vituperation

I stood in front of the candy rack and pretended to study its offerings. What I was really doing was waiting, waiting for a damned Chatty Cathy of a customer who was yukking it up with proprietor of Smallville Corner Grocery. There was only the one other customer in the place, and if he would just leave I could talk to the grocer freely. I didn’t want any other customers around for this, if possible.

Especially not black customers, as this one was.

Finally the man said his goodbyes and went out the door. I grabbed a pack of Dentyne Fire—it’s all about the cinnamon, baby— and set in on the counter.

“That it?” the grocer asked. His rheumy eyes looked weepy behind the thick horn-rimmed glasses that sat astride his nose. A large red blotch covered one cheek, and I wondered if it was some sort of cancerous growth.

“Yessir.”

He punched it up on the register. “One oh three.”

I handed him two singles, but he only took one.

“This is good enough,” he said. He dug three pennies from the penny cup with a liver-spotted finger.

“Thankya.” I searched for the best way to start what I wanted to say. “I have a question for you.”

“What’s that?”

“There’s a young black guy, maybe twenty-five, wire-framed glasses.” I pantomimed, in case he didn’t know what glasses were. “He keeps coming by my house asking for money. I wondered if maybe you knew anything about him.”

He thought for a second, then shook his head.

“‘k, thanks,” I said. “It’s just getting bothersome, and I thought since he was always walking this way that maybe he stopped—”

“He wear a jacket?” the old man asked.

I nodded. “Yessir, he’s always got on a jacket.”

I could see the recognition wash across his face. “I know who you’re talking about. He’s bad news. Just got out of prison. He’s been in there the last three weeks. Stealin’.”

Just great. Fucking great.

“Stealing?”

He nodded. “Wal-mart. He musta got six, seven loads out under his jacket before they caught him. Even took a bunch of rods and reels. Then they let him out of jail early.”

“Great. And now I get to deal with him.”

The old man fixed me with a gimlet eye. “Don’t you give him nothin’.”

Whoops.

“Trust me, I’m not going to,” I said. Any more.

“Every time he comes in here either me or my sister follows him around, t’make sure he don’t take nothing. Some feller gave him a ride over to Decatur a while back…some store over on the Beltline…and he came out with eight or nine bags of stuff.”

“Wow,” I said, secretly kind of glad that I wasn’t the only soft-hearted person foolish enough to fall for his schtick once.

“I know his momma-n-daddy. They know he’s no good, too. He’s on crack, he’s a liar, and a thief.”

At least he doesn’t seem to be violent, thank God. He really comes across as weak in person, but that could be part of the act, to lower defenses. Then again, it could be because he’s a crackhead.

“You know his name?” I asked.

The old man shook his head.

“Well, I told him to get going and stop coming around the other day. If he comes back again, I guess I’ll call the police, let them get up in his business. We’ll see if that keeps him away.”

“Jus’ call and tell ‘em you got a suspicious nigger hangin’ around your place,” he advised. “They’ll get right out.”

I nodded, my ears burning. For some reason, any time someone drops a word like that, I’m the one who gets embarrassed. It always catches me by surprise, even when my own family does it. Especially when my own family does it.

“I’m about to the point of putting up signs and a fence,” I said. “I got an electrician coming out next week to install twelve 250-watt halogen lights around the house. Motion sensitive. I want to set the night on fire if he shows up. I keep a pistol on me, so I’m not worried about him doing anything, but I sure wish he’d just stay away and leave me alone.”

“He’ll be coming around here directly,” the old man said. “’bout eight o’clock. He’ll walk on by and go way on up the road.” He pointed. “There’s an old lady who lives alone up there at the end. I think he’s checking to see if her car’s there and he’s gonna break in if he sees it gone.”

“That’s pathetic,” I said. “He sure had me fooled. I didn’t believe his sob stories at all, but he seemed at least a little shameful about begging me for money.”

“He can act like a good nigger,” the old man said in a dry voice. “But he ain’t one.”

“I guess not.”

I took my Dentyne, thanked the shopkeeper for the information, and left.

Ten minutes later, at just a hair past eight o’clock, I stood in the front room, watching through the slats of the blind as the walkin’ dude passed by on his way toward the corner store. He didn’t look my way.