Not bothering to change, I went to work, walking three blocks to the run down convenience store where I spent forty hours a week. Jeb, the owner, had new metal bars installed over the windows just last week and already it looked as though someone had taken a hacksaw to them.
People in this town had no shame. They had no respect for other’s property. Little care and attention had been given to the blocks of buildings housing storefronts and apartments.
The town of Wellsburg, West Virginia was dying a slow and painful death. And I was trapped inside. This ship would be taking me down with it.
I walked through the door of JAC’s Quick Stop, the bell sounding out like a tortured cow above me. It was empty. It was always empty. I wasn’t sure why Jeb bothered to hire anyone to begin with. Customers were like good taste in this godforsaken part of the world, non-existent.
JAC’s Quick Stop was a mouthful, so the locals had shortened it to JAC’s. Jeb had originally named the store for his floozy ex-wife, Jemma Anne Crawford, who had left him over two years ago for the pimply faced pizza delivery guy twenty years her junior. It had been quite the scandal, but the gossip had eventually fizzled out under the weight of real life, which wasn’t as exciting but a lot more depressing.
Wellsburg sat in a tiny pocket of land in the Appalachian Mountains. We weren’t a bunch of mountain folk that slept with our cousins and kept chickens in the house, but it was a place where hope disappeared.
It had been founded for the coal miners and their families and had at one time been alive and thriving. But that was before the Black River coalmines had collapsed in a horrific accident twenty-five years ago. Over fifty men had been killed and the company operating the mine had sunk under the heaviness of public disapproval and official investigations into the safety of their operation.
People began to move away from Wellsburg and those that had stayed behind were the ones with nowhere else to go.
It made sense that the small town was still my home. It was the perfect place for a girl with no plan. No future. No one that really gave a damn.
But I wasn’t lonely or bitter. I had stopped feeling sorry for myself by the time I had entered my third foster home at the age of seven. The tears had dried up. Emotions packed away. The need to survive at all costs taking their place.
So here I was, twenty-two years old, working shitty hours at a dead end job, and living with a grim acceptance of my fate.
I hung up my jacket and purse on the hook behind the cash register. I didn’t greet the young boy who sat on the stool behind the counter. He gave me a nervous smile before vacating his seat, leaving it for me to occupy.
“Hi, Ellie,” he said, his voice cracking.
“Hi Steve,” I answered back. He blinked at me in surprise, perhaps because I said hi, or maybe because I remembered his name. It wasn’t something I typically bothered to do. But I was feeling a little nicer than normal after receiving my package.
“I’m clocking out now that you’re here. See you later?” Steve posed the statement as a question. Was he expecting an answer? Why would he see me later? It was a stupid thing to ask. But sixteen-year-olds weren’t known for their brilliance.
I didn’t say anything. I hopped up on the stool; pulled out the magazine I had left under the counter yesterday and popped a stick of Juicy Fruit into my mouth.
“Okay…see ya,” Steve said, a last ditch effort for my attention. I ignored him.
He finally left and I was alone in the empty store.
After a few minutes, boredom started to kick in and I began to wander the aisles, alphabetizing soup cans and making crazy designs with the boxes of pasta. That occupied about twenty minutes of my time.
Six more hours to go.
I grabbed a soda and a bag of pretzels and returned to my station behind the counter. I watched the security monitor from the camera trained on the alleyway behind the building.
It amused me how many dumb asses didn’t realize a camera was there. It was better than reality television. I filled my mouth with pretzels and watched as a guy and a girl started getting it on by the dumpsters.
I could think of better places to have sex than beside rotting garbage, but to each their own. It was a good thing there wasn’t sound, because it would have gotten down right pornographic.
I turned away from the screen and started flipping through my magazine again. I pulled out a leaflet I had stashed in the back and smoothed out the creases.
Black River Community Collegewas emblazoned on the front in a fancy, swirly font. The brochure was shiny, with bright colors, and pretty photographs meant to catch the eye. Smiling students on manicured lawns under a sunny sky.
It was all a bunch of bullshit. I had been over to the BRCC campus several times, mostly out of curiosity, and it looked nothing like the glossy pictures in front of me. It was pretty, don’t get me wrong, but it was a far cry from the perfection they were trying to peddle.
I had picked up the pamphlet from where it had been displayed at the free clinic. I had given my friend, Dania, a ride for her monthly prenatal checkup. It had been sitting there, lost in the pile of information about healthy eating and STDs.
But I found it anyway. And then my mind wouldn’t stop thinking about the pages full of minute details. The website address. The phone number. Just a mouse click away from a whole new life.
The thought of college was appealing. I had never let myself think about it before. I hadn’t even been able to graduate from high school. I had earned my GED while wasting away in Juvenile Detention until I was eighteen.
A girl with a rap sheet and no prospects was not exactly bright, shiny future material.
