I’m in the supermarket. Could be in Manhattan, Johannesburg, Stockholm or Tel Aviv. There, in aisle one, are the all-sufficient ones. Everything is packaged, even their smiles. The know-it-all faces. The ones who have gone through everything and need no one to tell them anything.
In aisle two, I’m watching this lost soul, who I know has just gone through a messy divorce, but the all-knowing one won’t give me the satisfaction of knowing anything is wrong or different. Pride is written on his sun-tanned face.
In aisle three, a fellow who has had a heart transplant from a pig is still unkosher. But who am I to talk about being kosher, being here?
In aisle four I see the fastidious ones, Mr. And Mrs. Parfait, better known as the perfect couple. Everything has an exchanged look about them. Who cares who is the man or woman, who wears the pants or pantsuit, whether they are white or of color, or if they want a homogenized look, or project an androgynous soul? One cannot tell by their hairstyles if they exist in the 40’s or 50’s, or if they’re 30 or going on 60. Even if a ton of cereal boxes falls on their heads, they are so cool; nothing would faze them or let you know they are not what they want to be. You could never tell if their grandparents went through Dachau, the Gulag or Hiroshima.
In aisle five are the lawyers with their laptops and their lap dogs at their side. They each are living for money, and want to be president of whatever - their school, their firm, their country. And they are activists in favor of every cause you can think of. However, they pick up some cutlets although it says on their bumper they are against the slaughter of animals. They answer in unison, “We recycle, we recycle ourselves” when the checkout cashier asks, “Paper or plastic?”
In aisle six are the urban suburbanites. But one would ever know them, with their motorcycle-tattooed arms, coming from the workout in the gym, that they had just had a diabetic shot and a vodka and orange juice. They are laughing at a stale borscht belt joke they learned from their grandfather, speaking of the Jews: “We Jews act like WASPS, but vote like...”
I’m passing out free tickets to my comedy club Thursday nights, but most everyone thinks I’m passing out religious tracts, and pass me by. All of a sudden, in aisle seven, which is the “Twelve items or less,” I spy a dandy named Giacomo who only emerges at dusk. He tells me he reads a bit of Baudelaire, a chunk of Gertrude Stein and a cup of Oscar Wilde every day. It’s the first soul who I meet here who actually has a soul and speaks to me.
“Aren’t you the comedian who comes here every Thursday?”
“Well, to be honest, I get most of my material here.”
He winces and begins to quote from "Fleurs de Mal". He tells me he is a poetry lover and goes to the clubs, but prefers his own company. He actually buys a ticket to my show! I watch Giacomo eat the salad he’d bought, quite slowly, savoring even the parsley. Perhaps he knows life is short and he’s making the most of it. Given my pessimistic nature, I doubt if even Giacomo will come to see my routine.
I watch the pair of lawyers get into their new SUV with environmental causes lettered on the trunk. There is still some humanity, even in momentary levity, when there are no more urban legends.
B. Z. Niditch is a poet, playwright and teacher. His work appears in Anthology of Magazine Verse & Yearbook of American Poetry, Columbia: A Magazine of Poetry and Art, The Literary Review, Denver Quarterly, International Poetry Review, Hawaii Review, Prism International, France's Le Guepard, and the Czech Republic's Jejune. He will soon be featured in The New Novel Review. A new collection of his poetry, Crucifixion Times, has just published by University Editions.