Today Will Be Different(27)

I arrived at the gauntlet of food-sample people. They stuck to their script without deviation and avoided eye contact, America’s version of the Buckingham Palace guards. If the Buckingham Palace guards had terrible posture and filled you with existential dread.

“Jack cheese,” said a woman. “In four zesty flavors. Stock up for the holidays.”

“Breaded steak fish,” a voice droned. “Fresh from Alaska and a perfect option for a healthy nutritious dinner. Try it tonight. Breaded steak fish…”

My attention snagged on the slight Southern accent. My head jerked back. My body turned.

There he was, in a blue apron and shower cap, manning a little counter. My poet, with a marigold in the buttonhole of his polo shirt.

“Fresh from Alaska and a perfect option for a healthy nutritious dinner. Try it tonight.”

I was jolted by the mash-up of high and low: the red plastic tray, damp and smelling of industrial dishwasher—his encyclopedic knowledge of the lives of the poets—the toaster-oven door stained brown with grease—

“Eleanor?”

“Alonzo!” I opened my arms for a hug.

He looked down: he couldn’t step off his mat.

“What’s this?” I said, picking up a little sample cup.

“Breaded steak fish.”

“I’ve heard it’s fresh from Alaska and perfect for a nutritious dinner.”

“A perfect option for a healthy nutritious dinner,” Alonzo corrected.

The whole exchange had an easy grace.

“Don’t mind if I do.” I dropped the morsel of fish on my tongue. Not my favorite.

Alonzo handed me a napkin and pointed to a trash can across the aisle. When I turned back, a man was standing at Alonzo’s station, kicking the tires, so to speak, of free food.

“What’s steak fish?” he asked.

“Tilapia,” Alonzo answered.

“Tilapia?” the man said with suspicion.

“It’s a sustainable, farm-grown replacement for pollack.”

“Never heard of that either.”

“It has the texture of steak,” Alonzo offered.

The man took a bite. “This?”

“I think it tastes fabulous!” I said. “I’ll take five cartons.”

The wary customer shook his head as I grabbed my stack.

“See you next week?” I said to Alonzo.

“Same Bat Time.”

“Oh,” I said. “What’s our next poem?”

“‘At the Fishhouses,’ by Elizabeth Bishop.”

“But of course,” I said.

Sometimes victory knocks on your window even though you never sent out an invitation. This is what today was supposed to be about! I had been present. I had been kind. I had radiated happiness. True, I’d completely forgotten to apologize to Alonzo. But I did turn what might have been an awkward situation into a respect-filled exchange bobbing with wit and sophistication. Chalk one up for me, leaving the world a better place than I’d found it.

But first, what to do with this goddamned steak fish? I made sure nobody was looking, nestled all five boxes in a bin of loose T-shirts, and got the hell out.





I stepped outside and got smacked by the sun. Yikes, I’d been gone forty-five minutes. Spencer hadn’t called, which I considered a minor miracle. This middle-aged body would have to do the last thing anyone wanted to see: run back to the sculpture park.

“Wait!” It was Alonzo charging out, tugging at his blue apron as if being attacked by bees.

“Alonzo?”

He finally freed himself from the apron and whipped it to the ground. He crouched for a moment, hands on quads. This was no athlete either.

“I can’t do it. The degradation, the dehumanization, the perversion of the English language.” He pulled out a pack of American Spirits, tapped out a cigarette, and lit it with a mini Bic.

To my enormous credit, I didn’t spend the next five minutes haranguing him for being a filthy, self-destructive smoker.

“It was that look on your face,” he said after the first drag.

“My face was beatific and serene… wasn’t it?”

“That made it worse. Seeing how hard you were working just to look me in the eye.”

“I swear,” I said. “I can’t win for losing.”

“I’m not sure that’s what that means.” Cigarette in his mouth, Alonzo picked up his apron, balled it up, and dropkicked it into a nearby dumpster.

“Oh, Alonzo,” I said.

A motorized zzzt approached, followed by a slurring, high-pitched voice. “You don’t want to do that.”

It was a guy in a wheelchair with a tall safety flag. He wore a Costco name tag. JIMMY. His ear was frozen to his shoulder and his good arm worked a joystick.

“That’s a twenty-five-dollar deposit on that apron,” Jimmy said, scooting into Alonzo’s personal space.

Alonzo kept smoking and listened with an air of amused detachment.

“I seen a lot of people flip out and quit,” Jimmy continued. “Usually they throw their apron in the bin over there. Don’t return it, and they deduct it from your last paycheck.”

“Thank you,” Alonzo said. “But I honestly don’t give a rat’s ass.”