AN UNUSUAL INCIDENT AT THE OUTDOOR MALL DURING CHRISTMAS SEASON

She had to pee.

It was the holidays at Midway Mall, the outdoor shopping center with the fancy stores and the plazas and the coffee shops, all made up to look like some facsimile of how middle American imagines a European village. There was a fountain in the middle of one of the courtyards where, in lieu of water, there was a 30-foot pine tree, carolers surrounding it, clad in red robes with books of music, mouths opening and closing, singing carols Jeannie couldn’t hear.

She was inside at the food court with Sarah, her 6-year-old daughter. They had just gotten a tray of food and, right as they were going to sit down to eat, Jeannie had a sudden strong, overwhelming urge to pee. Maybe the new baby was pushing down on her bladder.

“Mommy?” she said.

“Yes, dear?”

“I got cheese, not pepperoni!”

“I’m sorry, honey. I can’t do anything about that right now.”

“But I don’t want it!” she said. She was whimpering now, lower lip quivering.

“Don't pout. Pick the pepperoni off.”

As she scanned the area for bathrooms, Jeannie realized now that she had designed the whole day wrong. They shopped all morning and were now laden with too many gifts, the gifts were bunched up all around their table. If she tried to take all the package to the car, she'd pee herself on the way there.

Jeannie had to pee so badly that she was regressing to acting like a little girl, subtly hopping up and down and just stopping at grabbing at her own crotch.

“What’s wrong, Mommy?” she asked.

“Nothing, sweetie,” she said, now looking around for someone to watch her daughter. They were seated in the corner where all the two-person tables were, and besides empty tables surrounding them, they were just pimply teenagers on dates. She didn’t trust them.

“Mommy, sit down. Pizza, Mommy!”

“I know, honey, just a minute.”

She kept perusing the room. She noticed nearby, just on the other side of the fake planters that divided the food court from the rest of the mall, a man in a one-piece blue jumpsuit with a cleaning cart, standing next to the water fountains.

“Stay here, baby,” she said as her daughter ate her slice crust first. Sarah smiled and nodded.

Jeannie approached the man, purposefully making herself look a little pitiful – she stuck her pregnant belly out, cradled it in her arms a bit.

“Excuse me, sir?”

He didn’t answer her at first, just looked at his watch and everywhere else besides at her.

“Sir,” she repeated. “Excuse me!”

He looked at her. “Yes, sorry?”

“Are you on break? I was wondering if you could look after my daughter for a moment?”

“Yeah, no. I’m not on break. I can’t, sorry.”

“If you’re not on break, then why are you just standing there?”

“I’m not – “ he said, trailing off. He quickly grabbed the handles of his cart and shuffled away.

“Nice. Thanks a lot,” she said after him. He didn’t look back.

The fancy mall, she thought to herself. Why did I have to go to the fancy mall? They usually went to Cherry Point on the south side of town. It’s nice – not as new as Cedar Creek, sure, but they still have nice stores, the ones that are left. And people aren’t as stuck-up there, that’s for sure. I mean, really, a cleaning guy on break who can’t keep an eye on your kid for a minute?

She went back to her daughter, still chewing the pizza.

“Do you want my pepperoni, Mommy?”

“No sweetie,” she said. “Just sit tight, Mommy will be back in just a sec.”

She looked around the room again and, across the way, right next to a pillar, she saw the security station. She walked over, her belly out and arms cradling again.

“Excuse me,” she asked the security guard, an old man whose uniform didn’t quite fit.

“Yes ma’am, what can I do for you?”

“Well,” she said, laughing a nervous little laugh. “I just sat down to eat lunch with my daughter over there and, to be frank with you, I immediately had to go pee. We’ve got our lunch and our presents we bought and my daughter’s already eating and I think the baby’s pressing down on my bladder because I can barely hold it, so to be frank with you, I was just hoping if you could watch my daughter real quick while I peed.”

She laughed again and he laughed too. They looked over to where her daughter was and she realized that from this angle, the planters obscured the view: she couldn't see her daughter at all.

“Well, normally I’d say yes, be happy to. Problem is, I can’t see your daughter from here. That wouldn’t be much of an issue, seeing as I could just go over there, but I have to stay at my post here for the time being, because I’m actually supposed to have ended my shift right now, but the man who’s relieving me is late. So I’m a bit stuck, I’m afraid.”

He shrugged and raised his hands with the palms up towards the ceiling.

“That’s OK,” she said, walking away. Fucking rent-a-cops, she thought.

She walked back to her daughter and crouched down so they were face-to-face.

She handed her phone to her daughter, opened up the game she folder with the games she liked the best.

“Listen, sweetie,” she said, using her most stern voice and jabbing the air with her index finger for emphasis, “Mommy has to go to the potty, OK? Stay here and eat your pizza. Do not talk to anyone, do not get up, do not do anything other than sit and eat. OK?”

“Not OK. I don't want to be here by myself.”

“I don't want that either, but I don't know what else to do and I'm about to burst.”

“Let me come with you.”

“No,” Jeannie said. “It will just be a minute.”

Sarah looked like she was about to cry.

“I'll be back before you know it. Don't be a crybaby. OK?”

“OK, Mommy.”

“That’s my big girl,” she said, and waddled as fast as she could to the bathroom.

Pregnancy: the constant pressure on your bladder. The pain in your back and legs. The low-level discomfort, feeling your skin stretching, tight and tight, like you're a suddenly a sausage. Even when you lay down, it was almost impossible to get comfortable. Hence all the pillows on her bed.

There were two stalls, one regular and, against the far wall, one handicapped. She chose the handicapped one, pulled down her maternity leggings over an engorged belly button with swollen hands down to her swollen feet.

Relief.

Without realizing it, she moaned a little. She laughed at herself. The stream continued. It was loud, echoed a little against the linoleum, drowning out the sound of the door opening again.

She sat back against the toilet tank as it continued. She felt great, both because she was able to relieve the pressure, but also just because she was able to have a moment to herself, away from her daughter.

It reminded her of the times when she’d put Sarah into bed at night when her ex-husband was still at work, and she had a little bit of time to herself to just sit, to absorb the day, to look in the mirror and remember where the years had gone.

Those were the weak moments, when she’d look at that reflection at herself, examine the slowly growing neck flesh that seemed to be getting bigger by the minute. She allow herself that, that moment to inspect and feel badly about her body. And then she would turn the light off and leave the room, maybe go sit in the dark and breathe. Because she would persevere and there was no alternative. She allowed herself that quick moment, but no more. And then she would move on.

She finished peeing and flushed the toilet. As she she stood up, she heard a man’s voice from above her. She looked up and to the left to see a man in a mask, pointing a gun at her and asking for her money.

**

Robert sat on a bench outside the food court, cell phone in hand. He acted like he was texting someone, but his phone didn’t have service. Instead, he was using its stopwatch function to mark down every time the security guys made a shift change. He wanted to make sure that when he hit, they were in transition and their confusion would help him slip away.

The security kiosk was right across from the food court, at the junction between two wings of the inside of the mall. He watched an older black man approach the guard kiosk with a little sad brown lunch bag in his hand. He relieved another old black man, who stood up from the chair, stretching. They talked for a minute, then the brown lunch bag one sat down and the other one left.

It was exactly 12:05PM. Perfect, he thought.

Satisfied, he stood up, walked to the left, passed by the security kiosk, tipped his hat to the guard and said good afternoon, to which the guard replied the same, continued down the wide hallway and stopped at a water fountain. He took a drink, a long one, as he looked to his left and saw the women’s restroom. He lifted his head up and smiled a bit, continued on, giving a light tap to the sign that read WOMEN right next to the door.

In the back seat of his Dodge Neon, Robert had a used uniform. It was crumpled into a ball at the moment, but he would iron it sometime in the next couple of days, he decided as he got into the driver’s seat and left the large parking lot.

He laughed to himself about how easy it was to waltz right in to the service area and steal the damn thing. He just walked down the security ramp and into the back door! No security card needed, no guard at the back door to keep tabs, only one closed-circuit camera, and it wasn’t even on a swivel or a motion-detector sensor, so he just side-stepped it. Went right into the little locker room that was empty. Grabbed the blue jumpsuit, made a mental note of where the cleaning carts were located (right outside the locker room door, in a row along the wall of an otherwise empty corridor with elevators at the end), and made his way back out, unseen.

The guys on Reddit were right. Their posts described it perfectly. It was easy. Nothing to it.

He laughed again to himself as he drove onto the interstate onramp. The Neon wouldn’t go over 60 or so without the whole body shaking, so he didn’t merge, just stayed in the far right lane.

He ran the plan through his mind again. Suit on, back door, cleaning cart, women's room, out of order sign, toilet stall, wait.

But first: he turned off at the exit 181 truck stop. His mind raced to those late nights, drinking cheap whiskey from pint bottles while on his mother’s laptop, searching Craigslist job postings, updating his resume endlessly, interviews with no callbacks. Nothing. No calls, no replies, no paychecks. He was on a message board when someone posted a news link about a robbery in New Zealand, where the robber held up women in bathrooms in a very clever way.

There was something about it that appealed to Robert immediately. He couldn’t say what it was, maybe the idea that someone was getting money without asking for it. Or maybe it was that they took money only from rich people. Or maybe it was that they were taking their lives into their own hands, finally.

Robert didn’t think of himself as a robber. He didn’t have a criminal record, had gotten slapped on the wrist for stealing candy from a drugstore when he was maybe 10, but that didn’t count. He wasn’t a bad guy, just in a bad situation. Besides, those Christmas presents for Jimmy weren’t going to pay for themselves.

He pulled into the truck stop lot at the far end and parked. He pulled out an old duffel bag from under the passenger seat and took off his coat and shirt. It was cold, so he grabbed the blouse with the padded bra and the jean jacket and put them on, then the wig, adjusting it in the rearview mirror, then the lipstick. Then he grabbed the gun from the bottom of the bag.

He walked into the truck stop, saw himself in the mirror and walked back out, across the cold concrete back to his car.

He got in, slammed the door, yelled at himself.

“What the fuck are you doing?” he said.

He looked in the rear-view and couldn't stand the sight.

But what was the other choice? Who'd buy the Christmas presents, who'd pay to move into an apartment of their own, who'd raise a glass of Gluhwein, warm from the stove smelling of cloves, knowing they made the holiday magical for the family?

So he took a shot of whiskey from the pint, did a few deep breathing exercises he found on Youtube, then put the wig back on and continued.

The truck stop was almost empty when he walked in. He went straight to the back, to the bathrooms. Out of habit, he almost went into the one marked MEN’S. He laughed to himself a little, then stepped left into the one marked WOMEN’S. Thankfully, no women were in it, so he did exactly what he had read on that message board: he pulled out his gun from his waistband and went into one of the stalls. He sat on the top of the tank with his feet on the seat so he couldn’t be seen.

And then he waited until finally a woman came in.

So when he walked out that door again, he felt differently than he had anticipated about the whole thing. He thought he would be ashamed of having done it, because that’s how he felt when he imagined going through it. But after it was done, as he quickly walked out of the bathroom with a purse in one hand and a balled-up bunch of clothes in the other, he felt oddly powerful. He felt right. He couldn’t stop grinning from ear to ear. He was no longer nervous, even when the clerk at the cash register said goodbye, he looked him straight in the eye and returned the greeting.

He could easily justify it to himself, and did: this woman lost so little, a bit of money and some clothes. Compared to what he had lost in the last six months – his job, his car, his house, his wife, his son, his autonomy, his way of life, his dignity. What she had lost was minor. Less than minor: insignificant. When you thought about it that way, who was the real victim, the big casualty in the grand scheme of things? Him. So he didn’t feel bad at all. Elated, in fact.

And he knew he'd do it again. Tomorrow, probably.

Yes, tomorrow.

**

Gary was distracted in church that morning. He was thinking about how to get more involved in good works, but didn't know exactly what he wanted to do, what form that might take. He let himself imagine it, daydream possibilities during the sermon.

“-- several interpretations of Judas’ story,” his preacher continued, hands gripping the pulpit. The Baptist congregation murmured.

“Was Judas greedy? Did Judas want his thirty pieces of silver?”

“Preach!” “Amen! “Go ahead!”

“Was Judas vain? Did he expect Jesus to overthrow the Romans in Israel on his behalf?”

He continued, ever more animated:

“Or was Judas simply evil? Did Satan enter him, make him betray God and man?”

Gasps from the audience now, and the preacher moved away from the pulpit.

“Whatever the reasons, Jesus knew he was going to be betrayed, knew that meal was his last supper, but he carried on with strength, with courage, with humility. Jesus did not complain, his not bemoan, did not lament his fate. Why? Because he was fulfilling God’s will! God’s very own will!”

“Amen!”

“As you leave here today, remember that your job is to act in Jesus’ image, to do as He would do. You should ask yourself: What would Jesus Do? That’s not just a bracelet, y’all. That’s a way of life.”

Laughter.

“As you leave here today, have strength, have courage, have humility. Do what Jesus would do, because that is God’s will.”

Volunteering at a soup kitchen? Helping the homeless? Missionary work? Gary let his mind wander as he drove out of the church parking lot after asking the preacher for a meeting later in the week to discuss ideas, turned right to head towards the highway. He stopped at a red light, waited for it to turn green, and as he eased on the gas to go through the intersection, he was T-boned by a truck.

The thing that startled him the most was how loud it was. Gary was well into his fifties, but had never been in a car wreck before, was confused about how he could be sitting in his driver’s seat, coasting along the road one minute, and seconds later he could be in the passenger seat with his car in someone’s front yard.

He watched steam come from the hood for about a minute, then felt all over his body to make sure he wasn’t hurt. He wasn’t. He got out of the passenger side door and started walking to the middle of the intersection to approach the other driver, only to find him putting his truck into gear and driving away. Gary’s eyes weren’t working exactly right, so he squinted to see the license plate while he yelled obscenities, but neither his eyes nor the obscenities worked.

A woman came out from her house across the street, and another driver stopped, and they both approached him, and they both asked him if he was OK, and he said he was, and they told him to sit down on the curb, and he did, and they asked him if it was a hit-and-run, and he nodded, and they asked him if he could see the license plate, and he shook his head, and they cursed the other driver, and he shook his head and thought about the sermon earlier, and he thought about what Jesus would do, and he decided that Jesus would forgive the other man and go to work.

So the firetruck came and the ambulance came and the police came and they took his information and they tried to get him to go to the hospital to get checked out, but Gary refused. They insisted and he insisted right back, and they realized quickly that they were dealing with a stubborn old man and they shrugged, quickly bandaged two cuts on his torso and temple and left. Gary went back to the car and grabbed his lunch before the tow-truck came and took his car away. A police officer gave Gary a ride to work and he too cursed the hit-and-run driver, told Gary he saw cases like this all the time, said it’s always some a-hole or d-head, and Gary shook his head again and tried to fulfill God’s will. He got out of the car and thanked the officer.

He was late for work. He felt bad. He approached the security kiosk and Steve saw him.

“It’s about time!” Steve said, then he realized Gary had a cut head.

“Sorry,” Gary said.

“Shit, what happened?”

“Car wreck.”

“Damn, you OK?”

“Yeah,” Gary said. “Just a cut here and then one on my ribs.”

“Shit,” Steve laughed. “Why’d you come in at all? If there’s a time to call off work, this is it!”

“I don’t know,” Gary said. “It just felt like the right thing to do.”

“Well shit,” Steve said, getting up and gathering his coat, “I’m just glad you’re OK.”

“I’m fine,” Gary said, putting down his lunch and smiling because he realized it was true.

Gary sat down as Steve walked out of the little booth and stopped short, mid-stride.

“Last chance,” he said. “I’ll stay if you want to go home. But once I walk out of this booth and close the door, I’m gone.”

“It’s fine. I’m fine,” Gary said.

“All right,” Steve said, continuing his walk and closing the door. “Take care of yourself, my man. Been a boring day so far.”

“Bye,” Gary said, and Steve waved back at him.

Gary settled in. He pulled his lunch from the brown bag, poured himself a cup of coffee from the little pot they kept below the desk.

He started eating while he looked around. It was a busy: the food court was packed, shoppers were coming in and out from stores, the escalators were crammed, the white noise of a thousand voices echoed through the wide halls.

Gary slumped in his seat as he chewed on his sandwich. Yep, it would probably be a boring day at work, he thought. And then he remembered the sermon, and vowed to himself to keep it in mind occasionally, to think in as many actions as possible to live up to that image of Jesus, and he smiled because he thought that the car wreck was his first test and he passed it – he was strong, he was courageous, he was filled with humility. What would Jesus do? Turn the other cheek.

He pulled a pocket bible out of the brown bag to look up a verse. Just then, Gary caught a flash in the hallway and looked up. Here’s something you don’t see every day: a pregnant lady running through the hallway, tackling and then pummeling one of the cleaning guys. And she was buck naked.

It wasn’t going to be a boring day at work after all, he thought. He dropped his sandwich and ran over to find out what was going on.

**

Sarah sat in the center of the room. To her right, her mother was being questioned behind a closed-door by a detective from the police station. To her left, the man her mother had been hitting, still in his cleaning crew suit, but handcuffed to a chair. No one was questioning him, he was just sitting alone, his head down.

Gary, the security guard, came in from the concourse with a drink for her. It was hot chocolate. He placed in the middle of the table, stuck a candy cane in it, and winked at her.

“Thank you,” she said.

She drank the drink and tilted her head to the door to hear what her mother was telling the police. She could only catch snippets:

“-- had to pee really bad – “

“-- he made me strip naked --”

“-- some kind of gun, I don't really know –“

“When can I see my mom?” Sarah asked.

“When they're done questioning her,” Gary the security guard said.

“Why can't I see her now?”

“It will just be a few more minutes,” he said. “Now, can you tell me what you saw today?”

She couldn't quite put into words how it felt when she saw her mom in the core of the food court on top of that man and she ran and her mom picked her up and hugged her in the middle of everything when everyone seemed to be staring their way and the world swirled around them. And how proud she was that, in that moment, she didn't even think to cry.

“I don't know, I just saw my mom fighting the man on the cleaning crew and she was naked, so I ran to her and she saw me and she stopped hitting him and she hugged me and that's when you got to us. The next thing I remember is the police taking us back here. That's all I know. Do you know what happened?”

“No,” Gary said. “I don't really know. I guess I shouldn't say.”

She set her drink down.

“Can you tell me, please? I just want to know what’s going on.”

She watched him look at the right door, look at the left door. He sighed, then looked at her, put his finger to his lips and leaned in.

“OK, apparently there's a scam going around where bad guys steal from people – women, always – by going into the women's bathrooms at malls and stores and taking their money and clothes. That's all I know, but don't tell anyone I told you, OK? It's our secret.”

Sarah nodded.

“And the guy my mom was hitting did that to her?”

Gary nodded.

“Why would he do that? It's Christmas.”

“I know. But it seems as though maybe this man was down on his luck and decided to take it out on someone else today.”

She looked over at him again. “Is he going to be OK?”

Gary looked over at him too. “I hope so. I think so. God willing.”

“I hope so too.”

“Your mom is too. Your mom is a strong woman. She’ll be OK.”

Just then, her mother walked out of the room, the police officers behind her.

One of them gave her mom a card and told her to call if she remembered anything else.

“Let's go home,” her mother said to her.

As they left, Gary the security guard asked them if he could talk to the man after they were done with their interview. They asked why and he held up a small bible he had in his lunch bag.

They opened the door to the other room and the man in there looked up at them, then caught Sarah's eye for a second. He looked back down at his feet as the door closed.

They walked back through the concourse. They walked back across the food court. They walked past carolers, on break now. Past the the high-priced stores, the plaza, the big Christmas tree towering above it all.

It was dark now. The parking lot lights glowed but it was freezing, snow beginning to fall.

Sarah strapped herself into her car seat, as her mom put their presents in the trunk and got in the cold car, could see her breath in the darkness.

Her mom sat a moment in the driver's seat, then put the keys in the ignition and turned it. The car sputtered, didn’t turn on. She tried again, and again, and once more. Nothing.

“What's wrong, Mommy?”

Jeannie laughed. “The car won't start.”

For the first time all day, Sarah started crying. She couldn’t help herself.

Her mother looked back at her, watching her closely, allowing it for a moment. Then, in a quiet voice, told her to stop.