Hayden
“Well, that was a wash,” Hayden said, throwing his bag into the corner of his bachelor apartment.
The worst part of being poor in a small community was how hard it was to hide. He tried to look his best and dress well, but there was only one apartment building in Hermit’s Rest, and it was so far on the outskirts that few even considered it part of town.
He took off his watch and set it on the counter, where it slept every night. It needed to rest. That gold watch did so much heavy-lifting pulling his aesthetic together. There was only so much that collared shirts and slacks from Walmart could do.
He patted the watch – a gift from a man he’d never known – and sat on the futon he used for relaxing and sleeping. His blankets were put away, just in case anyone visited. Even if it was just an illusion, he wanted to separate his sleep from his life. He wanted to pretend he wasn’t spending every moment dreaming of something better.
He crashed onto the futon with a loud sigh. Kat seemed friendly, but he had yet again made such a shit first impression that his embarrassment had second-hand embarrassment.
It’s not just first impressions. No one likes a gossip.
Hayden rubbed his right ankle where a flare-up of psoriasis had appeared. He had scratched it too hard and broken the skin, so now it would take forever to heal.
He turned on the TV and flicked through the three channels the ancient bunny ears could offer. Nothing but news, and, as usual, it was political propaganda and grandstanding bullshit.
Turning the TV back off, Hayden slapped the remote down on the futon beside him.
I could read something.
Looking at the bookshelf in the corner, he saw dozens of books he’d bought and never read. He always told people he loved reading, but he only read a couple of books a year at this point. When he talked to Lucy about books, it was always about the classics. Stories he’d read because he was supposed to. Had his English minor burned him out? Did he lose his passion for the written word?
No, you’re just a fraud.
Leaning back to look at the popcorn ceiling, Hayden tried to remember who he’d wanted to be. The person he could still be if he just caught a break. But what was in his control?
“I could start by making more friends.” He said, following the affirmation with a nod.
Surely Kat wasn’t a lost cause; he just had to remember how the other times had gone sour.
Tom was a dick, so it wasn’t even worth trying.
Daisy was nice, but they were at vastly different life stages. His heart ached over that, wondering if it was shallow not wanting to be closer to someone because they were old enough to be your grandparent. Maybe she was lonely, too.
“Why is life so complicated?”
No one answered.
He thought about Rodney… where to even start with him?
When Hayden had started at the Crossroads, Rodney had already been working there for some time. He never gave a straight answer about how long; it was always a sarcastic “I think I’ve been here forever” or a disdainful eye roll and a shrug. The little whackjob never smiled once.
That’s not true, either.
Hayden rubbed his ankle again, wondering if it was time to change the bandage.
In his first weeks, he had received the usual hazing. He had experienced it firsthand and then passed it on when Lucy started. It was a time-honored tradition with Crossroads staff.
Everyone tried to scare the newbies.
Daisy would tut and distance herself from it, but he knew she thought it was funny too.
But Rodney never laughed about it. He delivered his hazing with the same grim disinterest as he did everything else. He had the beleaguered acceptance of an executioner, but he got the job done.
On Hayden’s first night alone with Rodney, he had explained the creaking and scratching under the floor.
“Someone lives down there,” Rodney had said, matter-of-factly. “They keep to themselves, mostly just scratching at their prison, banging on it when they’re hungry…when they’re suffocating. But all that goes away when you’re all alone. When you hear the scratching, follow it and listen. They will call out to you.”
That was when Rodney finally looked at Hayden with an expression he would never forget. His sunken eyes were glistening under the low lights. If he hadn’t known better, Hayden would have thought he was about to cry.
They never spoke about it again. On the next shift, he met Tina and gained some space to forget about the little goblin and his story.
Tina had been his best friend at the Crossroads. When she started, they just seemed to click. She was older than him, maybe late twenties, and refused to say anything without making a joke of it. Most importantly, like him, she dreamt of something better.
For Tina, the Crossroads had just been a pit stop on her way to something grand. He didn’t know what she wanted, but had told her she had time to figure it out.
She described herself as ‘a pear-shaped Amelia Earhart’. She just needed to find her big adventure.
Adventurous she was. Always first to put her neck on the line at work. Hayden had seen her topple over half a dozen times and even once had to bandage her up after she stepped onto a pallet to reach for a carton of smokes. The old pallet had snapped beneath her and sent all five feet of her sprawling to the floor and put a nail went right through her shoe. Blood shot everywhere!
But they had a great laugh over it.
They spent their shifts brainstorming get-rich-quick schemes or entertainment industry takeovers. Secretly, he hoped he would figure it out first. Whoever left, the other was getting left behind.
Some months later, he found out it was him.
Hayden shook his head and rolled over on the futon. Couldn’t he just relax like a normal person? He always felt so anxious, like he was preparing for a race that never came.
Maybe he’d play solitaire. Hayden went to the bookshelf and grabbed the deck of cards he’d bought at a thrift store in Elizabeth’s Haven. The deck was vintage, and had caught Lucy’s eye during one of their day trips.
Hayden laughed as he sat them down on his little coffee table. The cards had creeped her out. After one night at her place, she said they gave her nightmares and she couldn’t keep them.
Hayden fanned out the cards. They didn’t look special, just old. When he suggested she throw them out, she said it would be bad luck. While he scoffed at the idea, he still took them for her. He didn’t believe curses weren’t real, and yet, he kept them safe.
It was probably because he hoped someday he and Lucy would be close like he had been with Tina. But that day trip was one of the few hangs they had outside of work.
She said it was because she was busy, but he knew it was because it looked suspicious. People saw a 22-year-old hanging with a 17-year-old. People gave him weird looks when they were together.
It was funny. When he was alone, he got weird looks too. When he was with Lucy, it was because people assumed he was a creep. When he was alone, it was because they assumed correctly, that he was gay.
“You just can’t win,” he mumbled to himself.
He thought back and wondered if Tina had got those same looks. Back before the Crossroads became his career, the two of them would go exploring the tiny towns across the island.
Then, in the last summer before his fourth year, she just didn’t show up one day.
Midsummer and no plans, at least none he was told about. No notice, either, from what he’d heard.
He was an adult, and she was an adult. She didn’t owe him anything, but it still stung. You can’t be abandoned by a friend, and yet…
You’re projecting.
Maybe he was. It wouldn’t be the first time someone had left his life. But really, he just wanted to know if she’d escaped. If her dream came true and she was on her big adventure, he could just be happy for her.
After a week or so, she was replaced. With Kyle no less, a pasty, pretentious “music producer” he couldn’t stand. Luckily, he was only available for the odd shift, and Hayden didn’t have to suffer through many explanations of Kyle’s pretend business. Someday, Kyle would disappear too… so would Kat, for that matter.
That was how things went at the Crossroads. The people came and went. The only things that seemed eternal were the store itself, and timeless Rodney, who may have been born there for all Hayden knew.
Even he’s escaped now. What’s your excuse?
Hayden didn’t know. It could have been a lack of motivation. That’s what the voices in his head said. In school, he’d hear his classmates talk about generational and class inequality, how their whole generation was fucked. But maybe that was too easy. Maybe it was a bit of both – a lack of opportunity and a fear of letting go.
Eventually, he’d either leave, or he’d disappear too, replaced and forgotten.
When they trained Kyle, Rodney did his best to scare him too. Hayden joined in, finding a strange understanding in it. The need to pass on some trauma to the next generation, if only to feel a part of it.
He was going along, until the new guy asked about Tina.
Rodney got a weird look in his eyes and answered.
“The man in the basement got hungry, so he ate her. If you hear a banging under the floor, I suggest you run.”
Then he turned to Hayden and smiled.
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Jacob Marsh 