It was another nice day, so she decided to take a walk through town. She liked to go past the many familiar shops and stores that made up the short three blocks of the small town. She said hello to many people. She knew almost everyone by sight at least.
Lorenzo, an old man half blind, sat on one corner playing his auto harp for spare change. He never asked for money, but an empty used Starbuck’s coffee cup sat in prominence at his feet. His dog, also partially blind, a Dalmatian, was often inclined to sing along. This was always amusing! Kristie put a dollar in his cup and continued meandering down the street.
Burt, a large partially bald effeminate gentleman with a great hearty laugh and sparkly eyes ran an old fashioned dime store and notions shop where you could get sewing supplies, odds and ends of material, calendars, joke cards, balloons, and candy from your childhood like: Bazooka bubble gum, Big Cherry, Bit O’ Honey, Big Hunk, and Almond Joy. There was also an assortment of beach shoes, beach mats, beach balls, marbles, sun hats, t-shirts, cheap jewelry, toys like paddle ball, trucks, dolls, stuffed animals, puzzles, baby rattles, blankets, old fashioned cloth diapers, clothes lines, clothes pins, assorted sundries, inflatable alligators, and holiday items. She could spend a good hour in that store alone looking at all the stuff. She bought two pink plastic flamingos for the yard just for fun!
Ottis was a dour old timer with a cane and an oxygen tank nearby who sat and watched over the antique shop and the TV. He had the set constantly tuned in to Fox News and he would either argue or agree with whatever they were saying at the time no matter who was in the store. The “antiques” were mostly relics out of the past that included death and hard times. The wooden floors and walls smelled of mildew and cigarettes. Even if he was on oxygen, he continued to smoke incessantly. China, dingy, worn, and mismatched stood in stacks. Trays were filled with old silver that no one wanted. Old Coca-Cola signs, musty baskets, and wicker chairs left outside to distress too long were offered at bargain prices. It was a kind of sad museum to folks no longer of this world.
The flower shop, in contrast, was held by a younger woman, Belle, in her early thirties with a passion for growing things and a green thumb to boot. A little bell tied to the door announced the customers as they came in and she greeted each of them with a smile and good cheer. The shop was filled with the aromas of laurel, carnations, lillies, roses, and gardenias. Hanging baskets of ferns and ivy filled every available space. The glass front refrigerator held arrangements of tropical flowers and roses in five gallon buckets ready to be wrapped and sold. Big mixed bouquets and potted house plants lined the paths through the store.
“It always feels so good to come in here,” Kristie remarked to Belle as she was trimming up an arrangement. Kristie liked to make it the last stop on the way home after a good long walk. She bought a bouquet of daisies and yellow roses in the bargain bin, and then splurged on a gardenia blossom that she would keep in a champagne glass on the kitchen windowsill to smell everyday for as long as it lasted.
Christina, a German woman in her eighties ran the bakery. She had the vigor of a much younger woman. Kristie liked to look at her cerulean blue eyes and the crags and wrinkles on her face and arms. Under her clothes lay the body of a survivor. She didn’t do much of the work of baking anymore. She had a staff of Hispanic men and women who followed her instructions to the tee. She manned the front counter and the register counting every penny on the one hand and giving away free cookies to the young school children who came in with their mothers to buy bread and dessert for the evening meal on the other. Kristie bought a loaf of French bread and an individual apple pie for Jack to eat after dinner.
The health food store with its smells of cumin, cilantro, and garlic was another enticing stop. Here one could buy exotic grains, lentils, and spices for making good Indian curries. They also had organic vegetables, dried fruit, nuts, olives, cheeses, fresh juices, wheat grass, hummus, whole grain breads, pasta, fresh ground nut butters, books on vegetarian cooking, yoga, and organic gardening, hemp products like shirts and grocery bags, natural soaps and lotions with no animal by products or testing.
The store was run by a local Ashram who loved the people in this town. With clear eyes and clean mindedness, peaceful and lovingly, they served. They all had taken names like Lotus, Parvarti, Patel, Nirvana, and Saraswati. One woman Kristie especially liked, Maya, was six months pregnant.
Although most members, even married couples, were expected to be celibate, in this case, the Guru himself had counseled them to sleep together and express their love physically. The whole Ashram was looking at this impending birth as the next coming – a holy experience they all shared in. There was nothing weird or hanky panky about it. It was done with the blessings of the divine.
Kristie talked with Maya about Krishna, vegetarianism, the Eight Fold Path, and the upcoming birth of her baby. She bought a package of incense, a candle, and a few odd items like turkey eggs with three yolks for Jack, and a spicy hummus sandwich on whole wheat with pepper jack and bean sprouts for her lunch.
There were lots of other stores and businesses in the three block “Downtown” strand. There was a pizza place that had jazz on the weekends, a full sized super market with a Starbuck’s and a bank inside, two gas stations with quick marts, two churches, a fire department, a sheriff’s department sub-station, a brewery with an outdoor Bier Garten that served hamburgers and sandwiches, a jewelry store, a book store, a used clothing store, a health’ clinic, a dentist office, a laundromat, a genuine US Post Office, four real estate offices, a bank, a postal supply, notary, and mail service, a vet, a mechanic’s shop, an Italian restaurant, a diner that served blue plate specials, a fancy French restaurant, a local newspaper, and the Chamber of Commerce….
It was basically everything you needed right there in town…. Oh yeah, and fourteen bars! There were two redneck bars – real drinking men’s bars that smelled of sweat, beer, urine, and stale cigarette smoke, four Gay bars… really! And multiple other establishments that catered to sports fans, a concert venue, a 150 seat steak house with two bars, and a hole in the wall broken down place that should have been condemned filled with the hardest drinkers in the county.
There was also a coffee house called Blunt’s where you could get a cup of coffee and all the latest glass blown paraphernalia for use in the smoking of marijuana. Across the street a little ways out of town was our own actual marijuana dispensary where you could sample and buy various varieties of sativa as long as you had been medically approved.
Kristie saw the dress that she wanted in the window of the Boutique. It was a sleeveless off white silk and rayon mix, knee length dress with a scoop neck and intricately embroidered bodice all in off-white. The empire waist had a beautiful ribbon tie at the back. It was just what she was looking for! It was just so spring! With all the shopping she had just done, she couldn’t afford the $185 price tag.
There was just one size twelve left on the rack. She put $40 down on it and left it on hold for the time being. She knew she would look girlish in this dress with a beige see through bra, some beige panties, and some little flowered sandals. It was just the look she was going for. The party was next Saturday. Between now and then, she was sure she could get Jack to buy that dress for her. “I put a dress on hold today…” she would begin the conversation.
(First published 8/30/11)
