Wilting, Part I

An essay I did for my nonfiction writing class last quarter.

Standing over the dead lady’s body, I had to wonder to myself how I got into this situation.  All I wanted was a nice job so I could earn some spending money.  I didn’t expect I’d be sending off the dead with a fistful of flowers.  As much as I was fighting it, I forced myself closer to the casket.  Morbid curiosity held my gaze to the painted shell that was her face.  I was thoroughly freaked out but could not turn away.  Perhaps I was looking for a twitch, a rise in her chest or even a disembodied voice, any reason to bolt from the room, the building, and my new job.  As I laid the flowers on the smooth, blood red wood of the casket, I just knew the lady’s hollowed hand would jut out for my jugular.  After I nestled the ornate arrangement of flowers onto the casket, I quickly pulled away out of the dead woman’s reach.  She didn’t budge.  This was the first time in my life I was actually thankful that a woman didn’t put the moves on me.  I left the funeral home, jumped into the company van, and pondered how I ended up rendezvousing with the rigor mortised. 
        
It all started when I turned sixteen.  A lot of people look forward to their sixteenth birthday.  For most of the kids in my town, it’s an age that means a driver’s license, a car and their first tantalizing taste of independence.  It’s when most kids start to bloom.  For me, it meant a rusty truck and manual labor.  In high school, I joined the Vocational Industrial Clubs of America, or VICA, program.  In the program, I was allowed to leave school early to go to my job.  The head of the program was Coach Grimes, a heavyset and aggressive P.E. teacher who never spoke below a holler.  It was up to him to set us up with jobs based on our interests.  Unfortunately, if your interests don’t include repairing automobiles or frying chicken, then job choices in my town are slim pickins.  When I put down “art” as my interest, I was quite curious to see what Coach Grimes would come up with.  A few days later, I sat down next to him at his cluttered desk and with his noxious nicotine breath and peek-a-boo nose hairs, he told me I would be working at Young’s Florist, a local flower shop.  I can’t say I was exactly ecstatic.  I’m not much for frills and flowers, but Coach Grimes had gotten the job for me so I didn’t object.  I did ask him why he chose a florist and he said it was the only artistic, creative job he could find in the area.  Fair enough.  Opp, Alabama isn’t exactly a mecca for the arts.  He said I would be able to help with the flower arrangements, and while it wasn’t exactly the kind of art I was interested in, it was a new creative avenue for me so I looked forward to it.

I walked into the shop to meet my boss and was immediately inundated with ridiculously overpriced plastic angels,  that lined the walls and seemed to cover every inch of the cramped building.  I weaved myself through the jungle of knickknacks and made my way to the cash register area, a space littered with papers and handwritten notes and polices taped down onto the counter.  Rebecca Young, the owner of Young’s Florist, stood propped on the counter, waiting for me.  A faint smell of smoke permeated the air toward to the back of the building where Rebecca stood.  She was an aging southern belle, past her prime by a good thirty years.  She looked like she had been in beauty pageants when she was younger but never took off the makeup.  She wore so much eye shadow that her eyelids drooped over her corneas.  My mom later told me her eye condition was most likely due to her being buzzed all the time.  Looking back, it makes sense.  It would account for her overly laidback attitude and slightly slurred speech, which at the time, I had simply mistaken for her unique southern drawl.  Her thick red lipstick had migrated to her yellow teeth. Her store-bought black hair was pulled into a severe bun.  She wore a blue denim button up shirt with the Young’s Florist logo monogrammed on the upper right corner of the shirt, just below the collar.  Around each finger she wore large, gaudy rings and in between her bejeweled fingers, an ever present cigarette.  Of course, she wasn’t holding one on that first day.  That was her effort to make a good first impression.  We exchanged greetings and she got right down to the point, saying, “This is a purdy place and a purdy business but working here ain’t purdy.  You think you can handle that?”  Being the naïve sixteen-year-old that I was, I simply said, “Yes, ma’am.”  And she, being the apathetic chimney that she was, didn’t bother to elaborate.  That was my entire interview.  I went into work the next day.

Unfortunately, after I clocked in, Rebecca informed me that my main job would be delivery.  I told Rebecca I was geographically challenged and had been under the impression that I would get to help arrange the flowers.  She lit up a cigarette and laughed a gritty laugh, as if she was juggling rocks in her throat.  She said that was Jan’s job.  Jan was a snotty lady whose jowls hung down like a bulldog’s.  Her mouth was forever in the form of a frown.  I could tell this lady was carrying around some baggage.  She was perpetually pissed off and always walked around like she had a corncob stuck up her butt.  She definitely didn’t dress to impress, always showing up for work in a sloppy shirt and shorts and the same pair of three-dollar brown rubber sandals that were sold in the shop.  Through the sandals, I noticed her feet were in about as bad condition as her personality.  She was a mean lady but she also made a mean flower arrangement.  I never saw her smile.  When it was cold outside, she’d wear white socks underneath those rubber sandals to keep her calluses warm.  In the Young’s Florist hierarchy, Jan was second in command, after Rebecca.  Next came a full figured gal with crunchy blond curls named Mandy.  She had a sweet name but a sour personality.  I was beginning to notice a trend.  Mandy was the one who had previously done all the dirty work in the shop, but since I was there, she put it all on me.  Since she used to do everything that was now expected of me, she was the one who trained me while Rebecca sat back in the same blue denim shirt, day after day, chain smoking.  Naturally, I was ranked at the very bottom.

When Rebecca said the florist business wasn’t pretty, she wasn’t lying.  Not only did I have to deliver the flowers but I also had to prepare them for Jan.  This involved sorting the flowers, cutting the stems (and in the process, cutting myself with the thorns), carrying the various flowers around in large pails of water, organizing them in the freezer, and fetching the ones she needed for certain arrangements.  Then there was the sh

op work, which involved schlepping around heavy boxes filled with ornaments, packing and unpacking boxes, helping take down and put up seasonal items around the shop, and running personal errands for Rebecca. 

We didn’t have lunch breaks.  We were allowed to eat only when there wasn’t anything to do, but as soon as Jan had finished an arrangement, it was time to put down the sandwich and pick up the van keys.  That freaking van gave me trouble.  During my first few deliveries, Mandy went with me to show me the ropes and how to load and unload the flowers in the back of the van so none of the precious petals were crushed.  I was already nervous about driving a different vehicle other than my own.  At sixteen, I still hadn’t had very much experience on the road.  I was even more apprehensive about driving because I felt like I was operating a tank instead of a van.  Each time I sat in the driver’s seat, anxiety filled the interior of the van faster than the smoke from Mandy’s Marlboro.  Yes, she smoked too.  I didn’t fare much better when I was alone in that van, either.  I got lost, spiraled into a ditch on more than one occasion and even managed to break off the driver’s side mirror while trying to squeeze through a lane of the local drive-through bank…

Click here for conclusion.