Rasta

I parked in my driveway with sixteen plastic grocery bags from Kroger and a twenty-four pack of bottled water. I opened the trunk. I planned to take four bags inside, come back, take four more, and make four dignified, comfortable trips. My neighbor Brad was standing by his garage. Brad was carrying his own groceries. Brad had seven plastic bags hanging from each wrist. He had a watermelon trapped under his left armpit. He had a twelve-pack of Coke clamped between his knees. His fingers were bright purple. His face was the color of a fresh tomato. He was hobbling toward his front door like a man crossing a minefield. I called out to him. "Brad! Why do you not make two trips?" Brad stopped. He did not turn his head, because turning his head would cause the watermelon to fall and the universe to collapse. He spoke through his teeth. "Two trips is for the weak. You bring it all, or you die in the driveway." He kicked his screen door open with his heel, fell inside, and slammed the door with his hip. I stood by my open trunk in silence. Inside, my soul caught fire. This was not grocery shopping. This was an ancient code of martial endurance. In this country, making a second trip to the car is an admission of moral and physical failure. A warrior does not retreat to the trunk. I looped eight bags onto my left forearm. I looped eight bags onto my right forearm. I hoisted the forty-pound case of water against my chest with my chin clamped over the plastic. The plastic handles immediately began cutting off all blood circulation to my hands. My knuckles turned white, then blue, then gray. I could no longer feel my fingers. I took the first step. The water shifted. A bag of soup cans swung violently against my shin. Pain is an illusion. Honor is forever. I reached the porch. I did not have a free hand for the doorknob. I used my forehead to turn the handle, kicked the heavy wooden door open with my knee, and stumbled into the kitchen. I dropped the entire forty-eight pounds of groceries onto the island counter. *THUD.* I collapsed onto a barstool, breathing like a racehorse. My forearms were covered in deep red indentations that looked like tiger stripes. I had to wait nine minutes before my hands could hold a glass of water. I looked through the kitchen window. Brad was standing on his porch across the lawn, holding an ice pack against his wrist. He saw me looking. He raised his chin. I raised my chin. Not a single word was spoken. I lost all sensation in my fingertips until Thursday. I will never make two trips as long as I live.

My car made a noise. I took it to a large repair chain. They gave me a printed estimate for two thousand dollars. It was itemized. It had a barcode. It looked extremely legitimate. I showed it to an American. He read it for four seconds and made a sound with his teeth. Then he said, "Don't do that." I asked what I should do instead. He said, "Go see Sal." Sal has no sign. Sal operates out of a building with no name on it, on a street with no other businesses, behind a chain link fence that is always open. There is no website. There is no phone number that anyone answers. You simply go there, and Sal is there, and Sal has always been there. Inside I said: THE MAN HAS NO BANNER AND NO GATE AND YET EVERY HOUSE IN THIS PROVINCE KNOWS THE ROAD. I drove to Sal's. There were nine cars in the lot. Nine. On a Tuesday. With no advertising of any kind. Sal listened to my engine for eleven seconds. He did not connect a computer. He did not look at my paperwork. He put his hand flat on the fender and listened, the way a physician listens to a chest. He said, "Sensor." I asked how much. "Hundred forty." I showed him the two thousand dollar estimate. He read it. He handed it back. He said, "They're not wrong." They're not wrong. He would not insult them. A man with no sign, being handed the paperwork of a national chain, declined to say a single bad word about it. He said, "They gotta replace the whole assembly. That's their rule. I just replace the sensor." Inside I said: HE DID NOT CALL THEM THIEVES. HE EXPLAINED THEIR CONSTRAINTS. HE DEFENDED THE MEN WHO WERE ABOUT TO TAKE MY MONEY. He fixed it in forty minutes. I asked how he learned this. He said, "My dad." I asked if his dad was still around. He pointed at a chair in the corner of the garage. An old man was sitting in it, doing nothing, watching. He had been there the entire time. I had not registered him as a person. I had registered him as furniture. Inside I said: THE MASTER SITS IN THE CORNER AND SAYS NOTHING AND THE SON IS ALREADY BETTER THAN HIM AND THIS IS THE ONLY THING HE HAS EVER WANTED. I asked the old man if the son was good. The old man said, "He's alright." Sal did not react. Sal has heard "he's alright" his entire life. Sal understands what it means. Sal will say it to his own son in thirty years and mean the same thing. I have sent four people to Sal. None of them were told the address. I described the fence. They all found it. They always find it.

In Japan, if you drop your groceries, people politely look away to save you embarrassment. In Ohio, I dropped a watermelon in a parking lot. It exploded. Six strangers clapped. One yelled "ENCORE!" I have never recovered from how good that felt.