Fulfillment Center - Part II
Last week in “Fulfillment Center,” Amber sees an opportunity when an Amazon warehouse opens in her town: she can work nights to earn a living, while using days to take care of her dying father. She reports to work for her first night shift and meets Charlie.
Over our night shifts, Charlie and I struck up a strange friendship. I told him about my dying father, and he tried to get me into anime. As we stuffed strap-ons and diffusers and yoga pants into boxes, Charlie told me about the new show he was watching.
“So it’s this gambling school,” he said. “Your rank in the academy is based on how well you play poker. Everyone’s super rich, so if you win a gamble, you’re basically set for life. But if you lose and can’t pay the winner, you have to sell your future.”
“Sounds dumb,” I said. “Is there anything I can watch to, like, learn nursing? Is there some kind of hospital anime where they tell you how to set bones?”
“Probably,” he said. “But this show got me thinking. These kids who lose, they get their lives taken away, but someone else gets to plan their futures. All they have to do is follow along.”
“So what are the life plans for these kids? I mean, they’re not good, right?”
I filled a box and sent it down the conveyor belt. Another order: novelty socks, cheap headphones, AAA batteries. Charlie sighed, rocking on the balls of his feet. It was only 2 AM.
“I mean, that’s not really the point,” he said. “In the show, the futures suck. But sometimes I’m like—why can’t someone just tell me what to do with my life? If they gave me a checklist, I’d just do everything, you know what I’m saying?”
“You’re still so young,” I said, though I didn’t know how much older I was. “You could do everything.”
“Like what?” He scoffed, wrenching the flaps of a box shut. “I don’t even have a car.”
“You’re making money. You’ll have one soon,” I said. “And then what? You can literally do anything. Like go to college, or marry someone, or join the military.”
“You sound like my big sister,” Charlie said. “You have any siblings?’”
“I’m the youngest. My older sister’s not around that much.”
“Huh.” He clucked his tongue and finished sealing a box. “Actually, I know what it is. You always sound like you know what you’re talking about.”
This was something Angelo had said to me once. It was part of the reason he’d nominated me for Class Speaker. I don’t know why you’re so shy, he’d say. You’re so convincing when you talk. And it was true that I was good at group projects and telling others what to do.
A self-starter, I thought.
“How about this,” I said. “Just like in the anime, we’ll make a list for our futures.”
“It doesn’t work like that. We have to make life plans for each other.”
“What’s mine?”
“Well first of all, you get into nursing school. Then your professor’s like, shit, she’s great! He sends a letter to Harvard like, please take this girl. And then you cure cancer and die when you’re eighty.”
Something about his answer tugged at me. I turned away, pulling the flaps of a box apart a little harder than I had to. “And when exactly does my dad die in all this?” I heard myself say.
“He doesn’t,” Charlie said after a while. I could hear how genuine he was, which made it worse. “He lives for like, twenty more years. He’s the first cancer patient you cure.”
I burst into laughter. “Charlie, you dumbass. My dad doesn’t even have cancer.”
“What? How’s I supposed to know that? You said he’s dying, so I thought—”
“Shut up,” I said. “Wanna hear your life plan?”
“Fine.”
I looked Charlie square in the face, trying to imagine the right future for him. His dark eyes found mine from behind those too-big glasses. I tried and tried, but I kept seeing him in a high school classroom, staring at the white board. The idea of Charlie growing up felt wrong to me.
“You’re getting a red Camaro,” I invented, turning back to my box. “Then you’re going to get hired off the street for a movie. You’ll fly to Italy and co-star with Emma Stone. You’ll make lots of money, get old, then die on the beach.”
Charlie scoffed. “Me? An actor?”
“You’re definitely a personality. Don’t look at me like that. Jesus, Charlie, you’re so lazy. Go back to work.”
He rolled his eyes and made an exaggerated show out of folding a box. “They don’t pay me enough for this,” he sang, only loud enough for me to hear. “They don’t pay me enough!”
I hid a smile from him and continued packing. At home, I found myself humming his melody in the shower, singing it before I went to bed.
*****
A month in, things were looking good. I was hitting all my quotas, and nobody seemed to care that Charlie fell behind sometimes. The Eastwood warehouse was still getting started, after all. Not many orders got routed through us.
Our manager, Davy, was a good guy. He didn’t care if we talked, forgave us for small tardies, and even stocked the break room with snacks he bought from Target. One night, he stopped by our section to discuss Neon Genesis Evolution with Charlie. They made jokes about giant robots and tried to guess which character I’d be.
But in my fifth week, Davy disappeared. Nobody seemed to know where he’d gone, only that nothing too serious had happened. There was a vague sense that these things happened all the time. “High turnovers,” Samantha had told me during the interview process. “That’s why we need people like you.”
They replaced Davy with Marvin, who was obviously trying to get a promotion. Marvin was a balding, tall man who reminded me of an old P.E. teacher. When he walked down the floor, people quieted. Charlie and I kept our voices low and tried not to look at each other.
It was Marvin who began enforcing the points system. “It’s not my idea, folks,” he said. “Take it up with the big guys.” He gave us the rundown: we’d get a point for every hour we were late to work or had to leave early. Two points if we skipped a day. Half a point for disciplinary infractions: talking too much, taking too many breaks, using our phones during work. If we racked up eight points, we were out of a job.
The work became harder, since we couldn’t talk as much in the middle of packing. Marvin installed touchscreens that kept track of our progress, beeping when we needed to move on to the next box. I trained myself to get the timing down, took a tiny pride in beating my quotas. But Charlie didn’t care about his screen, taking precious minutes to shake his hands out, jump from one foot to the next. Working next to him became nerve-wracking.
One time, he thought he could get away with using his phone. It was 4 AM and the warehouse was dead silent, and he must have imagined that no one was paying attention to him. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see his screen light up in his hand. “Charlie,” I hissed, nudging him with my foot.
He glanced up, only for Marvin to appear behind him and snatch the phone away. “Half a point,” Marvin said, then pocketed the phone.
“Come on, man,” Charlie muttered as Marvin walked on. “This isn’t fucking high school.”
“It could’ve been worse,” I offered, stuffing a box with brown paper lining. “It could’ve been one point, or two.”
“They’re just giving out points for anything,” he said. “At break, Berline said she got half a point for using chapstick. Chapstick. They thought she stole it.”
I kept my mouth shut. In a week, Charlie had managed to rack up three points. One night, he’d been two hours late because his sister’s car broke down. Then we each got half a point for talking too loudly, which apparently “distracted the other workers.”
“It’s just not fair,” he said. The screen between us made a high-pitched beep, and I saw something dark cross his face. I hadn’t seen Charlie like this before—sullen, close to anger. I set my box down and, sacrificing precious seconds, lay my hand on his shoulder.
“At least they didn’t separate us,” I said. “I can’t picture working here without you.”
His brow smoothed, and he looked young again. “Yeah,” he said. “Me neither.”
We finished the rest of our shift in silence. By 5:30, my fingers and wrists throbbed dully, and my feet felt like they were being stabbed by tiny knives. Charlie wasn’t doing much better, judging by the little “ows” he made as he limped out of the warehouse. We clocked out right on time—a minute later would have cost us another half-point.
*****
It became our ritual to walk to Denny’s after work. We became friends with the morning waitress, Laura, who occasionally snuck us free toast. Charlie and I would always sit in the same booth, the one with the view of the parking lot. I liked being able to see exactly who was coming in so I could brace myself.
“Do you even like this place?” Charlie asked, stretching his feet out across his seat. I noticed how scuffed his sneakers were getting, how much he was rubbing his ankles.
“What? Denny’s?”
He rolled his eyes. “Eastwood.”
“I mean, I don’t like it here. Nobody does.”
He shrugged, taking a lopsided bite out of his Slamburger. “I do,” he said as he chewed. “It’s quiet, safe. You could do a lot worse.”
“Please don’t talk while you eat.”
He swallowed, pressing a napkin to his mouth. I took one of his fries and dipped it in his ketchup. I should be home by now, but a selfish part of me wanted to stay out. Dad was getting moodier these days, when he was lucid at all. He complained about the smallest things—an open window upstairs, Mom’s snoring, Ms. Cindy leaving two minutes early. His Facebook posts were getting longer, rambling, often talking about God being cruel and confusing.
I noticed that Alexis had stopped Liking them. I couldn’t help but feel embarrassed.
Charlie had scarfed his Slamburger down while I was thinking. Knocking back his soda, he belched and slumped back into the seat.
“So immature,” I said, though I couldn’t stop myself from smiling.
“Says you,” he said, pointing at me with a fry. “When’d you graduate? Like last year?”
“Two years ago, actually. Class of 2013. It feels so dumb now, like, who cares about high school?” I found myself easing back into the self I was around friends. “How about you? You never told me when you finished.”
“I didn’t,” he said. “That’s kinda the problem.”
I folded my hands, took a sudden interest in the parking lot. “Oh,” I said. I really couldn’t think of anything else. It had never occurred to me that we differed in this way.
“I moved with my sister when she got her job,” he continued. “She works at the nail place, next to Vons? I babysit for her in the daytime and work night shift. No time to go to school.”
“And you don’t want to go back, ever? Or take the GED?”
He shrugged. “I mean, I have a job, don’t I? Isn’t that enough? It’s not like I’m ever gonna be president or go to nursing school.”
I couldn’t stop myself. “It’s high school, Charlie,” I said. “If you want to save up for a car, or get a better job, you need to graduate.”
He scoffed. “What about you?” he said. “If you’ve got your diploma, why are you at Amazon?”
I realized that I’d been tearing up my napkin. Exhaustion had hit me hours ago, and my fuse was much shorter. “First of all, my dad is dying,” I said, trying to keep my voice level. “I need a job to help with bills.”
“So you couldn’t have worked at Whole Foods? Why spend all night packing boxes?”
“I’m also doing a nursing degree,” I said. It was obviously a lie. I hadn’t touched the online modules in weeks, and Charlie knew that too. If I wasn’t taking care of Dad, I was knocked out in my room or scrolling Facebook. If I was truly honest with myself, the whole night shift thing wasn’t working.
Charlie shook his head. The gesture rankled me—I wasn’t used to his judgment. “Wow,” he said. “You could do literally anything, right now, and you choose to work at Amazon. If you hate this place so much, you could always leave. Have you ever thought about that?”
“Fuck you,” I said. “That’s a really fucked up thing to say, Charlie. You think I can just abandon my parents?”
“Why not?” he continued. “Don’t you have an older sister? You don’t have to do everything.”
My gut clenched. I swung my legs out of the booth and got up to leave.
“Okay, wait,” he said, getting up too. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“I have to go,” I said, not even looking at him as I headed for the door. “My dad needs his medicine.”
Outside, the sky was turning a lighter shade of blue. The birds were beginning to make strange noises. Behind the Denny’s, the warehouse loomed, cold and swarming with boxes. On the way back, the traffic lights began to swim; I almost swerved into an SUV full of kids, the father speeding on his way to school.
To be continued…
Ariel Chu is a PhD candidate in Creative Writing and Literature at the University of Southern California. She received an MFA in Creative Writing from Syracuse University, where she was awarded the Shirley Jackson Prize in Fiction. Ariel has been published by The Rumpus, Black Warrior Review, and The Common, among others. Her works have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net Award, and Best Short Fictions Anthology, and she has received support from the Steinbeck Fellowship, the Luce Scholars Program, and the P.D. Soros Fellowship for New Americans.
Check out more of her work here.