by Mic Roland
“Have you noticed all these shops we pass are for a service of some kind? Nail salon, hair stylist, gourmet coffee, travel agent, custom curtains.”
“So?” she said. It was just a monosyllable, but it was better than silence.
“Back to your point about jobs. I suppose someone could paint nails or cut hair without electricity.” He pointed to a pair of store signs: Cuts 4 Less and Nails by Nina. “But would they have any customers? If food gets scarce and water costs five bucks a glass, are you going spend what little cash you might have for someone to paint your nails or style your hair?”
“Probably not,” said Susan. “Speaking of food, There’s a Stop n’ Shop up ahead there. See the sign?” Susan pointed to a distant sign on the left. “Hopefully, they’ll have more than olives and artichoke hearts.”
“Or just one box of crackers.”
As they walked across the parking lot, they could see a long line of people along the front of the building. A man with a bullhorn was addressing the line, although he was talking too close to the mic. All Martin could hear was inarticulate buzzing. He turned to comment on this to Susan.
“I can’t make out what he’s…” Martin began, but stopped. “You’re limping. Are you okay?”
“Oh, it’s nothing. Just a little tired.”
Martin raised one skeptical eyebrow.
Susan pointed towards the store. “What’s that guy saying? I caught something about letting in only five people at a time, and something about cash only. The rest was gibberish.”
“You caught more than I did,” said Martin. “I didn’t make out anything.”
As they neared the store, two employees with flashlights opened the doors. Five women came out, blinking in the bright gray morning. The carts they pushed contained only a few boxes or a bag. Were the shelves already picked clean, Martin wondered? Was that all they could find, or had prices gone up so much that a few things were all they could afford?
Bullhorn man began his spiel again. His words were still buzzy, but decipherable. “For safety reasons, only five shoppers are allowed in the store at a time. Please wait your turn. Everybody gets a turn. Remember everyone, we are setting a fifty dollar limit for each shopper. This is to ensure that everyone will get some groceries. We are accepting cash only. Cash only, ladies and gentlemen. We have no way to process credit or debit cards.”
“I guess we should get in line,” said Martin. “Just in case they have anything left on the shelves. From the length of the line, we could be here for an hour or more.”
“But, this is slowing you down even more,” said Susan.
“True, but you’ll need something to eat in your hotel room. I’ll need something for the road. It’s a calculated trade-off. I’m kind of regretting not getting some of that candy at Andrew’s now.”
Martin and Susan took their places at the end of the line. Martin did not like the delay. He would have to make extra-good time to reach his golf course woods before dark. He comforted himself that the prospect of some more substantial food would be worth it. Knowing that Susan would have some supplies was a consolation too.
The manager continued. “Okay. Next five, step up to the door. You in the blue. Yes, you. Step on up, please. Have your IDs out, ladies and gentlemen. It will speed things along.”
“IDs?” Susan asked.
“Stoneham residents only,” the manager said. “You must have a photo ID with a Stoneham address. No exceptions, I’m afraid. Stoneham residents only please.”
“Well, that stinks,” said Martin. “That leaves both of us out.” A few other people grumbled loudly and slowly pulled out of line. They drifted out to join the Kuiper Belt of have-nots beyond the orbits of the ‘haves’.
“Can they do that?” Susan’s voice had a hint of outrage. “How can they sell to some people and not others?”
“On a certain level, it kind of makes sense.”
“Sense?” Susan was clearly miffed.
“Kinda. The store managers here are probably trying to head off panic buying and make sure their local community gets what there is before it runs out.”
“Runs out? It’s a huge store.”
“True, but even so, what they have in there now won’t last long without trucks bringing more. A couple years ago, we did an inventory app for Atlantic Grocers to help them coordinate orders from the warehouses. The suits at AG wanted to trim what they called ‘excess stalled capital’ and ‘excess elasticity.’ Products sitting in warehouses were a bad thing, apparently. Our little app worked nicely for them. Order in the evening and have it come on a truck the next day. From working on the app, I learned how the most conservative stores keep about three days worth on the shelves, mostly as a cushion for demand spikes. That’s assuming normal demand. Smaller stores don’t even keep that much on hand. It’s often hand to mouth — or truck to shelf — every day. No one ever sees empty shelves because trucks keep coming. But, if trucks don’t come, this place will be picked bare in a few days or less. Probably won’t even find a jar of olives.”
“Well, I still don’t think it’s fair.”
Martin steered the frowning Susan beyond the semi-circle of disappointed onlookers who either had no cash or no proper ID. They watched the five in, five out routine for another cycle. Susan maintained her scowl of disapproval, arms folded tightly across her chest.
Leaning on his walking stick, he glanced around. Martin noticed the wide band of pavement that went around behind the building. “Hey. I’ve got an idea I’d like to check out. Come on. No point in standing here anyway, right?”
“What idea?”
They rounded the corner of the building. Martin pointed to the dumpsters beyond the loading docks. “Dumpsters!”
“That’s your idea? Trash?”
“Not trash, treasure!…maybe. It’s worth checking out, anyhow.” Martin said with a sparkle in his eye. “Back when I was in college, my roommate and I had a very lean winter one year. I was washing dishes only part time. Doug got laid off from the logging crew that winter. So, we had to get creative. We would dumpster dive at the supermarket across the highway. Sometimes it was pretty rancid, like slimy lettuce day. But, Sunday nights were usually good. That’s when they’d throw away the out-of-date stuff before the big truck came on Monday mornings. One of us would stand watch, the other would dive. Some nights it was ‘woohoo mama’ and we’d be set for a week. Other times, nothing but cardboard.”
“You ate out of dumpsters?” Susan stuck out her tongue as if she had swallowed a bug. Martin walked briskly past the big green dumpster container.
“Of course not. We took it home to eat it. Ah ha!” Martin said louder than he expected. “Just like I thought.” He softened his tone to be more stealthy. “We hated it when stores started using these compactor dumpsters. Couldn’t get in, and it just crushed everything into mush. But, the compactor on this bad boy is electric too, so they couldn’t squash all the discards as they usually would.”
A big pile of white trash bags lay piled up against the side of the dumpster. Martin waded into them, rolling them over with his stick.
“Doug had this amazing sixth sense for which bags had good stuff inside. I wasn’t as good…Not this one. Squishy produce.” Martin carefully turned over bag after bag, eyes darting from bulge to bulge.
“Keep a look out, okay? Let me know if you see anyone coming. Managers get kinda testy about people rummaging through their trash.” Susan looked around nervously, uncomfortable with her sudden role as trash accomplice. Martin continued to pull over bags, studying the shapes beneath the white plastic.
“Ah. This one.” Martin cut a small slit in the trash bag. “Dairy case. Looks promising. Yogurts. Shoot. They’re all broke open. Sour creams, dips too. What, did they stomp on this bag? Ha! Cheese.” He thrust in his hand and pulled out several small yellow bricks and stuffed them in his coat pocket.
He peered deeper into the bag. “That’s all?” he said to the bag, then cast it aside.
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He pulled at a nearby bag. “I would have thought there was more. Oh well, a couple for me, a couple for you. It’s something anyhow.” The next bag was obviously heavy. “Ooo, milk case!” He held up a half gallon jug as if it were a trophy trout.
Susan made a sour face. “It sat out all day yesterday and today. It’s bad.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.” Martin twisted off the cap. He took a big gulp. His throat flinched closed at the tart flavor, but he forced the swallow down. “Okay, it’s on the edge, I’ll admit, but I’ve drunk worse and lived to tell the tale.” He took another long swig and forced it down too. Then he turned it over and poured out the rest.
“What are you doing?” Susan could not make sense of his actions.
“I would have offered you some, but I was sensing that you didn’t want any.” He smiled impishly.
“Of course not.”
“Actually, I just wanted the container. Bottles of water are scarce, but milk bottles, on the other hand…” He emptied a second bottle and climbed out of the debris field of trash bags. “One for me. One for you. Now we need to find a… Ah, there, a hose faucet.”
He rinsed out the jugs several times before filling them. Voices arose from the corner of the building. Some of the crowd had followed them and discovered the trash pile.
“We’d better move along,” said Martin. “Now that others know about the trash, it won’t take long before a manager comes back here and makes a stink…so to speak.” He chuckled at his accidental wit. Susan did not look amused.
They walked out from behind the building and out the parking lot exit. The buzzing bullhorn was still engaged in crowd control.
Martin studied his map. “This should be Williams Street. Only a mile or so to go.” His feelings brightened. His protracted good-deed was almost done. He could start making faster time. Soon, Susan would have her room with a door and she would not have to spend the night in the woods again.
He looked back at Susan to share that tidbit of optimism, but his smile dropped away. “Okay, you’re limping badly now.”
“It’s nothing. I’ll be fine.”
“Uh huh, I don’t think so.” Martin stopped to face her. “Is this why you keep falling back?”
“Really. It’s no big deal. See?” She tried to stride past him with an even pace, but grimaced sharply with each left foot step.
“No big deal,” Martin grumbled. “You’ve got a blister and probably a big one. Come on. Sit over here on this grass. I’d better take a look at it.”
Susan took a step back. “No no. It will be okay. If I just rest a little, it will get better.”
“Rest a little? If you’ve got as bad a blister as I’m thinking you’ve got, you’d have to rest for days before it ‘got better’.”
“I’m sure it’s not as bad as all that.”
“If it’s burst already, and you keep rubbing it around in there, it’ll get infected and become an even bigger sore. Do you want that?” Martin’s hopeful plans for covering many miles yet that day were fading fast.
Susan frowned at the ground.
Martin tried to dial back his irritated tone. “I don’t mean to sound all pushy. It’s just that you should take care of little problems, like blisters, before they turn into really big problems.” He slung his backpack onto the grass and dug in the front pocket. “I’ve got some first aid things here. Come on. Come sit on the grass over here.” He patted the ground.
Slowly, Susan sat where he indicated, but kept both feet close together and nearly tucked under her.
“Um. I’ll need your foot for this.” Martin held his hand out. In his mind, he began to replay earlier events. She had been standoffish about changing shoes. Now she was in blister denial. He wondered why.
A sudden rush of awkward feelings engulfed him. What if she had a deformity? What if she had lost toes due to frostbite from a skiing accident? What would that look like? Or, what if she had webbed toes from birth? What would that look like? A deformity would explain her avoidance. Embarrassing her felt like a huge breach of chivalry. Yet, there he was insisting that she take her shoe off.
Still, it was obvious that she needed some medical attention. Martin vowed that he would be considerate and understanding. She had a blister. It needed tending. Even after she was safely in the hotel, she would have to walk everywhere she had to go. He would not be there then, so the least he could do now was to patch up her blister before they parted ways. He decided to steel himself for whatever her deformity was. He would not show any surprise or shock — just a dispassionate doctor face. At least, he hoped so.
“It will be okay, Susan. I just need to treat your blister. You’ll feel better afterward.” He tried to sound like doctors he had seen on television.
She extended her left foot, but turned her head away.
Was it so bad that even she could not bear to look at it? Martin gently lifted her foot and laid her calf across his lap. Carefully, he unzipped the short boot and worked the opening wide so it would not rub as he pulled the shoe off. The boot slid off easily. Her sock was wet along the instep. Little patches of blood spotted through the white sock just behind her big toe.
“Just what I thought. ” Martin said, in his best dispassionate doctor voice. “A burst blister, and it looks like it was a big one. I’ll…um…have to take your sock off.”
Susan’s eyes flared wide and tragic.
“I’ll have to.” Martin temporarily fell out of character, but recovered his doctor voice. “I have to put a bandage on it. It’s the only way to help it heal.”
She bit her lip and closed both eyes tight. He took that as approval, of a sorts, so started to slowly roll down the sock. He determined, that no matter what was wrong with her foot, he would say nothing. He was going to focus on the blister and treating that.
His imagination would not leave him alone. What if her father ran over her foot with a lawnmower when she was little, and the doctors sewed the chopped off parts back on? Would she have big Frankenstein scars? He would say nothing. Focus on the blister.
As he rolled the sock over her heel, and down to the toes, he was careful not to let it pull or rub on the sore. Susan squeezed her eyes shut tighter and turned her face away. Martin paused and took a breath. He would not comment on whatever it was. He would be a seasoned battlefield medic. He rolled the sock off.
“Oh for crying out loud!” Martin half-shouted.
Susan cracked open one eye. “What?”
“There is NOTHING wrong with your foot! I mean, yeah, you’ve got a nasty burst blister, but your foot is normal. Normal!” His tone was accusing.
“Huh?”
“Geez wheeze,” he ranted. “The way you were carrying on, I was beginning to think you had hooves or Franken…something.”
She looked confused.
“Oh for God’s sake. This is just a plain foot.” he said. “You had me all worked up thinking that you…oh, never mind. Why were you making such a big deal?”
“I don’t like my feet.”
“Don’t like your feet? Wha…you’re attached to them. What has liking got to do with it?” He held her foot up as if selling it to her. “This is a perfectly fine, normal foot. What’s not to like?”
“I just don’t like feet, especially mine.”
Martin rolled his eyes and muttered to himself. “Oh, that’s just weird.”
To Susan he said, “Hand me that little towelette pack there. Let me get this area cleaned up.” Under his breath he muttered, “Pfft. Don’t like your feet.”
“Now hand me that other long packet. The Mycitracin.” He applied it to a small gauze circle and gently laid it on the raw pink skin. He cut a hole in a square of moleskin and stuck it around the gauze. “Okay, now the tape.” He taped it all down snuggly, but not tight. He put a strip of duct tape over it all.
“There. This should help. It’ll keep your shoe from rubbing on the sore. Dig out some fresh socks and your sneakers. She pulled her bundle over closer a
nd rummaged through the duffle bag. He rolled the clean sock on as gently as he could.
He worked her sneaker open wide. “You’d better put it on yourself. You can tell better than I can if it hurts. Go slow, and don’t cinch it too tight or… “ His words trailed off when he realized she was staring at him with that same sad-puzzled look. He felt like a bug under a magnifying glass.
“What.”
She did not answer. The furrows remained on her forehead while she pulled her shoe on slowly.
“Does it hurt a lot?”
“No.”
“Oh, well, you look like it still hurts.”
“The pain isn’t gone, but it’s better.”
“That’s good. Now stand up,” Martin encouraged. “Put some pressure on it.”
Susan took a few steps. She still limped, but less. She sat down on the wall and looked at him with sad eyes, which Martin interpreted as her wanting to apologize for being weird about feet, but having a hard time finding words. He certainly knew how it felt to be at a loss for words. He sought to save her the trouble by accepting in advance.
“I’m just glad you’re feeling better.”
Apology accepted, Martin studied his map. “Well, if you’re feeling good enough to get going again, this here is Williams Street, like I said. We go down that way. It crosses under 93, and then we’ll be in Woburn. Go up Washington Street and there’s four hotels up there that I know of — probably more.” He stood up and offered Susan his hand to help her up.
Susan kept her hands in her lap. “Um, about that. I’ve been thinking.”
“Thinking?”
“Maybe I’ve been a little too focused on finding a hotel.”
“Too focused? You need a place to stay. You want a room with a door.”
“I know, I know, but now I’m not so sure. I feel bad that I slowed you down all this time for nothing. I really do. It’s just…I think I’ve been so dead-set against going into a shelter that I think I got hotel tunnel vision. I didn’t think of anything else. But now I’m thinking that was a mistake and that I should, maybe…” Her voice trailed off.