A Study of Aaron Nordstrom

Cranston was a small town that probably resembled a lot of small towns across the United States. It had, at one point, been considered a hub of economic activity. It was promising, bustling, industrious. Its position on the river made it a center of commerce, and its craftsmen were some of the best that the East Coast had to offer.

How could such a town be anything other than eternal success? Of course, these thoughts were only common in the days of wooden, wind powered ships. Once the combustion engine and manned flight came into the picture, things changed.

Suddenly, ships needed to go no further than the closest shore, and artisan crafts became harder to transmit out of the small town.

What remained was a hub of dying industry, low-wage service jobs, reminiscing pensioners, and North Carolina’s largest methamphetamine problem.

It was the kind of town that had a one road, quarter mile downtown that was a fifty percent mix of abandoned buildings and pawn shops. It was the sort of place you drove through on the way to somewhere like the beach, where your dad would see a disheveled homeless black man about sixty or so and wonder just what, exactly, people in these kinds of town did.

But that was an easy question to answer, actually. It was so easy, in fact, it came down to – essentially – two options: poverty, and assholes. In fact, the only thing Cranston did better than trailer parks were bullies.

This was something that Aaron Nordstrom was keenly aware of, being as he had been bullied nearly all his trailer-park living life. He long harbored dreams of escaping Cartham County but the opportunity just wasn’t there.

After graduation from East Cartham High School, one of a total of two high schools in the entire county, Aaron didn’t find himself dripping in the opportunities he thought he would have. In fact, he made it exactly halfway through his Associate of Arts college transfer degree at Cartham Community College before dropping out to work more shifts at the local Walmart.

A wiry 5’11, with a mop of tangled and curly auburn hair atop hazel eyes and wireframe glasses, virgin Aaron Nordstrom was no one’s pick at the Kentucky Derby. His drunk of a stepfather Jason (Satan rape his soul) had often lamented having inherited such a worthless sack of whatever Aaron was supposed to be a worthless sack of – it changed, depending on the type and quantity of liquor.

What never changed for Aaron were the beatings. His high school career was a long series of abuse of every stripe. If he wasn’t avoiding Derek Stubbins and his crew, he was avoiding his stepfather. Once, in a single day, in fact, Aaron had been cornered and molested by his gym teacher, Mr. Parsons–

(Let me see it, boy)
then beaten up by Trevor after school, only to come home and get slapped around by Jason for being such a pussy.

What a day that had been.

One might think that such a life bothered Aaron. It didn’t. He had had a realization at work one night. He was folding jeans in the women’s clothing department, where he had been assigned to work that night.

He was minding his own business, looking off at nothing in particular and quite enjoying being alone in his thoughts, when a woman came up to him screaming. He looked up to her, confused and trying to understand what she was shouting about, just in time to catch a slap across the face.

“You’re a fucking pervert!” She was shouting.

Aaron was bewildered. The woman turned with a huff and stormed off towards the front desk. Aaron stood motionless for a moment and then went back to folding the blue jeans.

It was as though a shaft of light had opened up from the heavens in that moment, and God Himself had spoken in such simple and plain language as any man could understand. And He had said to Aaron, “Happiness and success are not for you. You are a doormat.”

Later, he would be called into a meeting with the store manager. “Do you have nothing to say,” his manager would ask. And he just sat there, completely blank, still very much bewildered. “You’ve got to get yourself together, son,” Mark Childers, the store manager, had said to him. “You’ve got to own up to your life and get it together. Jesus Christ.”

Aaron would end up with a write-up in his file over the incident with the woman – a moment of his life he never truly understood, but one that he ultimately accepted. It was a necessary step, a growing pain, on his path to enlightenment. It was the moment he decided to drop out of college, stop hitting on Betsy, the waitress at Miranda’s Diner, and finally accept that some people – himself among them – were just worthless fucking losers.

The world needed people like him. People to fold the blue jeans in the Walmart women’s section. People to slap around.