Juniper Street

During college I worked part-time at the supermarket on Juniper Street. Each day there was much the same: I arrived early, dressed, and went to stand at the checkout. Morning business was slow, mostly waiters from cafés running errands for milk. At eleven o’clock the retirees arrived, neatly-dressed and well-mannered, to potter around the store for an hour or so before finally buying a loaf of bread. They had shuffling gaits and vague eyes, they seemed to look at everything and take nothing in. I always had the impression that they come to the supermarket in search of something that was not there.

At noon I took lunch. I tried to extend my break, for I found the afternoons difficult. My feet ached, I had a sore back and stiff neck. The front of my brain felt like it was made of cold chalk. At 3o’clock the shrill children came, dragging exhausted mothers. Teenagers swaggered in to buy large bottles of Coke. Professionals fidgeted and checked the messages on their phones. Plumbers cracked sloppy jokes. Awkwardly, I laughed. I greeted everyone, and wished them all a pleasant day. The checkout machines beeped like life support at a hospital. Beep-beep, beep-beep in the cold, sterile air. Outside it rained, or it was sunny; inside there were no seasons. We lived in a lifeless bubble, we sold mangoes in the pits of winter. My face paled, so too my soul. The Beatles followed Katy Perry, then Eagle Eye Cherry, Savage Garden, Donna Lewis, and Marvin Gaye. At Christmas, Michael Bublé. Beep-beep, beep-beep: monotony helped to blur the time. Long hours shortened the day. I chewed up minutes and spat out receipts. I traded the days of my life for $140 plus store credit. Beep-beep, I weigh potatoes and scan bottles of bleach. I mop aisles and wipe counters. People park their cars, people drive away. Beep-beep: the doors open; beep-beep: the doors close. Beep-beep, beep-beep. In my dreams I scan loaves of Tip-Top bread.

But it was not so bad. African children work in mines, many people have no work at all. At least I am not a methadone addict! Juniper Street paid my way through college, and college got me to where I am today…

One day stands out from the blur. It was a Tuesday in autumn, full of fog but no rain. In spite of the weather, I was cheerful. There was a spring in my step and summer in my eyes. Perhaps I had recently fallen in love – I cannot now recall. I felt fresh and bright among all the dead vegetables.

Late that morning, a lady came to my checkout. She had neither a basket nor a trolley; in her hands she carried a birthday cake and a packet of blue-and-white paraffin candles.
“Whose birthday?” I asked as I scanned the cake.
“Mine,” said the lady.
I looked at her. “I’m sure you deserve more candles than just ten.”
She looked dubious.
I recovered: “But not many more.”
She shook her head. Reluctantly, she smiled.
Emboldened by her smile, I continued. “It’s a tough gig having to shop for your own birthday cake,” I said. “I hope it’s not a surprise party.”
“It’s hard to surprise yourself,” she said softly.
“Precisely!” I said. “Though it does happen occasionally, only not when you try to make it happen.”
She smiled, and breathed out audibly through her nose. She looked at me with kind eyes. Perhaps she found me beguiling. A few words rose up into her mouth – she seemed to catch them, hold them back, weigh them – then she said them all the same. “It’s just me,” she said quickly. “I’m the only one coming.”

My heart thumped, then flushed. I swallowed. A leaden weight tugged at the bags beneath my eyes; my tongue and the roof of my mouth felt dry and clammy, there was pressure at the front of my brain. My first instinct was to say “I’m sorry,” but that felt cheap and clichéd. I didn’t think she was looking for plastic sympathy. All the same, I wanted her to know that I felt for her. No – better – I wanted her to know that I felt with her. I wanted her not to feel alone. I suppose, in my little way, I wanted to show that I loved her. For I did love her. I wished her the very best. But my love is not a flaming, bold passion. I am not Francis of Assisi: my love does not light up the night sky. It is a timid and quaking thing, my love, a delicate white orchid that opens in private behind my heart. It rattles against my ribcage, and very rarely breathes its fragrance onto life. But I see my love, I feel it like a spring zephyr, and know that it is good. I wanted to show the lady I cared.
“I’d come,” I said, “if I was invited.” I was afraid I sounded flippant.
Her face softened, and brightened ever so slightly. I believe she saw, beneath my awkwardness, that I was kind. She had offered me a fragile part of her soul, and I had chosen to be gentle. I hadn’t just crushed her underfoot. I think she saw the goodness in me – my little orchid – and that is why she continued. “Would you really?” she said in a voice that was at once playful and sad.
I searched myself. “Yeah,” I said. “Though I am quite shy with new people, and I can’t guarantee the conversation will glitter.”
“You don’t seem so shy,” she said.
“I’m okay with strangers and friends,” I said. “It’s new people I have problems with.”
She looked at my eyes, looked away, and looked back again. “Then we shall have to be friends,” she said.
I felt a levity lift me up. “I’d like to be your friend,” I said.
She felt the lightness, too. “I’d like a friend like you.”
I got carried away. “I’m still learning, but I hope to be a good friend one day.”
Some mundane realisation brought us both crashing down. I felt the lady’s heart stop straining up, and sink in her chest. “But you are so young,” she said.
Suddenly I was uneasy. Creepy crawlies wriggled around beneath my skin. The muscles in my back and hamstrings felt unpleasantly electric. There was tingling in my neck. I felt myself drawing back, and try to fend the lady off with platitudes. “It’s a Tuesday,” I said. “Nothing doing, even for the young.”
“On Tuesdays we always went dancing,” she said.
“Really?” I said. “Where?”
“In a place that closed many years ago, and has long since been forgotten. I believe it’s a car dealership now. But once it was our Versailles.”

I felt sad. There was a fizzing feeling at the top of my belly, a rough tightness in my throat, a strain in my eyes and face. I didn’t know what I could say. ‘I’m sorry we all die?’ Her eyes were seventeen, her body was seventy, the rest of her seemed a million years old. How do you speak to someone who has no age?

My pause lasted longer than was appropriate. I did not want to fall silent, and make her feel ashamed of giving so much away. I rushed my words, and once again they sounded flippant. “I’ll take you there,” I said. “We’ll dance in the dealership for your birthday.”
The lady winced, and looked down.

Another woman came to the checkout, and started piling her groceries onto the belt. The lady and I fell silent. She took out her card to pay.
“Savings or Credit?” I said. I had to ask the question, but somehow I felt like a coward for asking it. It felt like taking the easy way out.
“Savings,” said the lady.
I offered her the EFTPOS terminal. She looked up and caught my eye, just as I looked away. I quickly looked back, but she had already cast her eyes down, to type in her PIN. I sighed.

Her payment was accepted. “Receipt?” I asked. I wanted to shout it, and I wanted to whisper it. In the end, I spoke like a machine.
“No, thank you,” she said. A machine too.
She took her cake and her candles, nodded to me without looking at my eyes, and walked away.

The next woman was fat and chatty. “Good morning,” she said to me in a soda-pop tone, and proceeded to talk at length about her children and how the weekend’s weather would impact their athletics carnival.

I found the fat lady’s blather soothing. It was as though she wasn’t really there – or she was there only in body, but not in soul. She was a non-entity surrounded by cream-swirls of gossip. I could have a conversation with her without using up any part of myself. I looked at her eyes, and felt that no one was looking back. I could talk without revealing anything, just offer words, without risking  the nakedness of my heart.

The fat lady paid. She asked me to pile her bags into the trolley for her – she had carpal tunnel syndrome, and chronic fatigue. Also diabetes. She showed me the brace on her forearm, and pointed proudly to her car parked diagonally across two disabled spots. “They never give you a ticket for parking poorly in the disabled spots,” she said. “How could they? Even traffic police used to have hearts.”

I walked around to the other side of the counter, and piled all her Streets Blue Ribbon ice-cream and Kettle chips into the cart. I felt magnanimous, like I was giving money to a beggar, or taking care of a child. It was pity I offered the woman: the easy, patronising generosity that we offer people who have everything to take from us, and nothing to give. All the same, she was grateful. She called me a gentleman, and looked vulgarly at my biceps as I lifted her bags. She clearly found me attractive. It’s always nice to think you’re hot. She shoved her trolley away, wheezing, rolling her gigantic ass around behind her.

I was walking back to my own side of the counter when the first lady returned. I did not feel awkward to see her again. My mood had changed, and my mind did not have the time to change it back. I greeted her casually. “Birthday girl!” I said. I fancy I sounded rather cool.
The lady was nervous and excited. Her eyes shone, her whole body seemed to quiver. She thrust her receipt into my hands.
“Thank you?” I said.
“Turn it over,” she said.
She had written her address on the back.
“Please don’t feel any pressure,” she said.
“I’ll come,” I said quickly. “I’ll be there.”
The old lady smiled like a little girl. There was not a wrinkle on her whole face. She blossomed like a flower. “Six o’clock?” she said.
“Perfect,” I said. “I finish at five.”
Another fat woman in track pants came to pile her potato chips onto the belt. This one was not friendly. She had a sour face, and was pushy.
“I’ll see you at six,” I said to the lady.
She smiled her little girl’s smile. I will never forget the sparkles in her eyes.
Then she left.
I stuffed the receipt into the pocket of my apron, and served the fat lady with the crisps.

My shift passed. Beep-beep. Pensioners, welfare recipients, lunch, school children, tantrums, mums. The lady came who loves Oreos, and the man who buys a bottle of Coke and a quart of whiskey. Several people bought Instant Scratch-Its; no one won. I wiped the counter, swept aisles, mopped the floor. Someone dropped a bottle of cooking oil. I fetched the sand. A small, unattractive child knocked over a display of Easter Eggs.

At five o’clock I finished. I walked to the staff room, feeling dry and sticky, the way you feel after a long-haul flight. I wanted to brush my teeth and wipe the gunk from my eyes. I wanted to shower and change before I went to see the lady. I checked my phone to see if I had time.

I took off my apron, and hung it from a hook in my locker. I put my hand into the pocket, but did not find the receipt. I fished about, took the apron down, turned it inside-out. Still nothing. I checked the pockets of my pants. I took out my wallet, and checked inside it. There were two receipts there, but neither had writing on the back. I went back to the store. The manager reprimanded me for not wearing my apron, but I told him it was an emergency. I ran to my checkout, looked on the counter and inside all the drawers. I looked in the paper bin, sifted through the wrappers and receipts. None of them were hers. I got down on my hands and knees, and checked the floor.

“What are you looking for?” said the girl at the next counter.
“A receipt,” I said, “with an address on the back.” I looked up. “Have you seen it?”
She answered slowly, like she didn’t want to disappoint me. “I don’t think so,” she said.

I checked the till, then checked the other counters. I looked in the used fruit boxes. I went to the recycling bin at the front of the store, and took out all the paper. I filtered out the receipts and, one by one, looked through them. There were hundreds, but none had any writing. I checked the rubbish bin, picked through the burger wrappers and bin juice. I went back to the staff room, and checked my apron again.

I knew by now that I was not going to find it. I knew there was no hope, and I had no desire to carry on. I am not Francis of Assisi; I know when to call it a day. I changed my clothes, packed my bag, and walked out to my car.

It was 6o’clock now. The sun was almost done setting. Pale light flowed down the street like gloopy prosecco. The air was the colour of peaches and amber. A faint breeze rustled the piles of leaves in the gutters of the street. The handle of my car door was cold. I sat down, and turned the engine on to warm.

The street lights flickered, then came on. In the dusk, I saw her. She was sitting on her balcony with a bottle of wine, the cake, a knife, two forks, the candles, a lighter, two glasses, and two plates. She stood up, walked into her apartment, and turned on the light. She also put on a jacket for the chill. She shut the door as she walked outside again. She sat down, but still felt restless. Her chilly feet danced, her knees hopped about beneath the table. Lights panned across the wall, she heard a car slow down in the street. She leapt up, and ran to the railing. She knew her apartment was hard to find. She leant over the railing to call out.

The car indicates, turns right, and drives off. It drives past the park, slows down at the speed bumps outside the school, then continues. Dogs bark, lights shine from living room windows, mums call out that it’s time for dinner. Children jog inside with running noses and wet grass clippings on their feet. They sit on their hands to warm them. Chimneys smoke, at the shops there is the smell of butter chicken. The car stops at the traffic lights, indicates, and turns onto the highway. It changes lanes, changes again, and soon is lost in traffic.

A million cars course like blood through the veins of the city. Headlights, tail-lights, streetlights, the setting sun. The earth glows like a web of neon ribbons. A million cars rumble through the streets. In one of those cars is me.