Anyway, there was one link in this week’s post that I simply couldn’t avoid.
“Get your opinion heard! Try food! Get paid!” it read.
Of course I was interested. I like these kinds of things. I was once in a focus group when a child. Oddly enough, that group had been made to respond to one year's iteration of Lay’s potato chips. I proceeded to sign up. They were conducting these surveys in Stamford, Connecticut; Bradenton, Florida; and one nearby in a town called Edsville.
I had never been to Edsville. I don’t know this area yet. I sought directions online. The public transportation in other cities is deeply confusing to me.
I sent a message to Nat:
“Hey would it be worth it for me to go to Edsville? It’s saying I’d have to transfer to a ‘GCTA’ bus. Sounds like a pain in the ass.”
Once I had sent that message, the answer became apparent. A couple years ago, my therapist criticized my way of letting pessimism stop me from trying things that, I guess, require effort. He chided that, if I just declare everything a “pain in the ass,” I'll never get anything done. As the French might say, 'he had raison.' And, after all, there was probably a decent amount of money involved for very little work, so I was willing to give it a shot.
“Yeah, I’ve been there,” Nat finally responded an hour later.
Two days later, I was on the train. I had gotten very little sleep, and worried that I had left too late. I was anxious about whether the bus would be on time. I wished I had drunk more water that morning. But, eventually, I arrived at a station that was on one of the farther ends of the subway system, nearing the edge of the city. There were significantly fewer buildings there. I thought about getting a drink from the vending machine, but I didn’t want to find out too late that it was broken and walk away a mark. So I waited for eleven minutes. Then a bus striped in blue, white, and yellow pulled up.
Over the ride's entire duration, I was somehow the only person onboard. The route took about fourteen minutes, and I was dropped off at the “Forrest Avenue” stop. The bus door opened to a patch of grass next to a gravel driveway. I made sure to step down carefully because my ankle was still sore.
The surrounding area seemed to be little more than a district of warehouses. My destination was just ahead in what appeared to be a plaza with modest signage. I was mentally preparing myself to look for “Suite 3A,” only to find it immediately. The other suites were unoccupied. I entered a carpeted waiting room which was mostly evacuated, save for a blond woman in a pink blouse who sat behind one of those highly secure teller windows with a grilled microphone mounted in the glass and a pneumatic compartment for transferring objects and documents.
“Hey! Are you here for the taste test?” she said, perking up at my arrival.
I thanked goodness for being spared the burden of explaining myself.
“Yeah, I think so,” I said, laughing disingenuously.
She bade me sign in before directing me down the hall and through a set of doors I would find at its end.
The hallway was fairly compact. There were no lights on, and there were wooden doors on either side. The doors toward which I had been directed were impenetrably dark, covered in tinted film. I pulled the door on the left first, which was wrong, and then I correctly pulled open the right door. Behind it was an astonishingly large grocery store, illumined from overhead with floodlights. It, too, was oddly unpopulated. There was a lot of beige. White and beige flooring. Beige metal shelves, whose endcaps were a slightly augmented shade of beige. I was tempted to look around and shop for a moment, but my confusion paralyzed me.
After nearly two minutes, I received a message. I checked my phone to see a text from Nat.
“I’m in the Café,” it read.
I walked on, obeying a compulsion to head toward the right. The Café would likely be tucked away in that direction. I passed an arrangement of partially deflated mylar balloons, hovering above flowers in water that smelled two days expired. There was a beige wall with faux-wood molding. Beyond that, I discovered an area containing a single oval table surrounded by three plastic cafeteria chairs.
At this point, I was tired and not a little bit thirsty. I occupied one of the seats, facing the direction from whence I had come. This was unmistakably the Café, where I hoped to meet my friend.
Some time elapsed. A series of light-green lockers lined the walls. They were for employees, I assumed.
Suddenly, a light began flashing. Music started playing. A white guy in a blue blazer with a Tin Tin haircut and a massive smile walked up to the table and began shouting into a microphone.
“Are you guys ready?!”
The response was an uproarious applause, issuing from the store’s intercom.
“It’s time for Rest Season!”
I slouched in my chair, hoping to evade anyone's notice. But the harangue kept going.
“As you all know, Rest Season is sponsored by Rest Brewery, located here, in Edsville!”
A calculated break to be filled with applause.
“Our contestants today will be sitting at this table for a grand total of three weeks! For the entirety of Rest Season!”
Thirty seconds of applause followed before abruptly ceasing.
The store then darkened while the host stood still, the trained smile draining from his face. There was a camera rigged atop a tripod just to the right of my table. Any sound I had ambiently heard before had been swiftly discontinued.
The only other contestant was a young woman with light brown hair; she wore a green cardigan. Apparently, she had been there since before I had even showed up. I never managed to get a look at her face, for it was bowed onto the table, curtained by unbathed locks.
After a moment of downtime, she sat up and raised her hand. The host, too, lifted his head and raised his eyebrows at her. All at once: the lights brightened, the music and the applause restarted, and the host rattled off another scripted line.
“It looks like one of our contestants is thirsty!”
The applause, here, seemed to pick up a note of cruelty. The host, holding a cue card, motioned his hand toward the other side of the room.
“You’re in luck!" he said. "We’ve provided drinks and snacks for you to enjoy!”
He indicated a metal rolling cart with a tray and wire shelves, atop which stood what appeared to be a massive bottle of Pedialyte, surrounded by a formation of short cups. The music swelling, my colleague hesitantly rose from her seat and shuffled over to the cart, struggling to pry a cup from the suction of another cup in which it was sleeved. Her difficulties were multiplied by the child-proof cap on the bottle in the center of the cart. Keeping her head bowed, she dispensed a portion of liquid into her cup, inevitably dribbling a few drops down the ribbed plastic side of her modest vessel. All the while, the host stood in place, making barely visible adjustments to his smile. The camera craned and swept around the whole of the scene on its hydraulic gibbet.
Taking care to dispel any hint of avarice she might betray, the woman returned to the table with only a meagre volume of fluid in her cup. The show halted again when she took her seat.
Only then did I remember that this was not why I had come here. Why had I come here? Surely, I had been headed for a 'store?' I wanted to pose my questions to some aide or crew member, but saw that no such person was in attendance. Besides, it had become clear to me that it would not be in my best interest to attract scrutiny. I stayed low in my seat, almost compromising my spinal health with the angle of my slouch; I even had to adjust myself or else risk sliding out of the chair. But any movement might attract attention. I chose to risk it and flatten myself against the back of the chair.
Nothing resulted from this. My guess was then that the sole signal I could give for recognition would be to raise my hand. I found that a small relief.
The other sitter at the table was staring into her cup far more than draining its contents into her mouth. I mused that a good swig of Pedialyte would be the perfect answer to the touch of dehydration I was beginning to feel. I looked over at the cart where the bottle waited. I thought, if the show would only take another pause, I could head over there and get a cup for myself, given I avoid any interaction with the host.
I sat for a moment just contemplating the move, and then I went for it. But the mere act of placing my hand on the table to bolster my weight seemed to retrigger the cacophony of the show.
“Our contestants also get to try the new beer, by Rest Brewery,” the host shouted, “Rest Saison!”
Just then, I felt a sensation similar to being exposed to an open industrial oven. Looking up, I beheld a familiar sight: a short man appeared from around a corner, pushing a dolly, upon which was propped a massive silver keg with a large blue sticker label that said “Rest Saison” in white lettering. He pushed the dolly midway into the room, and sloppily slammed its bottom onto the ground before ejecting the hand truck out from beneath it.
He was bathed in sweat. I lit upon his nametag: “Roy.” The radiating heat followed him off of the soundstage, but my urge to suck him off was as febrile as ever.
The host turned toward the camera.
“That’s right: our contestants are free to drink an unlimited amount of Rest Saison for the remaining week of the season! Rest Saison is a refreshing saison made locally!”
He continued reciting this uninspired copy, describing the beer’s brewing process, and my frustration grew. Beer was the last thing I wanted. I was thirsty. If I were to swill some sedimental craft beer, it would only enhance my thirst.
I told myself internally that, before they dimmed the lights again, I would need to drink Pedialyte. While the host was preoccupied, I decided to stand up and finally make my way to that beverage.
“...For any occasion! You can also–” the host broke off.
He stared directly at me and stood up. I stood still.
“Do you require nourishment?” he asked.
I began to respond by shaking my head, but was stopped when he seemed to give a command to someone out of view.
“Luis, will you bring the nourishment?”
An aged, gloomy man in a jumpsuit and worn baseball cap slowly emerged from a utility closet behind a false wall and, without any awareness of his own movements or the thoughts which motivated them, tossed a nearly depleted box of BelVita cookies onto the table. He then returned to his closet.
The host once more beamed into the camera.
“Alright, we’ve got nourishment.”
I alternated my gaze between the family-size box of shattered cookies and the host. A shout came out of me:
“I don’t need any nourishment, okay? I don’t need any fucking nourishment!"
The show paused again. Silence.
I remained standing, unconfident in any course-correction from there. I didn't remember ever having indulged in such an outburst during my adult life. I took a breath and looked back up to find the host in his practiced posture of rest. His eyes were mostly affixed to his shoes; one of his hands appeared to fidget in his pocket while the thumb of his other hand caressed the microphone's power switch. Across from him hung a humongous camera with blue tape intentionally stuck in a haphazard manner all over its exterior.
No one sat at the table. I reached into the box for a BelVita cookie, fingers closing around the foil of a single-serving package, and exited the area at my leisure. I expected someone to arrest me bodily, but no one ever did. Having forgotten how I had reached this large chamber, I simply continued toward the shadows at the back, eventually coming to a set of heavy steel doors. I reached for the handle on the right door. When I pushed and it wouldn't open, I felt a slight panic rise in me. But then I tried the left handle and the door opened easily.
I walked into a large, dark warehouse. Looking back at the doors through which I had just passed, I realized how short the soundstage wall really was. On this side, I could see large sheets of studded plywood. Along this barrier were profuse entanglements of wires and tall stage lights. With the little bit of light peeking from the grocery store stage, I could see a third set of doors across the way.
I walked outside, onto a loading dock. Beyond the dock, there was a large paved area, like a parking lot. Beyond the parking lot, there was a vast green field with thickly plumed trees guarding the horizon. The sky was liquid and pure, true blue.
I looked around. I was lost.
I turned right, and headed down the stairs. I started wandering around the property until I saw the indented area connecting the building I had just left to another loading dock. The pavement here was painted mostly blue, and it had the texture of a high school running track. I could see workers in the distance, all wearing blue jumpsuits. Some were driving forklifts, some were pushing deep laundry bins. I just kept walking. I didn’t know whether any of them would try to stop me or offer help.
My heels had begun to ache. There was a numb pain in my ankle. I had been wandering along the walls of this facility for about twenty minutes, trying not to interact with anyone. Eventually, I resolved to talk to a man pushing one of the laundry bins. His name tag said “Malik."
“Hey, do you know how to get out of here?” I asked.
"Yeah I’ve been here for about a year, it’s a pretty good job,” he said, smiling like a man who wanted to be my mother.
I looked at him for a moment. He turned and waved me in his direction.
“Come on, I’ll show you,” he said.
In short order, I found my way home. Passing through the vestibule, I stopped at the mailbox. There was a piece of mail addressed to me, with three perforated edges. It was a check from Waite’s Distribution. I looked at the attached pay stub and realized that the check was made out to compensate me for three weeks of work - from September 23rd to October 14th, with forty-two consecutive twelve-hour shifts.
In sum, I had been awarded: a sixty-five dollar check.
God damn it.
But then, in the middle of my shadowed living room (from which, no doubt, I would soon be evicted), I thought the following words aloud:
"This could get me more of those kettle chips."
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