Malls, Falls and the Demographics of the Labor Pool
My boss is out today and I decided to take a three hour lunch and head up to the mall in Rockland County.
I had three major fears as a child: dentists, spoiled/moldy food, and falling. Not me falling; me watching someone fall. The first fear disappeared in the blink of an eye, for no apparent reason, one day in 1995. Mold and spoiled food I have pretty much in check. But I have dreams about seeing people fall. The last dream I had featured two men fighting on the top floor of a tall building with an open window facing the street, and the onlookers below (yours truly in attendance). They wrestled around, getting closer and closer to the window, until they both tumbled out. I awoke feeling sick, disoriented, and ... well, not to overreach, but it felt like a sickness of the soul. It took three days before I felt like myself again.
I was at this very same mall about three years ago, outfitting for a whitewater rafting trip in Montana. There was a loud commotion, and my first thought was that some pop culture celebrity had entered the mall. After a few minutes, I followed everyone else who had rushed out of the various stores to see. A young girl of maybe thirteen had fallen off the escalator between the third and fourth floor, and was lying in a crumpled heap at the bottom, being attended to by mall security, who soon gave way to EMS. Her left leg was twisted in an extremely odd position; it had been a fall of perhaps 40 feet. Landing on her back suggested her spine was probably shattered. Thankfully, she was not conscious.
I've tried to avoid this mall since then, but it was a nice day and I figured each time I go there, and nobody falls and breaks their spine, maybe I'll feel a little better. Nobody fell.
Like every mall, there's a restaurant called Johnny Rockets, whose cuisine and overall motif suggests the archetypical 1950's diner, the kind of place that wholesome girls in pony tails and bobby socks might sip a malted while mooning over Pat Boone or some such. Maybe the Fonz would stroll in with a girl on each arm and bang the jukebox, coaxing it into playing Blue Moon or Duke of Earl. I peered in and had to laugh. The counterman was Middle Eastern. The cook looked Mexican or Central American, and all the waitresses were Latin. Brave new world.