It’s always interesting to take C.W. shopping. First of all,
he picks his shape carefully. Once, he came to Walmart as a 300-pound woman in
shorts that weren’t much more than red thong underwear with a tattoo on one leg
that said. “God knows what,” and one on the other leg that said “you’re
thinking.”
I usually make him walk ten feet behind me. Today, though,
he seemed fairly normal … for Walmart. He looked as though he might
have been a farmer once. He wore a “Make America Great Again” baseball hat and
faded overalls. Where they had worn through, he had red patches shaped like
valentines sewn over the holes. A pair of scuffed black loafers completed the ensemble.
Not bad for Walmart, as I say. We walked along together,
that is until I stopped to examine a freezer of ribs. When I had decided they
were too expensive, I turned and he was gone. Did I dare hope that some sort of
“Alien Rapture” had occurred?
No such luck. I heard him call me. “Hey Big Dope,” he yelled
from two aisles down. “Come listen to this.” When I tried to ignore him, he
yelled it again. I had no choice but to ease my cart toward him.
I found him standing close to a heavy-set woman with stringy
red hair talking on a cell phone. She wore shorts, the legs of which seemed to
cut off any blood that might make an attempt to complete a complete circulation.
A tank top allowed a large portion of her stomach to cascade over the top of
her shorts.
She would have looked like a standard Arkansas bar-haunter
except for a bright rose tattooed on her neck, the stem extending beneath her
tank top. This made her look more like a standard Arkansas bar-haunter with an
ill-conceived tattoo. Walmart stores are full of them.
Anyway, C.W. was leaning in listening to her conversation.
As I approached, she yelled into it, “So I told him he could jist ferget about gettin’
any more off me until he come around and faced the music, and by god I meant it.”
C.W. pointed at her and said to me, “She’s missing something
called ‘her monthly.’ Is that a check or something?”
I said nothing. The woman lowered her phone and pressed it
against one meaty thigh. “Do you mind?” she said, “I’m talking here.”
“I don’t mind,” he said.
She started to say something. Then she looked at me and
smiled. Two of her front teeth were missing and two were capped in gold. She
looked at C.W. and nodded toward me. “He a friend of yours?” she said.
I left then, fast. C.W. followed along behind. As we
walked away, I could hear the woman yelling into her phone again. “He can jist
go waller around with one of them whores at ‘The Dance and Duck’ as far as I’m
concerned."
We approached the baking goods section. As usual, there were
a couple of elderly ladies parked there, examining the various cake mixes. As
we passed them, C.W. said, “What does it mean when a woman says she missed her
monthly?” Two heads snapped toward us.
I hurried on. When we reached the end of the aisle, C.W. pointed
toward the personal care area and said, “I need to go over there. I’ll be right
back.”
“No,” I said. “You’re not about to pull that one on me. You
do remember that’s why you don’t get to come here with my wife anymore, don’t
you?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.
“You don’t remember
yelling across the store to her that you had found the feminine products section?”
“Why would I do that?”
“Why indeed? I don’t suppose you remember stopping an
assistant manager and suggesting that he display the Ramen Noodles over by the
condom section either, do you? That store over in the college town? Ring a bell?”
“That couldn’t have been me.”
 |
| Big Dope is such a good husband, always offering to go shopping for his wife. - C.W. |
“Then who was it that suggested that same day that they move
the Mountain Dew drinks over to the firearms section?”
“You must have me mixed up with someone else,” he said.
“Like the unknown person that slipped the ‘Day of the Week’
panties into my cart last time we came here?”
“Someone did that?”
I started answer, but he had
stopped beside another woman yelling into a cell phone.
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