It wasn’t my turn to be the bagboy at the downtown Fresh Food Market in Birmingham. Being the new guy, there was no way I was thinking about crashing in and breaking the rules, but Delores pointed at me. “Hey, Andy. I need you over here, please.” I didn’t even know she knew my name. She’s the honcho with fire power over us bagboys, but usually doesn’t speak to us around customers. I wondered what could be going on that she said my name and also said please.
I looked at the two guys ahead of me in the bagline and shrugged. They both gave me the finger, but … well … like I said, Delores gave me a beckon and that supersedes fingers.
She knew we took turns and I expect she knew it had pissed off the others that I got called ahead. “Bag him,” was all she said, pointing at this man shuffling in his pockets for his plastic.
Seven of us worked for just about nothing from Fresh Foods. Nearly nothing from Fresh Food, but tips from the customers. We didn’t split the tips. It was every man for himself. Tips were pretty important, usually more than five times the near nothing that Fresh Food pays. The other guys had agreed to form a line before I came on the scene. Fate would declare who got the little old ladies with big pocketbooks and who got the lonely women who just wanted to talk. For the talkers, I say “Yes, ma’am” no more than two times, turn away, and head back to the line. Once in a while, just walking to the car behind a looker is all you’re gonna get, and that ain’t always bad. For them, I do all the looking I can. One of these days, I’m going to say something like, “Is there anything else I can do for you?” I’ve been practicing the right kind of smile to have when I say that. Maybe before the summer is over, I’ll give that a try.
I had applied for a job as a bagboy at the only grocery store in Birmingham still using bagboys as soon as school was out. The store manager told me what I already knew: I couldn’t start working as a bagboy until I was fifteen.
“My birthday is the first of July,” I told him back then.
“Oh, yeah? You look like you’re gonna turn thirteen. You’d better bring some documentation.”
“Sir?”
“Birth certificate, boy. And we don’t tolerate long hair.” He turned away and kinda whispered. “Don’t look like I’d need to tell you to shave.”
“ Yes, sir.” I answered. “And screw you,” is what I said under my breath. I don’t think he would have heard me if I had asked him if he was bald under that baseball cap. U S Army and Korea posted on his cap. Yeah. And I was gone as far as he was concerned as soon as he turned his back to me.
On June 30, I was back, birth certificate in hand. Mama had given me a haircut and told me to wear a button up the front shirt with this guy. At first, he acted like he didn’t remember me, and then he said he wasn’t sure he needed another bagboy. T his time, when he turned back to the desk under the windows, I waited.
Seemed like a half hour before he looked up again. “What?” he said.
“I really need the job, sir.”
“You gotta be fifteen,” like we hadn’t talked about that already.
I held out my birth certificate. He didn’t even look at it.
He was jiggling a pencil back and forth like windshield wipers as he looked at me. “What grade are you in?”
“Eleventh.”
He reached over, pushed the circular stand holding the two American flags, and looked at me again. “You’re too young.”
“I’ll be fifteen tomorrow.” I held out the birth certificate again.
He pushed some papers on his desk. “You have to be sixteen to be in the eleventh grade.”
He was really looking at me now. I didn’t turn away from his eyes. “I skipped the second grade.”
“Your name is Andy?”
How’d he know that? “Andrew, sir. Andrew.”
“Sounds like Andy to me.”
“Yes, sir. Some people call me that.”
Now, he was tapping his thumb on the desk now. “I don’t want no smart mouth bagboys.”
“No, sir.”
“Smart mouth bagboys drive my customers away.”
“Yes, sir. I know that.” I knew what he was gonna say next, so I said if for him. “Bag ‘em, push ‘em to the car, load ‘em in. That’s what I’m told. Don’t say nothing.”
“Don’t say anything.”
“Yes, sir. I know that.”
He nodded. “Every afternoon. Four ‘til seven.”
“Yes, sir.”
I had stepped back and was turning to the door. “How are you going to practice for football working every afternoon?’
I didn’t know what to say. “I need to work.” I wasn’t going to start to leave again until he said something like he was through with me.
“Do you know what rawboned means?”
“Rawboned?” Was he going to give me a job in the meat department? “No, sir. You sell it at the meat counter?”
“Tall, rawboned, and skinny.”
“Sir?”
“You’re too skinny to play football for Alabama. Auburn neither.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You don’t look fifteen to me.”
I waited a moment. He kept looking at me. Finally, I used my best begging voice, “Please.”
“You know your social security number?”
I nodded again.
“Tell Delores I sent you.”
And, with that, I got the job.
I’d never seen the guy sporting the white sidewalls haircut and a big, ugly scar tucked under his black beard. He was standing by Delores, looking at me, expecting to have his stuff bagged. Big dudes like him don’t shop here often. He’s probably too young to be a big tipper. Sometimes, you can tell the big tippers by what they buy. This guy? Three bottles of wine, a stack of frozen dinners, two six packs, and coffee. The usual for single guys and he didn’t have a ring. He kept looking at me. I nodded and smiled, but what I was really interested in was what card he would use. His platinum American Express raised my hopes.
As we walked out of the store, I looked over at the other guys waiting their turn. Now, all three of them were practicing their sign language. I hope they noticed me pushing the cart with my middle finger over the handle.
Anyway, I looked at my man, wanting some directions. He pointed. I gave him my best smile. “Nice car.” It was a BMW coupe. A two seater.
“Work hard and you can have one, too.”
“Yes, sir. I’m going to do that.” I’d talk to this guy for a big tip. “I set my eyes on Georgia Tech. You know Georgia Tech?”
“Sure. Good school.” He popped the lid on the car’s trunk. “What grade are you going to be in?”
“Sir?” I looked up at him. “Eleventh.”
“You skipped a grade.”
“Second grade. How’d you know?
“Fifteen and one month.”
Course, that kind of shut me up, him knowing my birthday. I was putting his stuff in the trunk, wondering who was going to say what next. When I stood up, he handed me the tip. He didn’t roll it up or nothing like they do when the tip is a skinny dollar bill. He handed it to me so I could see.
“Sir, you know this is a hundred dollar bill.”
“A late birthday present.”
I shoved the bill into the pocket of my jeans and started backing away. I didn’t want any more talk with a man who hands me that kinda money, and I didn’t care for any of the guys back at the store knowing how much I’d gotten. I turned and shoved the cart between me and Mr. Scar Face.
“How’s your mama?”
That stopped me. I had to think about that. “She’s okay. You know my mama?”
“Does your stepdaddy treat you okay?”
I didn’t answer. I just looked at him. A lot of things were going through my head.
He went on talking. “I need to tell you something. I’ve been wanting to talk with you.” He rubbed his hand over that scar and looked around the parking lot like he was wondering who might be listening. And then he started talking slow as though the words were stuck at the back of his throat. “I was a med student in the University Hospital fifteen years ago. Fifteen years and a month, in fact. I was …,”
I guess we both were wondering what was coming out next.
“I was standing at the window, looking at you. In the nursery, you know.” He stopped and let me soak that up. “I nodded to the nurse holding you.”
I must have looked like some kind of idiot standing there, my brains hanging out. “You nodded to some nurse who was holding me? How come you were doing that?”
“She was on the other side of the glass, but I could hear her. The reason I nodded … .” He stopped and then started again. “The reason I nodded was to confirm that I was the father.”
What would you think? Some guy comes up to you and tells you he’s your dad, the father, the person your mama won’t talk about? I could hear my heart beating while I was watching him, and him still looking around like he wanted to see who was listening or something. He kept on with his … with his what? … with his confession. “Then, I shook my head,” he paused, looked at me, then looked away again. “I told her I didn’t want to hold you.” He should have practiced this confession so that his face wouldn’t get all wrinkled up out there in the middle of the parking lot.
My brain was screaming inside my head, “Yeah? And where have you been?” Once in a while, I had thought about my daddy looking me up. Sometimes I make up a story of how he would come find me. I figured he was gonna be some outdoors guy who spends his life in fire towers, or maybe he was gonna be a computer jock who had to go into hiding because he had hacked into government computers. But not this guy. “You’re too young to be my daddy.”
He nodded. “Not really, but I was back then.”
I had to think about that for a while. Cryptic, you know. Kind of an apology, maybe. And then I let it out. “I always thought I’d beat the shit out of you if you ever showed up. Leaving me and my mama like you did. Leaving us with nothing. I’d do it right now, but I need this job.” That got his attention. He really looked at me. “I hope you weren’t thinking we’re gonna hug each other or something.” I shook my head and backed up a little. I figured it was over.
“Can we…?” He stood there for a while. “How’s your mama?”
I wasn’t saying anything out loud. I kept doing what my counselor said to do when I wanted to kick ass. “Count to ten,” she had said. “Count to ten.” She made me promise. I didn’t get to but five.
“Your stepdad … .”
“He’s not my stepdad.” I didn’t mean to be so loud. “They’re not married. He’s not but twenty-five.”
He nodded. “I know. She could do better.”
I waited a minute to think what to say. He knows so much, why don’t he know? “He won’t stay much longer. I get in his way.”
“You get in his way?” he echoed me.
“Yeah. I knock on their door before I go out and stick my head in to tell Mom when I get home. He came busting in my room last night. I’d poured out all the booze I could find. He thought he was gonna whip my ass, then he saw I was sleeping with a baseball bat.
“And, you know what? I’ve got a job back in there. Mama and I need the money, so how about getting away from in front of the cart.”
“Sorry.” He moved but kept his hand on the cart. “Look. My name is Jack Welch. Can we talk sometime?”
“Yeah, talk.” I shoved the cart hard enough so that he moved his hand. “But don’t come in asking me to be your bagboy. That ain’t the way we do it.” I was walking away. “You want to make up for fifteen years while my mom does all kind of things to keep me from starving?” But then, I stopped. I looked back at him still standing there. “Come watch me run with the track team. Seven o’clock. Every morning.” I figured if he’s not smart enough or doesn’t care enough to find out where the Jefferson High School track team runs, then maybe he can just disappear again.
He was there this morning, leaning on the fence at the edge of the field. He had on one of those blue outfits like doctors wear. I’ll take that as a start, but one hundred dollars is just a little more than the application fee at Georgia Tech. He had an opportunity … what? … sixteen years ago and he took it.
Now, by damn, I’ve got an opportunity and I plan to take it!
This story was published on page 69 of an issue of the Alabama Writers Conclave. See https://issuu.com/alabamawritersconclave/docs/alalitcom2014