Juan-Timothee-Chalamet

On his floor mattress, Juan-Timothee-Chalamet repeated the numbers.

Zero three, zero four, zero five, thirty-one, thirty-three, forty. Without knowing why, he pronounced them in his grandmother’s thick Argentinian accent.

Zero three, zero four, zero five, thirty-one, thirty-three, forty. Techno music filled the air in his Parkdale apartment. Juan imagined slamming the door of his room – but the room had no door. He prayed for silence and the expiration of his roommate's work visa.

Zero three, zero four, zero five, thirty-one, thirty-three, forty. Each of the aisles he had re-stocked at the supermarket. He kept track of them in a little black book he was given by a homeless woman in Kensington market. Juan could never pinpoint the language she spoke, but she insisted so strongly that he had given in.

In the middle of the night, Juan recalled the events that had happened earlier, as if to make sure he wasn’t dreaming.

- Timothy.

- It's pronounced Timothay.

- How do you know?

- My mom’s French.

- I thought you were from Mexico?

- Argentina. My real name is Juan, by the way.

- I know that. I’m just teasing you, guapo.

He found Hi-I’m-Brittaney both endearing and annoying. She did make his job slightly less boring, thanks to her blunt joie de vivre.

- You're too close, Juan. The government said two meters.

- How can I work if I have to stand two meters behind the cash register?

- Two meters from the client, tonto.

Her over-bleached hair fell on ungracious features. No luck, thought Juan-Timothee-Chalamet. Brittaney spoke with an accent that betrayed her West Coast roots. She would always walk down the aisles wearing a pink tracksuit, with her name tag pinned on it: Hi, I’m Brittaney. Her exaggerated joy resulted in exclamations that sounded nothing like the British podcast Juan had used to learn English.

Obeying his teenage manager, Juan-Timothee-Chalamet stepped back a few centimetres, handing the Interact terminal to a coughing client.

- Oh and don't forget to sanitize, Timot-hay! Brittaney yelled from the next cash register, like a yogi's conscience that would never shut up.

Juan obeyed again. But when the pump sneezed into his palm, it left only a thin spittle of disinfectant. No luck, he thought again. COVID's shadow lurked a bit closer. "YOLO," Juan mumbled.

Mark appeared out of nowhere, as usual. He always had that look of panic on his face, though it wasn’t clear if it derived from his accounting books or his recent divorce. Under his brush cut and a spotless sweater, he buried the anger of tyrants whose plans derail. Juan sometimes felt like Mark's sadness was common to all men in their thirties. He wondered if he would ever feel it too.

Even Juan's favorite customer wore similar bitterness like a discreet poppy. He was the one who compared him to Timothee Chalamet, because of his uncanny resemblance to the slender movie star. Like Timothee, Juan occasionally went to casting auditions. But he didn't grow up in New York mansions or on the tennis courts of Issy-les-Moulineaux. His destiny rather laid in the alleys of AllFresh Parkdale, lining up bagged cheddar popcorn.

- Timothy, close your cash, ordered Mark.

- You know my name is Juan, right?

- Yes, Mark lied. You have to stock 3-4-5, 31, 33 and 40 before 8.

- I finish at 5.

- No, you don’t. It's COVID. I extended afternoon shifts. Send a complaint to the government.

No luck, repeated Juan like a dark mantra. Mark disappeared in aisle 40. Juan sighed in silence before interrupting the line-up at his cash register. Some masked lady from Cabbagetown grumbled on her red circle, quickly ignored by Timothee.

In aisle 31, Juan avoided customers as best he could. Their faces betrayed the capitalist fatigue of North American cities. None of them understood the metric system, it seemed - not even in Canada. Nobody respected the two meters. Not the suited-up lawyer carrying lettuce on sale, not the teenagers defying the virus like they were orphans, not the narcissistic boomer who read labels in the middle of the aisle... To escape this circus, Juan-Timothee-Chalamet started dreaming of Paris, where he had briefly lived as a child. He would have liked to go back before the borders closed. Too late. Juan was ashamed to admit it, but he regretted coming to North America. Yet here he was, trapped in Parkdale without a return ticket.

He wondered if Parisians still mocked each other on the Champs-Elysees. If they still defied each other in the streets, as if ready to fight. If they still gathered in Montmartre to dream like tourists. If they still kissed in hidden corners of the Louvre. If they still jogged near the boats of Boulogne-Billancourt. If animals had run away from the Zoo de Vincennes. If envious eyes were still spying on the rich from the path of la Coulée verte.

His mind slowly drifted to Barcelona, which his father loved despite not speaking Catalan. Juan remembered the city vividly. He wondered if people still woke up to the sound of gas vendors drumming on their tanks under the rising sun. If tourists still bought samosas at 4am as water trucks cleaned cobblestone. If old ladies still sold cups of melted chocolate. If young men still wandered in the harbour late at night, accidentally making out. If waterfalls still flowed at Ciutadella. If flowers still crowned cactuses on Montjuic. If secret raves still happened in the factories of Poble Nou. What happened to that girl he kissed at the Sitges carnival...

It was far away from here that Juan-Timothee-Chalamet wanted to waltz. Not between plastic bags full of sliced white bread.

- Did you see my rainbow pen? It's my lucky pen.

Juan stared back at Hi-I’m-Brittaney, who had pulled him out of his reverie in aisle 33. He wondered what made her dream, in an AllFresh during a pandemic. Maybe she was longing for a kiss from her rocker crush, who had been wearing the same leather jacket since 2008.

- Haven’t seen it, sorry.

No luck. She ran back to her cash register, which she had abandoned pretending she needed to double check a barcode. Coming out of the ceiling, Mark's voice started the countdown to closure, as ordered by the prime minister. Juan’s boss was still out of breath, after an argument he had with a client who refused to wash his hands.

Without energy or hope, Juan-Timothee-Chalamet walked to aisle 40, pushing a cart of frozen fruit. Between two bags of strawberries, his arm touched a rainbow: Brittaney’s magic pen.

Hi-I’m-Brittaney jumped into his arms in an attempt to thank him, crushing his frail, cinematic stature. Juan dropped a clumsy smile. Wasn’t it strange how we could be attracted to what also repulsed us?

- It’s my lucky day. I'mma buy a lottery ticket. Come with me, Timothay.

As Juan was about to punch out, Brittaney dragged him to the lotto counter. Juan-Timothee-Chalamet had no strength left to resist his fate.

- I'll buy one for you, Timmy. Any lucky numbers?

- Nope. I have no luck.

Briefly exasperated, she quickly went back to her usual forced smile. After all, Juan was her only friend here.

- Gimme something at least. What aisles did you stock today?

Juan took the little black book out of his back pocket. He read the numbers with no ambition: three, four, five, thirty-one, thirty-three, forty. It turns out these were the lucky numbers of Juan-Timothee-Chalamet, the 26-year-old Argentinian immigrant working at AllFresh Parkdale.

And now, at four o'clock in the morning, sitting on his floor mattress, the young man repeated the numbers in a loop.

Tomorrow, he wouldn't tell anyone. Not even Hi-I’m-Brittaney. He would never return to AllFresh. He would call the lottery phone line. He would buy a house for his mom in the Marais. And one for his dad in Eixample. He would order a brand new couch for his friends, who always let him sleep over. He would buy himself a one-way ticket to Europe. Tomorrow, he would call the lottery phone line. But tomorrow, the lottery phone line would be closed in the midst of Ontario’s first-ever confinement. He would have to wait. Nobody knew how long. “No luck”, murmured Juan-Timothee-Chalamet.