Wal-mart Nights

It was Wal-Mart we went to when drunk. Target’s air of newness, of dusty hipness left us feeling like we should buy clothes for work while they were on sale. Walgreens was dark, dank, as if they couldn’t afford lighting. TJ Maxx wasn’t open 24 hours.

Wal-Mart had the toys. The children’s aisle that we wandered to after weaving through the kitchen goods, the best lit aisle in the store. We didn’t like lighting. We liked erecting monuments of toys, from toys. We built skyscrapers and pyramids of toys and talking animals and read children’s books aloud to celebrate, joyous. We were ecstatic and leaving our mark. We talked circles around the toys.

We were not bothered. We were not thieves. We never went near the frozen food aisle, the cookie aisle, the candy aisle, the aisles that would have given us, staggering, away. The cops and workers and the clientele left us alone. We never bought anything, it goes without saying. But we left glorious messes, messes of cuteness. We sometimes left notes for those who had to clean it up and we usually got to our own work in the morning on time.