A couple of months after I took this job I was driving back to Quincy one Monday when I realized I had left some toiletry items at home, so as I was nearing Oroville I decided to stop at the local Wal-Mart. I know what you’re thinking, but I had no choice. It was horrifying, the entire place was populated by fat women named Patty who were yelling at their sticky offspring and by motley men named Doyle or Ray who mumbled and wore wife-beater T-shirts and had dirty fingernails. A couple and their son stood in front of me while I was checking out. She was obese and resplendent in giant shorts and a tank top. Her bra strap was dirty and at least 30% of her purple nail polish was chipped off. She had a tattoo on her left shoulder, partially hidden by her top, of a mythical goddess of some sort holding a trident in one hand and what appeared to be a leafblower in the other. Fatiopeia, the patron goddess of snack foods and occasional yard work. The man, who was probably the boyfriend or possibly the stepfather, was speed-freak skinny and dressed in a T-shirt, shorts, flip flops, and a ball cap with the number “3” on the front. They were buying 2 cartons of off-brand cigarettes, a 2-liter bottle of Mountain Dew, a Styrofoam cup full of cobra-sized nightcrawlers, and dirty little Dustin had conned them into buying him an action figure of Lord Samdar or something like that. As I was walking out of the store I noticed that Dustin had unknowingly dropped his dark lord, which I retrieved presently and hailed them from a short distance. They thanked me profusely and the four of us decided to walk across the street to Starbucks and have a latté.
Surprisingly, I found myself engaged in a lively, albeit somewhat one-sided, conversation regarding the tormented Raskolnikov character in Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment. I know I droned on a bit, but I was flummoxed when the man stood up sharply and said in a very hateful manner, “Man, what in thee hell are you talkin’ about!” I know my views are little unconventional, but that outburst was completely without merit.
Faith in my original thesis regarding Oroville was reinforced, for as I was leaving Oroville I stopped at a mini-mart next to the freeway to pick up a soda and as the fates would have it there was a barefoot man working on his Camero (what else?) right in the parking lot. He may have been swapping out the transmission for all I know. The hood of his car was open and he was laying underneath with just his two spindly legs sticking out—the soles of his feet as black as anthracite.
Dearest, Sweetest Bobb,
Random Marginalia From People On Lithium