Guarding The Mall

by Kenneth Roberson

Kenneth was a security guard at the Mall of Memphis in the days right before the demolition crew came and tear it down. He worked for Titan Security, driving a truck around the Mall property. This is his story.

Also by Kenneth - Mall based SciFi! Check out Battle Creek and Chromedome

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HEY TRY AND COMMENT ON THE BOTTOM OF THE PAGE. I WANNA KNOW WHAT SOME OF YOU GUYS THINK...IF ANYONE ACTUALLY READS THIS THING.

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I began working for Titan Security as guard sometime back in the summer of 2004. It was my first security job. Before that, I worked mostly as a waiter and a convenience-store clerk.

I started out at Titan as a rover, meaning I was on call whenever a vacant post became available, which happened quite often. The first couple of posts had me patrolling the parking lots of Wal-marts. I didn’t care for that too much. The parking lots were crowded and it was hard to maneuver through. Next, I was stationed at Belz Factory Outlet Mall. That post was much better. I worked overnight, and there wasn’t anyone around. If you’re like me, you prefer to work alone, rather than in a swarm.

I remember it was so dark. Illumination around the mall was completely absent. I walked around the mall many times that night, just thinking to myself and looking up at celestial bodies. Posts like those are the best.

Kevin, the head honcho at Titan, called me the very next day and told me about a new post he had for me, this time a permanent, full-time one. “It’s at the Mall of Memphis,” he stated. “Monday thru Friday, 4pm to midnight. Can you start tomorrow?” Truthfully, the mention of the Mall of Memphis didn’t open any memory flood gates, but it should have. I had only bundled through its doors about a thousand times when I was a kid. That and the Hickory Ridge Mall. But I had gone with my brother and his girlfriend to the Mall of Memphis a year before and I can safely say it wasn’t a place I would ever want to hang out for any length of time. That might sound dumb, but I didn’t feel relaxed and secure there like I do at the Wolfchase Galleria. Wolfchase, to me at least, seems bright and beaming and open; the Mall of Memphis was just dark and sterile and induced feelings of claustrophobia. Finally I had responded. “Really? That’s cool. I loved the mall as a kid.” And he stated hastily, “Well, the mall’s closed down. There’s no one there. You’ll just patrol an empty mall.” Kevin, not a person too keen on conversations with lesser men than himself, ended the call shortly after I told him I would take the post. And I did. I started the very next day, which was a Tuesday if my memory serves me correct.

I drove a silver ’92 Honda Prelude then, so if ever you view a WormCam for that exact time and place, that’s the car you’ll see cruising through the desolate parking lots of the Mall of Memphis.

I pulled up near the Service Merchandise building and parked next to a white Titan Security truck. I got out, and after a few minutes of searching high and low for the correct entrance, another Titan guard materialized out of discombobulated air and handed me the keys to the truck and entrance door. He also showed me where the door was, which was located discreetly behind a high stone partition. This guard was taciturn: he didn’t talk much. He was kind of grungy, too. He had a long, curly black beard and it looked as if he hadn’t touched a bar of soap since before the first day of Woodstock (by the way, I picked Woodstock because if you ever heard the music he often blared from the radio, you’d receive a similar image of the man). Anyway, Black Beard clambered into his ancient jalopy of an automobile, started the rusty-bronchial engine, and then screamed on out of there. Unfortunately for me and the rest of the world, I didn’t see him until the next day.

When I passed through the entrance, I entered a crypt of a long hallway. It was grimy and grayish-green; trash and autumn leaves pattered the floor. There were a couple of doors, one being a double-door, but I couldn’t open it. I walked a little further down and found a door that was permissible. I yanked the heavy metal door back, and then cautiously, entered the Mall of Memphis.

Opulence: that’s the word I want to use to describe what I saw. I don’t say opulence because the mall’s interior was gilded and grand or anything resembling a beautiful decorative design—it wasn’t. This wasn’t a first-class dining room on the Titanic I was beholding, but a mall of American stature. But the sight did evoke a sort of crystalline visage in my mind. It made me feel as if I passed over the threshold into something truly remarkable, something that had been kept hidden and secret from the rest of the world. No, correct that, it was another world. And it was as if I were discovering it all by myself.

The entrance I came out of was directly across from the food court.

The food court looked precisely like it does in the website picture...except for the City Sweets candy dispensers. What I saw was a bit different than the picture.

That’s because some destruction-rearing force on this planet concocted the wise notion to smash many of the dispensers’ glass casings, causing a wide assortment of candy to collect on the floor. Briefly I considered eating some of the candy, but then decided not to. Who knew how many shoes had trampled over the candy in search of the right kind.

Some have probably wondered why the owners of a dead mall would even both with security, since everything inside had a set date for demolition. I thought about that too. But then I thought about the possibility of homeless people making the mall their new home—which would probably happen if it were not for uniformed stooges like me—and then I had this mental picture of a wrecking ball crashing through the new tenets’ residence and sweeping some of them off to another dimension.

I can see the tombstone now: HERE LIES JOE BLOW LIVED IN SQUALOR DIED IN TRANSIT ON THE WAY OUT

I left the food court and proceeded to check out the rest of the mall.

About half of the stores had corrugated shutter doors locked into place, barring me from seeing or entering the interiors. The remaining stores were either devoid of goods and furniture, or what had been left behind had no value at all.

In one jewelry store there was a heaping pile of watches on a scrap of shaggy carpet. When I’d noticed them, I had been surprised and not a little excited. I figured I’d have an expensive watch to show off to the man in the mirror. But then, tragically, I realized they lacked bands or faces.

Adjacent to the skating ring was a storage room that housed many bins and cardboard boxes of Christmas decorations: Trees and ornaments and plastic Santa Clauses. This happened five years ago, and because I didn’t root through the storage room long, I can’t divulge a complete inventory of what was there.

I also can’t recall discovering much else that first venture through the musty catacomb that was the Mall of Memphis. Like I said, most of the stores were closed off or plain gutted of materials. That first day I saw most of what I’d see for the next two months: Dust-laden railings and floors; hazy light slanting through the overhead skylights; blue and yellow straight-back chairs and tiny squared tables in the food court; the vacant-eyed, open-mouthed stares of retail stores waiting in line for the gas chambers. Man, the place was a frigging tomb.

I left the inside of the mall and began my rounds around the building.

This was the gist of my job: making tight-winded circuits around the mall’s premises. That was what I was paid eight dollars an hour to do. I was a visual deterrent. Those with the knives and machine-pistols were supposed to see the dorky white kid driving by without even a flashlight to defend himself with and were supposed to quiver and piss in their boots. I mean let’s face it, who doesn't get scared of the dorky white kid?

Many times I had to ask (I’ll use the euphemism lightly) “Trespassers” to remove themselves from MY parking lot. Because when I was on duty, it was MY parking lot. I’d tell these trespassers, “I’m sorry, but you can’t be on the lot,” and then I’d wait for the vehicle to disappear. Most of the time, I’d put it at nine times out ten, it’s someone teaching their teenage son or daughter how to operate an automobile. The other minute fraction was mostly vagrants shambling through the lot in-between drinking binges. These guys might seem scary, or even hairy, if you were to trip over them in an dark alleyway, but I had my sheet-metal tomahawk of a truck to keep them at bay, since I could just outrun them—or just run them over. I must tell you, it can get awfully exciting when you clamp on the tin badge and nametag.

Of course I’m only kidding. If you’ve ever worked security before, you know what I’m talking about. MOON: that spells dull.

Five years ago, guarding the Mall of Memphis wasn’t fun, or even easy. Driving a truck for eight hours might sound like operating a gravy boat to you, but when you’ve done it for weeks on end, it can get REALLY boring. Nowadays security posts like the Mall of Memphis are, for the most part, easy peasy. I have it mind to become a novelist, so I disconnect myself from the task at hand so I can daydream about my characters and stories. And it makes the job MUCH better. Back then, it was tortuous, because I couldn’t escape like I can now. The one thing I had to distract me was a little game called Halo 2, which was coming out the following November. I had wanted that game so bad I could practically taste the cellophane. Any chance I got, I would trip over to the nearby Toys “R” Us and salivate over the teaser trailer they promoted—the one that played the creepy music and showcased the word and number: HALO 2. I would watch that about a hundred times, and then I’d browse the interior of Toys “R” Us, looking at things I hadn’t played with since I was fourteen, or I’d stop into the bathroom and take a leak or unload something really heavy.

That brings to mind another thing about the Mall of Memphis: The bathrooms. Maybe it’s just selective memory on my part, but I do remember the commodes being disgusting. Some of them were backlogged with poop and toilet paper, preventing usage; or they were limned with a blackish gunk, which resembled the face on a kid who had just eaten a bowl of chocolate pudding without any hands. Find the nearest slaughterhouse and take a dump on their floor, and you’ll get the picture. Because I didn’t want any nasty infections, I steered clear of the bathrooms inside the mall. Whenever nature came a’callin, I took my noninfectious arse over to Toys “R” Us.

Another reason I never used the bathrooms inside the mall was because I feared someone, or something, creeping in while I was busy relieving myself. If that had ever happened, I would’ve been a cooked goose, because I would’ve had nowhere to go.

After awhile, I found the Mall of Memphis spooky—spooky like Fox ‘Spooky’ Mulder. After all, this was the Mall of Murder. I don’t know, maybe it was my imagination, or maybe the ghostly wisps of abandonment that hung thick in the air, but I kept expecting to find a ghost or some kind of horrible beast lurking about inside. I’d look down one end of the mall, and think I had glimpsed a person standing next to a railing…watching me.

Yes, the Mall of Memphis began to freak me out. Once I tried to fall asleep inside a darkened clothing store and couldn’t. Not only did I hear weird noises, but I could’ve sworn I sensed a presence lingering in the changing rooms at the back of the store.

Around eight at night, when the sun had fallen from its great pedestal in the sky, the inside of the mall would switch from spooky to more like ghastly, with its faint blots of illumination and darkened corridors and stores. I hardly ever walked the inside after eight.

At midnight, when my relief showed up for duty, two other guards—these guys armed—arrived on the scene and acted sentry inside the mall. Their command center was centralized in the executive offices just down a hallway from the filthy commodes. There they enjoyed rap music, junk food, and sports games on the X-box. They believed as I did, that having a good time isn’t quite as enjoyable and coaxing as when you’re getting paid for it.

Occasionally during the daytime I’d stop by the executive offices and read security reports that were written well before the mall expired. And let me tell you, you don’t have any inkling how much crime went on at the Mall of Memphis until you have digested those reports. The stack of reports I hefted from a file cabinet had a thickness a jackhammer couldn’t crack. I remember one of them involving a couple of slap-happy goons making off with twenty-thousand dollars worth of fur coats. And let’s face it, twenty thousand dollars is a lot of dough, especially for one store to lose. But no, crime wasn’t a factor in the demise of the Mall of Memphis.

The most exciting night at the Mall of Memphis was when the two armed security guards broke into a series of interconnecting offices and began ransacking them of office loot. I didn’t know they had broken into the offices until they offered to help me with a three-tiered bookshelf I was loading into my Honda. Wait, I didn’t say that. Correction: I did not help myself. I DID NOT receive a new computer, a printer, and two model cars. If I said that, I would be incriminating myself of criminal mischief. I did not, repeat, did not take whatever I wanted that night. I’m a good guy, I swear. I’m just trying to make this story more interesting. You believe me, right? Yeah, well, think whatever you’d like. Besides, even if I had, that stuff was probably going to end up in a landfill anyhow. Maybe someone would’ve come back for the stuff, but I doubt it.

I was guilty of sleeping on the post. One day I brought a pillow from home and nodded off for a couple of hours. It was nice and comfy. I had the air conditioner on full blast and I think my tummy was bloated with Taco Bell. But that ended when I came to, when I was looking directly into the hard stare belonging to one of my supervisors. Since I can’t remember his name, I will refer to him as Chrome-dome—because where there should’ve been hair sprouting at full growth was just a glassy dome of a head—kind of like the head of a robot from an Isaac Asimov novel. He just needed some vacuum tubes instead of the age-old wetware. Chrome-dome could have been mistaken for a skin-head by the wrong person, but never once had I seen him spitting tabacci juice or waving a confederate flag in a black man’s face. I can say the man was dutifully fair. Fair enough to present me with a write up rather than a juicy pink slip for sleeping in the truck. Before I signed Hancock on the write-up, he told me, “Man, I once heard of a security guard that had been sleeping in his truck just as you were—and he never woke up. That’s because someone drove by and shot and killed him while he was sleeping.” He then cocked a gun with left hand and pointed the loaded sucker at me. “Bang!” he boomed, jerking the handgun upwards.

My reply had been, “gulp,” which my throat had bobbed with. Chrome-dome, bless his heart, had jabbed a cold ice pick into my forebrain. No, I never wanted to sleep in the truck again. Getting blown into the next week for free just wasn’t worth it.

Did I become straight as an arrow when I stopped sleeping on the job? No, no I didn’t since you asked. I broke the rules like a jaw-dropper breaks the ice. I began using the company truck as my personal race car and taking abnormally long lunch breaks. I’d go to Wendy’s and diddle and procrastinate on the way back. And soon after the write-up, I came up with the crafty idea of replacing my unconscious moments with “I’m-at-home-doing-whatever-I-like” moments. Yes, sir!

One evening, around six I believe, playing Counterstrike with some of my buddies online became awfully inviting. And it was an urge I had to placate. But I didn’t want to get caught. I had another job at the time—this one bussing tables at Abuelo’s—still, getting canned hard isn’t the most pleasant experience a man can have. So what did I do? I called my friend J.D. and asked him for his advice. He started goading me on, telling it was a good idea me vacating the post for a while. “Get some fresh air,” he had been like, “and don’t worry about the flies.” Well, I took his kindly advice and made the thirty-minute drive to my apartment.

In the entire two months I had worked at the Mall of Memphis, never had a supervisor stopped by the post during the day just to check on me. Not once. Chrome-dome came by at midnight, but that was because he was dropping off one of the armed security officers that didn’t have a ride (I told you, Chrome-dome was a nice enough guy). Can you guess what occurred during the brief lapse of time I was away from the post? Was my luck holding out that day, or what?

Around eight I made it back to the post and it didn’t take long before I’m kick-starting my Kentucky Derby in the parking lot into prime-time. I’m speeding around the lots for about forty-five minutes, keeping myself entertained—until one of my supervisors came breezing into the parking lot like a slinky-toed wraith. I hadn’t met this man before. And I wish I never had. I don’t remember his name either, so I’ll call him Action Jackson for now. You’ll know why I call him this in a minute. This Action Jackson told me to high-tale it over to the service merchandise parking lot and wait for him there.

When I parked, I noticed he had the two overnight security guards with him. And that I found that awfully peculiar, because never had they shown up for work before midnight.

The first thing Action Jackson asked me was where I had been around seven. “I stopped by then and couldn’t find you.” I told him I had been at Wendy’s stuffing my face. “I don’t buy that for a second,” Action Jackson retorted, stepping from his truck cloaked in a robe of emblazoned fury. Breaths were sharp and filtered through a fire-brand nose ring. The man was upset all right. He looked mad enough to crack my head open walnut-style and build a fire with the skull fragments. He continued on. “I waited around here for an hour, but you never showed. You weren’t getting anything to eat for that long.” I answered the question with a brusque shrug. I couldn’t have told him the truth, could I? Action Jackson glanced down at his feet, coming towards me, and his voice got real soft. “Oh, but it don’t matter. You’re not going to be working here tomorrow, so it doesn’t matter where you were.” A cold shiver coursed the length of my spine. Fired? That wasn’t good. Man I wouldn’t have cared one way or the other except I had promised my little brother I’d buy him an X-box and a copy of Halo 2 so he could play with my friends and me. Now, I wouldn’t have the money. My job at Abuelo’s managed to pay my rent and car note. “Why is that?” I screamed, attempting to sound tough, but Action Jackson wasn’t about to take no gruff from one of his dorky subordinates. He growled, “I’m going to make sure you’re fired in the morning. Not only did you abandon you’re post, but you were taking corners around here on two wheels! Going at least eighty miles an hour!” Quickly I countered, “Was not! It was more like sixty.” It couldn’t have been eighty—I would’ve have careened out into traffic had I been taking corners at the speed he claimed. Action Jackson didn’t agree. He shook his head adamantly. “No—I was watching you. You were going eighty. Now…go home.” My blood began to heat up; and my nerves began sizzling like raw bacon thrown in the fat. I headed for my car. Behind me, the two armed security guards were chatting it up with Action Jackson. And Mr. Jackson said something indistinguishable, which to me, sounded like it had been meant for my ears, and then I blew my top. I hollered at him, “Fuck you!” I was piling into my car at this time. Almost out of there. But then Action Jackson blitzkrieged to my Honda and wrenched one of my arms around my back. The pain was excruciating. It felt as my arm was getting yanked around the inside of the socket like a wishbones. My face was pressed against the sunroof of my car. “You gonna go home?” he asked, more like a demand. I could smell hot cinnamon on his breath. It wasn’t unpleasant.

Action Jackson was armed. That, coupled with his authoritarian attitude and propensity for violence had me believing foolishly Action Jackson was actually a bona-fide police officer, say when he wasn’t donning a nifty Titan security uniform. No way a rent-a-cop would’ve been bold enough to put his hands on someone other than his wife and kids. I was scared. Forget getting fired, I had thought panicky, just don’t put me in jail! “Yeah!” I screamed. “Ok!” Moments later Action Jackson released me—and it was when the blood began circulating in my arm again that the realization dawned: This guy isn’t a cop! He’s the guy about to go to jail!

I whipped out my trusty cell phone and punched in the police as quickly as one who had them on speed dial. After that, I phoned my boss, aka Chrome-dome, and informed him of what had transpired and what was still going down. He told me to stay put and that he was on his way. He also called Action Jackson and requested him immobile until his arrival. But, alas, Ole Action Jackson had already moved. He didn’t want to stick around for long it seemed. And he was trucking away merrily, about to exit for the night, when suddenly he made a U-turn and came right back around to place he started.

It took the police nearly forty-five minutes to respond to the call. No one on the site was bleeding their life force faster than their heart could pump it, so the MPD took their sweet time assisting me. With as much crime as Memphis intakes, I’m surprised nonemergency calls aren’t delayed much longer. Anyway, by the time I had two six-foot jackals in MPD uniforms looming over me, prodding me for details, Chrome-dome had already pulled up and took a folded-arm stance next to me. He stood there glancing at me with this concerned expression on his face—which, when I think about it now, reminds me how my father reacted when I got into a minor dirt bike accident. My dad acted like he gave a crap only when the government officials were present. Chrome-dome had the same expression as my dad had that night. And I knew he had one intuitive on the agenda: To stop me from making a rash decision. This was a potential lawsuit against the company we were talking about. Not to mention the firing of an upper-level echelon. If he prevented the lawsuit, that meant he could get on Kevin’s warm side and butter it up real nice.

Well…guess what? Action Jackson wasn’t going to jail. Nuh-uh. The cops didn’t even ask him to get out of the truck when he got defiant with them. One of the cops had snarled, “He’s about to go to jail,” and tried to sound convincing. Yeah, sure—whatever you say Mr. Popo. “Would you like to file a report?” a cop inquired. Not a citation, but a report. I had marks on my face and two eyewitnesses who could’ve confirmed I had been manhandled, and he’s asking me if I’d like to fill out a report. Un-frigging-believable. In the beginning I was in favor of the report. I presumed I could use the report later to put out a warrant for Action Jackson’s arrest—but then Chrome-dome sidled up against me and whispered soothingly, “As far as I’m concerned, you still have your job.” Of course the word “job” struck home. It dampened my resolve, and moreover, reminded me of a promise I made to my little brother. I was thinking about Halo 2 when I said, “Ah forget it. Forget about the report. I don’t wanna fill one out.” I had my hands thrown up in a conciliatory gesture.

“You sure?” a police officer replied.

“Yeah, I’m sure.” My voice sounded deflated—defeated.

And then Action Jackson was officially off the hook—not that he was ever on it to begin with. He wouldn’t have to sweat signing a report against him. So, did he get fired from the company? Does a bear crap in a mail box? Heck no. I had to work with Mr. Jackson briefly just two days after our tussle.

By the way, Kevin caught me racing around in the truck not long after and hadn’t been happy. I can still hear his voice squawking over the walkie-talkie: “SLOW DOWN!”

A week later—or was it two weeks? I don’t remember—I quit Titan Security. I tried to put in a two-week notice with Kevin, but he told me not to worry about it since I wouldn’t have been needed there much longer anyhow. Biggs Wrecking had already initiated the erasure program of the once "rockin' the 80's" Mall of Memphis. The mall received a discectomy and every other surgical procedure in the book and I bussed some more stinking tables. Ah, life does go on for some, lemme tell ya. And never did I see the mall again—not until I saw the photographs, that is.

Comments

10/01/2009 - Great story, Kenneth! Loved reading about your late night escapades. You paint a very good picture with your words. I can't even begin to imagine the large swaths of boredom that would have accompanied you every night. You are a much stronger man than I for being able to deal with it. The only question I'm left with, is did you ever get the Xbox for your little brother?!

Chris from Eastern Washington (that's the Washington STATE, for your right coasters ;-) ). Memphian from '82-'97.

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10/01/2009 Yes, I did in fact. But my brother played the Halo 2 game for a month before getting bored.

Kenneth from North Texas (where the heat-scorching days and the ball-busting cops never die). Memphian from '82 - '05