"Whoa," Bob said, pulling back on my shoulder. "Flower, twelve-o-clock." Bob licked his lips. "Pad and pen, Grasshopper. Pad . . . and . . . pen."
Interpretation: Bob had spied a flower child at the end of the Beauty aisle and wanted me to take notes because he was about to take me to school on the power a writer's line had over a woman.
Bob walked up to the hippie chick whose eyes looked excessively enlightened from where I was hanging in the wings. "Excuse me," he said, "can I have a word with you?"
"Sure," said the woman.
"Love," said the womanizer.
Bob had expected the flower to buckle at the knees. The flower was buckling, all right; buckling into her shopping cart to keep from laughing herself onto the floor.
Bob shrugged his shoulders, exited the aisle, his eye pealed for new game.
Oh, if only I could so easily dismiss those times I'd made an ass of myself.
I got my wine, Bob, his beer, and we headed for the meat end of the store.
"Whoa," Bob said, holding me back. "Check out the limbs on that tree."
I checked out the stockgirl up on a step-stool. She did look like a tree; all stretched out so she could count the jars of barbecue sauce on the top shelf. I couldn't see her face, but her cut of blue jeans--cuffed up to expose her high-top logger boots--gave me half-a-mind to race Bob to the tree.
I took a step towards the stockgirl, but stopped when her face came into profile. Turned out I knew this natural beauty. Well, knew was a bit strong, but my last girlfriend, Rachel, lived near Division Wholesome's, and once--when shopping for our post-sex ice cream--Rachel had caught me giving this very stockgirl love-eyes.
I was recounting all the Rachel trouble I'd gotten into that day, when I took note of Bob about to shinny up my tree.
"Excuse me," Bob said, addressing the stockgirl's breasts, "I have a rice question."
The stockgirl dropped her doe eyes. "A rice question?"
"Yes. Is it all right with you if you and I don't have rice thrown at our wedding?"
The stockgirl, having thrown a knowing eye to the guy behind the meat counter, jumped off her stool, locked her olive fist around the black handles of Bob's green grocery basket. "Let's," she said, all girlie-girl, "let's get married today."
Bob looked left, then right, searching for a line to get out of this mess. But, no, writer Bob couldn't find a line right or left. So he looked to his fellow writer. But, 'No,' my face was saying, 'don't look at me. You're the one who's always bragging how well you can write on your feet.'
"I get off at three," the stockgirl said, raising her wrist. "There must be someone in this city who will marry us today." And there she stood, reading her watch.
First, I had to drop a jaw at the strength of the Stockgirl, having lifted Bob's sixpack-in-a-handbasket that she might read her wrist. Second, I had to stick a wrist in my own face that I might hide the laugh I was having over guy-guy Bob, posing like a nervous schoolgirl, holding up his May Basket for all to see.
"Charlie," the stockgirl said, pulling her fiancee over to the meat counter, "you get off at three, right?"
"You bet I do, Jen. Why?"
"This guy here and I are getting married then, and we need a witness."
"Here you go again, Jen--you already have a partner."
"I know," the stockgirl said, displaying Bob's hand-in-a-basket, "but this guy here has great power over me. The kind of guy I've been waiting for all my life. The kind of dick who can make me forget Jane and give up lesbianism altogether."
Wow, a lesbian. Oh, well, that's the risk we soldiers faced chasing strong women.
Bob, cured of his writer's block, said, "Let go, bitch." And away he went, storming out of the meat end of the store, no meat in his hand basket.
I followed, but not without a last look back. No, lesbian or no, nothing more beautiful than the laughing girl unable to climb her step-stool for the ass she'd just made of an asshole.
Back at my apartment, I hurried, put my groceries away. What was I thinking taking Bob chick hunting? Christ, I still had work to do up at school.
Racing to get out of my apartment, I sprung a broad jump over the books and journals I kept stacked at the corner of my floored futon. Mid-jump I asked myself: Why is it always mid-jump when the elder remembers his spring isn't what it used to be?
No, a stack of novels published before 1920 was no place to stick a broad jump.
I remained on the floor for a time, explaining to the dust bunnies how I was afraid to get up lest I learn the degree to which I'd hurt myself.
"It's not funny; I think I really hurt myself."
When a writer--at the dawn of his middle age--thinks he really hurt himself, he starts thinking in terms of autobiography. "Oh, sure, there was that one leap-of-faith that ended with me walking with a cane forevermore, but, hey, that's the risks we writers take, right?"
Then again, walking with a cane had its upside. No, men of letters and canes had a rich history together.
Getting up, however, I realized the pain in my leg was largely in my head. So instead of looking up Canes in the Yellow Pages, I picked up the book that had set the bar too high for my middle age. "So," I said to my prized copy of Pan, "that's the thanks I get for celebrating you."
I had a score to settle, so I used the book to beat the dust out of my clothes. But beating, I couldn't help but wonder what the dead author of Pan might say if--from the other side--he had observed my theatrics. "Nothing to be embarrassed about," Hamsun might say. "There's a rich history of writers crippling themselves over the written word they see fit to emulate."
But wait; maybe this whole Pan slapstick wasn't funny so much as it was an . . .
But wait; maybe this whole Pan slapstick wasn't funny so much as it was an . . .
Omen.
Yes, that's what Pan, here, was telling me; the book wanted to go with me out the door, up the mountain, into a certain girl's mailbox. A girl who loved to read. My girl who had a little birthday a coming.
Limping out the door, I noticed something on the book's cover. Damn, those wine stains weren't there when I'd purchased the book used at Owls.
Limping back in the door, I carried Pan with ceremony. But before I could give the yellow cover a good going over, I had to dig my blue dish-sponge out of the garbage. Why? Because that's where you throw a sponge when it's at the dawn of its middle age.
Limping back in the door, I carried Pan with ceremony. But before I could give the yellow cover a good going over, I had to dig my blue dish-sponge out of the garbage. Why? Because that's where you throw a sponge when it's at the dawn of its middle age.
****
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