Supermarket Section
from my novel, Music for a Pandemic Quartet
Intro
This piece below is from my unpublished novel, Music for a Pandemic Quartet. The chapter is entitled March into Fog. While writing the book I referred to this as “the supermarket section” and in my mind continue to do so. I hope it captures some of the madness, both surreal and sad (and also comical) that was happening as most of us were swinging our carts in the supermarkets of March 2020.
Mary, Jill and Paul are three of the four main characters in the book.
I’m all lost in the supermarket, went the Clash song from 1980. I can no longer shop happily.
Here they are merrily on the road manically to Stop & Shop, to Shop Rite, to King Kullen, to Wegman’s, to Ralph’s, to Publix. The kids, I need them to carry and help me load. Get in the car let’s go!! Forget the fucking doll get her in the car we’ll pay with credit I don’t care how much we owe. This isn’t food shopping this is stay out of my fucking way and let me live goddamn it let me survive I’m an American I’m entitled to my paper towels instant coffee Ben and Jerry’s and those extra crispy ridged potato chips. It’s eight in the morning shit it’s already crowded it’s eleven thirty in the morning damn a line out there it’s six at night okay a fraction better I can’t find squat old bags of rice and frozen crap you’d never eat in a million take whatever’s left. No I had it first hands off that cereal my kids will freak if they don’t get their rice krispies dude and don’t come so close you heard what they said about social distancing. Okay lady take it take it and choke on it mutters his breath under his voice. Or vice versa. Pasta, yeah grab lots of it that’s always good for yeah ten of ’em who cares get sauce ten or twelve pile it in. Bread crackers five ten fifteen pile it canned veggies dump them in ten twenty cans frozen pizzas burgers waffles who knows how long this thing could last cans of tuna in oil in water who cares pop them in there. Pretzels potato chips taco chips ice cream throw it in food we need to survive who knows how long this – yeah. Thing will last. Thing will last. Who knows. How long. Repeat. Covid Nineteen Hey Nineteen Covid Nineteen Nineteen thing will last the next election thing will covid nineteen was last year dump it all in we’ll shove it into the pantry the cupboard closets drawers the freezer the fridge or whatever wherever dried soup wet soup bags of rice canned this or that yeah pasta cereal shit we need more toilet paper none to be had pile it in this isn’t food shopping this is war and the enemy are these disappearing shelves the empty spaces dilating with every aisle we spin these heavy-laden tanks damn one wheel is broken thing will last thing will last Mom I’m tired a little longer honey then we’ll be home again so we can learn more about this thing this coronavirus but Mom I want to play with okay that’s enough don’t you know it’s late March and this isn’t food shopping this is suburban combat get what you can while you can before the shelves fall under the weight of disappearing items we need this stuff you see because Mommy doesn’t know when these shelves will again have things on them we can make nice to eat yummy in the tummy you see we need to eat at least three times a day and maybe the Walmart has hamburger meat let’s go check Daddy before they close and late at night they are in the kitchens pantries looking at all the things they’ve compiled bug-eyed and dazed at the things they’ve captured stacked like a broken piñata in the pull-chain light and oh yeah there’s that package of meat bits we found ——
Almost no one was wearing masks in March. Wouldn’t be until late April, early May. Social distancing – 6 Feet – didn’t prevent the cascade of infantrymen and women from their foray out of house into the wild virus-mine-strewn streets of the towns and cities. Into aisles where six feet shrinks to two which turns into “sorry, excuse me,” twelve inches slipping by. When the news media speak the soldiers perk their ears up. Oh, they look they listen and they present for duty. They’re saying there might be a food shortage. It’s all about the trucks — yes, the trucks – they’re saying so we better get to the store. We better zoom on over to one of those food purveying establishments with very large parking lots and limitless aisles where you consistently find what you’re looking for.
I’m all lost in the supermarket... I came here for a special offer.
Mary as usual texts her friends, on Facebook people are saying you had better get to the supermarket because... Things are running out we don’t know how long this thing is gonna last. Gonna last. She texts Jill, honey, go to the store. Buy canned goods bread milk eggs and whatever you can. Asap. Yes thanks I was going in a bit really looking crazy out there. She texts Paul, Hey, you should run and get some food brother. I’m not hungry right now Mary thanks. Seriously, get a bunch of stuff. I didn’t know the world was ending he replies. She doesn’t answer.
He knows. Paul Wilmer acts also, enacts what the media deities send down from Olympus through Mary his brother. Uh, sister, who relays it to him. He ingests the message, gets in the car, drives himself to Stop & Shop. Jill is out there and Mary has returned—still there.
Jill finds herself. Jill is shaking. Jill finds herself shaking. In the King Kullen parking lot her small upstate hands – are shaking. At her sides. From the thin wrists standing looking at them by her car door. She feels like crying. She never cried when entering a supermarket. Yes. She did. After Phillip confessed he was having a baby with... Now she’s crying, she has her wool hat on it’s not even cold today. Stop it, chides herself. Walk, like you always does—do. The automatic door will open now. It does... Dependable. Unsteady a second – whoa, no it’s the floor – no, it’s her. Clasps her cart tighter and pushes. Feels she’s lived this already – something familiar in the space, her wobbly sensations.
Paul enters Stop & Shop. It’s late afternoon. Smear of paint along the usual scene. Slightly blurry, is all. He doesn’t notice it. The slight off-centeredness. The parking lot is packed. He’s in Siberia—doesn’t realize. There’s a new mountain behind the building. It’s fine. He deploys a cart. The lines at checkout are lengthening. Things are happening without undue haste. “Without undue haste” pops in his head, flashing. They’re taking everything, calmly. The savannah is bloodied but orderly. He heads first to the rice and beans aisle. Obscure foreign brands scattered like orphans, written in Tagalog and Slovenian. And Covid Nineteen. He’d nabbed paper goods that morning at Target, an early truck had arrived. How lucky I am, my very own plastic-sealed multi-roll compressed packages. My fourteen rolls of Bounty, twelve rolls of Charmin. He tosses a box of rice in the cart, canned soups and vegetables and keeps moving.
Jill wants to sprint through this thing. Too many people and they’re acting—acting weird, not going anywhere in circles. Looking for things that aren’t there. She maneuvers around them, her heart beating faster plucks whatever she can that looks okay, pears apples nuts and raisins greens tomatoes broccoli. Keep moving she thinks. Don’t get close to any of these people. You don’t know who—You don’t know what. Don’t get close don’t touch anything if you don’t have to. Surfaces might what’s the word... Her hands are still shaking. She feels like laughing suddenly. Even as it rises she’s aware it’s hysteria. Though she can’t help it leaking she blocks the desperate outburst. Instead her eyes collect water jesus this is – fuck all this – canned stuff Mary said plopping soups chickpeas veggies ketchup mustard into the steel cart turning another corner apple juice and the light above is not good enough she wants to be at the house she’s so lonely inside. These people are all like her trying to escape this goddamn store one more thing but it’s already gone ice cream she thinks please have ice cream left....
Here he was, rolling the cart, Paul looks at the shoppers. Dancers. Six feet between dancers. Averted from their dance partners. “Oh, excuse me,” “No, you, go ahead.” Right, thanks. Eyeing each other. Could he... Does she... Everyone ultra polite ultra possessed of absence. Even now home pressing the TV on. Anticipating the bloom of the corona flower light bordered by the black frame. Hoping tomorrow will bring a pack of toilet paper or chicken breast. Flour. No flour to be found! Howmy gonna make... Half the shelves are bare whatever’s left sucks it’s taken anyway. Paul finds himself taking. Gathering. Crackers. Olive Oil. Spaghetti, tuna, Mary said to... Cans. Of stuff. Arms reach for boxes of cereal—all at once in a thousand Siberian Supermarkets arms with hands out to retrieve the raisin bran wheaties lucky charms but what’s on the box is something can something be – on the box? Or this can? Holding the can of soup —looking at, encountering it, as an omen. That shelf—it’s—dirty. Holy shit should I be wearing gloves? The arms reaching stop – stop to before no they’re already grasping the box the package the can the container what does the container contain is it corona contained in the container is it on in the things contained by my cart by the on the in the things we’re clutching? How many Siberians are below the mountain extending fingers pausing conjecturing should I touch should I lay it in the cart where has this come from who has touched or stocked this box what may jump out of this at me like a freaked out fucking jack in the box that terrified me once what’s going to jump —later? ? At me.
Mary is calm. She’s usually calm because she doesn’t give a shit. Half of her has given up the other half simply wants to see Jessie and Toby graduate college—then doesn’t care what happens to her. Right now she’s on the moon no in the same supermarket Paul is in seven hours earlier. She can sense him navigating the craters and the barren spots where what they call food had been at one time. Don’t forget the bread eggs and milk, she prompts him in her mind. No pop tarts, good, Toby shouldn’t eat that crap. He can have chocolate. It’s getting packed in here they’re swarming. Goddamn, can’t they give me an inch—six feet, you know, assholes? Shit, can they pile those fucking carts any higher? They might as well pillage the place jesus leave something for Paul. Not only him! she blusters, fumes, swinging the wheels a perfect 180 and snatches the yogurt rolling. Panicked greedy little suburban spiders. Aren’t these the people we ran from in the stone ages? Tentacles grasping, acting as the mind they surrendered. We’re both back at the end of the world with these small-minded motherfuckers? Don’t be so judgmental she can hear Jill the voice of reason. She’s right. Compassion. So am I—they’re nabbing all the good things, the not so good things and leaving the bones on the sides of the road. Please Paul, listen to me. Get here soon. Don’t wait for the bones.
I can no longer shop happily...
Paul looks at them all looking at the metallic shelves. Yes, Mary, I’m with you even though you’ve gone surrounded by home and hearth and a shiver rushes the wholeness of all their ruptured knowing suddenly it’s March they remember these queen of corona dancers where they should be in that hour. Meeting clients or working out or picking up kids or making supper not here in the foothills of the Caucasus Mountains at 4 a.m. in the afternoon x-raying packages with eyes that can barely decipher the clock at the foot of the bed. They all want Mommy. “Oh, excuse me,” they coo as one chorus ambling towards the check-out line no sanitary wipes no sanitizer they’ll have to go home wash their hands off with cold steel rails coat leather whatever’s at the bottom of where they left their memories rub out the thoughts that maybe they contacted a piece of something which will blanch their lives into a sand dune that blows away. Paul tosses stupid frozen foods into his cart.
Jill has faith she whispers a prayer her pastor taught her for times of trouble. She won’t curse anymore it doesn’t lead to anything productive. At that moment in time Paul and Mary get an image of Jill how cute how fragile how lovely she is. They both have a desire to protect the redheaded floating form disguised as a bookkeeper. She’s staring into the mist of the meat shelves maintaining and losing her balance as the refrigeration case spills its condensation aloft entrances her in dewy splendor she can almost smell the sizzle of the lamb chops chicken wings thinks of her mother bent over miserable making her dinner another bone-freezing evening as her father snores away his budweiser life in a chair in the wall beyond them. “Miss, are you gonna take that?” Jill “Huhs?” to the cold air rising around her. “The hamburger meat? It’s the last one are you gonna—” “Yes, of course. I’m holding it, aren’t I?” she answers not looking at the man flung by the sharp iciness in her sound. It’s not aren’t I! She drops the meat onto the shelf, wheels ahead, wheels back, seizes the package again, thrusts it into her cart. “Am I not holding it?” she proclaims to no one, they don’t hear, they’re all steering and sniffing for any sign of Dr. Fauci’s tiny friends. Maybe they’re on that package. This potato. Or on his coat. Fucked up, Jill swears, it’s just fucked up, to none of them, in her redheaded head.
The shelves are vacant. He’s not afraid. There’ll be other trucks in the fullness of time shelves filled with microbe bearing packages products that will eventually devour everything. They will compose their own chronicles perhaps about other viruses, viruses with two legs. Paul doesn’t think these things. No one does. These are normal people doing normal things. He feels an abrupt sadness at the register, noting the suppressed trembling. They have no clue what to do and nothing on these shelves is going to help them figure it out. Not even this People Magazine, Natalie Portman looking happy on page 42. Her dress is beautiful. I wish I could do something for them he thinks, makes himself think, hearing the words in his mind. Puts the products on the conveyor so the girl can scan them. He’ll pay and go. Poor girl, he expresses silently.
Jill leaves, Paul leaves, Mary left. They’re all three in the parking lot in the new slanted hillside of a March that while ending was only beginning. Loading bag after bag into trunks of their vehicles. Boom. Boom. Soft booms close doors. Boom. Engines click on, modernly, quietly. They’ve come a long way since the desert when moving was truly felt. Now it’s a fairly steady glide. That’s all. It’s not all. They, all three, are moving, backwards, with their food.
They say Manna sustained the Israelites forty years in the desert. As they migrated in perpetual circles, maybe spirals. That God had sent it to them. Continued to do so. Sustain them as they wandered. It ceased to appear once they attained the borders of the land of Canaan. They stopped moving. They were on their own. Again.
Such a unique style of writing that is both captivating and real and represents well how often our thoughts tumble about in our heads in short phrases and remindings, and little captured moments!