Peterson put the package under his arm, the receipt in full view for the security guard up front to see, and he walked out of the K-Mart into the misting afternoon rain. Cory was going to be jumping up and down on Saturday, he knew. The boy had wanted a gun of his own for some time, and this little rifle was just the thing for him. A good starter rifle.
He got in his pickup truck, a shotgun in its rack across the back window. He started the engine and turned on the windshield wipers, and he drove home feeling proud and good, his son's birthday present cradled on the seat beside him.
2: A Careful Shopper
The big woman in the Burger King uniform pushed a cart along the aisles of the Piggly Wiggly supermarket. She was at the Mableton Shopping Center about a quarter mile from her apartment. On her blouse she wore a yellow Smiley Face button. Her hair, shiny with smoke and grease from the grills, hung loosely around her shoulders. Her face was composed and calm, without expression. She picked out cans of soup, corned beef hash, and vegetables. At the frozen food section she chose a few TV dinners and a box of Weight Watchers chocolate fudge bars. She moved methodically and carefully, as if powered by a tense inner spring. She had to stop for a moment and breathe the chill air where the meat was kept, because she had the sensation that the store's air was too thick for her lungs. She smelled the blood of fresh slaughters.
Then Mary Terror went on, a careful shopper who checked prices and ingredients. Foods could be full of poisons. She avoided boxes with scraped sides or cans that had been dented. Every once in a while she paused to look over her shoulder and gauge who might be following her. The FBI bastards wore masks of human skin that they could peel on and off, and they could make themselves look young or old, fat or skinny, tall or short. They were lurking everywhere, like cockroaches in a filthy house.
But she didn't think she was being followed today. Sometimes the back of her neck tingled and goose bumps rose on her arms, and it was then she knew that the pigs were near. Today, though, there were only housewives and a couple of farmer types buying groceries. She checked their shoes. The pigs always wore shined shoes. Her alarm system was silent. Still, you never knew, and that was why she had a Compact Off-Duty Police pistol in the bottom of her purse that weighed twenty-eight ounces and packed four.357 Magnum bullets. She stopped by the wine section and picked a cheap bottle of sangria. Then it was on to select a bag of pretzels and a box of Ritz crackers. The next stop was an aisle over, where the jars of baby food were.
Mary pushed her cart around the corner, and before her was a mother with her baby. The woman – a girl, really, maybe seventeen or eighteen – had her child strapped into a bassinet in her cart. She had red hair and freckles, and the baby had a little shock of pale red hair, too. The child, dressed in a lime-green jump suit, sucked on a pacifier and stared out at the world through large blue eyes, hands and feet at war with each other. The mother, who wore a pink sweater and bluejeans, was choosing some baby food from the Gerber's shelf. That was also Mary's preferred brand.
Mary guided her cart in close and the young mother said, "’Scuse me," and backed her cart off a few feet. Mary pretended to be searching for a certain food, but she was watching the red-haired infant. The girl caught her looking, and Mary snapped on a smile. "What a pretty baby," she said. She offered her hand into the cart, and the baby grasped her index finger.
"Thanks." The girl returned the smile, but uncertainly.
"Babies are a joy, aren't they?" Mary asked. She'd already checked the girl's shoes: scuffed-up sneakers. The child's fingers clenched and unclenched Mary's finger.
"Yes'm, I reckon they are. 'Course, when you got a kid, that's it, ain't it?"
"What's it?" Mary lifted her eyebrows.
"You know. A kid takes up an awful lot of time."
This was a child with a child, Mary thought. She could see the dark hollows under the young mother's eyes. You don't deserve to have a baby, Mary thought. You haven't paid your dues. Her face kept its smile. "What's his name?"
"Her name. She's a she. Amanda." The girl selected a few jars of assorted food and put them into the cart, and Mary worked her finger loose from the child's grip. "Nice talkin' to you."
"My baby likes the strained pears," Mary said, and took two jars of it off the shelf. She could feel her cheek muscles aching. "I've got a fine, healthy boy!"
The girl was already moving away, pushing the cart before her. Mary heard the soft wet noise of the baby sucking on her pacifier, and then the cart reached the end of the aisle and the girl turned to the right. Mary felt an urge to go after the girl, grab her by the shoulders, and make her listen. Tell her that the world was dark and full of evil, and it chewed up little red-haired baby girls. Tell her that the agents of Moloch Amerika lurked in every corner, and they could suck your soul out through your eyeballs. Tell her that you could walk through the most beautiful garden and hear the scream of the butterfly.
Careful, Mary thought. Be careful. She knew secrets that she should not share. No one at the Burger King knew about her baby, and that was for the best. She got control of herself, like the clamping down of a lid, and she chose a few more jars of various flavors, put them into the cart, and went on. Her index finger still had the heat of the infant's touch in it.
She paused at the magazine rack. The new Rolling Stone was in. On the cover was the picture of a band of young women. The Bangles. She didn't know their music. Rolling Stone wasn't the same magazine it used to be, when it folded over in the middle and had articles by Hunter Thompson and drawings by that weird Steadman dude who always showed people puking up their angry guts. She could relate to those drawings of rage and bile. Now Rolling Stone was full of glossy ads, and their politics sucked the bourgeois cock. She'd seen Eric Clapton doing those beer commercials; if she had a bottle of it, she'd break it and cut his throat with the shards.
She put the Rolling Stone into her cart anyway. It was something to read, though she didn't know the new music or the new bands. Used to be she consumed the Stone from cover to cover, when it was a rag and the heroes were still alive. They had all burned out young, and that was why they were called stars. All young and dead, and she was still alive and older. She felt cheated sometimes. She felt as if she'd missed a train that would not come again, and she was still haunting the station with an un-punched ticket.
Through the checkout line. New cashier. Acne on her cheeks. Get out the checkbook, the checks in the name of Ginger Coles. Careful, keep the gun down in the bottom of the purse. Write out the amount. Damn, buying groceries fucks up a budget! Sign it. Ginger Coles. "There you go," she told the girl as she pushed the check and her driver's license forward. The license showed her smiling picture, her hair combed back and cut a little shorter than it was now. She had a strong face with a straight, narrow nose and a high forehead. Depending on the light and the clothes she wore, the color of her eyes shifted from pale green to frosty gray. She watched the cashier write down her license number on the back of the check. "Place of employment?" the girl asked, and Mary said, "United Parcel -" She stopped herself. A whirl of identities was spinning through her mind, like a little universe. No, not United Parcel Service. She'd worked there under another name from 1984 to 1986, at the shipping warehouse in Tampa. "Sorry," she said as the cashier stared blankly at her. "That's my old job. I'm the assistant day manager at a Burger King."
"Oh, yeah?" The girl's eyes showed a little interest. "Which one?"