All month long I popped chewable Vitamin C tablets (so now I'm probably addicted to the orange pills although I don’t think that’s really possible). My preventative remedies didn’t work in the end, because I met the dreaded change of weather cold with great reluctance and got sick. I couldn’t shake what turned out to be an uncommon cold for some ten days. And all the chicken soup, however good for the soul; however tasty, didn’t ease my ills, or speed up my convalescence.
* * *
One afternoon, after I was feeling better, I decided to stop by the market on my way home from an early Christmas shopping trip.
I grabbed a grilled chicken salad with bocconcini and the last package of sort-of-sweet strawberries to turn up this winter.
In line with my two items.
The man in front of me turns around.
"How-dy!"
"Howdy!" I reply from behind my rose colored sunglasses to this 20-something, maybe he's crowning 30, with his thick black plastic-framed eye glasses and a wool rain hat, rather like the shape of the one I sometimes wear on cold days like today.
I smile.
"Whaat…are…you…getting?"
I hold up my salad and fruit.
"Is…that…your lunch? Whaaat’s…your name?"
He is not like me, or any other regular person. He speaks slowly, purposefully; he must be careful with his words, he wants them to come out right, and he does not move well.
A deep breath first.
Then I tell him my name.
"I'm…Ben," he replies.
"It's nice to meet you Ben." I watch him reach for his wallet. His fingers do not move with the ease that mine do and can, over piano keys or at the buttons of my coat or the zipper on the side of one of my black suede boots. My fingers do not fail me when I am reaching for my wallet while in line at the market with a package of strawberries safely in them.
His might though.
"Where do…you…live?"
"I live around here."
"REALLY?" He is excited suddenly.
"Did…you…move here…or have you…did…you…grow up here?"
"I moved here a few years ago." Smiling, just keep smiling.
"Why…did…you…move here?"
"It's nice here."
He laughs.
"Are you…married?"
I look down, getting ready to swallow this lie hard:
"Yes."
He looks down now.
"I figured…you had to…be. What…do…you…do…for a living?"
I think about how the other morning I was in some conference room asking Rob Thomas about writing a song with Mick Jagger and how Mick gave the song back because Rob said Mick didn't think it fit his voice that well after all, and how Rob had wanted it to sound like a Rolling Stones song so much when they worked on it together, and how Rob was so grateful that Mick didn't want to use it in the end, because he had regretted not keeping it for Matchbox Twenty after he wrote it with Mick. Seems insipid now. And I think about how I stood in front of the camera on a New York City street speaking about something and how the crowd that had gathered behind my crew grew so large, that I felt like a rock star myself, and they hung onto every word I said for every take, for five minutes, and I think how I am hanging onto every word he is saying, but for different reasons. And I think I need to lie again.
"I work in the media."
"What…do…you…do…in the me-dia?"
"I write."
"REALLY? Do you have an…email…add-ress? I…can send you…some of…my…writing?"
"Yes."
"Your total is thirty five fifty two."
He moves to pay the cashier. His fingers seem nearly frozen, bent awkwardly, in one position. It's okay, he is a lovely god I tell myself, he is carved from stone as Pygmalion had carved his beloved Galatea, into whom Venus eventually breathed life and made human and fluid and graceful. I go with him slowly into the fold of his wallet that holds his cash, I'm with him closely pulling out the familiar green-printed bills and I think how it must be so frustrating for this man. Perhaps he is just a boy. I will make him a boy in my mind. But I've never been good at guessing someone's age or picking the right checkout line at the grocery store. I picked the wrong line today, I chose the line over toward the left, the line that is making me take a good look at myself, not this man; standing, gazing at me, hoping I will speak to him for a time.
And I will speak to him; I'll recite a Hemingway short story if he wants. But he doesn't want my pity he'd like something far better than that.
He slides over to load his shopping cart.
My two items are totaled.
And he takes my bag staring at me.
"Oh, that's mine." I smile.
He places it back on the checkout counter.
I pay and walk toward the exit and stop to say goodbye.
"Do you…know…any…book pub-lish-ers?"
"No, I'm sorry, I don't, it was nice meeting you."
"You…too."
I am outside. It is so beautiful outside and cold and sunny.
"Hey…" he calls to me. He calls me by my name.
I turn to see him slowly pushing his shopping cart and I wonder how he does it, how he is alone and independent. He walks slowly, with difficulty, and his feet fail him with each step, but he continues on. I feel like the worst person in the world because I have not given him my e-mail address, and yet I am glad he has not asked me for it again.
"Hey..." he calls my name again.
"Yes?" I call back to him.
"What's my name?" he calls from the doorway of the market.
He knows.
He knows I don't remember his name. I have forgotten it, even though he told me only moments ago. I was filled with so many other thoughts I just didn't keep his name.
"You didn't tell me your name." I stand there in the parking lot with this ridiculous smile on my face and he is actually smiling back.
"Yes I did!"
"No you didn't." Smiling, lying.
"I'm sorry, I don't remember your name."
"It's Ben."
"I'm sorry Ben."
"It's ok."
I am sorry Ben.
I am in my car and I see him making his way to his car now, still pushing the cart.
"Ben, don't stop writing, don't ever stop writing." I call out to him.
"Hey…come…here!" He calls to me.
"I can't, I have to go now, but don't stop writing Ben."
I drive off and the angel says: "Turn this car around and go back and talk to him. What is wrong with you? You did volunteer work for the blind, you adopted a whale, you paid for some homeless person's Thanksgiving dinner, you always take time to listen to people even when you'd rather be home cleaning your oven; turn this car around and go speak to Ben. Give him your e-mail address and say his name over and over until it makes him smile...go, go if you don't you'll regret it!"
The devil advised me differently: "If you go back you will regret it; you have nothing to offer this man who has some kind of ailment that has altered his mental and physical state. What can you possibly tell him? You can't save him. Why do you think you can save him? What's the point in going back? It's not as if you were rude to him, you answered all of his questions, and you didn't even have to. You were very nice; someone else would have brushed him aside. You cannot save him, so don't think you can. Keep driving, if you go back you'll regret it!"
I cannot say where my conscience guided me that afternoon, I can only say that I will never forget Ben's name again.
Copyright (c) 2008, SkirtTales. All Rights Reserved.
