Got One on the Front!
The sun beat down on the pavement on a hot summer day in 1994. It was one of those days where the birds weren’t even flying around, it was so hot. I was back in the hardware arranging the cracked corn and scratch feed, pricing the bags and separating them according to their size. I didn’t mind that kind of work, honestly. I always felt like I accomplished something when I put up 200 bags of feed, soil, peat moss and fertilizer. Not to mention 25 blocks of salt for deer season, which weighed 50 pounds, but I swear to everything holy that they weighed 200 pounds a piece. You ever tried to carry one? It’s more awkward than watching “Wild Things” with your parents.
Anyhow, I was tossing bags left and right when Russell yelled, “Got one on the front!” I put down my price gun and sprinted down the first aisle, past the cereal, the paper towels and the medicine. The heat wave just blasted my 13 year old face. There was not a breeze within 100 miles of us. The vehicle parked beside the gas pumps was a common sight for my eyes. A mid 80’s Camaro with a hatch, primer gray, missing muffler, leaking oil, and shaking to a stop next to the regular unleaded pump. The hood is being held down with a twisted coat hanger. There are dead wasps (waw-st-es, remember?) under the glass in the hatch. The driver door opens with a creak and this man gets out. At least I think it was a man. It weighed about 100 lbs soaking wet with a sunken face and missing teeth. It’s arms were down to it’s knees, it was wearing a tattered old flannel shirt, pants, boots and a cap that read, “This cap is mine. Everything else is hers.” He muttered in English, “Gimme two dollars worf.” ($2.00 worth of gas). Back then, $2.00 could get you to Marietta
before you have to use your finger. (Alan Jackson reference +1).
before you have to use your finger. (Alan Jackson reference +1).
The man strides into the store. I unhook the pump and turn the knob to clear the machine for pumping. We didn’t have the computerized pumps with credit card capability. Those pumps were older than me, my brother, and Russell combined. That was part of the charm to be honest, their simplicity. Plus, it was funny to watch people from Atlanta
Genius #1:“My gosh, Bill, where does the card go?” “I can’t turn this on!”
Genius #2: “I don’t know! Excuse me, young man!” (addressing me)
Me(turning the knob for them): “Y’all gotta pay inside, and we don’t take Discover.”
I open the gas tank door. There is a napkin in the place of a cap. I’m sure the cap was stolen when the last person siphoned gas out of their tank. That was a common occurrence back then, strangely. I start the pump and watch the cents tick by on the meter. I stare down at my Air Jordans, covered in dirt and 10-10-10 fertilizer. Neen (my grandmother) is gonna kill me for working in my new shoes, I just know it. Suddenly, the passenger door pops open, startling me. The vehicle rocks, like somebody is getting momentum to throw themselves out of the seat and into the parking lot. A figure materializes.
Close Encounters of the Bartow Kind
It was much shorter than the man, probably 5’0 and hunched over. It had dirty yellow/white/gray hair matted down on its head. It was wearing a housecoat that appeared to have been pink at some point. Now, it was brown/yellow/gray with pink spots. Waddling around the car, it glanced over at me. Making eye contact with it, I was taken aback. Now, we have been subject to many strange looking people, servicing the area that we did. However, this one was especially heinous. One eye was closed, the other was opened, staring at me. The face was wrinkled beyond belief, the chin had stringy white hairs growing out of it. The mouth was slightly opened, revealing brown tobacco stained teeth. The brown tobacco juice had made its way onto the chin and the cheeks. The sight of this figure made me forget how much I wanted a hot dog for lunch.
The figure I assumed was a woman, since the man’s cap said “everything else is hers.” I guess this was “her.” I was so busy staring at her that I messed up and pumped $3.25 in their tank. Sweet. That’s a $1.25 out of my pay and a free trip to Chattanooga
No Joy in Mudville
Into the store I go, following behind her. The smell hits my nose. A combination of body odor, urine, feces and tobacco. That explains the coloration on the housecoat. I clench my jaws, resisting the Waffle House hash browns that were itching to escape my stomach. Russell mouths to me, “Holy shit.” He grabs the Lysol under the cabinet. She waddles past the candy rack, click click click. The smell is permeating the air, destroying the sweet BBQ scent that was wafting amongst the aisles. She comes to a stop at the ice cream cooler. This indicates that she wants one of us to dip an ice cream for her. Russell looks at me, looks back at the hardware and shouts to no one, “Be right there, sir!” He runs away laughing. I’m stuck. There is no joy in Mudville. I open the door and in the best tone I could muster, “What would you like?” The woman looks up at me, one eye still closed, chin whiskers waving in the air conditioning and says, “Gimme a dip a niller.” (A dip of vanilla).
That was the fastest ice cream ever dipped. That vanilla was frozen solid and I had skinny arms but I could have smashed clear to the bottom of that 3 gallon Mayfield tub. I wanted her gone. I hand her the cone. With the tobacco still in her mouth, she begins to lick the ice cream. It gets in her chin whiskers. I see Russell watching from the back, aghast. My gag reflex is working overtime. The man is standing at the counter, ready to pay me. He gets a pack of cigarettes, a can of Bruton snuff for his woman and hands me the cash. Click, click, click. She exits the building. He leaves with a “preciate it” and out to the chariot he goes. Russell is weaving through the aisles, uttering every four letter word in the book, dousing the air with “Country Flowers” or “Summer Rain” or whatever scent we could find to annihilate the foulness left behind. I hear the Camaro rev up and leave in a cloud of smoke and dust.
Aftershocks
For years, when we saw that Camaro pull up, a collective groan would arise. Out would come the Lysol and our eyes would avert to the ceiling because the woman never wore shoes, so the “click click click” happened each and every time she came in. So did the housecoat, the closed eye, the smell and the chin whiskers. She got an ice cream every time, always vanilla. Even now, the thought of that incomparable disgustingness destroys my appetite. We never knew her name, but we bestowed “Yoda” upon her because it was the closest related creature we could think of to describe her. The legend of Yoda grew every time she entered the store, kind of like a big fish that gets bigger every time the story is told. We did figure out a couple of things about her. She lived with about 12 other people in a shack up in Adairsville. Her supposed granddaughters, who were 2 of the 12, worked at a local restaurant, so any trips to that particular establishment were absolutely out of the question. I wouldn’t buy a cup of ice from that place, even now.
I think Yoda died in 1999 (or flew back to the Dagobah System). She was 137 years old. =) (Coming to America reference +1)