The parking lot was empty on Sundays. A&P shoppers crowded their cars in during the week and especially on Saturdays. Mother’s put toddlers on the red plastic seats of the carts and pushed them down the aisles of Jiffy peanut butter, frozen dinners, spaghetti-o’s and Campbell’s soup cans. In a small town, the parking lot was the place that saw the most action besides the churches; families conducting undistinctive lives in middle America.
Nixon announced an accord with North Viet Nam to end American involvement in Indochina. The following year, his Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, negotiated disengagement agreements between Israel, Egypt and Syria. Kissinger would resign and Nixon would nominate Gerald Ford to replace him as vice-president.
Another layer in the inconspicuous lives of a town of factory workers on lake Michigan.
The parking was nearly empty on Sunday at 11 a.m. There was a green Renault 12 with worn brown leather seats that smelled like old popcorn and a Ford Cortina. The Ford had dirty windows, the tire scuttle was rusty from the winter snow and salt that collected there and the owner had left the windows down in the miserable August heat while he sat in the cool dark interior of the bar, where ancient wood panelling smelled of water left sitting in the sink where beer glasses soaked. White hair, short and heavy, the old man looked at the tire a little too long. He did not think he had a jack. Hell, he did not want to get the jack out of the trunk if he had one. Damn. One drink, ok, two. It was damn hot. The jack fell apart in two pieces when he lifted it out of the trunk, clattering in the nearly empty parking lot. He was sweating out the alcohol consumed inside the bar. He decided he would go back in and wait till it cooled off.
A tall, lanky young father with straight brown hair, neatly cropped, bangs brushing the edge of the black-rimmed glasses came up the walkway that led from the apartment parking lot behind the A&P to the grocery store with a 5-year-old who carried a ball.
He was wearing a pink and brown striped short sleeve shirt and his beige pants were pressed with a crease.
He studied the older man as he approached.
“Hey there. Got some trouble with that car?”
The old man turned. The sun was hot and now it was in his eyes as well. His face was red and sweaty. All he wanted was to go lay down.
”Eh. No. No problem. I can…can take care of it.”
He threw down the back trunk with a slam and tripped over part of the jack lying on the ground. He picked up the pieces breathing noisily, slid them together accomplishing his intention on the second fumbled attempt.
He bent down on one knee beside the car huffing, shoved the jack under the car and pushed on his knee to stand. Scissor car jacks usually use mechanical advantages to allow a human to lift a vehicle by manual force alone. The jack fell over.
The young father, who had taken the ball a moment, pressed it to the boy’s chest and turned him toward the storefront.
“Hey, I’ll give you a hand.”
He took the jack, expertly lifting the side of the car, walked around the back of the car and found the spare tire. He did not sweat in the morning sun. The boy waited in the shade of the grocery store eaves on the rough cement a few feet away. The old man swayed in the heat and watched the skinny younger man in silence. When the tire was fitted, the fresh-faced, wiry young man removed the jack, placed it in the trunk and held out his hand to the older man who groped for his wallet from his back pocket without looking at the extended hand. He pulled out a dollar bill and looked at the little boy, waving the dollar bill at him.
The child carried the ball and looked at his father before stretching out a small hand. Walking around to the driver’s side and patting down all his pockets in search of the car keys, the white-haired, red-faced man plopped down heavily behind the steering wheel with a wheeze.
“Old man, you are drunk.”