Essay/Assay

(A different version of this essay originally appeared in Troika Magazine.)

Writers often find themselves in low-paying, highly amusing jobs. Once upon a time I worked in a copy shop in Oregon...

ONE

To the customers, I'm just a copy clerk. To myself and my co-workers, depending on mood, I'm a Repro Man, a Xerographer, a Copy Jockey.

My job description? Take the documents customers give me; make copies of the documents. We have self-service machines, too, for customers who want to save a penny per copy by making their own.

Every now and then a customer will ask if he can drop his pants, sit on one of the self-service copiers and make a copy of his butt.

"No," I always tell them. "Only people who work here can do that."

TWO

Little things about my job amuse me.

Here in Oregon, I'll ask a customer, "Would you like a bag?"

They often say, "A what?"

"A bag? For your copies?"

Some of them continue to stare, perplexed, until I hold aloft a bag and say, "One of these?"

"Oh!" Their faces light with understanding. "You mean a sack."

THREE

Another strange thing about bags:

Often, I'll ask a customer, "Would you like a bag for your copies?"

Many of them say, "If you have one."

Sometimes I cannot resist saying, "I don't."

They look at me as if seeing me for the first time. "I mean, yes, thank you, I would like a bag."

I smile, and put their copies in a bag.

Except for the time a man in a tight, shiny green suit who stank of cigarettes kept telling me to hurry up because he was late for a very important meeting, he had a big deal in the works, he didn't have time for hanging around a copy shop. I said nothing and made his copies. I rang up the sale, took his money, gave him change. From habit, I asked, "Would you like a bag?"

I was about to pull a bag out from under the counter when he muttered, "If you got one. Just hurry up."

I said, "No."

He squinted at me. "What?"

"I don't have a bag."

"You just asked me if I wanted a bag."

I shrugged.

"You don't have a bag?"

"Fresh out."

He squinted very hard, like Clint Eastwood in a spaghetti western. I smiled. He called me a certain part of the human anatomy and stormed out victoriously, as if he had just thrashed me to within an inch of my life.

As he drove away, making the tires of his car scream, I took the paid-for copies he had left behind, and put them in a bag. I put the bag under the counter where we keep items left in the store.

For weeks afterward, every time I chanced to see that bag of copies, I grinned.

FOUR

It amazes me what people leave in the store--and never return to claim.

Keys; credit cards; umbrellas; gloves; backpacks; dental floss, toothpaste, and toothbrush; mirrors; cosmetics; birth control pills; cell phones; military discharge papers; college diplomas; wallets stuffed with cash; drivers licenses; a Bosnian passport, an Iranian passport, a Sierra Leone passport; job performance reviews; school transcripts; photos of the family's vacation at the Grand Canyon; a handmade, heart-shaped clay plate with careful red lettering: "To Our Mom, Love Jennifer and Suzy"...

How is it these people never return for their missing property? How can they get very far in this world without their keys? Passport? Driver's licence? Did something weird happen to these people upon leaving the store? Were they abducted? Did they awake, 72 hours later, strapped into a dentist's chair, their mouths wedged open, as an old man bent over them with a whirring dental drill and hissed, "Is it safe?"

When I find something left in the store I ask any customer present, "This yours?"

If there are two or more customers in the store, they always answer promptly, "Nope." "Not mine." "My pasta maker is a different color."

Curiously, if only one customer is in the store and I ask him, "This yours?", he will invariably hesitate. He'll come over to inspect the lost umbrella or two-way radio or designer sunglasses I'm holding. I wait, patiently, knowing that he is doing a kind of primitive math: calculating the monetary value or esthetic appeal of the lost item, multiplied by his desire to possess it, divided by the risk of falsely claiming it.

FIVE

There's a customer we call Stinky Cabala. (Stinky, because he never bathes. Cabala, because he calls himself a warlock, and, makes copies of handwritten rants proclaiming the existence of murderous global conspiracies, including the time-honored classics of fluoridated drinking water and Jewish-bankers cornering the world's gold supply.)

Stinky makes his own copies, always hunching over a self-service copier as if he suspected the other customers of being spies out to steal his imbecilic scribbling.

Once, Stinky left behind some of his documents. When I came in for my afternoon shift, I found them. Perusing them, I realized the screed I held in my hands was nothing less than Stinky Cabala's Master Plan For Destroying The World And Rebuilding It As It Should Have Been Built In The First Place If Only White Men Who Never Bathed And Always Misspelled The Word Genocide Had Been In Complete Control.

The reader of Stinky's Master Plan was repeatedly urged to send five dollars to Stinky's post office box. Those that did would be mailed a How To Survive Armageddon manual. Included, at no extra charge, would be a Secret Map. Survivors of the global war who possessed Stinky's Secret Map would know how to find Stinky... and survive with him.

I tore up Stinky's Master Plan. I dropped it into a recycling bag.

Later that day, when I was alone in the store, Stinky came back. Clearly distressed, he began searching all over, on the counters, on the floor.

"Do you need some help?" I asked.

"I have a serious problem with this store!"

"A problem?"

"I left papers here. Important papers. There!" He pointed to the table beside a self-service copier where I had found his documents.

"You forgot your papers?" I asked, taking a step back from Stinky's aura of odor.

"No! I left them."

"Left them. When?"

"This morning. Three hours ago."

"Three hours ago?"

"I have a problem with this store. I left important documents--"

"You know," I said. "Maybe a customer didn't realize how important your documents were. Maybe they put them in the garbage. Would you like to look through our garbage cans?"

"Yes!" Stinky searched each small garbage can in the store, then cried out, "They're not here!"

I said, "Gosh."

"I have a serious problem with this store!"

"I was just trying to help."

"Oh, not with you! You are helping."

Since I had Stinky's trust, misplaced as it was, I decided to abuse it further. "You know, I'll bet your documents were in the trash that the morning crew emptied. Would you like to look through our dumpster outside?"

I showed Stinky the overflowing dumpster in our parking lot. In my best Customer Service Voice I said, "You're welcome to search the whole dumpster. But please put back everything that isn't yours."

"I will. I will."

I stayed just long enough to watch Stinky begin his dumpster-dive, pawing through the trash, then went into the store.

I helped a lady make color copies of her tow-headed grandchildren.

"What are you so happy about?" she asked, seeing my big smile.

I considered telling her that I, a lowly Copy Jockey, had just thwarted a Master Plan to destroy world civilization. But I chose modesty.

I said, "Sometimes I really like my job."

SIX

The parking lot in front of the store is a fascinating place.

While making copies, I have gazed through the large windows to witness marital brawls; hallucinating bag ladies locked in mortal combat with invisible, winged-demons; people examining the dents they've just inflicted on one another's cars at the intersection; people showing their cars to potential buyers; people pushing their dead cars into the parking lot and trotting away.

Once, I looked up to see a white van that had been parked in our lot, rolling backward. As I watched, it rolled out of the lot, into the street—across three lanes of speeding drivers who all adroitly maneuvered around it—and slammed into a car parked at the far curb.

There was only one customer in the store, working at a self-service copier. I asked him, "Is that your white van?"

He looked to where I pointed, saw the van wedged against the parked car's front fender, blocking a lane and a half of the busy street, and without a word, he left the store, walked across the street, got in the van, and drove away.

SEVEN

There is a pay phone in the store's parking lot. One employee, an artist named Peter, was dismayed by the many drug deals he saw being arranged over this phone. Often, when Peter saw a drug buyer hanging around the phone, awaiting a call-back, he would dial the pay phone from our store.

The drug buyer would leap to answer. "Yeah!"

Peter would say nothing.

The drug buyer would whisper urgently, "I can't hear you!"

Peter would remain silent.

"Are you there, man? I can't hear you. What the–Talk louder. Are you there? What the–Louder! I can't hear you!"

Peter would calmly watch through the windows until the drug buyer lost all control, finally slamming down the phone.

But they would never go away. They would resume their vigil, pacing, smoking, accosting passersby for money. Peter would wait a minute, then call again. The drug buyer would snatch up the phone. "Yeah! I'm here."

Peter would say nothing.

"I can't hear you!"

EIGHT

In closing, I should like to warn customers to be careful what they give a Copy Jockey for copying.

You can rely on the strict code of Copy Jockeys: your multi-million dollar contracts, lawsuits, blueprints for patent applications are all perfectly safe. No self-respecting Copy Jockey would be tempted to pirate anything so dull.

The documents you must safeguard are more along the lines of the juicy transcript of your petition for divorce on grounds of adultery; or that screenplay you wrote when a sophomore in college and suffering from the influence of various illicit drugs and having read too much Kurt Vonnegut; or that embarrassing photo of your Uncle Walt—you know the one: that old Polaroid taken in 1979 during your wedding reception at Aunt Agatha's.

A co-worker of mine pirated a color copy of this latter photograph, played with it in PhotoShop, and created a customized computer screen-saver.

There is a chance that your Uncle Walt might someday walk into a copy shop—and to his horror see an animated graphic of himself on every computer screen in the shop—face red and contorted, vomiting (with sound effect added), all over his rented tuxedo and Aunt Agatha's orange shag carpet.

You've been warned.

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