Unsung Hero of the Mall Chicks
 
1.
 
Mandy worked the corn dog stand, always served them up too hot, always leaned too far over the counter, her smile a bit too wide, trying desperately too hard to make eye contact, any kind of contact, a kind word here, a nervous giggle there, way too much makeup, everything about her too much, too funny.
 
I spent my time leaning beneath the parapet of the arcade, wearing my change vest, trading quarters for tokens, ensuring no fights broke out, changing the vending machine, once in a while, cleaning, sweeping, certainly wiping down with glass cleaner all of the video game screens.
 
I'd buy a corn dog and lemonade, give out my most deprecating smile, wander over to the record shop, and gaze across towards the United Colors of Bennetton's.
 
Claire stocked the new batch of records and tapes, the burgeoning new wall of CDs. She would graze my ass, blow into my hair then offer me a sneer and a cigarette. She had pink Nagel eye highlights that blended into blue tint, punk spiky frosted hair held together by a Nike headband, she wore stone washed jeans with knee patches, bunched up leg warmers and high heels.
 
Yeah, I noticed Claire, took her to see Erasure, The Smiths, and The Cure and fucked her in the back seat of a white Mercury Cougar with an anarchy sticker stuck sideways on the bumper, the squiggly circled "A" looking more like an archery target than a defiant statement of rebellious individualism.
 
Claire always came back for more, sneering and smacking her gum and about the only thing that ever changed about her was a torn up blouse stretched over one shoulder and the goddamn headband.
 
Whom I wanted was Debbie, pure and unattainable and folding expensive clothes at Bennetton's.
 
She would always blink and sneeze when I entered the store, when I pretended to shop.
 
Debbie never moved from her folding table, the sequence of her hands mesmerizing, first one sleeve then the other, fold the shirt in half and turn it over with the collar showing.
 
I could repeat the cycle in my dreams and often did and I hummed when I joined her; folding clothes together in a Laundromat, at the barbershop, during study hall at school, her brown eyes never meeting mine and always looking over my head and beyond like I was never there.
 
2.
 
When the earthquake hit I was scraping gum off from underneath a foosball table. I felt a heavy sigh and the world settled as if unfolding one leg to sit more comfortably upon an easy chair.
 
The drop ceiling dropped. Debris scattered and clattered on all the arcade games, loosened mini basketballs bouncing around, a Ms. Pac-Man machine toppled over, the wall of prizes fell, a fire horn blaring and the sprinkler system shooting water arbitrarily all over the place.
 
The table saved me from the sharp broken glass of oblong fluorescent bulbs and my only thought was Debbie.
 
Debbie with her straight silk hair, finer than a spider's strand, softer than a single teardrop.
 
I quickly discounted the strewn tokens, jerked around a disoriented 12 year old, and headed for the food court.
 
I circumvented a downed electrical wire that was clattering on the mall tile like an angry snake being held by the tail.
 
I straightened a baby buggy, helped a mother off the floor, picked up her shopping bags, and pushed them all together, mother, baby, bags, disoriented 12 year old, out into the warm outside and the car alarmed parking lot.
 
Debbie with her sparkling lip gloss, shining like an exclamation mark, as moist as mother's milk.
 
The earthquake hit again seconds after I reentered the mall.  I took three, four, five dancing steps, crashed into the rapidly flooding men's bathroom.  The janitor was stumbling about with a bloody gash on his forehead and his pants still tangled around his knees.  I grabbed him like a drill sergeant, screamed in his face, threw him out the open door.  He pulled up his sagging pants and disappeared into the sun.
 
Debbie with the soft swell of curved bosom, titillating peeking above strained baby blue buttons, tantalizingly wrapped snug inside maroon push-up brassiere, perfume wafts from her healthy cleavage.
 
I got as far as the corn dog stand, the corn dog stand was as far as I got because habit made me peek over the counter where I beheld Mandy writhing silently, a goldfish out of water gulping air, hot oil splashed and spilled all over the left side of her face, her arm, she wallowed in a puddle of cooking oil, the industrial deep fryer overturned, rolling, and creating a small grooved arc on the slippery floor.

My first reaction was to tumble ice over the whole horrifying spectacle.  Mandy screamed.  I took a large cup to scoop out the displayed cooler, drenched her with lemonade, covering her completely, her arms, her torso, her face, drowning her until all the lemonade was spent.
 
Breathing hard, I carefully helped extract her from her uniform, her uniform that seemed ironed through her shoulder, her skin melted away with the fabric.  I picked her up and she weighed nothing, a sack of feathers whimpering into my neck, her left arm dangling useless.
 
Outside once again I went, we went ambling outside among the clamoring cars, finally adults taking over the scene, finally adults yelling frantically into hand held portable telephones, unwieldy instruments of succor bringing much needed instruments of relief and help.  I held Mandy out at arm's length and swung her, a gentle pendulum, trying my best to generate a constant cool breeze against her agonizing flesh.
 
She did not become heavy until I was herded towards an ambulance, a pair of EMTs attempted to seize Mandy.  I laid her tenderly on a gurney, felt drained and helpless as she was driven away from me.
 
3.
 
Claire had called in sick that day, slept the sound sleep of Nyquil on a goose feather bed, a fallen poster of Prince the only evidence that anything amiss had happened.
 
She tried bribing me by inviting me to go see Depeche Mode merely four days after the earthquake.  She said she could cheer me up, forget about troubles at the mall.
 
I worked long enough to clean up the arcade, set up new machines of Q-Bert, Dig Dug, and Galaxia, then handed in my vest, walked out knowing the rest of the stores would take months to reopen.
 
About three years later, I attended a Community College class with Mandy, an introductory class to data processing.
 
She always wore long sleeves and a scarf, the left side of her face a purple ink blot, she never said enough words to me, not enough to catch them when she spoke, never another familiar wide smile for me, she never leaned over again in my direction, no more giddy anticipation of my presence, she meticulously avoided eye contact, any kind of contact, and all my polite greetings.
 
I finally garnered the courage once to ask if she remembered anything of what transpired.  She  pursed her lips, the left side a grimace, I pursued the matter callously.
 
She squared her shoulders and announced the only memory she had was of a sickening ebb and tide, of twirling, of pain, of spinning with more pain, of a back and forth spinning and twisting with an unrelenting breeze augmenting her pain past the point of nausea, then the stupor of a hospital bed and the burn ward and the prolonged management of pain.
 
I faded in the halls after her revelation.  Finished with our shared class, I faded feebly out of her life forever and ever, amen.
 
I did see Debbie once.
 
She of the kaleidoscope hands, the cascading hair, she of the reflecting lips, of the once commanding but whispering erect nipples behind terry cloth halter tops, the hint of navel saying maybe, all the other sanitized hidden and unbidden hints of navel saying maybe baby.
 
I saw Debbie at the mall folding clothes, a robot folding clothes, first one leg then the other, fold the pants in half, turn them over with the zipper showing.
 
I wanted to ask her how she fared on that fateful day but she just looked up and above and beyond my head like I wasn't even there, like I have never been there, I was never there.