Strangers At Target and Precious Particulars

I went to the store the other day and a young black man checked me out. Not like checked me out as in my body. He rang up my items in aisle eight. Anyway, it doesn’t matter that he was black. No — what the hell am I saying? It matters very much that he was black. Just like it matters very much that the store I was at was Target and the day I was there was Saturday, Easter weekend.

The amount of all that mattering is the same as me telling you there was a general numbness wafting around that afternoon and several of us were driving our carts, humming little tunes to remind us there can be music in our throats if we let there be. This was the first time I would take my baby to a place without help (she’s three months old) and I was annoyingly nervous for it. These aren’t extraneous details I get to leave out due to carelessness or comfortability. They aren’t beside the point, they *are* the point. The entire story hinges upon them, you’ll see. 

Trying to keep my act together, I stuffed her carseat in the belly of my basket, and it took up the whole thing. Good news is I didn’t need a bunch this trip. Just a few essentials I could sprinkle around in the holes that were left for me. A box of diapers, two six-packs, and a cute dress marked down twenty percent. I scurried into the shortest lane, and his gangly arms worshipped whatever produce came to him. He was one of the several hummers, except that he was not shy. He sang loudly on purpose. I couldn’t tell what, Marvin Gaye maybe. He kept the beat with the chirp of his barcode scanner and felt it in his bones.

I was up next in line, and I asked how he was, genuinely curious to know. He said, “I am, I am,” and I told him me too. As he scanned the diapers, he subconsciously looked around and found his answer sleeping away in my red trolley. Then he spotted the beers barreling toward him on the conveyor. He took one look at my face and squinted his eyes almost closed like, “Are you good for it?” He went to type in a fake birthday into his system and then invented a better idea. “What shows did you watch on daytime TV when you waited to go to school as a kid?”

I assured him I was a 90s baby through and through. My brother and I broke our necks everyday watching Dragon Tales too close to the screen. “There you go!” he said, clearly tracking. “Now what channel was it on?” He stopped bagging my stuff and watched me fumble around in a panicked frenzy. I couldn’t for the life of me remember! Would he really not give me my beer if I failed his trivia? I told him, “Oh, come on. You know I know it. The one with Zoboomafoo.”

“Shit!” he said. “You really took me back with Zoboomafoo! I was thinking Cyberchase. I’ma need the channel, though, unfortunately.” There’s no way. I broke into a scared snicker as I watched people with full carts roll in. As a sort of last ditch cry for help, I found the gentleman next to me — his groceries already all sprawled out — watching this scene behind bated breath. He was also black, possibly thirties, handsome locs. He cracked a smile at my flailing desperation and mouthed in my direction, “Starts with a P.”

“PBS!” I think I repeated it a few times in a raised voice. One to this stranger as a look at you go, one to the cashier as a told you so, and one to myself as a you should have known. “Damn, you really phoned a friend for that one!” he said. I bragged back to him that it was always the single most rewarding lifeline to use. All three of us shared a laugh, happy it was over and happy that it happened. He surrendered my cartons of Dos Equis and hard cider and nodded towards the baby, “Take care, mama.” I wheeled her out confidently, music welling up in the back of my throat, thankful. And now you know in no vague, uncertain terms the exact red and tan uniform of the store employee as well as who to picture when I cashed in my phone-a-friend as well as my drink of choice for Easter lunch. And it’s my prerogative to hold that someone who can’t divulge these precious particulars for whatever reason writes dull, colorless stories.