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2495 Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyahplus faux fur on the hood for a luxurious touch. I know Richard would have me choose literally anything else. That%u2019s half of why I chose it. I set it aside in the back. It%u2019s the only large we%u2019ve got due to a shipment glitch. Nobody will touch it because I%u2019m me.Most of the Friday heads are here for the PoleFace%u2122 stuff. And whose name is lined up with the PoleFace%u2122 section on the daily breakdown each day this weekend? It%u2019s not Lance or Michel, that%u2019s for sure. It%u2019s not the new kid, Duo, either. I look across to denim where Duo is pacing back and forth making sure his piles are neat and folded. He%u2019s a pretty good kid. Sometimes he%u2019ll actually ask to help with shipments. He wears a T-shirt and skinny jeans like most of our customers his age. Angela tells him to watch me, to learn from me. She says he%u2019s my heir apparent. I like him, but he%u2019s not like me. He can sound honest, he knows how to see what people want, but he can%u2019t do what I can do. Not on Black Friday. But he%u2019ll survive denim.Michel and Lance cover shoes and graphic tees. Michel and Lance might as well be anybody else. Lance is working the broom.There%u2019s a grind and a metallic rumble. Angela is in the front. She%u2019s pushed the button and turned the key. The main gate eats itself up as it rolls into the ceiling.%u201cGet out of here!%u201d I yell to Richard. He runs to the register where he%u2019ll be backup to the backup safe.Maybe eighty people rush through the gate, clawing and stampeding. Pushing racks and bodies aside. Have you ever seen people run from a fire or gunshots? It%u2019s like that, with less fear and more hunger. From my cabin, I see a child, a girl maybe six years old, disappear as the wave of consumer fervor swallows her up. She is sprawled facedown with dirty shoe prints on her pink coat. Lance walks up to the small pink body. He%u2019s pulling a pallet jack and holding a huge push broom. He thrusts the broom head into her side 10%u201cGet to your sections!%u201d Angela screams.Ravenous humans howl. Our gate whines and rattles as they shake and pull, their grubby fingers like worms through the grating. I sit atop a tiny cabin roof made of hard plastic. My legs hang near the windows, and fleeces hang inside of it. I hold my reach, an eight-footlong metal pole with a small plastic mouth at the end for grabbing hangers off the highest racks. I also use my reach to smack down Friday heads. It%u2019s my fourth Black Friday. On my first, a man from Connecticut bit a hole into my tricep. His slobber hot. I left the sales floor for ten minutes so they could patch me up. Now I have a jagged smile on my left arm. A sickle, half circle, my lucky Friday scar. I hear Richard%u2019s shoes flopping toward me.%u201cYou ready, big guy?%u201d he asks. I open one eye and look at him. I%u2019ve never not been ready, so I don%u2019t say anything and close my eyes again. %u201cI get it; I get it. Eye of the tiger! I like it,%u201d Richard says. I nod slowly. He%u2019s nervous. He%u2019s a district manager, and this is the Prominent Mall. We%u2019re the biggest store in his territory. We%u2019re supposed to do a million over the next thirty days. Most of it%u2019s on me.The main gate creaks and groans.%u201cI saw the SuperShell in the back. What%u2019s she wear, medium or large?%u201d %u201cLarge,%u201d I say, opening both eyes.There%u2019s a contest: whoever has the most sales gets to take home any coat in the store. When Richard asked me what I was going to do if I won, I told him that when I won I was going to give one of the SuperShell parkas to my mother. Richard frowned but said that was honorable. I said that, yeah, it was. The SuperShells are the most expensive coats we have this season: down-filled lofted exterior with a water-repellent finish, zip vents to keep the thing breathable, elastic hem 5What is the overall feeling you get from the opening section? What two or three words come to mind?11Copyright %u00a9 Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers. Distributed by Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers. For review purposes only. Not for redistribution.