The automatic doors parted and into the sterile light shuffled a pale ghostly figure. The figure was lanky and bird-nosed, with an enormous gourd for a head and two tuffs of electric white hair. The head was miraculously supported by a long fleshy pencil of a neck that rose between two crooked shoulders, the skin mottled and sagging like the gobbler of a turkey. For clothes, the old man wore an oversized coat the color of charcoal and used his shopping cart as a cane. The cart was much different than the ones provided by the grocery store. It was rusty and gnarled, with barnacles, fungus and other mossy growths clinging to the frame, like the hull of an ancient ship.
The old man, who seemed perturbed by the store's scentlessness, went directly to the fresh produce section in a way that suggested intimate knowledge of the grocery. Then, starting with the strawberries, he systematically worked his way through the fruit, selecting bananas and oranges, pineapples and kiwis, hoarding them like a dragon over treasure. Next, he turned his focus to the vegetables, culling the vibrant greens and reds, purples and yellows.He performed the selecting with a molecular attention, turning the produce over and over in his spidery talons, examining every fiber and discarding for the smallest blemish. There were eggplants, zucchinis, peppers, squash. He chose only the ripest and most hearty, filling the infernal dolly to his heart's content.
Once satisfied, he navigated to the meat and poultry section where he continued his rigorous selecting. He discriminated for the mildest of abnormalities, from slight discoloration to imperfect marbling. Even packages deemed too close to expiration were declined. The old man performed the process unblinkingly, with the unconscious rhythm of someone who's done something a thousand times. Into the raggedy cart he piled cuts of sirloin and flank, chuck and brisket; selected organic breasts of chicken, drum sticks, wings, gizzards, feet; heaved loins of pork and full slabs of baby back ribs; gathered bacon strips, beef patties and lollipops of lamb. In the aisle orthogonal, he topped the cart with delicacies like lobster tail and crab legs; stacked fillets of salmon, grouper and bass; handled the sucker-laden tentacles of octopus, the snotty texture of squid and cuttlefish; amassed pounds of scallops and shrimp, muscles and clams, leaving no crustacean unaccounted. When the produce towered well above the brim of his decrepit cart, which seemed to sag under the tremendous weight, the mortician of a man turned and headed for the front of the store.
The check-out lines were preposterous. In classic grocery fashion, only two of the nine lanes open, each stretching to the deli, which is to say an obscenely long way. The old man, however, circumvented both of them, opting instead for the ninth till, at the very end of the row of tills. Strangely, the maneuver did not prompt glares or grumbles from waiting customers. Rather, if they saw him at all, nobody seemed to care, as if the scene was something they'd come to accept, utterly mundane, banal, just another moment in a series of moments that constituted life.
At the empty register, a small red button glowed near the card reader.The old man pushed it. From around the corner, as if summoned, came the store manager. Without regarding him, she took her place behind the till and began punching numbers. He handed her a check. The manager scanned it without pause. She punched in some more numbers and printed a receipt. The old man promptly stuffed it into his coat, then headed through the automatic doors and into the afternoon light.
