Duck and Cover 12 September 1998

Everybody gets The Fear. Some just get it worse than others.

I just now went down to the liquor store around the corner to get a pack of cigarettes. There was an older guy at the counter - older? For all I know he could be my age. But oh yeah, so am I. But he looked 50, and the most likely reason was sitting there in a brown paper bag, waiting for him to finish out counting out change to win its ransom. He was kinda holding everything up, and you could see that the fellow behind the counter was beginning to lose patience. He went ahead and took care of the person behind the guy with the change, because that person was losing patience too. Hell, I was losing patience just watching it all, and I had just walked in.

Even the young black kids hanging around outside were losing patience, and I didn't think they ever spent much time in the store. It's just a place to be. I think maybe they knew the guy with the change, though, because one came in and said, "C'mon, Pi-Ner. Pi - Ner, c'mon, man, you're too slow." A widely shared sentiment.

So I'm waiting like everyone else, and I notice that he does finish in kind of a hurry, then grabs the bag and says "That's right, right?" And starts to leave without waiting, although the counter guy is just waving him on. And then he turns toward the door and I see his face.

He was terrified. Completely. Like someone about to walk right through his worst nightmare. I thought about the kids hanging outside. Obstacles. Lot of bicycles moving around out there, randomly since they weren't really going anywhere. Moving obstacles. If they know this guy, maybe they're used to playing around with him, because what could he do? It wouldn't take much, a foot, someone not watching where they were going, a bike coming up too sudden. And the bag would drop, and the bottle would break, and it'd all be gone.

You know he had no other money. We all watched that. Here is this whole random, moving, hostile world, and he had to get through it to get home, and be safe. One accident and the whole day would be for nothing. With the whole night to think about that, no oblivion, no help for it. The horror. Absolutely.

Me, I just bought my cigarettes and waited for the sound of a crash. Nothing. Safe to go - go back home, even though I'm kind of hungry, because I don't have any more cash, so that would mean going down to Safeway, and that would mean being in Safeway and its lights and its billion shoppers - well, too many. Which is just about perfect, because it's called "fear of the marketplace" after all.

Willfully blind self-indulgent nebbish or amusingly quirky old coot? And how bout that local sports team? Discuss among yourselves.

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All names are fake, most places are real, the author is definitely unreliable but it's all in good fun. Yep. © 1998-1999 Lighthouse for the Deaf. All rights reserved and stuff. The motto at the top of the page is a graffito I saw on Brunswick Street in Melbourne.