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Searching for Souvenirs
by Peggy Barnes Pop’s County Store sounds a lot friendlier than it looks. Pickups with rifle racks surround the lone gas pump. Men slouch against the wooden building as if the heat or years of habit have disabled them from doing much else. They stare at me as if they know I'm from Ohio. I've stepped away from the van clearly tagged Alabama, but around here, they can spot a stranger two cornfields away. I'm not afraid of sweaty men. I'm not afraid of sheriffs. This is hallowed ground. I’ve got months of research that proves my mother, and possibly even I, walked through an earlier model of the rusted screen door. It’s ten a.m. The place smells of lard-fried chicken, stale smoke and motor oil. No other customers. No one here but the man behind the counter. Counter Man is middle-aged, porky, wearing a Bull Dogs cap, and is surely suspicious of a woman scribbling in a little notebook balanced on her knee. I write fast: scuffed round table, a place to smoke and drink RC cola. A table so old it could have touched bellies with folks come to gossip about my mother. A machine slushing purple-tongue grape drink. Cotton candy in cardboard tubs. Red Man chewing tobacco. I should buy something. The most abundant product is a wall of Marlboros. In my forties I was up to two packs of Kent’s a day, puffing and wheezing on small hills. After dozens of failed attempts (including late night trips wearing a raincoat over my nightgown to stores not unlike this one), I quit. It was easier than quitting booze, which was much less of a calculated decision. The thermometer outside reads 104 degrees. I am sticky all over as if I'd been rubbed down with some of that shocking pink candy. My tee shirt is stuck to my bra, and sweat is fogging my sunglasses. I'm wearing wrinkled pedal pushers, or whatever they call these things today. The door creaks open and a young man with a frightful cough heads toward the lottery ticket machine. “Hey there, Richie,” says Counter Man. “Today’s your lucky day!” Could Richie be my relative? A link in a new chain of cousins? Of course he could. I consider offering Richie one of my eucalyptus and thyme cough lozenges. If Counter Man asks, I’m just trying to find souvenirs for my grandchildren. Darlin’ young’uns’, I'll say, in that drop-jawed, slow-talking, Alabama-raised part of me that is never far away. Southern drawl is my first language, especially when I'm stressed. If I were making this up, I'd have Counter Man much older, a very bright gentleman who’d say howdy, ma’am as he handed off a cold drink and a pack of Golden Flake peanut butter crackers. Refreshed, we’d strike up a conversation and he would stare at my thick brown hair and say I reminded him of someone. I'd say I’m trying to find my mother. Why, bless your little heart, he’d say. Pauline Miller? That lovely girl. Too bad things turned out the way they did. Running her out of town that way. Right, I'd say. Bless her little heart. And at that hand-carved table our talking would go and on while I filled notebook after notebook so, by the time I left, I would know if my mother were dead or alive. Instead, I go up and down four short aisles looking for a souvenir. I yearn for a special object, something for my writing desk that would reconnect to my beginnings. But all I see are Beanie Weenies and stay-alert pills. So I just grab a freebie, a copy of the Alabama Advertiser, as if I'm keen on buying a truck or a bass boat. I head for the door. “Wait!” I can’t understand what Counter Man is saying, but he and Richie are headed toward me and the half-opened door. “Ninety-nine cents,” calls Counter Man, “Ain’t you got ninety-nine cents?” ............................................... I give him a dollar. Or maybe it's a five. Outside in the parking lot, Richie and the guys are laughing. I expect one to slap his knee, but that would take too much energy in this heat. Before I get to the car, I spot a cold drink case over beside the tire pump, and I imagine another stifling hot day. ....................... It is 1939. Pauline is here. She passes by a huddle of local citizens and saunters toward the cold drink box. I, the bulge in her dress, am making her miserable, and she wants to buy an RC Cola. Pauline lifts the lid, leans over rows of bottle caps, nudges them and clacks the bottles together. She takes her time, fingering the icy water until her hand is so cold it is practically numb. Whore! She slams the lid, tosses her nickel on the counter. Bastard! She turns away and walks back toward the hills. |
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