I Went to Work at IKEA After Bobby Died at the Bowling Alley

I went to work at IKEA after Bobby died at the bowling alley.

Bobby had been renting the storage pen in the basement of my sublet. To sleep mostly, but Bobby had books and the first thing he did after he moved his mattress into the pen was to put some bookshelves up on cinder blocks so he could read. He had a refrigerator running on a diesel generator and sometimes Bobby would shave down there.

I melted Bobby’s yellow IKEA name tag on the stove so his name wouldn’t show and I put on Bobby’s blue IKEA polo shirt and reported for work.

Thirty seconds after we opened, a man and woman came in. They’d raced up the escalator and the man was breathing heavy. His eyes were veined and filmy and his skin was waxy.

They told me their mattress was making funny squeaking noises. But only when the lights were out. It was driving them both crazy, they said. They hadn’t slept in weeks.

The man was so mad at the bed I thought he might punch me.

I said, Please. Just take a new one.

He stepped back. For real?

Yes, I said. You get an upgrade too. On the house.

He looked at his wife. They both smiled so sweetly, like they do on reality shows when the host tells the couple he’s going to send them off on a two-week all-expenses-paid vacation to Barbados while he redecorates their home for free and they work it out between themselves.

As soon as they wandered off to the cash register to collect their upgrade, I got out of the beds area and moved to the couches area because you never went backwards in IKEA. I knew I was safe there.

Also, I could learn more about couches than I ever could about beds. I could become a couches expert and stay in the couches area helping people with real dilemmas. 

But I wasn’t used to getting up this early. I needed a rest first.

IKEA has many prearranged living rooms to choose from, in case you need some design inspiration from Swedish design experts. I sat in the corner of the first living room on the floor, facing the incoming customers. There was a handsome vase on the coffee table in my living room. It was pale green and fluted. I knew Bobby would have appreciated that.

I picked up a book called Insektamas Sang.

I didn’t know what language it was in, but I suspected it was in whatever language IKEA furniture was in.

Hemmlar. Samo. Bilbelung. 

Another IKEA employee in a blue shirt joined me in my living room. His name tag wasn’t melted like mine so I could read his name. It said Simon.

Simon picked up his own copy of Insektamas Sang.

He sat across from me and pretended to read it.

Simon was overweight but he had a fine head of almond-colored hair and piercing hazel eyes. He said he was on to me, but not to worry. He could recognize another member of the brotherhood from across the floor. 

Simon said the manager didn’t come in for a floor check until 10:30. At 10:25, Simon said he would be moving down to bedding, if I wanted to join him. He’d dragged a futon down there many months ago. It was next to the lightest comforters that no one wanted, where Simon said he pretended to fix malfunctioning mirrors.

At 11:30, Simon continued, he would have a double coffee and his free employee lunch: salmon tartar with french fried potatoes and a piece of chocolate pie. When he was done eating, he would enter the employee restroom next to the cafeteria, take off his outer shirt, exit the IKEA via the main entrance wearing only his inner shirt, and report for “work” at the Best Buy across the mall.

Simon showed me his Best Buy shirt underneath his blue IKEA shirt. It was also blue. 

He asked me if I had a second shirt like his.

I said I didn’t.

Simon told me I’d probably want to get one. It didn’t matter where, but preferably from a business with a cafeteria. 

I said I didn’t know Best Buys even had cafeterias.

Simon said very few people did.

I asked Simon if he’d known Bobby.

Simon put his copy of Insektamas Sang down. He looked out over the other prearranged living rooms. Some of them were occupied by customers, but in most of the IKEA living rooms IKEA workers just like us had their feet up on coffee tables pretending to read books.

I told Simon that Bobby had died in a bowling alley. He’d died all the way at the end of a bowling lane where the machines came down and swept the pins away. Someone had been back there, waiting for Bobby. It wasn’t clear what the argument had been about but Bobby got hit with a bowling pin and dropped to the floor. When the sweeper came down, it crushed Bobby’s neck. According to the police, it was a homicide, but they had no witnesses or motive and Bobby hadn’t paid taxes in years and had no stable residence and they weren’t going to throw any manpower at a case like that, were they?

I was a little out of breath. I hadn’t told anybody else about how Bobby died, not even Bobby’s official next of kin, Dennis, who came to collect Bobby’s books and his diesel generator. 

It’s a mean, cold world, Simon said when I was all finished. IKEA hadn’t changed its menu in two years, had it? Which meant that he, Simon, had been eating salmon tartar for lunch every day for approximately 520 days. Nothing was fair, Simon said.

Simon kept an eye on the living rooms around us. For moles, stooges, etc. 

He took a short nap.   

At 10:28, just before the manager showed up, Simon woke and we moved downstairs to bedding via bookshelves and offices.