I figured and feared English 100 Instructor; Miss Hogan would visit Joyce’s Supermarket sooner or later and sooner won. She wore hiking boots, jeans, and a red and black flannel shirt. Her hair was topped by a Greek fisherman’s cap. I sacked her groceries, wild rice, avocados, Quaker Oats and trail mix fixings. We made no eye contact. Did she frown on mixing the classroom with real life? She asked Donna, the dimpled cashier if someone would carry her bag for her. I trailed behind, dropped it on the passenger seat of her gray Ford Taurus as she instructed. She thanked me, smiled to my left and handed me fifty-cents. Was she joking to herself about a student old enough to be through with college doing work usually reserved for high school kids? Would she bring me up in a roundabout way in class? Claude Pence was waiting with his arms folded when I returned. He pointed to one of the “No-Tipping,” signs then walked me to the March of Dimes coin holder. I gave up one of the quarters, kept the other as a good luck charm. Spence Pearson was the next English 100 visitor. He saluted me twenty times alternating hands. He counted them off as if he were in boot camp and being punished by an officer for some silly infraction. I expected him to drop to the floor for pushups. Man, he was soaring. I thought of a line from a Kingston Trio song, “Higher than a kite can fly.” He asked where the men’s room was and I pointed but he ran down the bakery aisle. About five minutes later he flew by me and out the door, no forehead chops. Claude summoned me to the customer service area. “I hope he’s no friend of yours,” he said.
“Hell, no,” I answered.
He spit his toothpick into the wastebasket, ordered me to clean the restroom. I hustled. There was a Hostess Cupcake wrapper on the floor that I quickly pocketed. Christ, Claude would have called the cops in a hurry if he’d found it. Worse than that, he might have blamed me for lifting the sweets. They were my favorite and he’d clerked the sale himself once when I’d bought a pack for lunch. Would Spence confess to Miss Hogan and the class? He’d get everyone smiling for certain. Would his delivery be as dramatic as his eye-rolling and head scratching performance when comparing Burroughs’ Naked Lunch to Parker’s Pastry Shop near Joyce’s where I stopped once in a while? “The prune jelly donuts contain narcotics” he’d said deepening his voice and pausing between each word. “They were popular in Faulkner’s dazzling hometown of Oxblood, Tennessee.”
“Oxford, Mississippi,” corrected Miss Hogan.
I have to say that the highlight of the semester was provided by Carolyn. After a self-abortion in one of the dorms, she did a demo to go with her reading that mentioned Faulkner’s also, his novel about abortion, Sanctuary. She demonstrated how to put on a condom using the top of a broomstick for a penis. When she rolled it off she blew it up. Then she pulled a pin out of her belt and popped it. Spence shouted out, “Failed the Breathalyzer!” Miss Hogan gave Carolyn thumbs up. Would Spence ever light up marijuana in class? I wondered what stunt Carolyn would pull with Joyce’s for a stage.
DoubleSpeak 