—the woman’s—chest. Nat could see this as he stepped closer, could see … lettering, lettering on the shirt—the face still in shadow—the t-shirt—the tee-shirt that read in the now motionless light SOTTERVILLE STRONG!!!

What the—it’s my shirt. It’s her. And it’s my fucking shirt. Sotterville, my ass! Nat wasn’t sure why he thought Sotterville, my ass! or why he was, at this moment, mixing up Sotterville for Brownsville—but Sotterville, my ass just sounded right—and he was wrunked and pissed—and somewhat wobbly.

Nat squinted. He thought he saw her nostrils flare, take in the soon-to-be night air, but it had gotten too dark for Nat to know for sure. This time the bitch gives it up for good. A rush of Red Bull-induced adrenalin. A forward lunge. Both hands reaching out, one on each side, firmly gripping the bottom of the tee. A single thrust—straight up. Over her head and off. An explosion of hair. The shirt in his hands.

What Nat noticed next: No bare breasts. One bra, black. His landlady. His landlady screaming.

The sirens would come later, the police, the news teams.