Kevin Sampsell

This past Saturday was the last day of the 66-year life of Portland’s Lloyd Center Mall. Depending on your personality and how long you’ve lived in Portland, Lloyd Center was either a time capsule of wonderful memories, a consumer hell-hole, an ice skater’s refuge, the place to get your Cinnabon fix, or the place you threw up in Santa’s lap.

Ugly from the outside and yet beautiful on the inside, the mall was once the largest shopping center in America. Big name anchor stores like Nordstrom, JCPenney, Meier & Frank, and Marshalls shared the 1.2 million square foot space with Joe Brown Caramel Corn, Sam Goody Record Store, The Gap, Orange Julius, Toyland, Billy Heartbeat’s Diner, Gifts From Afar, and other businesses now colored in nostalgia.

I guess I wasn’t alone in thinking that I should say goodbye to the mall on its final day. It was packed! All around the mall, people were writing memories on the walls, doing karaoke, dancing, waiting in line for their last Auntie Anne’s Pretzel, selling Pokémon cards, stealing the mall’s plants when security wasn’t looking, and skating their last laps on the ice rink (the very same one that Tonya Harding learned on as a little girl). In fact, the ice skating rink was the real emotional center of this goodbye party. Over 1,000 people watched as kids did special solo skates to rousing cheers, which nearly brought me to tears.

So many social media posts and news stories about Lloyd Center’s last day reminded me that I once set a short story inside of it. I was cracking myself up as I re-read this old story (which appeared in my 2005 collection, Beautiful Blemish). Whenever I read something I wrote that long ago, I actually kind of admire the unbridled weirdness and goofballery of my “early work.” Anyway, it’s never appeared online before, so I thought I’d share it here to revisit the vibes and celebrate the legacy of Lloyd Center Mall in Portland, Oregon.

***

Skip the Walker

When the doors open at 7am, they are there. Some days there are less than ten; on others, there are nearly thirty. They wear designer fitness outfits made of fabric that never existed when I was a kid. They are shining and bright and have words emblazoned on them like: Fila, Adidas, and Lane Bryant. These people barely talk to each other and cross their arms impatiently. Some of them stay in their cars and drink fresh-squeezed juice. They are perhaps the most inhuman clan of people I witness on a regular basis. They are the mall walkers.
Around 8:30, after they work up a good sweat, I show up at the office, in need of cheap coffee. The kind that makes my piss brown. I work at a job recruitment center inside of Lloyd Center mall in Portland, Oregon. I’m an accountant and a 47-year-old widow of Paul Franklin III. Paul was a stiff old coot about twenty years my senior. He made a small fortune in the mannequin business before secretly blowing most of it on prostitutes the last three years of his life. He never told me he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease until it was too late and I’ll never forgive him for that. I didn’t cry at the funeral for Paul. I cried for myself.
“Excuse me,” says an old man as I swipe my card and punch in the code to unlock the office door. He is walking briskly toward me in an aqua-blue warm-up jacket and unseemly black shorts that make his pale white skin look like hastily sculpted pizza dough. He has a small head that doesn’t match his overworked sloping shoulders and his impossible-looking curly hair is white with dull black patches. “There seems to be a problem with the bathrooms in the food court. Do you have facilities that I could use in your office?” he asks shyly.
I am put off guard by this request, and even though it is against the company’s rules to allow anyone in before 9am, I’ve always had a hard time saying no to older people. “Oh sure,” I blurt out. “We do have a small washroom you can use, but you have to be quick. I don’t want to get in trouble.” I give him the kind of wink that tells him that my bosses are tight-ass rule mongers. He raises his hand to me in a gesture of understanding. “Say no more,” he whispers.
I walk him through the aisle of cubicles and past the conference rooms to the one set of bathrooms we have. “Have at it,” I say awkwardly.
I watch the time nervously as the minute hand approaches the twelve. The other employees don’t start streaming in until ten minutes before nine, but I’m supposed to be making coffee and downloading e-mail during this time. I scoot closer to the door and for a second it sounds like the old man is moaning and I think: Great, I let someone into the office so they can die in the bathroom. A great way to start off the new month.
I knock lightly at the door. “Are you okay, sir?” I hear the flush of the toilet and he replies, “Just about there, doll face.”
A couple of minutes later, he comes out and extends his hand to me. “There’s no better way to start your day,” he proclaims while shaking my ringless fingers. He notices this and looks at my left hand, also naked. “I’d like you to know my name,” he states. “I’m Skip, been walking this mall for only two weeks. But I can tell you, it’s really paying off.” He reaches back and pats his own ass.
“It’s nice to meet you, sir. My name is Carol and I’ll probably get in trouble if anyone sees you in here before nine.”
“Oh, sure, sure,” Skip says. “We don’t want anyone getting the wrong idea. Me with my full head of hair and you with a body like yours.” He gives me a clammy nudge and I feel my comfort zone instantly vanish. I try to play it off and giggle while thinking of something stern I can say. The best I come up with is: “I hope they get those bathrooms fixed for you.”

As the day goes on, I start to hear people talking and giggling about something. All the men go into the office bathroom and come back out a minute later with either a look of disgust on their faces or a smirk of astonishment. When I go to the parking lot that night there is a football card stuck under my windshield wiper. It says: Jake “Skip” Tuttle, Center, Chicago Cardinals. It’s dated 1959 and has a picture of a slope-shouldered buzz-cut looking man with big ears. I scream.

That night I decide to dye my hair and wear a different jacket the next day, already fearing the strange behavior of the man. I run the water in the tub and stick my head underneath the spout. I see the reddish water swirling down the drain. It was about time I got rid of my graying blonde hair anyway.

The next two days are uneventful. I go into work a half hour early and avoid looking directly at any of the walkers. I almost fear answering my phone or looking out the mall-facing window near my cubicle. It’s not that I fear meeting people, it’s just that I don’t like to get involved. I don’t have the energy. I have friends and some family that I spend time with, and I just can’t imagine getting involved with another man. I mean, I really don’t need one, especially a character like this “Skip.”

The following Friday morning is when Skip catches me as I enter the mall. “Top o’ the morning to ya, Red,” he calls out to me. “The new look is red hot there, Carolyn.”
I nod shyly at him. “Thank you, Mr. Skip. Have a nice walk now.”
“Why don’t you join me?” he asks.
I laugh politely and try to gage whether he’s joking or not. “I’m sorry, I have to work. Exercise isn’t my thing anyway.” I swipe my card and punch in the code for the office door. It doesn’t open. Skip stands next to me, smiling slightly, walking in place. He is wearing a brown sweatsuit. I try again and it still doesn’t respond. I swear under my breath and look through the windows, hoping someone else might be in the office but it’s unlikely. I’m always the first.
“Problem?” Skip asks.
I look around, trying not to make too much eye contact with the former football player. “The door’s not opening for some reason. I’m going to have to call the mall office,” I say, sweat suddenly appearing on my forehead.
“Well, there’s no phones around here,” he says. “The office is just down the mall a bit. I’ll walk you there. They could probably get you in your office with no problem.” He offers his arm and as if in a sudden trance I grab inside his elbow and feel myself being pulled into the suddenly large swarm of mall walkers.
My white blouse and gold wheat-colored skirt billow at my sides as if I’ve taken flight. All the walkers are wearing matching sweatsuits, orange, blue, yellow, red, pastel green. They stream past, walking widely from us as if we were protected by a force field. And yet it feels like they are enveloping us. Everything seems to be moving at a milky slow motion. Orange Julius, Hallmark, Christian Supply Center, Kay Bee Toys, Hot Dog on a Stick, and Jay Jacob’s all seem to light up brilliantly around us.

Skip snakes his arm inside mine until we are locked together. I feel his elbow brush my side. I then realize that all the other walkers are going the other direction. We are going against the tide. I feel weightless. The muzak sounding from the mall intercom suddenly blooms into an orchestral symphony. I wonder if this is really what walking is supposed to be. I look down and see my feet responding–heel, toe, heel, toe. I feel disoriented, sickness coming on. Skip tilts his head and slowly glances over at me. His smile is framed by sparkling mall lights and a blurry wave of matching sweatsuits as they float around us, seemingly dancing in a ballet style. A cold sensation covers my face and lips. Water.
“Wake up. Wake up. C’mon Carol.” It’s the guy from the mall manager’s office. The one who always wears bow ties. He is squeezing a cold water rag over my face. I am on the floor of the office with my feet propped up on a chair. For a moment I think it was all a dream, the office door, the walking, the floating, but then I see Skip, his face looming over the guy’s shoulder.
“You started hyperventilating and I had to carry you here from the Chick Filet,” says Skip.
I start to get up. “What time is it? I have to get to the office.”
“It’s okay. Everything is being taken care of,” the guy says. I see that he is wearing a name tag that says STEFFEN. “It’s a good thing Mr. Tuttle was there to help. You almost hit your head on a bench when you passed out.”
“I have to get to work,” I say again, getting to my feet groggily.
“One of the maintenance men are working on the office door,” says Steffen. “Apparently the security system was tampered with.”

I am given a taxi ride home for the morning but return in the afternoon to apologize to my boss.
“It’s no fault of yours, Carol. The door code was messed up. Security thinks someone may have broken in here, but there’s nothing missing. Besides, I’m more worried about your wellbeing. Take the day off. We don’t need you here now.”
Before I leave I check my desk and find a videotape on my chair. There is no label on it and I have no idea what it is. I step into one of the conference rooms, the one with the VCR and pop in the tape. The screen fades in with black and white images from a football game. A sideline view of bulky men battering each other into a muddy field. There is no sound. After one of the teams score on a short run, the video cuts to players celebrating in the locker room. In the background you can see many of the players walking naked into the showers. The camera begins to shake a little and then the screen goes black.

The following week I notice that Skip keeps his distance from me as I sleepily glide into work each morning. He still waves, however, and mouths a “good morning” to me. His hair is looking darker and maybe greased flat on the sides. His head sparkles.
My mother is in town this week from Florida and she comes to meet me for lunch on Wednesday.
“Are you getting any?” she asks me over a vanilla milkshake.
“Getting any what?” I chat back innocently.
“You know, any non-battery operated action.”
“No, I don’t have the time, mother.”
My mother pulls the red straw out of the milkshake and slides her gray tongue up the sides, getting every drop. For a long time it seemed that everything she did had some sort of sexual tint to it. When I was a kid she would make gingerbread cookies for me and an extra batch with penises for herself. I never brought boyfriends over because she was always running around with hardly any clothes. She has always been a sex addict, even telling me recently about a group of her friends going out to see male strippers. My dad was a good sport when it came to her antics and was married to her for over forty years before he suffered a cardiac arrest during sex ten years ago.
“You know, I’ve had some good luck recently,” she informed me.
“Please don’t tell me what I think you’re going to tell me,” I say with a mouthful of French fries.
“Well, you can’t blame them,” she says. “Some men like ’em young and dumb, and some like ’em aged and experienced.”
“Just don’t get carried away and get remarried or anything. Dad would piss in his grave.”
My mother looks at me and smiles. “I got me an old general the other night,” she whispers. “We were doing that Latino dancing and his big hands were–“
“I’d rather not hear this, Mom.”

After lunch, my mother walks me back to the office and gives me a hug. I go to my desk and watch my mother as she saunters back into the heavy flow of mall traffic. Suddenly, as if out of nowhere, Skip is beside her, nodding his small shiny head at her and complimenting her on her open-toed rhinestone shoes. I push myself up from my desk and feel my lunch rise in my throat. I run to the door and throw myself back into the hallway, but it’s too late. They have disappeared, somewhere in the consuming traffic of people.

That night I try to call my mom’s hotel room but there is no answer. I find the football card that Skip put on my car and try to find his name in the phone book. I locate several Tuttles in the white pages and call the one with the initial J. I wonder how someone with a name like Jake gets a nickname like Skip. I push a code into my telephone so that he can’t return my call. I dial the number and begin to feel hot and stiff. “Hello,” a woman’s voice sings to me. “Hello,” she says again. I listen for sounds, any evidence that it is Skip’s number. I start to say, “Is Skip there?” but the woman interrupts me and says she can’t hear me. I hang up.
It is still too early to go to bed and I am feeling restless, afraid, somehow violated. I turn on the television and find myself becoming intrigued with a documentary program about Tony Orlando. I remember watching the Tony Orlando and Dawn Show as a child, or maybe it was a teenager. I remember that my father didn’t like him, and if he came home while my mother and I were watching, he would turn the channel furiously. This was back when there were only three or four channels. I’m not sure if my father was racist but he said he hated Mexican music. Still, he had no problem eating Mexican food nearly every day.
All these memories make me feel like crying and make me wish I could talk to my father, ask him about his feelings concerning Mexico. I phone my mother once again. This time she picks up. “Mother, this is Carol. Can I ask you a couple of questions?”
“I’m a little occupied right now, honey,” she says.
All my fear comes rushing back. “What do you mean? Do you have company?”
“Do I ever.”
“Mother, wait. Is there a man named Skip over there with you?”
“Why yes, honey, we were talking about you earlier. He says he knows you from the mall. Told me you walked with him the other day, before you passed out. It was so nice of him to help you.”
“Mother, there is something wrong with that man. He keeps leaving me these weird gifts. I think he was the one who broke into the office last week. And he did something to the bathroom at the office too.”
“Well, I believe you when you say he’s not the most ordinary man, but honey, I think I’m a pretty good judge of character. And besides, we just instantly hit it off.”
I feel like screaming, pleading, driving over to her hotel and throwing the mall walker out of her room. My mother is anxious to get off the phone and all I can say to her is “Call me if he does anything weird. And be careful.”

The next morning, I see Skip walking with a stretching grin on his face. It seems to almost cut his face in half. He trots over to me and extends his hand. “It was such a pleasure to meet your mother yesterday,” he says. I reluctantly take his hand as he catches his breath. “I saw you talking to her and I just wanted to ask her how you were. I thought it was just one of your friends or a sister. She’s really something.” He pulls me into his chest and gives me a hug. Once more, I feel hot and stiff. “I’m glad to see you’re doing okay. You look like you’re at the top of your health and beauty again. I guess it must run in the family,” he says to my ear. He releases me and I almost crumble to the ground. Without muttering a single word to him, I slip into the office and head to the bathroom. I release a small amount of bile into the toilet.
As the workday progresses, a queasiness remains floating in my belly. I answer the phone and run scheduling charts on my computer. Nearly every time I look up, I notice Skip walking by outside the window, his body moving forward, yet his face always turned to me, mouth smiling, eyes gleaming. Even among the midday shoppers, he is still walking back and forth through the long mall, working up a sweat.
I can’t concentrate and begin to run the wrong charts. My boss comes up to me and, dreading his criticism, I brace myself for some disciplinary words. Instead, he gives me a neatly wrapped gift, the size of a large book. “This was just delivered for you,” he tells me. I give him a worried look but he just smiles weakly and walks away.
I open the wrapping and it is a photo album. It is neatly put together and has many photographs of me as a young girl, playing with my relatives or my old dog, a beagle named Kip. There are photos of my mother and father together, of vacations, of holidays, sometimes there are pictures of people I can’t recognize. The last page has an envelope glued into it. I open the envelope and find a couple of Polaroids inside. The first one is of my mother, naked and looking directly into the camera. She is laying on her side on a nondescript hotel bed. At first I want to laugh, but I stifle myself and set it face-down on my desk.
The next Polaroid shows a man wearing a football helmet, shoulder pads, and nothing else. He stands atop the same bed, hands on his hips like a super hero. Awkwardly, it is hard to tell if he is aroused or not. His penis is pointing straight at the camera and is surrounded by a circular bush of hair. The pupils of his eyes are red from the flashbulb. I quickly put it down and pick up the telephone to call my mother. There is no answer at her hotel room. I find tears in my eyes and put my face in my hands. I breathe deeply and count to twenty inside my head. When I stand to stretch I see him again, walking by, smiling, sipping an Orange Julius. He sees me move away from my desk and stops as if waiting for me to come out and thank him, as if he’s been waiting this whole time for me to receive his present. I try to collect myself and call over to another woman that I’m taking a quick break.
I step into the mall. I feel myself shaking and think I might even charge at him if I don’t watch myself. I want to break something, something that has some legitimate answers inside. Suddenly I am grabbed from behind. I wrestle away and stumble to the ground. It is my mother, fully clothed in a Fila sweatsuit and fresh from a facial at the Nordstrom’s. I look at her with shock and anger in my eyes. She bursts out laughing. I look at Skip. He looks concerned. Not for my mother, but for me, sprawled on the floor again. He moves to help me but my mother grabs on to him, laughing. She is trying to make him laugh, as if they just pulled the greatest joke in the world on me. I watch them and hear the muzak filling my ears. She is draped on his left shoulder, barely hanging on, her loud mouth is open and pointed at his neck, her eyes pushed shut. He looks uncomfortable.
I wait for it to become quiet. I want to tell her something. I want to tell her that they are meant for each other. And then I want them to go away.

Skip the Walker was originally published in my story collection, Beautiful Blemish, Word Riot Press, 2005.