"The blacks are running everything now."

People say the darnedest things

Yesterday at work a customer started loudly yelling at me.

As a reminder, I work in the Doors and Windows department at a Home Depot. Not a place that typically inspires a lot of yelling. Though we do get our share of malcontents, of course. It is retail.

I’d been there about two weeks, for example, when a 50-something white guy said to me, “You know why everything’s gotten so expensive, don’t you?”

It’s been my experience that if a white guy drops his voice, and in a conspiratorial tone proffers a rhetorical question anywhere along the lines of, “You know why things have gotten so bad, right?” the odds are even that what he says next will make me look around real quick to see how many witnesses there would be to my punching his lights out.

“It’s the blacks,” he said. “They’re running everything now. You know that, right?”

There it was. Just came right out and said it. Same as if he’d said that pizza is delicious or the price of gas went up again. The blacks are running everything.

In a tone as flat as a saw blade I replied that no, I had somehow missed the news that black people were now running everything, and had thereby achieved their long-cherished goal of making everything more expensive.

We were standing in the Exterior Doors aisle. The guy was a foot shorter than I. A quick movie ran through my head of me using one of our 85-pound steel door slabs to press him against the wall of doors behind him until he stopped moving. Easy-peezy-demon-squeezy.

When he saw in my eyes how far short he’d fallen from inspiring camaraderie, the guy remembered something he’d forgotten to pick in the hardware section, and off he hastened.

Racists. Can’t live with ‘em, can’t crush ‘em to death with a steel slab at your job.

That guy was way worse than the guy who yelled at me last night. Mr. Blackserncharge was capable of, like, organizing a meeting. Ol’ Yeller couldn’t organize his wallet. He was just crazy—or at least on board an express bus heading in that direction.

I was on the phone with another customer when I became aware of him impatiently pacing back and forth right on the other side of my return.

Fun fact: The reason the working surface part of an office desk—the part that makes the L-shape—is called a return is because it defines the space people need to return to if they’ve come too far across it.

As, for instance, this guy did.

I was talking to him before I’d even hung up the phone. “Sorry about the wait. Thanks for your patience. How can I help you?”

At a volume just between, “Got your attention now, don’t I?” and “I just woke up the store security guy out in the gardening section,” the guy barked at me, “I NEED A SCREEN DOOR TO PUT BETWEEN MY SCREENED PORCH AND MY PATIO. YOU GOT ANYTHING LIKE THAT?”

I rotated my chair so that I was fully facing him—but slowly, since fast movements rarely lend themselves to ratcheting things down. I saw a guy whose obvious hard living had made him look older than he was—and he was already no spring rooster. The black dye on his thinning hair made his bloodshot eyes look even redder. His stretched-out tee and baggy-ass jeans had forgotten the last time they’d visited a washing machine.

Not wanting to not put a match to this smoking sack of gunpowder, I said gently, “Well, we have exterior doors and patio doors, if you’re thinking one of those might work for you?”

But it was like I’d turned a flame thrower on him.

“NO, THAT WOULDN’T WORK FOR ME,” he spat, even louder this time. “WHAT THE HELL’S THE MATTER WITH YOU? ARE YOU DEAF?” Having taken a step toward me, he was now leaning his upper body just forward enough to be break the plane of my return. Not by much! But by a little. And a little’s a lot.

I unhurriedly rose up from my chair. “No, I’m not deaf,” I said softly. “I can hear you. People in the parking lot can hear you.” I did a little shrug, smiled, and like I was talking to my best friend in the world, said, “Believe me, buddy, I understand your frustration. Door problems are the worst. But maybe I can help you with yours. Let’s find out. Explain to me what’s going on.”

Was Gandhi ever more soothing than I? No. I can make Mr. Rogers look like Bluto from Animal House. One “Who’s a good dog?” from me would have Cujo rolling on his back wanting me to scratch his belly. Jesus calmed a storm in some little lake? Please. Put me in the eye of a Cat 5 hurricane, and I’ll . . .

Okay wait.

I went too far.

The point is that I feared my bounteous peaceful vibes might cause Monsieur Yeller to bang his head on my desk as he suddenly passed out. But instead of that happening (whew!) he launched into this major tirade about his patio, and something about screens and doors he’d made himself and none of it made any sense. But at least he wasn’t yelling anymore. Still strident as a jack hammer. But not full-on yelling. Definite improvement.

As he was ranting his story at me, I, as if actually listening to him and taking what seemed to me the next logical step, began walking from my desk to the aisle where we keep our exterior steel doors. Not because that’s become my go-to place whenever I’ve got a psycho on my hands whom I think I may need a little door smooshing, but because it’s been my experience that taking a person whose motherboard seems to be shorting out on a leisurely little stroll can help calm them down.

And sure enough, by the time we were halfway down the steel doors aisle the guy had gone from simmering werewolf to probably entirely pretty normal.

“So that’s my problem,” he said. Slowing to a complete stop, I turned to face him. He opened his arms in a gesture of supplication. “Can you help me?” Supplicatory. Civil. Perfect.

“Hmmm,” I said, rubbing my chin as if pondering the variables of the nonsense he’d just been babbling about. “You know, I’m not sure that I fully understand exactly what’s happening between the two spaces you’re talking about. Help me understand. Are you thinking of replacing a door you have there now, or—”

And just like that he snapped back into full blast mode. “I JUST TOLD YOU! ARE YOU STUPID? IS THERE ANYONE ELSE IN THIS DEPARTMENT I CAN TALK TO, OR ARE YOU THE ONLY IDIOT HERE?”

As if utterly and blithely unaware of the insults he had just hurled at me—as if I simply had not heard them at all—I said, “Gosh, I’m afraid I’m the only one here right now.”

And then, God help me, I said the worst thing imaginable. It was something so awful, so unforgivable, so shamefully wrong. I didn’t mean to say what I did—but once I had there was nothing I could do to take it back. And the worst thing wasn’t even what I said. It was how I said it. With such kindness. Such humility. I spoke the words with such heartfelt, genuine sincerity that the guy could not doubt but that I wanted only what was best for him.

“Have you tried Lowe’s?”