The following is part of a serialized story, Everyone Thinks I Dream of Chocolate. You can find the first chapter here.
I did actually bring a resume that day. It must have been a Wednesday. I was on my way back home from another interview when I thought about the Old Town Mall. Six months before, Chrissy and I were there on a date when we wandered into a chocolate shop. While I was still new to the area, Chrissy had grown up there and knew the place pretty well.
“They also have a shop in Main Street,” she said.
“Oh. That’s pretty cool.”
“Yep, we’re still there!”
A man popped out from behind us and walked into the shop. He was wearing a maroon apron that was caked in patches of dried chocolate. He was sweating pretty hard and he wiped it with a wet paper towel.
“Do you guys know what you want?” The words came out with a hard tone, almost aggressive.
“Yeah, can I get some graham crackers and a couple of caramels?” I asked.
He nodded. As he packaged it all up for me, he asked, “Do either of you want a job, by any chance?”
It was quick. Chrissy and I looked at each other. We would be graduating at the end of the semester. Being Linguistics and English majors respectively, neither of us really knew what we were doing other than graduating.
“Not right now. Thanks though.”
“Damn it.” He rubbed his chin. “Do you guys happen to know anyone that wants a job?”
I thought about this, too. Most of my friends were pot-heads whose goals were to simply graduate and maybe then focus on whether or not they needed to find clean pee.
“No, sorry.”
“Damn it. Well, worth a shot. If you find anyone.” He handed me a business card that read “Lou’s Truffles and Confectionary.” It had the same mint-teal background with a maroon red script that was on the sign hanging over the shop. The cardstock wasn’t the thickest but it had a glossy coat over it. It gleamed against the lights above us, cutting into my vision like an angelic sword.
I thought about this as I was about to drive pass the Old Town Mall and decided to turn in. I had a spare resume with me, a habit I formed thanks to my parent’s badgering. I parked, walked into the mall, and went to Lou’s. The shop was lit by the smoky, glass pane. Sunlit shot through it and the glass filtered it into a smoother light that made the store glow rather than burn.
The man from several months ago was there lying on his back next to one of the chocolate cases. He had a screwdriver in one hand and another in his mouth. He was talking to himself and if he didn’t have that screwdriver to filter and muffle the words, I could have sworn that it was every dirty word in the English language and at last several that he made up.
“Hello,” I said.
He looked up at me.
“Can I help you?”
“Yeah. I was here a while ago and you asked if I wanted a job? Was wondering if that was still available.”
“Yeah. Oh yeah.” He got up. His tone had shifted from the battle-hardened mechanic to the chocolate salesman.
“So, I don’t have much experience in retail,” I said as I passed him my resume, “But I do have customer servi…”
“Yeah,” he said as he took the paper and put it on one of the tables without so much of a glance. “Now, I need someone to work weekends, right now. Saturday. Sometimes Sunday. Maybe both depending on the week.”
“That’s fine. I need the money. As long as you give me a heads up, I’ll be there.”
“Ok. How about this Saturday, then? They are all 8-hour shifts.”
“Sure, see you then.”
“Sounds great. My name is Dick, by the way.”
“Mouse.”
He took down my name and number on a sticky note. When I returned back that same Saturday, I saw that my sticky note was laminated in scotch tape against the stainless steel tables. Later that day, I was taking out the trash when I a familiar, looking font peaking out of a folded piece of paper. I took a look out of curiosity and saw my resume, now stained in, dust and a mysterious smudge.
As the first of 4 or 5 employees that would pass through the shop in the next couple of years, Dick always took down the same two pieces of information: name and phone number. Later, many local high schoolers would come up to me with a resume. It pained me as I thought about how much time they probably spent with their parents putting their resumes together, knowing how little of it anyone would see. Like Dick, I took down their name and phone number on a standard sticky note.
Thinking of it now, the few people that did get hired after never brought a resume. The one guy who did became a sort of pariah and scapegoat. It was as if the sterility and pretentions that came with a resume, a document usually meant for a professional white-collar world, had no place here.
At Lou’s, everyone was a part of the grind, expected to get a little dirty, for better and worst. It may have been imperative that the product and the shop have the shine of sugar-crystaled diamonds. Behind the scene, where the chocolate was made, it was expected that you were willing to be able to handle the grit. Despite its sweet disposition, chocolate was an unforgiving mistress.
Danger Wonka 