Coyote

Bokononists believe that humanity is organized into teams, teams that do God's Will without ever discovering what they are doing. Such a team is called a karass. Marc Leeds, The Vonnegut Encyclopedia, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1995, page 348

Thursday January 23, 2003

Sometimes the idiot at the head of the line is a chubby woman who has totally forgotten the McDonald’s breakfast menu. Usually it’s me. Usually I am either too easily distracted or way over focused, and strangers discover I am a clot in the artery of commerce.

I don’t have a job and a paycheck. All my money comes from the sweat of my husband’s or my father’s brow. My husband obsesses about retirement. In recent years his motto seems to be a penny pinched is more money in a meager retirement portfolio. My father worries that his savings will end before he does. Shopping for all us often becomes an art in juggling.

To complicate shopping, some things my dad needs are tax deductible, and I have to keep those separate from the ones which aren’t. Also I have set up a small account of my own just to keep track of my personal spending. A person ready to check out might spot me standing alone at the counter and make the mistake of thinking my line will be short and quick. Wrong. There could be at least four different transactions occurring at the register: my father’s, my father’s, mine and my husband’s, and mine.

Which is what happened at Wal-Mart the day after the blessing of grace at McDonald’s.

No one was around when I wheeled the basket up to the counter. I bought first Dad’s medical supplies, then his household goods, then the Warners’ pet supplies, all with different credit cards I had to fumble to find, making sure I used the right one, signing for each, then making sure I put the card back in the right purse pocket instead of dropping it on the floor. In my usual hurry, I was goading myself to juggle more artfully.

I carry cash to pay for my personal purchases…the pens and notebooks and paper I will scatter between my Cleveland household and the one in Greenwood. I have a small pocket in my tiny purse for the cards, but my cash is kept in a fold down flap pocket with ripped lining. The change slips under the lining and collects in a heavy mass on the backside of my purse. I never seem to find the time to get a new purse, or fix this one that works best for me in most ways.

The clerk rang up my goods, and not wanting to add any more coins to my extensive collection, I scrabbled for the correct change, thinking, as I always do when I dive for dimes, of my mother and my stepdaughter. My mother hated old ladies who hunted in their purses for pennies. My stepdaughter thought change was something poor people used.

I am a poor person; an almost old lady who digs through her purse. On Thursday I couldn’t stop myself as precious minutes whizzed past. With my hand creeping up behind the pocket lining, I saw my stepdaughter when she was young standing in the moonlight on the curb outside a Burger King. She looked at the change she had just received, shrugged, and then flung it in a graceful silver arc into the empty field in front of the car. I fussed at her then; now, I understand the relief of the gesture.

I threw some of my own pennies and nickels and quarters on the counter. Not quite right. I had to go back for more. What an idiot, I thought, and almost heard my mother hissing. Why am I doing this, I wondered, it doesn’t make any difference to anybody but me. I finally pieced out the correct change and pushed it toward the clerk before beginning my search for dollars.

“……know you,” I heard someone say behind me.

I looked up and was shocked to discover my line was at least seven customers deep. The speaker was a tall, neatly dressed black man who seemed to be standing with his mother. A woman about his mother’s age separated us.

“You know me?” I asked. For years people have remembered me long after I have lost any memory of a connection. Though I couldn’t place this man, I didn’t want to be rude.

He looked back right into my eyes. He seemed amused. “I know you’re stupid,” he said.

Well, wasn’t that obvious? Hadn’t I just been calling myself stupid for who knows how many lost minutes, seconded by my mother’s ghost and engaged in activity my stepdaughter at eight-years-old had outgrown? And now all these folks who probably counted exactly how many minutes I had lost were piled up behind me. I knew I should turn away, but since I had made eye contact with the man, neither thanking him nor ignoring him seemed the polite thing to do.

“I am stupid…,” I agreed, willing to make a joke of this as I pulled dollars out of my purse. I thought of all the stupid things I had done all of my life. Most of my major decisions have been absolutely stupid, not to count all the little daily stupid things I do. I almost laughed because this stranger could never imagine how deeply stupid I was. I thought all this even as I finished the sentence “ …but I don’t think you really know me well enough to know that.” I flung a wad of dollars on the counter to sort.

“I know you are stupid,” he said.

Now how do you get out of this one, I thought. I could feel the tiny splash of what could be a tidal wave of irritation, but ignoring him seemed more hostile than acknowledging him. “I agree,” I said, “but I don’t think Miss Manners would approve of your pointing that out in a public place.” Like Miss Manners would approve of my pointing out his breach of etiquette in a public place. The pained look of the two women between us made me think they wished Miss Manners were shopping there instead of the two of us. I know I did. I teased out what I hoped was the right domination of bills. I pushed them toward the clerk. “Is that right?” I asked.

The clerk flashed an edgy smile as she picked them up.

“You are stupid,” he said. “You could have handed the lady your money.”

I looked back at the black man in line. He didn’t look crazy or as if he were packing a gun. He didn’t even look angry, so why was he doing this? I looked at the clerk sorting the money into the drawer. She was black, too. In Greenwood a year or so back the letters to the editor had hotly debated the issue of white customers refusing to touch the hands of black clerks. Was that what this was about? Had this very nice looking man confused my whole stupid life gestalt with racism?

The clerk handed me my receipt. I don’t know if our hands touched, but I was closer to getting the hell out of Dodge.

“I don’t know you,” the man said one more time in a voice that boomed over our heads, “but I know you are stupid.”

I was confused. What was I supposed to do now? When had the peace of McDonald’s departed? How had it arrived in the first place? I had refused to fight for a banana. But this guy and I both had our hands on the banana. Anything I could think of doing seemed like jerking harder.

Peculiar travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God, said the Voice in my head, the Voice that doesn’t debate or incite, the Voice with stillness and space around it. God reads Kurt Vonnegut? This was peculiar all right, but what were the travel suggestions? And what about all that peace-of-God stuff?

Okay, Buster, I thought, you asked for it. You’re gonna get what should be the answer.

I looked my tormentor in the eye. “Oh, you do know me,” I said. His eyes were, I swear, merry. “And I know you.” Everyone around us were faded as ghosts. He seemed to glow like butter. I delivered my benediction like a bludgeon. “And may the peace of God go with you.” And may it go with me, I silently pleaded. Please may it go with me.

Though I couldn’t hear anything, just before I turned back to the register, it looked as if he were laughing. And not knowing why, I wanted to laugh with him.

For the love of Christ, I thought as quick anonymous hands loaded my cart, Jesus-is- trying-to-love you is not the peace of God. But even if I had not been able to step back now, it seemed possible next time, or the next. It felt as if I had released some unnamed burden. As I left the store I could see the man’s smiling eyes and the buttery glow of his skin. I could feel the unuttered laughter floating freeform around us.

I thought of Coyote, of Raven, of the old Trickster who comes to devil you and leaves you with a gift. I was irritated, frustrated, tickled. I was happy. What a great joke, I thought, not quite knowing what the joke was. I wanted to share it with my teacher, but I was afraid if I waited for the man in the line to leave the store, I would find my teacher was already gone, and I would just convince some stranger I was as crazy in a parking lot as I had been stupid at a check-out counter.

This time I hadn’t been able to step back, but the blessing came anyway. I could feel it flowing through me. And I had been right about one thing. I did know the man in the line. With gratitude and laughter, I will know my Brother forever.