Wednesday 19 November 2014

Kevin - the unlikely Hero


A bit of work on a character....


Kevin’s Journal

My name is Kevin Franks.  I still live at home with my Mum even though I’m 23.  I’m quite short, about 5’ 7’’, slim, with black hair and I’m not bad looking.  

I grew up with my Mum.  I don’t remember much about my Dad - he left when I was 5 and a half.  Mum doesn’t talk about him at all but I just vaguely remember sitting with him in front of the television when I was little.  I remember the smell of him, warm and strong, his hands ruffling my hair and then he’d pinch my cheek.  When he left I can’t remember how I felt.  It’s all just a black hole in my memory now.  Mum always said we would manage very well thank you.  She worked at the Doctors surgery as a receptionist and would come home from work and scrub the house from top to bottom every evening.  Our house was very clean but Mum would never let me bring any friends home to play.

I know I could be doing something better than working in this charity shop - I did well at school but something had gone wrong along the way.  I always wanted to be a shop manager and could have been one by now - if only things had turned out differently.

I’m a hard worker and was doing my A levels when something happened and I lost the plot a bit.  I think I was trying too hard and would go over and over every piece of work I did before I could hand it it.  I got to the point when I believed that my work would never be good enough.  That’s when I suffered my little ‘breakdown’.  That’s what Mum called it.  To be truthful, I can’t actually remember much about it and anyway, I’m all over that now.

I don’t have a girlfriend at the moment.  Well, I’ve never really had a girlfriend although there was this girl at school I used to hang out with for a while.  I don’t see her anymore though.  

I plan to get a proper job soon - I just need to get a bit of experience under my belt.  When I’d applied for jobs they said I had no experience so that’s why I’m here, just to get experience.  Not because I’m not good enough for a real job in a real shop.  I try hard to pretend that this is a real shop with real customers.  I know presentation is important.  That’s why I always wear my suit to work.  Once I have my own shop I’ll make sure all the staff are smartly dressed at all times.  I don’t like the way Catherine, the Manager, wears jeans and paints her toenails which peep out through the holes in her sandals.  But she is the manager of this place, so I have to keep up the pretense that she’s in charge, and we do make a good team after all.

The best part of the job is helping the customers, showing them the new items that had just come in.  I take great pride in my customer service.  Everyone who comes in is important - well you never know who they are do you.  Take that old lady who comes in every day at the same time.  She smells slightly of cats - or is it urine?  I’m not sure but you can’t take any chances, can you?  If you are nice to people they always remember you, don’t they?  In a good way, that is, not like the people who went to school with me, remembering what I was like in those bad old days.  Anyway, that old lady will die one day and may leave a lot of money to someone - and it could be me.




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