Ten Thousandth

Every customer was important, but the ten thousandth customer was always intended to be a well-known and respected customer; an event. The mysticism that surrounded reaching 10,000 was something close to religious. It wouldn’t matter if it were her first time visiting, or her twelfth, the ten thousandth would be celebrated as being uniquely special in the history of the Grand Canyon Visitor’s Center. This tradition existed for the life of the store, creating much excitement around the possibility one would be around to see it.

A counter was attached to the ding dong audible sensor on the front door. Hung two feet above the floor, and making a noise whenever its beam were interrupted, the sensor was a part of an elaborate masquerade. When it approached 10,000, a hard-wired transmission alerted ownership.

“We always knew someone was coming in,” said Darlene Holder, whose family had owned this gift shop for two generations, in an interview with a local paper on the day of the ten thousandth customer. “It was obvious because the door made noise. The ding-dong was really just for show.” The noise it made was an audible sleight of hand.

Like all three staff members at the Grand Canyon Visitor’s Center, Darlene referred to the device marking the entry of a visitor as “the ding-dong.” A high-pitched, computerized hook in the simple pop song of anyone coming or going. Everyone on staff knew that the ding-dong was just for show. The real fun was in the counter, in getting to ten thousand, in celebrating the occasion.

Behind the register, next to the credit card machine, sat a digital display three inches wide. Every two audible ding dongs (one in and one out) made the digital calculator number on the screen increase by one. In the course of a day, it might climb, but sometimes for many days it did not at all, as when adverse weather kept anyone from the threshold. The peak hours were in the Summer from 5 to 8 pm Tuesday through Sunday, when average tourists would be completing a pointless drive through the historic sites. These few wayward souls end up in the gift shop. The business did very little business.

The staff hadn’t paid much attention to the counter. 2:04pm on a blustery Monday in June was typically never remotely busy. Into the Center ding dong walked a man with two aims. First was to use the bathroom. The other was to find a knick knack for his niece. His nine minutes in the store were fateful.

“Your bathroom,” he said quickly to Darlene behind the counter, “can I use it?”

Darlene pointed toward the back corner of the store. Lyle Holder stuck his pudgy face out from behind a curtain leading to the office of the tiny, failing souvenir shop. “They buying?,” he barked. Darlene said nothing with regard to the customer’s purchasing power. She slumped, crestfallen. She knew she should have asked if the man was buying anything, before showing him to the restroom. She had already heard this tirade from her brother, and was about to hear it again.

Lyle looked at his sister with the disappointment scowl one gives a broken down car. “Don’t just let bums in here to shit. I’ve told you so many times,” he said belligerently, “Toilet paper costs money.” And with drama and flair and anger he pulled back the curtain around his fat head. He was excessively mean to his sister most of the time. She was much smarter than he, a lackluster accomplishment.

The silent and long-absent partner in the Grand Canyon Visitor’s Center, owning 88% of the business, was Lyle and Darlene’s father, Hank Holder. Before his children were born he’d decided to open the Center, on the corner of his property, to capitalize on those taking the wrong road to the Grand Canyon Information Center who ended up north of the Canyon, at his Grand Canyon Visitor’s Center. He gave each of them a 6 percent share in the business as a high school graduation gift, and neither child went on to take any other job than working in the family business. Hank had taken them on a few vacations, mostly to New England, but they lived the majority of their lives in a small tract of a desolate state in the Mountain Time Zone.

The 9,999th customer returned from the bathroom after six minutes and asked if there was a good knick knack for his niece. He was not disappointed, and purchased a shot glass featuring a drunk Indian. Darlene was relieved. His niece would find the shot glass offensive and keep it hidden during parties. He left ding dong. Had he come the next day, he would have made a fine ten thousandth customer.

The ten thousandth came the following day. It was Howard F. Dunwarder’s son, Junior, also with two aims. One was to use the bathroom, and the other was to have a frank discussion about a decision his father had made many years before. He asked to use the bathroom before introducing himself.

The 9,999th customer had only spent nine minutes in the store, three of them selecting and purchasing a knick nack for his niece. But in the six minutes he spent relieving himself, he had in a hurry removed a black marker from his coat pocket, and written on the wall the same joke he wrote on the wall in every public bathroom he could manage.

“This place is full of shit,” the bathroom wall told Junior as he unzipped his pants.

Junior Dunwarder nodded in agreement. After relieving himself and washing his hands, and looking himself in the eye in the mirror and taking a deep breath, he left the restroom, approached the cash register, and asked Lyle to speak to the majority owner and founder, Hank Holder. Hank was present this day, having been alerted the day prior that the counter had reached 9,999. It was to be a very special day which was more than ever likely to produce a ten thousandth customer, so Hank made himself apparent in the store he often neglected. And here that customer stood. Lyle was tempted to let their visitor know that he was the ten thousandth customer, “a rather prestigious number wouldn’t you say?,” but his father had been explicit that he would be the one to inform the ten thousandth.

Hank’s fat head stuck out between the curtains to the back office, the same fat head all the men in his family lugged around. Hank was grinning widely like the seam on a basketball. His hopes would soon be deflated.

Junior let forth with his intended purpose in making the often-unintentional drive to the Grand Canyon Visitor’s Center: “Mister Holder, on behalf of the estate of Howard F. Dunwarder, my father, and the inventor of the Dunwardometer, I am here to deliver a breach of contract notice. The Grand Canyon Visitor’s Center will henceforth lose all rights, privileges and obligations with regard to the nomination and selection of the annual Five, The Award recipient. All duties, expectations, aspirations, hopes, dreams and desires, expressed, implied and anticipated are terminated, and the Holder family shall bear full responsibility for the substantial liabilities incurred by the Grand Canyon Visitor’s Center, LLC in the provision of these duties henceforth.”

Hank Holder’s grin was now fully parallel the flat seam of a basketball. This was not how he had pictured the ten thousandth customer. Junior was not yet done letting the air out of Hank’s day.

“Furthermore, Mr. Holder, as the majority shareholder in this company, we are serving you legal notice of our intent to recoup more than $4.2 Million dollars in fraudulently-reimbursed expenses associated with your imprudent management of Five, The Award. You have a court date on August 18th.”

The corners of Hank’s mouth pointed directly at the ground. Junior placed a manila envelope in Hank’s hand, turned and exited the gift shop.

Without a noise, the counter turned to 10,001, at a moment when Hank was having many realizations about the operation of his store in his long absence. That his incompetent children had let the ding dong fall into disrepair, and that it had potentially double-counted years of patrons. That his family had just become broke. That he should have been more careful about this store, as it served as a very successful front operation for many years of elaborate criminal activity. In anger, he grabbed the tiny digital display, ripping it forcefully from its mount, breaking the small wire connecting it to the sensor, and threw the now-blank display into a nearby trash can. The last sound it made was a thwack on the inside of the bin. There would be no more ding dongs.

Hank left the store without saying a word and headed home. Lyle, having stood a silent witnessed to the incident, left the store chasing him.

When the first reporter came, and interviewed Darlene, it was not because of the ten thousandth customer. Darlene was somewhat oblivious to this, as she’d spent most of her life very excited for this day, knew her father was visiting this day, and was assured that his unexpected absence at the end of this day was due to him acquiring champagne, balloons, and kazoos. She opened up to news crews about her experience in the Center.

55 years prior a much younger Hank Holder watched a customer enter the Grand Canyon Visitor’s Center, heard an antique ding dong jangle, looked down at the counter and saw it had just reached 102. Howard F. Dunwarder entered the Grand Canyon Visitor’s Center, eight months after its opening. Dunwarder’s desperate bargain for a phone call would one day make Lyle and Darlene rich. His son would one day return to make Lyle and Darlene very, very poor.