It was a sunny morning, and the wind blew in off the prairie after the previous night’s sudden snow squall. Around here it can change quickly. Jerry was never a complex man and today he felt less complex than usual. And that was asking very little from the universe. Jerry’s head throbbed from the last few Mickeys he downed, last night, while watching the last of the ball game on his grandiose 48-inch television he purchased with his stimulus check.

He had gone on a real shopping spree a week ago, which included the television, firearms, ammunition, three cases of beer and a shit ton of vegetables he bought at the Cash-N-Carry down the lane. Despite his cache of firearms and propensity for drinking way too much, he wasn’t into killing animals. He preferred vegetables and plenty of them. He was a lithe mean propaganda machine. Like having a puppy, it was also a convenient conduit to starting a conversation.

He stumbled to the refrigerator, looking to extinguish the furry beasts that had taken residence in the back of his throat. A toothbrush sat on the kitchen counter, and he forgot putting it there. He ignored it and chugged down a grape soda he found hidden in the back of his refrigerator. It did not make him feel all that much better. The grape aftertaste was better than whatever was there before.

Jerry scanned the kitchen for something he could make for breakfast. He needed something to settle this stomach of his. He looked at himself in the mirror and noticed he was starting to develop an impressive stomach much like his Schmidt’s drinking uncle. For a lingering second, he thought about this. He was proud to be much like his uncle and his honorable belly.

Of course, he had no food in his refrigerator. Impulsively, he grabbed his keys off the counter and circled back, once again, so he could look out the window with his binoculars. He had slept half the morning away and could not see into any of the neighbor’s upstairs windows. The glare of the sun reflected the light right back at him. The yard signs in his neighbor’s yard bothered him plenty. He thought to himself.

“My life matters” On that note he started in on another soda pop, this time it was not grape. He was a little better now and would save the grape soda for severe cases.

“My life does matter,” he repeated to himself. Jerry had no pets, but he wished that he had a dog. What Jerry had was a series of pet peeves. Bulldozing across the spectrum of stereotypes, Jerry was an environmentalist who took it personally when people littered or soiled the appearance of the local community. Shopping carts scattered about town, he felt it made the town feel tacky. Bernie, the manager at the local supermarket usually slipped him a case of beer or on good days he gave him good old-fashioned cash. It worked well for both, as it was good for business, allowing customers to push their groceries home. It happened to be lucky for Jerry, as he has been bringing the carts back to the store for the last five years. He only started getting paid in the last two years after Bernie heard him sneaking carts back into the lot, after the store closed.

After a bit of a struggle, he popped his truck into gear and slowly drove the snow blown back roads to the Cash-N-Carry. If there were anybody on the roads today, he would make for a peculiar sight. Trailing directly behind his truck were a half dozen shopping carts tethered and rolling in unison. He back shifted his truck to a near crawl and the truck came to a complete stop in the parking lot. The sky darkened, and snow swirled amongst suddenly lit streetlights. He walked around to the back of the truck and unhooked the carts from the tether of the truck. He then glided them into the proper place in the parking lot.

He walked into the store and almost immediately the smell of fresh roasted chicken made his stomach do a somersault. He fought back the urge to get sick right there in the store. Unexpectedly, he felt as if the worst was over. He put a twelve pack in the front of his cart, grabbed some lemon lime Gatorade, aspirin, Oreos and a giant bag of Tim’s brand Potato chips. He lingered in the fruit aisle, taking a longer time than usual to pick out the apples he wanted. He still loved his apples. He noticed a pretty girl doing much the same with the corn on the cob. There was something about this girl he found intriguing as well as vaguely familiar. She glanced up at him and accidentally caught him staring back at her.

“Gravenstein are the best,” she said with a smile. She put her corn gently into her shopping bag and headed toward the checkout stand.

Much to his dismay, the checkout lines were longer than he anticipated. Waiting in line was something Jerry did not do well. He always enjoyed watching what people purchased at the supermarket. It was a brief window into that person’s life. The girl behind the corn on the cob seemed a little bit out of his league. She loaded sparkling water, red wines, fancy cheeses and of course corn on the cob. He then noticed she had purchased Vietnamese cock sauce. His mind raced for a second; rationalizing if they had a conversation, they would at least have something in common.

When she went to pay, the cashier asked her for the number tied to her grocery store account. Every big store chain had a loyalty program such as this and this was common practice.

“Wow this weather is getting a little bit crazy.” she said as she grabbed the wallet out of her purse.

“971-765-5432” she added quietly while nervously scanning the room.

The cashier rang up Jerry’s groceries quietly and with little fanfare. “Hey, Jerry, I see you snuck some carts back into the parking lot.”

“Don’t mention it.”

“It is very nice what you do.”

“Please don’t mention it.”

Jerry gingerly walked back to his truck with two bags in one hand and the twelve pack in the other. Shopping carts were futile in this weather. He put the beer in the cargo area and the two bags in the cab next to him. He reached into his pocket for his keys and a slip of paper, and a golf pencil came out as well. It contained the number of the girl behind the corn. A moment of remorse trickled through him, as he felt bad about writing down her number. Then again, what crime is it if he did not actually call her?

He revved the truck to see how the tires were holding onto the suddenly icy road. It was more treacherous than he anticipated. If he were paying attention, he could have figured out this. The harbingers were the sunny morning and the snow squalls that seemed to have parked themselves over the area. He suspected his hangover was over, as he was really looking forward to getting home and cracking open a beer.

He inched his way down Luzerne Street and right before the turn-off to Argonne he saw a figure progressing slowly, heading in the same direction. It was a tightly bundled person pushing a shopping cart in the direction where he was headed. At times, it made his blood boil to see people walking off with grocery carts. It was rude and it was self-centered. He slowed down even more so he did not veer off and hit the person walking down the middle of the road. He inched around the slow-moving person, applied the brakes and came to a complete stop approximately twenty yards past. He waited for the person and the shopping cart to catch up. In retrospect, he was surprised she stopped at all. A female voice yelled out distant garble that was deadened by a howling wind.

“Hey there, are you in need of any help?”

“What does it look like, these carts do not come with snow tires.”

“No ma’am they do not. How far are you from home?”

“I am four blocks up the road on the left.” She thought for a moment considering her current situation. She calculated the absurdity, as well as her steadfast belief that people were generally nice during a weather event. This was especially true of a snowstorm.

“Are you a serial killer?” she asked as Jerry approached her shopping cart.

“No, you have nothing to worry about.”

Jerry wordlessly reached into the back of the truck and pulled out the same thick rope and hook that he used to bring the shopping carts back to the store. He quickly hooked one end to the back of the truck and one to the shopping cart the woman navigated.

“Hop in. I will give you a ride home.”

She was ecstatic to be out of the snow, sprinkled with a tad of trepidation. She easily stepped into the cab and the windows fogged immediately, making the atmosphere a little closer than she was comfortable. She remembered her groceries were still in the shopping cart. They should be fine.

As soon as she lowered the hood to her parka, Jerry recognized her as the pretty girl standing behind the corn.

Jerry put the truck in gear, and they had a rather friendly easy conversation in the five minutes they shared cab space.

“The apartments up here on the left. My building is 1500.” which was useless information given the street signs were now snow covered.

He stopped the truck and looked over to her. “See I am no serial killer. My name is Jerry. “

“My name is Alice. You seem like a very nice young man,” she said through a crooked smile.

“This is a very small town; I am surprised I have not seen you around.” He said as he pretended to fidget with the radio. He thought to himself, it has been a good long time since he had a real conversation with a member of a different sex. It made his stomach flutter and he felt suddenly queasy. Why was he sweating so hard on the coldest day of the year?

“I am new here, I am just taking it all in,” she answered back in a removed, serene far away voice. She opened the truck door, and then retrieved the groceries. She then jotted down a note, which she set in the snow that had gathered in the front of the shopping cart.

The snow seemed to have stopped as stars escaped and twinkled from behind the clouds. She poked her head back in the cab and gave Jerry a wink as subtle as a single snowflake falling under a streetlight.

“You have my number, give me a call sometime.”

Jerry watched her open the door to her place just to make sure she made it home all right. It was the right thing to do.

And then he thought, “How does she know I have her number?”

Alice gingerly crossed the snow packed parking lot of the condominiums where she lived. Specifically, she knew it as the place she lived for tonight. She felt the presence of the boy still waiting in the truck. Perhaps he was a true gentleman seeing that she made it inside. On the flip side, he now knew exactly where she lived. Or least he could if he stayed parked in the parking lot long enough. She took the key to her neighbor’s house and opened the door without any trouble. Roscoe came bounding down the hall all ears and tail. Roscoe was her friend’s dog she was watching for the weekend. She liked staying here, as it was extremely quiet, almost serene, and the heat worked on a consistent basis. Her friend Charlie would not be home for a few days as she was on a business trip over by the lake.

She opened the shades mainly to look at the snow. She savored the beauty of snow fluttering capriciously in the nearby streetlamp. She peered through the light and snow to make sure that Jerry, if that is his real name, was not lurking outside. She was simply being careful, she felt comfortable with Jerry. She hated to admit she found him surprisingly nice even if he came across as a rather simple man. She left it at that, as she was looking forward to a night of reading a book, putting on a fire and snuggling with Roscoe.

And yes, Roscoe wanted to go for a walk. It took a while for her to find his leash, as unexpectedly it slipped down between the sofa cushions. This was one big tease to Roscoe, as he made frantic little circles around the living room replica oriental rug. She put a large pot of water on the stove and ignited the flame below. She certainly loved gas stoves. She knew she would appreciate the heat when she got back from her walk. Roscoe looked at her as if she were losing her mind and he slowly, and in his own way, lost his.

Well, we can only surmise this.

“Lass uns spazieren gehen”

She spoke German to the dogs, as she did not have the confidence to use it on an actual human being.

Rosco dragged her out the door. Luckily the poop bags were tied around the leash. Her friend knew her well. Rosco did his business quickly and she decided to walk a few blocks, as it was a perfectly wonderful winter evening. Walking in the snow was calming; it made her pensive and optimistic. She listened to the silence of perfect nothingness. It was beautiful, it was deafening.

And there in the empty vague stillness of a perfect winter night, she heard the rumble of what sounded like more shopping carts in the snow and the sound of a truck motor passing slowly in the night. The truck gave two gentle beeps and trudged back toward the grocery store.

Her name was not Alice yet some of her friends called her Alice. Not exactly her current circle of friends, rather her friends from high school and earlier. Locally, hardly anybody called her that. These days everybody was an introvert anymore, and she was happy to join the masses. It sounded counter intuitive when it rolled around in her mind. She walked home quietly, a bit disoriented, and Roscoe happily searched the frozen ground for a familiar scent.

Celery

How much he hated the name. He was not even sure why people called him that, other than the glaringly obvious. When you live in the Rust Belt, the idea of somebody being a non-meat eater was obscure at best. Sure, it happened on college campuses where people were free to eat all the vegetables they wanted and meet up with whomever they pleased. He knew he did not want to work in the meatpacking plant a few towns over. The people who worked there were heartless psychopaths and not killing animals was a lifelong credo to him. Still, he loved owning a firearm. He knew he was never going to go hunting. He simply did not have the heart. Hell no, the only way he was going to shoot one of his guns was at the local gun club or if somebody attempted to inflict him harm.

He woke up early on Sunday morning once again feeling horrible. Addled with hope and expectation and anchored with tremendous inadequacy and self-doubt he had once again drowned himself in a stupor. That twelve pack he purchased the day before offered little resistance. He showered quickly and put on a blue dress shirt and a decent pair of trousers he purchased at Lobell’s department store. He really did not like that store very much, but for the most part he rarely ventured from the rituals of his childhood. One of those traditions was going to the same store and the neighborhood Methodist church.

The church sat up the hill from his house right down the street from the pretzel factory. The church bell chimed in the distant and he was not exactly sure what that indicated. A middle-aged woman, he scarcely knew greeted him by the name Celery. He cringed a little, as a siren sent him skittering down to his pressed Formica floor. He recognized it as an air raid siren. He was ready for anything the Socialists were going to throw at us. If he were not quite ready, he was pretty sure god would take care of the rest. Air raids were a thing of the past, yet his little town clung to aged protocol, like wet snow on a pine tree.

Most visitors to the church were late, as well, due to the air raid sirens. He settled into the second row of the pews awkwardly banging the legs of a lady who was busy knitting. He quickly named her Madame Defarge in his own revolutionary mind. He was glad the service had already started, as he did not like the part where you had to introduce yourself to the people sitting around you. It was awkward and it was not what church was all about. The minister was talking about the threat of communism and then went into talking about giving back to the community in any way they could. He said those who made more money were better able to give financially while the rest could volunteer their time.

It was about this time in the sermon that Jerry dozed into a deep slumber in aisle number two in church that day. A lady named Ethel, who he vaguely recognized by her name on her nametag, stirred him from the abyss.

“Young man are you planning on sleeping here for the day?”

The probing underneath the ribcage did stir Jerry from a deep and melancholy sleep. He gazed at the women for a few disbelieving seconds. His mouth was parched, and he wanted a drink of water. He barely croaked out the words THANK YOU to a woman he recognized from church with no recollection of her actual name.

“Jesus Christ, how long have I slept?”

“I am not exactly sure that is how prayer works young man.”

Jerry quietly and quickly made his way to the bathroom, which he found conveniently empty. He would later get sick in an abandoned soybean field on the way home. He was not exactly sure what he was looking for between those church walls on that morning. He spotted a shopping cart on the far corner of the parking lot that contained what looked like a folded up brown sleeping bag.

It was a sleeping bag of extraordinary quality. He assumed it had been slept in the previous evening as it was dry and not covered in newly fallen snow. He grabbed a nice cold can of grape soda; he kept hidden under the passenger seat and sipped it slowly as he inspected the sleeping bag. And there on the mossy tree stump sat something he could not decipher at first.

He took his cheap reading glasses from his pocket and noticed there sat three ears of corn. He smelled the delicious aroma of a campfire and seemed to enter another world. Soon a girl emerged from the tent, elegantly wrapped in an expensive woolen blanket. The fire roared vigorously in the damp winter air. Amber from the fire floated through the air settling with a fizz on the snow-covered ground. He thought to himself, it was a tranquil scene yet was mildly bothered somebody would choose to live in the elements. The silhouettes backlit by the fire, yet the silhouette looked vaguely familiar. He was trying to avoid recognizing the person, yet it was easy to ignore the girl pushing the shopping cart down the street. He barely remembered what she looked like in the vegetable aisle and that mattered little. There she stood, roasting potatoes and corn, as a feather like snow settled silently to the ground. She almost looked angelic, briefly taking his breath away. She looked at peace, and taken in context, one could conclude happily and in control. She started stoking the coals with vigor and rolled the veggies with a delicate touch. And then she started singing at first quietly and then raised it an octave or two. He recognized it as a song the choir had just performed. He was hoping he was invisible as the lugubrious feeling slowly seeped out of his body.

She suddenly turned ever so slightly, picked up an ear of corn using a decent size medal skewer and walked over to him. Melted butter dripped down her chin, as she asked him.

“Would you care for an ear of corn?”

---

Written by K. Mark Schofer

“People have great stories to tell if you sit and listen. A belief dear to Mark is that there is certain beauty in the world. You simply have to look for it. I am in awe of those who write and who doesn’t love a good story.”