Brightleaf (2 page)

4

The Grocery Palace

The grocery store is a haven for me. I love it the way some people love a park, a museum, or Home Depot. I cruise down cool, waxed, vinyl floors in solitude, absorbing the various canned goods, labels, and produce and listening to The Grocery Palace’s own music station piping in a jazzy rendition of
Stayin’ Alive.

I’m on friendly terms with the deli girl. We chat regularly while she slices the meats and cheeses, wearing her hairnet. We talk about the weather, the price of gas, and fret over people with earrings in their tongues (like, what do they do when they get a glob of alfalfa sprouts all tangled around it? Or hairs matted into it?). I also enjoy chatting with the boy at the seafood counter and the cashier about the goings-on around town. The seafood boy has a tattoo of a flaming grim reaper on his neck and should trim his nose hairs with more regularity, but he’s a good conversationalist and is relatively knowledgeable about salmon.

The cashier will sometimes tell me things I do not wish to know. Such as who has bounced checks lately or purchased pregnancy tests. Since The Grocery Palace (or the G.P., for short) is privately owned, it tends to be more intimate than the big chains, which I love, but it can sometimes verge on too intimate. I make a mental note not to purchase personal items when that cashier is working, otherwise the whole town will know when Mary Beth Green has personal afflictions whether they want to or not. I can hear that cashier now, “Well, hey there. What a fine sunny day it is, but poor Mary Beth Green is not enjoying it as we are. Her acid reflux is flaring up big-time. I told her she had no business buying that chocolate bar the other day.” But normally we have pleasant conversations about my tomato plants or the grand opening of a new cafeteria or did we see that full moon last night and stuff.

Sometimes I come to the G.P. when I’m down in the dumps, even when I don’t need groceries, because everyone here is friendly. The employees and patrons alike give one another a smile and the benefit of the doubt. The climate is always controlled, the music always mellow. No pushing, foul smells or loud noises. It’s the way the world was meant to be beyond those sliding glass doors—peaceful, abundant, and kind.

I’m in my own world as I stock up on food. I feel like a benevolent queen buying good things for my people. Mavis normally helps me shop, but she’s having a tooth pulled today. So I’m on my own, and that’s just fine with me. I’m about to turn down the paper products aisle when I see a vaguely familiar form looking at the napkins. I freeze. My smile stops smiling. Jesus, help. I want to avoid the Jersey Guy at all costs. No telling what kind of commotion he’ll stir up if he sees me. He looks up and slowly turns my way, as if he feels my presence. In a flash I make a U-turn down the cereal and coffee aisle and push my cart to the back of the store. I park it in front of the meat counter and tell the butcher I’ll be back as I run to the restroom. The butcher nods; he thinks I’m gonna pee my pants. I swing through the restroom door and stop in front of the mirror. I’ll wait here until the Jersey Guy leaves the store.

The restroom mirror is unkind today. My forehead is crevassed, and my body language is all inward, with crossed arms and hunched shoulders, like the woman who used to work at the 7-Eleven in Chapel Hill that I was always feeling sorry for. I massage the space between my eyes with my fingertips and say, “I’m not going to leave this bathroom until the Jersey Guy is gone from The Grocery Palace. What could he be buying? He’s already gotten his napkins, so now he’s probably moved over to the coffee aisle. He remembers he likes cream with his coffee, so now he walks to dairy. Walking, walking, walking to dairy. Picking up half and half. He also likes sugar in his coffee. It will take him a while to remember that sugar is with baking goods and not back in the coffee aisle. Walking, walking past cake mixes and flour and spices to sugar.”

I go on this way for a decent amount of time, walking the Jersey Guy all over the store in my mind and out loud, searching out bread, cheese, olives, mayonnaise, roast beef, and ice cream sandwiches. When I feel a sufficient amount of time has passed for a single man (or a family of eight) to find the things he’s come for, I peek out the restroom door. At that same time I hear a toilet flush behind me. Somebody has been sitting in a stall listening to my every word. Hopefully whoever it is couldn’t see my feet and identify me by my shoes.

I grab my cart and try to blend in with the other shoppers heading down the paper products aisle. It looks like the coast is clear. I start feeling comfortable again. I walk to the frozen goods section and pull stuff out of the deep freeze: bags of green beans, okra and corn, Salisbury steaks, Italian bread with the garlic butter already spread on it, and three frozen lasagnas. I smile at the seafood boy with the jungle of nostril hairs, and he smiles back. I take deep breaths in and out through my nose and move boldly to the produce section for lemons. I feel my forehead loosen and my shoulders relax and I sway my head from side to side to release tension in my neck. My breathing is easier now, and I to return to my shopping with a paced normalcy.

My shopping is finished. I regard my cart with a certain peace that comes from creating a meal for the purposes of charity. I’ve got all the frozen stuff, ten cans of baby peas, a jumbo pack of Lipton tea bags, two heads of lettuce, a pound of sugar, a big box of instant mashed potatoes, three Sarah Lee coffee cakes, twelve lemons, a jumbo pack of paper towels, and a package of razors.

I smile and feel kindness sweep through me as I pull up to the checkout. I glance at the
People Magazine
(the thinking woman’s
National Enquirer
) and wonder what the celebrities are doing these days. Sometimes I like to think of one celebrity and try to imagine what she is doing at this exact moment. Something regular, like making coffee or brushing her teeth. Thoughts like this help me avoid being impressed by the rich and famous. We’re all doing the same things, except we can’t all be famous.

I’ve reached the cashier, but now I can’t find my razor coupon. It’s a good one, too; razors are seriously expensive. It makes me ill that some sicko is getting filthy rich off the reality of body hair. Hair is a funny thing, wanted in certain places and taboo in others. For instance, if a man grows hair on his chest, lots of people think it’s great, but if he grows it on his shoulders, it’s weird. And people look at that hairy-shouldered man like he chose to put it there. He is judged by where hairs chose to locate themselves on his body. And when women have unwanted hair…where is hair wanted but on their heads? But see, if there’s this woman with a mustache and a hairy back, people look at her like she willed the hair to grow there. In our minds, we know she’s an unwilling vessel, but most people can’t help but think the opposite, like
deep in her heart she has a mustache
, like she’s mustache to the core. I might start boycotting the high price of razors—but then I’d have to move to Germany. One summer my grandmother hosted some foreign exchange students from Germany. The hairiest girls you ever set eyes on.

I better find that coupon.

I check my wallet, purse, and pockets. Even though I’m holding up the line of people behind me, I’m fine with it because I come to this store all the time, and this might be the second time in history I’ve held up a line. I turn my pocketbook upside down on the counter and sort through coupons, receipts, and pennies stuck to ancient pieces of candy.

After a minute or so, a voice speaks to me from the back of the line. The voice is slightly irritated. “Whaddya need? Dime? Penny?”

I turn around and there he is. He’s taller up close. The day I passed him taking out his dog I got the impression he was a little wider, too, but maybe that was just his jacket. But here he is, looking less like Danny DeVito and a little more like Andy Garcia. He looks at me over his glasses like he expects an answer. What’s he doing here? Behind me? He’s in my face like one of those old computer pop-up ads reminding me to speed up my performance: in need of an upgrade. I look in his cart and see far less than I have in mine. What took him so long to pick up napkins, dog food, bottled water and Fanta orange drink? Maybe he got sucked into a long conversation with the deli girl. Or took a nap in the soft drink aisle. Also, why can’t I end up behind him some day? Why can’t I be the one feigning impatience, telling the world how I’m too important to be suffering behind someone like him?

“She’s looking for a coupon,” says the cashier.

“A coupon? For how much?” Then I hear him quietly say, “I’ve gotta meeting to make. I’d give her a dollar to quit looking for that coupon.”

Several people behind me snicker. I look at the cashier and roll my eyes. She knows me well, and nobody knows the Jersey Guy from Adam. We could easily gang up on him and stuff him in the trunk of his car. But I should deal with this on my own, so I turn around and look at him standing at the back of the line.

I casually say, “Well, if this isn’t déjà vu.”

Everyone in line turns to look at him too.

“Do I know you?” he asks.

Now everyone turns to look at me. And one woman is staring at my shoes.

I open my mouth to say something. But then I look at the cashier and the others in line. They are giving me this look like,
Well, does he know you?

You can plainly see how this looks to everyone, like I’m that type of person who approaches strangers and starts talking real personal to them, like I’m suffering from some form of social illness. But this man, he does know me.

“I’m sorry,” I say in my quietest voice. “I must have mistaken you for someone else.” Then I get out my wallet while shaking my head, like old people do with rude teenagers, to passively communicate how their parents neglected to teach them anything of value.

I pay for my groceries without finding the coupon, smile at everyone all around like I am perfectly fine, nod at the cashier and push my cart towards the sliding doors.

It appears that the Jersey Guy is the new darling of The Grocery Palace.

Outside, drops of rain land on my hair and trickle through to my scalp. I slowly push my cart across the parking lot to my Subaru, disoriented, feeling like a stranger in my own town. This Jersey Guy, this demolition derby wannabe, has caused me to lose face on my own territory.

This is war. There will be no bedside vigils.

On New Jersey in General

I’d just like to make a comment about New Jersey. I don’t know anyone from New Jersey personally, but I can tell it’s a state full of line-breakers. Yankee line-cutters are in full form at the DMV. Sometimes they’re crippled Yankees though. Like, “Feel sorry for me because I’m crippled, so I’m getting in front of you.” Of course we Southerners feel sorry for them, and we’d gladly pave the way to the front of the line for them, if they’d be polite. Then there are the ones who break in line by pretending they don’t see you. Sometimes they do it while talking on the cell phone so they can pretend even more they don’t see you. These are people who would take the last biscuit at supper.

5

Floyd

It’s 9:05 a.m., and I’ve just dropped off the carpool at Toddlers Are People, Too. Also known as TAPT. My friend Shirley owns TAPT and mentioned some of the single mothers could use some help getting their kids to school. It seems funny to a lot of people that I drive those kids around but I enjoy it. God only knows those single mothers could use a break.

It’s a glorious day. The sun is shining through the huge oaks in town, stamping flecks of light on lawns and sidewalks. The leaves are slowly turning from green to yellow and orange, and the smell of curing tobacco hangs in the air. The Jersey Guy should be well on his way to Corporate America, if not already there. I park about a block from his house and take a leisurely stroll up the street with a dog biscuit in hand. I am in a righteous mood. I consider my actions at this moment a mission of mercy, which I have dubbed
Operation Pink Stuff
. I have come to understand, after hours of wrestling with the idea, that Champagne could
very well
be in harm’s way. I mean, what if this dog is in danger? You see the kind of owner he has. The Jersey Guy is practically a maniac. I am a dog social worker at this moment, moving fearlessly to rescue a minor in distress and place him in a loving home, out of the grasp of a very
bad man. I slow my pace as I approach the Jersey Guy’s house.

You can learn a lot about a person based on his front yard. If a yard is unkempt and strewn with broken toys, it alerts you right away that the owner is inside this very minute slurping down tallboys, watching a
Judge Judy
marathon. Secondly, I’ve found people who plant fake flowers around their mailboxes believe they are fooling everyone. Finally, if a person has more than one gazing ball and wind chimes galore, it’s a verifiable fact that either an English professor or a pagan lives there.

The Jersey Guy’s yard was more normal than I’d have thought. I’d pictured him as a statuary person: someone with a menagerie of mythical woodland creatures peeking out from behind trees and popping up between ferns, mainly because the statuary people tend to be the most emotional and unreasonable. I was wrong though. The Jersey Guy has no statuary to speak of. His yard is mown and tidy. Even an edger is employed.

He’s also got a fenced-in backyard. There’s no underlying significance to a fence around a backyard. A fence is normal, and has never factored into a person’s character, as far as my criteria are concerned, except I figure that must be where he keeps the dog.

Champagne is right there behind the fence, barking his little nasty pink mouth off. I’m glad I don’t need to break any windows because that would constitute breaking and entering, common burglary, which is something I could never do. This should be easy as pie.

I say in my sweetest voice, “Now, Champagne, it’s all right.” I hold the dog biscuit close to the chain link fence. “It’s just me, Mary Beth. I’m a friend of your daddy’s.”

Champagne slows his barking and backs away from my hand. He whimpers a little, barks one more time, and moves forward some, sniffing out the treat. He begins to alternate between low growls and high-pitched whimpers. He knows he should be mean, but he wants this doggie biscuit real bad. “Champagne, you are a terrible watchdog,” I say in a soothing tone, like I’m telling him he’s good. I slowly reach my hand through the gate and lift the latch from the inside. The only kind of accosting Champagne knows how to do is sniff and lick my hand while I lead him out of his yard.

We are home free from here. He has no problem following the scent of the biscuit all the way to my car. I feel just like the Child Catcher from
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
, tiptoeing around my car saying in a singsong voice, with my best Vulgarian accent, “Come little doggie, come get treats! Puppy Chow! Squeaky toys!” He hesitates a second, looks at the biscuit in my hand, hops right in the car, and gobbles it up. The Jersey Guy will never see this dog again.

“The first thing we’ve got to do is give you a new name,” I tell Champagne, glancing at him in my rearview mirror. “How ‘bout Pink Eye?”

Champagne looks at my reflection in the mirror and cocks his head. He knows I’m talking to him. “Or Conjunctivitis. Junk for short.”

I chuckle to myself, thinking what a good name Junk would be for a dog. People will laugh and say they get it. Just like the junkyard dog in “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown.”

Then I look in the rearview again and see this dog sitting on the backseat. He believed me when I said I was a friend of his daddy’s. I realize it would be mean to call that dog Junk, and wonder how I came to be so heartless. “That’d be about as rotten as calling you Champagne,” I tell him.

I get another idea. “How about Pink Stuff? Or Pinky?” I steal another glance at him in the mirror and can tell that he isn’t a Pinky. “Too sissy, huh? I know what you’re thinking; Pinky is about as girlie as Champagne.”

I drive along wracking my brain for variations of pink. Fuchsia. Rose. Coral. Salmon. I flip on the radio. Pretty soon I catch myself humming along to an old Cranberries song. Cranberries make me think of a bladder infection. After that, a Billy Joel song comes on and I start thinking how I’ve always thought Billy Joel was an ugly man, so it’s very good he’s got singing going for him. Then another old song starts playing:
Leave those kids alone
. The fact that Pink Floyd comes on the radio at this very moment tells me that the Lord is with me. This is Divine Providence if I’ve ever heard it.

“How would you like me to call you Pink Floyd?” I ask the dog in the backseat. As if finally I’ve thought of the finest name a dog could want. The dog plants his paws on the door handle and presses his nose against the window, so I push the window control on my door panel and roll his down. He sticks his whole head out.

“How about Pink Floyd?” I call back to him. But he just sniffs the air like it’s sweeter than sirloin. “I guess we can take out the Pink part,” I say. “Plain old Floyd? I had a grandfather named Floyd. It’s a family name and fairly manly.” The dog’s ears are flapping in the breeze, his tongue is hanging out, and it looks like he’s smiling. I take that as a yes.

The newly christened Floyd is sitting in the great room of my house. He has already scampered around the whole downstairs, sniffing and whimpering, clacking his little toenails all over my hardwood floors. He has finally given up trying to find something that smells familiar or edible and decides to sit and rest a minute.

I pull out the phone book and sit on the sofa with my cell phone, preparing to make a few calls when Eleanor walks in the house with her arms full of shopping bags from Williams-Sonoma and Nordstrom.

I say to her, “I thought you already spent up all that money.”

“Nooo!” She smiles and tries to give me a confident look that says,
I have lots of money left over from my trust fund, seeing I spend no money on food because I live on laxatives, iceberg lettuce, and coffee. And I save money by renting the room in your boarding house, thus making a sacrifice in my quality of life so that I can help you reach out to all the poor, lost, hurting souls out there.

At least I assume that’s what she’s thinking.

Eleanor’s way of helping people is buying them goods that they could never afford otherwise. It’s not like she’s going out and buying Cadillacs for listless crackheads or anything, but if I see her give another homeless person a blender (so they can make smoothies) or a shoeless person a vacuum, I might just have to take her down. Nevertheless, I find myself unable to speak to her on the subject, seeing that it makes her happy, especially since she’s attracted an adoring fan base over at the homeless shelter. But her giving isn’t always innocent. She’s aware that she makes people feel beholden to her.

“Maaavis!” Eleanor screams, like Mavis is her own personal servant. “Come see what I bought. Help me get these bags up to my room. Cute dog. MAVIS!”

“I’m sorry!” shouts Mavis from the kitchen. “But Eleanor babe, I’m working on somethin right now.”

Mavis is probably feeling guilty for saying no because this very moment her bed is draped in a new down comforter, courtesy of Eleanor. Eleanor rolls her eyes and stomps upstairs, carrying her own bags.

I’ve got calls to make, so I ignore Eleanor’s unChrist-like behavior.

“Hello?” says a man’s voice. “Peticures Doggie Stylists. How may we help you today?”

“Yes,” I say, “Do you dye dogs?”

“Dye? No, ma’am, we only do highlights.”

“Do you know anyone who does dye dogs?”

“I can’t say there’s much of a demand for it here in Brightleaf, but you’ll probably find some groomers in Greensboro who can help you. If the dog has a graying problem, you could always try Miss Clairol or Lovin’ Care, and wash that gray right out.”

“Okay. Thanks,” I say, and set the phone down.

I look at Floyd. “Miss Clairol, huh?”

“Did I hear Eleanor say,
cute dog
?” Mavis is looking through the kitchen door at Floyd curled up at my feet. He has switched positions at least ten times in the last fifteen minutes.

“Hey there, baby, where’d you come from?”

Floyd lifts his head and whimpers. He can spot a softy.

So can I.

I seize the opportunity and say, “Mavis, you will not believe what all I’ve been through this morning. I rescued this dog from an abusive owner. See, I spotted the owner kicking it at the park on my way to the preschool. You can imagine the horror I felt and prayed that somehow I could find a way to help this poor creature. Lo and behold, on my way back I noticed the dog making a run for it. I simply slowed down the car, leaned over, and swung open the passenger door and said,
Hop in, my man
to Floyd here, and he jumped in and we were off.”

“Floyd? That’s his name?”

“Well, yes, I took the liberty… Mavis, I need your help. His owner may come around searching for him, so we need to disguise him.” I pause and then add for good measure, “The man looked like a real pervert, too.”

Mavis nods with gravity in the same way she would if we were protecting a battered woman. “Know just what to do. A few boxes of Rit Dye should fix him. Here, give him to me and rest assured,” says Mavis.

“Rit Dye?” I ask, kind of dubious. “Isn’t that stuff for dyeing old blue jeans?”

“I swear by it. Rit’s good for anythang needin a little pick-me-up,” she says. “Take a box of red. You’re fixin to go to a party and only have you an old blue dress, right? Drop that blue dress in a bucket of hot water with a red packet, pull it out an hour later, and you got you a new purple dress. Then dip your little fanger in the bucket of red and rub it on your cheeks and lips, and baby, you got yourself some make-up won’t come off, no matter how drunk you get, how hard you cry, or even if you get locked outside and have to sleep in the bushes. You wake up from that night and look like a thousand dollars.”

“Is this your personal experience?”

“I ain’t done that in years, darlin. Anyway, I got a question,” says Mavis.

“What?”

“How bout a small tattoo?”

“Tattoo?”

“You know, for Floyd here.”

“That might be considered animal cruelty.”

“Not a real one. I mean one of them fake tattoos. The rub-on kind.”

“Whatever.”

“Oh, goody,” says Mavis, clapping her hands. “Come on now, Floyd baby.”

She may have some strange ideas, but I love that woman. Okay now, I just have one more call to make that I’ve been avoiding.

“Hello. Gentle Care for Gentlewomen,” answers a woman’s voice.

“Hi, I need to make an appointment for a mammogram. No, I’ve never had one. A what? No. I guess I should do that, too, then. I prefer a woman doctor. Is that possible? Mary Beth Green. Ten a.m. on Tuesday? Thanks so much.”

I have to hand it to Mavis for doing such a professional job on Floyd. Even though the color she used was Midnight Black he turned out more of a deep blue, which is quite attractive. Mavis was worried that if she used more dye she might blind Floyd, or give him brain damage. On Floyd’s shoulder is a little shaved patch plastered with a rose tattoo. The dog looks ready to jump on a Harley and ride down to Daytona.

“Floyd could use a leather jacket,” I say.

Floyd’s been with us for three days now and is stinking up the whole downstairs. Mavis says that’s because he’s been eating like a horse but is too nervous to relax his bowels. I think he’s traumatized after his rescue and being in a strange house, not to mention getting a new hairdo. I need to think of a way to help him relax. All he really needs is a familiar setting to do his business.

The Jersey Guy should be at work while Floyd has a rendezvous with his old yard. I rub Floyd’s little curly head and tell him it’s gonna be all right and carry him out to the car. We ride with the windows down so Floyd’s gas won’t kill us both. As we approach Floyd’s old neighborhood, it’s apparent he knows exactly where he is. As soon as he catches a whiff of it, he jumps up with his paws on the back window and whimpers like dogs do when they’re riding in a car and get close to an old stomping ground. When I open the door, he bolts down the street to the Jersey Guy’s yard but cannot make it to the grass, so begins to make his debut as Floyd the Dark Blue right there on the driveway.

Floyd takes his time, too. Even though I’ve been standing here waiting for him for maybe thirty seconds, it feels like he’s been hunched over forever.

Hurry up, Floyd. I’m antsy to get us back in the car. Then out of the blue I hear this buzzing sound. It is the buzzing sound associated with electric garage doors. The Jersey Guy’s garage door begins to slowly creak upwards. I start to panic. An ignition starts, and the rear end of his Lexus begins to appear under the rising door. Floyd is not quite finished.

“Floyd. Come. Come here now! Hurry!”

Floyd is not coming.

“Floyd, come!” I whisper as loud as I can. “Champagne!”

He has finished the deed, but won’t come. He just looks at me, like he’s deciding. Weighing his options. Should he stay here with the Jersey Guy, or should he go with his kidnapper? When the Jersey Guy sees his dog has been dyed blue, he’ll call the cops, and it will be all over the
Brightleaf Daily News
that someone vandalized the Jersey Guy’s dog. Me and Mavis will go to jail. Mavis will be cleared, and I alone will rot in prison forever.