the produce department

I steered the cart into the soda and chips aisle and grabbed a six-pack of root beer and a family size bag of Lays – swimming pool food.  I couldn’t think of anything else I wanted.  Eventually, I found myself in front of the greeting cards.  I was looking at a get-well card that read: I thought the only sick thing about you was your love life when Dad came up behind me and said, “This is all you want?  Soda and chips?  I thought you would’ve had a full cart by now.”

I turned and faced him.  He didn’t look any more tan than he had when he dropped me off, but there was this funny odor coming off him.  I leaned in for a sniff.  It was the opposite of Cathy Pater’s smell.  This smell was chemical.

“It’s this special oil they give you,” he said, smiling down at his forearms.  “Helps you tan faster.  It’s all natural.”  He took control of the cart.  “Okay, let’s fill this thing up, huh?”

Steering us into the produce department, he directed me to place a couple of watermelon halves under the cart.  He picked up a plastic container in the shape of a lemon and showed it to me.  “Can you think of anything we might need this for?” he asked.  I nodded that I didn’t.  He dropped it in the cart anyway.  In the meat department, he selected, very carefully, a half-dozen cube steaks.  He got a box of hamburger patties and a huge “family size” bottle of Bar-B-Q sauce.  As we stood over the various cuts of pork chop I asked him, “Is Billie okay, Dad?  I mean, what has she been doing all this time?”

“With or without bone?” he asked me, not taking his eyes off the pork chops. “Because the bone gives it more flavor, you know?”

“Dad?”

“Give me a minute here, son.  I’m trying to feed the family.”

Strolling into the bakery department he struck up a conversation with a girl behind the counter.  She was a young black girl around Billie’s age.  Her hair was tucked inside of a pink hairnet.  Her hands were coated white with flour.  Dad read her nametag like he’d known her for years.  “How are you, Laura?  I’m Roy.  And I was thinking of sandwiches.  A little turkey, a little bacon, some mayo?  Tomatoes?”

“I’m sorry,” she said.  “But this is the bakery department?  We don’t make sandwiches.”

“You have bread, don’t you?” Dad said.  “Sandwiches are made with bread.”

She motioned to the display case between them.  “Yes, but as you can see.  We have cakes and donuts . . . some cookies and some danish.”

Dad pulled our cart back to show her what we had gotten so far.  “Laura,” he said. “What do you think would go well with all of this stuff?  What are we missing here?  I feel we have everything but it here, know what I mean?”

She peered over the display case.  Her lips moved like she was counting.  “You don’t have anything for dessert,” she said.  “We have a nice variety of cakes and pies.”

Dad looked at me.  “Does Billie like cake?”

“Everybody likes cake,” the girl said.

“I don’t know,” Dad said.  “I mean, I just don’t know.”  He gave the display case a soft kick like he was checking the air pressure of a tire.  “Okay, that’s a no on the cake then, Laura.  How about some donuts?  How are the donuts here?  Pretty good?”

The phone rang and the girl turned to pick it up.  A black phone, its receiver was fingerprinted with flour.  Dad peered over the display case like he wanted to see what kind of shoes she was wearing.  “That’s what I’m talking about,” he said.  “Not too dark, not too light.  A nice milky coffee.  Here son take a look for yourself.”

I was too short to see over the case so I crouched down and looked past the donut trays.  Before I could begin to wonder what he was talking about, she had hung up the phone.  “What’s he liking down there?” she asked Dad.  “The tiger-tails?”

I stood up to her snapping a pair of silver tongs in my direction.  “You look like a tiger-tailer,” she said to me.  “How many would you like?”

Besides for Swan’s mom, this girl was the first face to smile back at me in ten days that either wasn’t on a television screen or in the page of magazine.  All I could say was, “Yes, I’m a tiger-tailer . . .”

“Say, Laura?” Dad said.  “I was wondering if you could do me a favor.”

Her smile turned to him.  “What’s that?” she said.

He rested his right forearm on top of the display case.  “It’ll just take a second of you time.  If you could put your arm up to mine, I would like to check something.”

“Dad?”

“Hold on, son.  Laura?  Could you just put your arm up here?  There you go.  That’s it.”

The two of them inspected their forearms together though I could see that she didn’t know why.

“What’s that smell?” she asked him.

“That’s me,” Dad said.  “Don’t worry.  It’s all natural.  You know that Lincoln Tanning Center on the corner of Main and Rogers?  Great place.  Real nice people there.  You ever been there, Laura?”

The girl stepped back, taking her arm with her.  “Why would I go to a tanning center?” she said.

“Exactly,” Dad said and pointed down to his forearm that was still lying across the display case.  “Did you know that lack of sunlight is one of the leading factors of depression?  Did you know that?  Because I didn’t know that . . . ”

She stood back, arms crossed.  She didn’t seem upset or insulted.  Like anyone else talking to Dad for the first time, she only wondered if he was serious or not.

“You’ve got a really nice tonal value there,” Dad told her.  “I mean it.  People are lining up to get what you’ve got.”

“Is he for real?” she asked me.

I nodded that he was.

“Sure, I’m for real, Laura,” he said.  “And thanks for doing that for me.  It tells me a lot.  Thanks so much.”

“What does it tell you?”

“That I need to get serious about my tan if I’m going to get anywhere near your tonal value.  You see, I’ve been out of commission for the last few days – over a week actually.  It got me thinking though.  And one more favor before the donuts.  Could I ask you a question?”

“Sure,” she said.  “But how about a dozen tiger-tails and a dozen cherry?”

“That’s fine, Laura,” he said, with a wave of his hand.  “But this question I have is about my daughter.  She’s what I wanted to ask you about.  She’s nineteen and, well, this is the deal.  My daughter has been paying me rent to sleep in her own room.  It’s not much, the rent.  In fact, what she pays hardly makes a quarter of my car payment.  But what I’m getting at here is . . .”

“I don’t get it,” she said, handing over the first box of donuts.  “Why would you make your own daughter pay rent?”

Dad ran his hands through his hair, bringing it back into a ponytail and then letting it go.  “She tried to leave when she first graduated from high school,” he said.  “She came back.  She got this job working out in the fields.  Back breaking work.  Then out of the blue she tells me she’s paying rent now.  So it was all her idea, see?  I’ve been playing along.  You know how kids go through phases.  You play their games.  Now, my question to you is this.  Do you think I made a mistake in doing this?  Did I do the wrong thing?”

That’s my dad to a tee.  Open up to total strangers but won’t crack the door an inch to the people closest to him.

“I still can’t imagine someone wanting to pay rent when they don’t have to,” she said.

I stepped up, took the second box of donuts and placed it on top of the other box.

Dad looked up from studying his forearms again.  “Yeah, I guess . . . I mean, if I didn’t butt into her life every once in a while then she’d say I was guilty of not caring about her.”  He put his hands on the display case and leaned in closer.  “It sure is nice talking with someone about this stuff.”

The phone rang again and she answered.  “Bakery Department.  Jamilla speaking.”

“Jamilla?” Dad said.  He knocked on the display case.  “Hey, Laura . . .”

She put the phone to her shoulder.  “Yes?”

“I thought your name was Laura.”

“Oh, I just grabbed the first smock I saw this morning.  You guys have a nice day, okay?”

“Well, what kind of way is that to show customer appreciation?”

“Well, what kind of father charges his daughter to rent?”

Dad pulled a slip of paper from his wallet and waved it at her.  It was the first postal money order Billie had given to him when she first told him she wanted to be treated as a tenant instead of a daughter.  “I haven’t cashed a single one of these fuckers yet!” he hollered.  “What kind of person do you think I am anyway?”

“Sir, do you want me to call security?”

“Sure, do that.  Call security!  And when they get over here I’ll tell them that all I wanted was a couple of sandwiches to feed my family but instead all I got was a liar in the bakery department!  Come on, son!”

Dad stormed off as I pushed the cart behind him.  Once he had walked up and down a couple of aisles and didn’t seem as upset anymore he began to randomly pluck items from the shelves and drop them into the cart.  Canned yams.  Canned pears.  A can of something called Spotted Dick.  He didn’t stop until we had a mountain of food in our cart and he was face to face with a single lobster sitting at the bottom of a large glass tank.

The lobster’s claws were strapped shut with rubber bands and the walls of the tank were bristle-marked by the brush that had last cleaned it.  A sign nearby read:  Don’t Bother the Lobsters.  Dad put his hands to the glass and stared into the tank.  He started kneading the tanning oil deeper into his arms, and told me, “Your sister’s pregnant by the way.”