“Hey, do you have jumper cables?”
I always liked grocery shopping at night. I deplore the evening crowds. And what makes matters worse is that grocery stores aren’t grocery stores anymore, they are warehouses. Those bigwigs in the food industry trick us. You don’t notice the deception because they tile the warehouse floors. Have you ever been in a warehouse with tiled floors? Of course not, but a warehouse is still a warehouse no matter how fancily you decorate the floors. Plus, grocery stores are small. They have burly butchers there named “Fred” or “Rico.” Grocery stores have bag boys. They have fifteen-year-olds, their first job, both jock and nerd, working side by side for minimum wage, doing a job that warehouses figured out they could make the consumer do for free. If you want definitive proof that your “grocery store” is a warehouse, look up. They may trick you into thinking they are a grocery store with their fresh fruits and vegetables, decorative end caps, and those “tiled floors,” but those ceilings are too tall. If you see high ceilings, and you aren’t in a church, library, or auditorium, by logical deduction, you must be in a warehouse. Grocery stores are personal. They are California condors, and at the same time, fossils. If you want to find a grocery store, take a stroll through small town, main street USA. You won’t find one there, but you’ll find an antique store inhabiting the shell of one.
“Who the hell doesn’t have jumper cables?” I thought to myself. It’s winter and it gets cold enough here, the kind of cold where you might open up your freezer and stick your hands inside just to warm them up. Everyone needs jumper cables. And just because everyone has them isn’t an excuse to rely on the fact that everyone should have them.
Did mention I deplore crowds more than I deplore warehouses with identity issues? I shop at night because I hate to wait in line; I am disgusted when I have to push through crowds. Pushing through crowds to get the discount cereal or pickles — disgusting. No doubt, Washington wasn’t wasting his time wrestling with the masses to get five tomatoes for a dollar. And though I am not giving birth to a country, I would like to think the one thing Washington and I have in common is that we wouldn’t waste time fighting over something as silly as produce at the super market.
I hate the mobs. I get furious at the guy who takes seventeen items into the fifteen-items-or-less lane. I get angry at the elderly man who examines each apple for flaws. I get jealous of the mother who shops with three small children. Why can’t I multitask like her? She manages to get 99 percent of the food she sets out to buy while watching and multitasking a bunch of uncoordinated, miniature humans. Shopping with old kids makes sense. No bag boy at the warehouse, you make the kids do it. Good for building character and all that jazz. But little kids, I know those moms just can’t leave them at home, but I don’t have such fortitude. If presented with the option, I’d order out all the time. I would change the emergency speed dial on my phone to a place that delivered submarine sandwiches. Hungry, yelling kids who need a healthy dinner. Now that’s a real everyday emergency.
“Yeah, I got jumper cables. Give me a second to put away the rest of the groceries.”
“Ya need help?”
“Sure, buddy.”
So I go there at night. But I must admit that the place creeps me out. It’s like a haunted house with coupons. Barren. Cans, freezers, one cashier, and a couple of stock boys. Are they really apparitions though? You glance down an aisle and you might see one by chance, but if look twice, they are gone. Don’t go searching for cornstarch at night; you’ll find an ivory billed woodpecker before you find a stock boy or the cornstarch. If food warehouses sold those creepy dolls with glass eyes, I would go grocery shopping during the day, or have that submarine sandwich place on my emergency speed dial, too. I have never seen a possessed doll kill a person with a group of witnesses; I would take some comfort in knowing that the millions of other urban day hunter-gathers were protecting me solely by existing.
“Okay, let me grab those cables. Where’s your car?”
He just breathes heavily. And of course I am weirded out, so much so that I would prefer the crowds or doll-lined shelves of a warehouse. At least they didn’t breathe like him. Grocery warehouses have all types of breathers, though. Huffers, puffers, wheezers, suckers, panters, double panters, mouth breathers, inverse mouth breathers, largemouth bassers, spittlers, lippers, snake lungers. That’s the problem. Everyone who breathes has to eat, and everyone who eats has to buy food at the grocery warehouses. Exceptions may exist. There are probably some rich inverse mouth breathers out there that have butlers shop for them, but 99 percent of the time, you could identify every phenotype of breather on Earth at any day of the week at a grocery warehouse. But when do these diverse fauna of breathers shop? During the day. That’s why I shop at night. I bemoan crowds along with the choruses of breathers.
“Fuck.”
Why didn’t I notice that there weren’t any other cars in this parking lot? He grabs hold of my wrist tightly and pulls me closer to him. I want to scream. Did he grab my tongue as well? If I were a mother, this wouldn’t have happened. Mothers have motherly instincts. They detect danger. They are like bats with an echo location that specifically bounce back off of trouble. That’s why when you are young, mothers know if you are running with scissors or just about to light a funeral pyre for a Darth Vader figure in your backyard. But they don’t even have to go and find you, they just yell from a faraway land, and if you fear their wrath, you stop. Plus, mothers have children. They don’t like crowds, but they aren’t stupid. Mothers don’t shop with their kids at night. If I had children, this wouldn’t have happened. Or if I was George Washington, I would go Valley Forge on his ass.
A voice calls out.
“Are you okay?”
Jumper Cables and I turn in surprise; he instinctively covers my mouth with his hand. A shadowy figure stands in the street light.
“Yeah… everything is cool. Just, ummmm, a lover’s quarrel with the misses.”
The eyes stare. They do not seem convinced.
“Get outta here you fucking lurker,” Jumper Cables said.
A friend of mine once called him a lurker, too. Lurker. No one uses that word anymore except when describing Internet stalkers. But that is what he does. He lurks. That’s how he finds crime. However, you know where you find the most lurkers? Food warehouses. Especially on free samples day. Usually it’s bachelors, cheap ones, but I have seen a woman or two lurk; they make the best lurkers. It’s pathetic. To the experienced food lurker, a successful sample lurking is an accomplishment. They fall asleep at the end of the day with a rewarding feeling in their heart, but also with hunger pains. Why? Because even after 1,000 samples, you still only ate about three-and-a-half ounces of food. If you want a sense of accomplishment, how about you donate blood? At least then you’ll save three lives AND get a juice box and three-and-a-half ounces of cookies.
“Are you okay?”
The figure moves closer, revealing a tan, weathered face, with silver hair and masked eyes. I notice his hands. They are weathered too, his fingernails cracked, like one who has worked or suffered. In one of his tempered hands though — his right, he carries a red fire extinguisher.
”Wait, is that him?” I think.
I first read about him on the rare occasion when I went grocery shopping during the day. There was a party, and since I procrastinated till the afternoon prior, I needed to go the food warehouse in the daytime to get supplies. I fought through the crowds. I swerved past the slow walkers. I dodged some motorized scooters to get my five tomatoes for a dollar, I didn’t fight for them, I just waited for an opening, like Washington would. I got my food, and since I had seventeen items and I wasn’t a skank that would go into the fifteen-items-or-less line, I take my place in one of the normal queues, the kind so long that women give birth in them because, hell, they’ve waited there so long, why lose their place now? As my food spoils in the cart, I notice a headline: “Man eats over 300 poinsettias, breaks world record.” “How festive,” I thought, “and right around Christmas, too.” Then my attention was grabbed by something less stupid: “Page 8: The Legend of Mustachio, as told by his ex-neighbor.” Anyone named Mustachio must be a cool dude. So I took a peek.
He asks again.
“Are you okay?”
He steps farther into the light, and I can finally notice it: The mustache.
The article I read, the one on page 8, went something like this:
“‘Mustachio, this city’s newest vigilante, has a sordid history, like any vigilante,’ says Mustachio’s former neighbor. ‘I never really talked to the guy. Maybe I should have when I look back at it, but the guy kept to himself. Kind of an old guy — tough looking, with a mustache. I don’t think he spoke English. Like, you’d see him and all he would ever say was ‘Are you okay?’ and I’d say ‘Yes, I’m fine.” Then he’d smile and go on with his business. He didn’t look like a moron or anything. Maybe he was, like, a refugee or political prisoner. He just didn’t speak English. I even tried a little bit of Spanish, but no luck. Anyway, he kept to himself, except for a dog. He loved this scrappy-looking dog. It had pointy ears, a long tail, and the mange. I don’t know if he owned the dog. But he always gave him food, and the dog hung out on his stoop.
One day some young punks, real no-good-nicks, kick the dog. Mustachio sees, goes out there and starts yelling up a storm in some kind of foreign tongue. The kids don’t like that, so you know what they do? They come back that night, drunk or high, and bone his dog. Bestiality. Disgusting, man. Just sick. And on top of that, they then douse the dog in bacon grease and start it on fire. Mustachio, who was woken up by the barking, goes out and sees his dog ablaze. He panics, turns on a garden hose and sprays down the dog. But you know what happens when you put water on a grease fire? It flares up. The dog is a roaring fireball and, of course, is scorched to death. Mustachio can’t do anything but watch. I don’t know if he cracked after that or what. But that’s when I think he swore a life of vigilantism; one week after the burning, a few of the men suspected of the crime were found bludgeoned to near death and covered in a fine white powder. That’s some messed up junk, man.’ ”
Cables grips me tighter than ever. Am I sensing fear? Had he read the same newspaper, skipped the front page and turned to page 8? Maybe he was normally a night shopper just like me and saw the article in a spot of boredom one evening. Or was he a day shopper? I bet a guy like him is a food lurker, always eyeing for an opportunity to take advantage of a situation.
“Are you okay?” the mustached lips ask again.
“Why the fuck do you keep asking that, old man?”
I stood silent. He looked on at me, his eyes penetrating the lies of my assailant; he is not fazed by Cable’s growing anger. The mysterious man’s nostrils flared, the air ruffling the hairs of his great silver mustache.
“Are you okay?”
“Shut the fuck up!”
“Are you okay?” he repeats.
Cables is still holding me. I assumed the fucker would probably leave a bruise, but I’d be lucky if that was all that happened to me. He readies himself to attack the old man.
“Are you okay?”
Cables clenches his teeth. He is about to lunge.
Finally, I shook my head from side to side; a muffled sound snuck its way out of my mouth.
“No.”
There is a loud rushing sound. A white fog envelopes the assailant and me, and from within this cloud I hear the clang of metal; the vice entrapping my wrist is limply unlocked. A body falls to the ground. The smoke hasn’t cleared when I hear a ripping sound. I’d find out later that it was duck tape; the police found him, legs bound together, one hand taped over his mouth, the other hand taped onto his wrist. A hand grabs mine; it is rough, but gentle and caring. Two of us emerge from the dissipating vapor. The mustached man escorts me inside, walks up to the lonely cashier and dials 911 on the register’s phone. He makes the clerk speak to the police. We wait together. When he hears the sirens, he departs the store, reentering the shadows from whence he came.
******
Several weeks pass. I am a lot less shaken up than before, but I don’t mind the mouth breathers, the mothers, or the food lurkers of the food warehouse. Maybe I never gave them a chance. Perhaps they are good people... no, they are as irritating as ever. But it’s the kind of irritating you appreciate. Like a brother or great uncle who’s kind of annoying and you hate when you experience it, but then holiday get-togethers become oh-so-boring when they are dead or off at college.
Today, before visiting the food warehouse, I visit another warehouse — a home improvement store. I don’t hate them as much. They don’t have identity issues like grocery stores; they rarely tile their floors. Sometimes people like to say these warehouses are home improvement centers, but you know if you walked up to the building and said, “Hey, are you a warehouse?” It would respond, “The sign out front says I’mma center, but yeah, I’mma warehouse, you got a problem with that?” and I’d say “No, dude.” But I would be perplexed that a building spoke and had a Brooklyn accent. Regardless, the home improvement warehouse knows that it’s like my grandma used to say: “You don’t put a leotard on an alligator.”
Anyway, I am standing in line, bucket of paint in hand, when I hear a commotion a couple registers over.
“Sir, you must take this back to the hardware department,” the cashier says.
“Okay.” The man hands him money.
“Sir, this is the floor model. If you go back to the hardware department, one of our employees can assist you.”
“Okay.” The man looks confused and gestures to give the money back to the cashier.
The people behind him are getting visibly upset. I am still curious.
“Sir, please get out of the line and go back to the hardware department.”
“Okay.” The man is looks really confused; he gestures again in vain.
“Damn. Probably another immigrant. Why can’t they just learn some fucking English like everyone else?”
My curiosity piques. I get out of my line (yes, I know it’s sacrilege to abandon your line during peak business hours) and walk over. The young employee is frustrated. His job probably sucks (he does work in a warehouse), and he wants as few hassles as possible. The man stands there confused. He is his holding his money out; he must be thinking “this is just like before.” Yet, he doesn’t understand what the problem is now.
Then I notice everything. The silver hair. The weathered face. The tempered hands. An upper lip garnished with a simple yet magnanimous ‘stache. Damn. You can’t fake that kind of facial hair. Mustaches like his aren’t grown, they are earned. They are little prickly medals placed under the nose by a divine entity, a symbol for the rest of us of their nobility. A badge reserved for only the most worthy of our fathers and grandfathers.
But his eyes are sad. He’s trapped, being verbally beaten into submission by some high school chump. And no amount of extinguisher bashing would help him escape.
I stroll over.
“Hey, dude. What’s going on?”
“This idiot gramps here took the floor model fire extinguisher off the shelf and he is too stupid to go back and get the right one.”
“An honest mistake from a member of America’s Greatest Generation. Why haven’t you fixed the problem?”
He rolls his eyes. “He no ‘speaka the Engles’,” he says condescendingly.
Something in me snaps; I can feel the Valley Forge roaring up inside me.
“What’s your name, kid?”
I grab the kids name tag, it say “Ramesses.”
“Like King Ramesses II? Of Egypt? What kind of hippie-pagan parents name their kid Ramesses?” I take a deep breath. “Wait, Ramesses, I need to focus. If I don’t focus, I am going to rant about how I hate warehouses and food warehouses. I hate them with a fiery passion but now is not the time and place.”
“Here’s the deal. This ‘old guy’ here is a friend of mine, and I will guarantee that if a surgeon removed nine-tenths of his brain, he’d still be five times smarter than a young prick such as yourself, sans the ability to speak English. Do you see that little phone there, like the one that has probably been next to every cash register you have worked at and will work at, which, at this rate, will be an incredible number? Instead of being a stupid fuck, how about you take a proactive step, call hardware, and have one of your wood-stain sniffing friends bring up the right one. If not, I’ll take it up with your manager. I am sure he or she wouldn’t be happy to hear that you were berating a well-behaved customer with a pocket full of cash, especially during a recession.”
He picks up the phone, talks to someone on the other end, and soon another pimply greenhorn comes with the correct product.
“$124.48, sir.”
I look up at the old man, smile, and say one of the few words I know he will know.
“Okay.”
He smiles, hands the money to the cashier, and soon gets his change.
“The man prefers paper, Ramesses and thank you much, much for your coerced friendly service. Today could be a great new turning point in your life of mediocrity.”
The two of us step out together, and we both realize we probably shouldn’t go back to that store for awhile. We turn to each other. I know we both have a lot to say, but there’s that language barrier thing. We are silent. But then I ask him.
“Are you okay?”
He smiles again and says, “Are you okay?”
I smile back; he must remember me.
“Yeah, I am okay.”
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