In the parking lot of a Piggly Wiggly, waiting for a parking space opening up, Sundays a popular day to Shop the Pig. A blue Buick backing out of the parking space he wanted, angling toward him, still coming. He could have honked but didn’t, expecting that the Buick’s driver would have consulted the rear-view mirror and seen him there. He’d have backed up to get out of the way but right behind him, nose to ass, was a pickup truck with authentic steer’s horns as a hood ornament. The Buick kept coming until it clipped him in the front license plate. The Buick lurched forward and crept slowly away, the driver seemingly oblivious, as if the modest impact went unnoticed. He pulled into the hard-won spot and went around front to see the collision had broken the front bracket, the front license plate dangling vertically, Lone Star State reading south to north.
There were enough things he’d rather not do but had to that made procrastination a brand of optimism. Grocery shopping was one of those things he’d get around to when he was good and ready, not the most excruciating but painful in its own way. If he had children, they would be emaciated urchins waiting at home for him, watching him with placid desperation, developing a scavenger’s shrewd instinct, picking things out of the garbage that had nutritional value, pizza crust, Styrofoam containers with swabs of sour cream, yogurt containers with smears of fruit at the bottom, then turning to what might be left in the fridge, milk beyond its expiration date, flat soda, butter, condiments.
Something transcendental happened to people when they grocery shopped, almost as soon as they pulled into the parking lot, there being something mesmerizing about stocking up on provisions that he was apparently immune to, or the many product offerings bewildering to the average consumer. People strolled dreamily down the center of lanes between parking spots, returning to their cars with laden shopping carts. They froze in aisles as they contemplated the various selections of any item. They chatted up the cashiers, oblivious to anyone in line behind them, sifting through a stack of coupons for items they were buying that day.
Any minute spent grocery shopping longer than was necessary was, to him, like putting a bullet in a minute. He would buy items at the deli counter only if no one was in line, almost running with his cart down open aisles. He would keep the number of items purchased to twelve or less so he could check out in the Express Lane or he would cash out electronically as long as a terminal was available.
As a power shopper he had less occasion to eavesdrop but would catch snippets in passing, or as a captive audience when unavoidably obstructed by an indecisive plodder in frozen foods, a discriminating fondler of produce, a new cashier in training, or someone unable to negotiate the electronic checkout without assistance.
“He’s always in such a hurry to get off the toilet he barely wipes himself or forgets or doesn’t bother and I can’t seem to Shout© out the skid marks. I end up throwing his underwear away.”
“You need to slow him down a little. Have you thought about leaving some magazines in the bathroom, or the newspaper? The sports section? His e-reader? Does he have an e-reader?”
“Um, that’s disgusting.”
“More disgusting than his underwear?”
***
He wasn’t quick to get the front plate bracket repaired and drove around that way without a care about it. Driving along a country road of a Sunday noontime, a serpentine connector road, when a Volvo in front of him slowed and stopped and its yellow flashers came on. They were nowhere near a stop sign or stoplight or anywhere to turn in, out in feral flat country, ranch houses spaced widely apart as if their occupants preferred hardy vegetation that could survive desert-like conditions to humanity. A soft-bodied woman with pale skin and straight brown hair like a helmet emerged from the Volvo, in her Sunday finest, walking purposefully toward him, beaming her fresh God buzz, brimming with the weekly message, to spread kindness and mete out good deeds as opportunities presented themselves. And she was outwardly pleased that this one had, pleased that she could to recognize it and could commit this random act of kindness. Down came his window and he leaned over, head partially out the driver’s side window, looking at her, eyes dancing, waiting to see exactly what was on her mind.
“Your front license plate is broken,” she drawled merrily. He looked at her with nothing immediately forthcoming, no discernible outward reaction. He could say he already knew. He could ask her if she really thought he’d not noticed. And she could have driven to a hospice and held hands with the terminally ill, or baby-sat for free, or read to children, or sold magazine subscriptions on behalf of the Latter-Day Saints.
But she wouldn’t want any of that sticky personal interaction. She was a Good Samaritan of the hit-and-run persuasion, a soul mechanic offering an off-the-cuff diagnosis without the messiness that came with looking under the hood, pulling things apart and getting at the root malfunction.
It was a word he loved, genius in its way. He’d only ever texted it and had been steeling for the appropriate context to use it in conversation. If a three-letter word could encapsulate a generation, or a society, or its preoccupations, it had that kind of breadth. He’d rehearsed saying it, sometimes in front of a mirror, with a nasally incantation and a practiced indifferent shrug to accompany what he said in response as he watched her:
“Meh.”
She was already half-turned away from him, mission accomplished, pointing out the hanging license plate, doing her part to bring order to the world. If she’d looked at him, established eye contact, she’d have seen that his strong left eye, being 20-15 vision, was doing all the heavy lifting so the right one could be lazy, not having to focus if it didn’t feel the need, so that he seemed to have two different points of vision. She turned away, hastening back to her car, sensing a miscalculation.
