Within
my first year, I had been to nearly every place there was to go within a three
mile horizontal radius of my dormitory. The lone exception was the picturesque
white chapel where the locals went to worship, marry, baptize, and bury. I was
curious, but refrained from visiting as even God-fearing students kept away
from Christ’s Church of the Fields (which was situated, eponymously, in
cornfields). Fear of judgment from the flock there was not the cause. They were
far too meek to ever rebuke strangers. The prospect of instantly becoming One
of Them and never being able to leave without crippling guilt/remorse was ample
disincentive. The congregation made an annual pilgrimage to our college to
spread the Good News via smiles and pocket-sized green New Testaments. If you
made eye contact, you invited a sales-pitch more forceful and cheery than any
telemarketer’s script, which included an inquiry into contact information, and
precipitated a Campus Mailbox stuffed with handwritten notes every Monday, from
the third week in August to the second week in May until graduation, cursively
stating, “Sorry we missed you.” Niceness can be frightening, especially to
cynics. The ferocity of their tuistic sentiments was suspicious. We students
surmised (wrongly in hindsight) either they (1) had ulterior motives beyond our
personal salvation or (2) their motives were based on some vague idea of us and
therefore without merit because they didn’t know us from Adam. A classmate of
mine with a soft spot for Star Trek remarked the flock was like a nicer sect of
the Borg. The analogy was not without merit (both came off as selfless,
artificial, and quickly confused if sequestered individually), although the
townies got a lot more sun for obvious reasons.
All this is to say I had been to the produce shanty before. (It was less than three miles away by foot.) On those visits I bought my weight in blackberries. Where I come from never had access to berries beyond the usual berry suspects (i.e., straw, blue, and rasp). A calloused (in both senses of the word) middle aged man with needles of blond hair stiffly distending from under his John Deere cap kept to the shadows like a brown recluse. His stubble was so thick you could have struck a match on his chin. He did not look like a man who would risk his goods to the honor’s system of many roadside stands. It was a cash-only sort of place with a squeaky tin box once forged to hold military wares standing in for a vault. He never gave me exact change. He capriciously over-or-undercharged me to the nearest dollar as though he was unwilling to trifle with coins. I resolved to not inquire into this practice out of an unconfirmed (but not unfounded) suspicion there was a shotgun on the premises. Later I learned this man was her father. He sired four children and hailed from one of those identical exurban towns, neither small nor large, a traveler drives through fifty times while sojourning across the American Middle West. While on tour with the Army, he was bitten by the gambling bug. After inheriting a forlorn family farm by casting lots with his two brothers, this troubled man kept himself honest by only chancing the coins he acquired through the farm’s revenue. (He drove into the City to get his fix, the cost of gas alone typically necessitating a net loss for the night prior to any lever-pulling or drink specials.)
It was about the time the sugar snap peas started sprouting fast and furious that I definitely recall getting to know her specifically. On approach, I was shocked to see a young woman my approximate age standing in for the mulish older man. She was not dressed in flannel and her shirt was not tied above the navel. She was wearing the townie’s well-practiced look suggestive of either vacancy or concentration. (Statues commonly have the same ambivalent stare.) Her closely cropped hair made me think I had seen her before, but I doubt I could have placed when or where.
Having spied her at thirty paces, I had time to compose myself. I believed composure was the gateway to sexiness, a principle I’d likely gleaned from girl’s middle school locker posters of James Dean or Johnny Depp scowling. (Sex appeal could also have been the effect of black and white photography, an effect which I could not achieve in living color.) I tried to look through everything I saw as though nothing could really hold my interest. I blinked a few times at the bushel of russet potatoes. I was trying to push mystery out of my pores. (It had not yet occurred to me this ‘putting on’ forbade women from taking a genuine interest in me.) I went back and forth about whether or not I should even buy anything. Would it betray my disaffection? Would it be insulting not to? All the while I felt her eyes on me. I do this often, feel like I’m the center of everyone’s attention. This is not unusual among humans. My high school psychology textbook detailed how paranoid symptomatology included thinking that any laughter within earshot was at one’s expense. As I never entertained other, more outlandish propositions (i.e., people following me) I never qualified for a medical diagnosis of paranoia. Still, this perspective is consistent and not without side-effects. I call it the evil twin of narcissism because I have not found a name for it other than despair, which is entirely too dramatic most of the time.
Because I did not have access to a kitchen or cooking apparatuses, I was limited to fruits and vegetables requiring no more preparation than cutting and/or the application of dips/dressings. (I did have a Swiss Army Knife courtesy of an uncle and two complete place settings courtesy of the cafeteria.) I decided the best course to take was a modest purchase, which seemed to split the difference between apathy and intrigue. I placed my choice of Cameo apples and broccoli onto the wooden crates that doubled as counter space. She weighed them. I did not make eye contact. I paid attention to her hands. She had a few wisps of bleached hair on skin between her knuckles. Her fingernails were trimmed and unpainted. There were no freckles. I could not find a scar on either. I remember this because I assumed living her sort of life must have involved cuts, breaks, and/or other miscellaneous mangling. I concluded she must have keen control of her body. There was daydreaming. While I surveyed the countertop and what was on it, she multiplied the weights by their corresponding prices and added the two. I was staring into the stippled green surface of the broccoli when she told me the total ($4.50). It occurred to me this was an excellent opportunity. I wanted her to take a shine to me and thought flattery would make inroads to that end. (Had I the presence of mind to think reflexively and reverse the roles, I would have discerned the malignancy of cash.) After less than a moment’s consideration, I slid a $10 bill across the surface that was not conducive to sliding. I gathered my purchases and rotated away from her. (Offering women money is an ice-breaker, but after it’s been broken by that device you realize the ice kept you from drifting further away rather than being apart.)
Instead of thinking me gallant, she thought me hard of hearing. She called—not hollered—after me and clarified the price. My next move could either have been feigning miscommunication or trying to explain the balance of the payment was for her benefit. Our eyes met and it frightened me. I felt shackled. “Four-fifty” does not sound like “ten.” Knowing that “Keep the change,” was entirely too cliché for our situation, I simply said, “Keep it.” She looked bewildered. (Note: there are no tip jars in produce stands.) I left. Gravel undeniably scattered behind me at the rate of a moderate pace. I didn’t stop. My forehead was starting to glisten with liquefied anxiety. She did not command me to stop; she gripped my shoulder. It could not be ignored. I made an about-face.
“My name is Allison.”
Those were the first words she said to me outside of a transactional context. They were disarming and snapped me out of the trance I was in. It was her first act of mercy. She was not interested in getting to the bottom of what had transpired. She wanted me to know who she was (or at least start to). As someone who was generally backwards, I appreciated her forwardness. Interactions are not games and I wish I hadn’t spent so much of my youth thinking they were. She took my hand, turned it palm up, and deposited a $5 bill and two quarters. I am certain I apologized without saying “sorry.” She smiled and I stared into the distance to the side of her face. The landscape presented like a solidified ocean. There were no impediments to the horizon. Nubby rows of soybeans converged at a vanishing point in the cloudless bleached blue sky. We stood there for less than thirty seconds in relative quiet. Crickets and grasshoppers provided the soundtrack. I don’t know what she was thinking. I didn’t ask any questions. Despite appearances, I am not loquacious in person. I probably nodded and turned away again.
All this is to say I had been to the produce shanty before. (It was less than three miles away by foot.) On those visits I bought my weight in blackberries. Where I come from never had access to berries beyond the usual berry suspects (i.e., straw, blue, and rasp). A calloused (in both senses of the word) middle aged man with needles of blond hair stiffly distending from under his John Deere cap kept to the shadows like a brown recluse. His stubble was so thick you could have struck a match on his chin. He did not look like a man who would risk his goods to the honor’s system of many roadside stands. It was a cash-only sort of place with a squeaky tin box once forged to hold military wares standing in for a vault. He never gave me exact change. He capriciously over-or-undercharged me to the nearest dollar as though he was unwilling to trifle with coins. I resolved to not inquire into this practice out of an unconfirmed (but not unfounded) suspicion there was a shotgun on the premises. Later I learned this man was her father. He sired four children and hailed from one of those identical exurban towns, neither small nor large, a traveler drives through fifty times while sojourning across the American Middle West. While on tour with the Army, he was bitten by the gambling bug. After inheriting a forlorn family farm by casting lots with his two brothers, this troubled man kept himself honest by only chancing the coins he acquired through the farm’s revenue. (He drove into the City to get his fix, the cost of gas alone typically necessitating a net loss for the night prior to any lever-pulling or drink specials.)
It was about the time the sugar snap peas started sprouting fast and furious that I definitely recall getting to know her specifically. On approach, I was shocked to see a young woman my approximate age standing in for the mulish older man. She was not dressed in flannel and her shirt was not tied above the navel. She was wearing the townie’s well-practiced look suggestive of either vacancy or concentration. (Statues commonly have the same ambivalent stare.) Her closely cropped hair made me think I had seen her before, but I doubt I could have placed when or where.
Having spied her at thirty paces, I had time to compose myself. I believed composure was the gateway to sexiness, a principle I’d likely gleaned from girl’s middle school locker posters of James Dean or Johnny Depp scowling. (Sex appeal could also have been the effect of black and white photography, an effect which I could not achieve in living color.) I tried to look through everything I saw as though nothing could really hold my interest. I blinked a few times at the bushel of russet potatoes. I was trying to push mystery out of my pores. (It had not yet occurred to me this ‘putting on’ forbade women from taking a genuine interest in me.) I went back and forth about whether or not I should even buy anything. Would it betray my disaffection? Would it be insulting not to? All the while I felt her eyes on me. I do this often, feel like I’m the center of everyone’s attention. This is not unusual among humans. My high school psychology textbook detailed how paranoid symptomatology included thinking that any laughter within earshot was at one’s expense. As I never entertained other, more outlandish propositions (i.e., people following me) I never qualified for a medical diagnosis of paranoia. Still, this perspective is consistent and not without side-effects. I call it the evil twin of narcissism because I have not found a name for it other than despair, which is entirely too dramatic most of the time.
Because I did not have access to a kitchen or cooking apparatuses, I was limited to fruits and vegetables requiring no more preparation than cutting and/or the application of dips/dressings. (I did have a Swiss Army Knife courtesy of an uncle and two complete place settings courtesy of the cafeteria.) I decided the best course to take was a modest purchase, which seemed to split the difference between apathy and intrigue. I placed my choice of Cameo apples and broccoli onto the wooden crates that doubled as counter space. She weighed them. I did not make eye contact. I paid attention to her hands. She had a few wisps of bleached hair on skin between her knuckles. Her fingernails were trimmed and unpainted. There were no freckles. I could not find a scar on either. I remember this because I assumed living her sort of life must have involved cuts, breaks, and/or other miscellaneous mangling. I concluded she must have keen control of her body. There was daydreaming. While I surveyed the countertop and what was on it, she multiplied the weights by their corresponding prices and added the two. I was staring into the stippled green surface of the broccoli when she told me the total ($4.50). It occurred to me this was an excellent opportunity. I wanted her to take a shine to me and thought flattery would make inroads to that end. (Had I the presence of mind to think reflexively and reverse the roles, I would have discerned the malignancy of cash.) After less than a moment’s consideration, I slid a $10 bill across the surface that was not conducive to sliding. I gathered my purchases and rotated away from her. (Offering women money is an ice-breaker, but after it’s been broken by that device you realize the ice kept you from drifting further away rather than being apart.)
Instead of thinking me gallant, she thought me hard of hearing. She called—not hollered—after me and clarified the price. My next move could either have been feigning miscommunication or trying to explain the balance of the payment was for her benefit. Our eyes met and it frightened me. I felt shackled. “Four-fifty” does not sound like “ten.” Knowing that “Keep the change,” was entirely too cliché for our situation, I simply said, “Keep it.” She looked bewildered. (Note: there are no tip jars in produce stands.) I left. Gravel undeniably scattered behind me at the rate of a moderate pace. I didn’t stop. My forehead was starting to glisten with liquefied anxiety. She did not command me to stop; she gripped my shoulder. It could not be ignored. I made an about-face.
“My name is Allison.”
Those were the first words she said to me outside of a transactional context. They were disarming and snapped me out of the trance I was in. It was her first act of mercy. She was not interested in getting to the bottom of what had transpired. She wanted me to know who she was (or at least start to). As someone who was generally backwards, I appreciated her forwardness. Interactions are not games and I wish I hadn’t spent so much of my youth thinking they were. She took my hand, turned it palm up, and deposited a $5 bill and two quarters. I am certain I apologized without saying “sorry.” She smiled and I stared into the distance to the side of her face. The landscape presented like a solidified ocean. There were no impediments to the horizon. Nubby rows of soybeans converged at a vanishing point in the cloudless bleached blue sky. We stood there for less than thirty seconds in relative quiet. Crickets and grasshoppers provided the soundtrack. I don’t know what she was thinking. I didn’t ask any questions. Despite appearances, I am not loquacious in person. I probably nodded and turned away again.
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