I’d just swiped my card to pay for a few groceries in the Bishop
Von’s when he appeared like an apparition and asked, robotically, “Paper or
plastic?” Oh, good Lord! Is it that kid? He
wouldn’t remember me, but last winter
I suffered, by his hand, one of the great humiliations of my adult life. That’s gotta be him. Took a good, hard
look to make sure. It IS him! A
generic teenager with bad skin and cropped hair. The recognition was based less
on appearance than his energy—ratcheting around like he was on speed, he’d
probably just had a Coke and a couple of doughnuts during his break. Or maybe
he was always this way. Good Lord.
I’d completely buried that painful memory and had hoped to never, ever see this
guy again. But it all came back in living color.…
People who live in Owens Valley and the passing tourists pretty
much all shop at Von’s. Amazingly, this desert town of six or seven thousand souls
has the only franchise supermarket between Ridgecrest and Mammoth Lakes—a
stretch of one hundred seventy miles. (And the next one north is in
Gardnerville, Nevada.) Lots of Bishop residents patronize two smaller, local
grocery stores but folks like me who live in the hinterlands routinely stock up
with supplies at Von’s when in town; those four bags will cost you half-again
as much at the little markets in Lone Pine or Lee Vining.
Don’t even recall why I was in town
that day…might have been on the return trip from visiting my girl in Marin. I was sick; didn’t
feel terribly bad but had this particularly phlegmy head-cold and I’d been
hacking and snorting up all sorts of vile objects. Certainly didn’t feel much like
shopping but I slipped through the magic sliding doors anyway and joined my fellow
consumers.
I’m your typical bachelor shopper
without a list so I have to go through the whole store to remember what’s
needed. Skipping the frozen food section (have no freezer…), the aisle with
appallingly-scented cleaning products, and the one filled with all the junk
people put on their hair and skin, I bump my cart to standard parking spots and
go on forays. Start with broccoli, end with beer. It always takes half an hour
even if I only buy a dozen items.
Finished up and got in line. The
usual revulsion at the sort of candy kids eat these days and desultory tabloid-scan.
I shook my head in jaded disbelief: Oprah
lost seventy pounds. Again. My God! That woman’s probably lost a thousand
pounds over the years. The young
checkout girl is very pretty and I openly admire her knowing she’d never make
eye-contact before my turn. This is THE LAW: for the same reason you’re never asked, ”Plastic or paper?”—it’s just…not…
done. And I still have a couple of minutes left to observe all the shoppers
which I do as a matter of course for my continuing humanity studies because right
here in this store is the clearest view to be had, locally. Like it or not, this
is “us”….
Pushing my cart forward I’m next up,
greeted cheerfully with a flashing smile and quick look in the eye. Funny thing
is, it feels oddly genuine and she’s a sweetheart so I can’t help but respond
with an equally genuine but equally shallow response: “I’m just fine, thanks!
How are you? Great!” She looks me
right in the eye again and there’s a brief moment where we actually seem to
meet but as she turns to her work I see a cloud cross her face, a hint of frown.
Hmm…what…? I start bagging my own groceries.
Usually do—I don’t like just standing there plus it frees up a bagger to assist
someone else and I take home a quarter of the plastic bags.
This kid zips up—seemed to glide
across the floor like Gumby—and he performed a pretty subtle maneuver that all
baggers employ in this situation: without any physical contact he just
shouldered me out of his way. Leaping around, on some other channel, he said,
“Hey, howya doin’?! Paper or plastic?!” in such a way that it sounds like one
long, uninflected (but enthusiastic) word with question-mark attached. Is he on drugs? “Plastic’s fine,” I nod
at the two already-loaded bags. He’s wired but otherwise harmless; listens to heavy-metal
bands like Megadeth, and would certainly be an avid surfer if the ocean weren’t
three hundred miles away. He skateboards instead but has assumed a manner
which, in Bishop, passes for up-to-date surfer culture. Still bopping, he takes
over but then, looking up, slows down
to stare fixedly at the point on my chest where a white carnation would be
pinned were I wearing a tuxedo…and says in a casual, conversational tone,
“Whoa! Dude! Is that, like, the
booger from hell or what?!”
I froze inside as something flooded my veins, an ass-whooping
cocktail of ninety-proof adrenaline with a jigger of dread on the rocks—a
double. I’m sick, remember, and instantly recalled that explosive sneeze just as
I’d pulled into my parking spot; had felt something leave my body and searched
the cab to no avail. Following his eyes I craned my neck back and peered down
my nose and there, just below the collarbone—vividly displayed against black
fuzzpile vest—was this tremendous clot of phlegm the color of split pea soup.
Something, yes, way beyond booger.
Instinctively (no way to just ignore it)
I swiped at the abomination, shmeering it horribly, then wiped hand on pants.
This was a grave error. Glanced at my checker who was staring, aghast. The kid,
in a congenial and sympathetic tone said, “Whoa, dude!” Ego in flames, in a
vast shell-shocked silence, I felt heat rushing toward my always-florid face.
The checker handed me my receipt but I couldn’t bear to look at her. Kid asks, “Would
you like some help out…?!” I mumbled, “No…thanks.” And got the hell out of
there.
18 Jun 2000, 7 Dec 2012
© 2012 Tim
Forsell
All
rights reserved.
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