A TALE

Maggie knew her convenience store well. It didn’t take long. Not really. Nothing changed much in terms of stock.

Candy bars remained in their same places along the aisles. Potato chips and snacks were lined on shelves facing the fountain Coke and ice machines. Coca Cola lined the coolers. Toiletries, aspirins, cough drops and things were in shelves on the left side of the store.

Knowing the store’s inventory was part of the job, but knowing her evening-shift customers was the true joy of her work.

She didn’t know most of her customers by name, but she knew them by habit, addiction, need and budget. She knew them for the reasons why they were visiting the store, and in the small world of the convenience store that meant Maggie knew her customers well.

Candy Bar Man was a tall fellow with a widening gut. He had a sweet tooth that apparently could be quelled only by two Hershey bars per night. If there was a special on the Hershey bars, she told Candy Bar Man and he would buy a few extra, saving himself some money for the evenings ahead. Maggie wouldn’t see Candy Bar Man for a while, but a few days and a few discounted Hershey bars later, he would be back looking for more.

Two Packs Lady got her name from the six-pack of Budweiser and the pack of Marlboro reds she bought late each afternoon. Two Packs Lady always flew through the doors and made a beeline for the beer coolers then brought the Bud straight to the counter. After a few visits, Maggie asked, “Marlboros?” Two Packs nodded her head. Soon, Maggie had the Marlboros waiting before Two Packs could return to the counter with the beer. One afternoon, Two Packs entered the store with a quicker click of her heels than usual. On a hunch, Maggie rung up the Marlboros while Two Packs made her Budweiser bee line. Slow Poke Joe, a man who always took forever buying lottery tickets, stepped to the counter. Maggie nodded to the Marlboros and the register that a transaction was already underway. Maggie had already keyed in the Bud on the cash register when Two Packs stepped to the counter. Two Packs squeezed out a small smile and said, thanks, her husband would be home soon and he’d expect his beer and cigarettes the minute he walked through the door.

Many people played the lottery at her store, but none of Maggie’s customers played like Lotto. Lotto walked through the door on payday Fridays and spent $100 even, no more, no less. Lotto went through his numbers. He carefully selected the various scratch cards, weighing them back and forth. At the end, Maggie traded the lottery tickets for the $100 bill which Lotto had squeezed between his thumb and bent index finger. Maggie always had to pull the bill twice before Lotto would laugh and release Benjamin Franklin’s face. Sometimes, Lotto would win but never enough to drag out the old cliché of his ship coming in. Lotto spent far more than he won. At some point during the week, always a few days before payday, Lotto returned to the store to buy dog food. Maggie always assumed the cans were for his dog until another customer suggested that the dog food would be Lotto’s supper for the next few days.

She came to know more about her customers than just their buying habits. Maggie came to know the problems in their lives because of their buying habits, though she never knew them by name. Day in and day out, Maggie would have a small word for her customers which she doled out like pennies from the penny cup. Just a few words here and there. She would realize that one day a customer no longer came to her store for whatever reason: New job. Moved away. New habits. Working a different shift. Just one day, they no longer returned to the store but there were always new customers taking their places.

It’s just the way of convenience stores. Customers move on, but Maggie was always there. And Maggie being human and humans sometimes experiencing doubts and uncertainties, Maggie came to believe that her life had not mattered. She came to think that she had done very little for anyone. She came to believe that she had done very little with her own life. Maggie despaired.

One long, hot day had melted into the time of evening when Maggie saw few customers. The rush from work home had passed and it was still too early for the flow of people going out for the evening. In this lull, a man walked into her store. He was hairy, ragged and thin, so very thin.

Maggie would have called him Thin Man, or Hair Man, or Dirty Man if he were to become a regular, but she had never seen him before. But watching as he opened a freezer door for a Coca-Cola, Maggie knew she would call him Thirsty Man for that was the thing about him. She had never seen a person who seemed so thirsty.

Thirsty Man placed the bottle of Coke on the counter and he patted the faded pockets of his jeans before digging his hands deep in his pockets. His face appeared desperate and purple with thirst. He tried speaking but his tongue was too thick to form words. He pulled a nickel from his pocket.

Maggie told him to stop. She pulled the Coke’s cost from her purse and placed it in the cash register. The thirst left the man’s face. A smile replenished his dry, cracked lips. A glow filled his blue eyes, eyes as blue and as deep as cool water. Eyes so blue that Maggie would rename him Blue Eyes if she could get past the fact that the Coke remained unopened on the counter.

He pushed the Coke toward her.

“Drink,” he said.

She untwisted the cap. She drank from the bottle. She saw images of herself with past customers.

Like the pennies in the change cup, Maggie witnessed her many words and deeds. They didn’t seem like much on their own but strung together, over time, they added up to a great amount of wealth. Her words had become subtle sermons to many of her customers. Maggie had doled out her thoughts so slowly that neither she nor the customers knew how much she had helped them.

The customers had never told Maggie how much she had helped them because they hadn’t realized it either. All Maggie knew was that a day would often come when a familiar customer no longer returned. Candy Bar Man had traded his candy habit for sit-ups. Two Packs finally left her abusive husband, and no longer needed to buy a six-pack of Bud and a pack of Marlboros. Lotto quit gambling and began spending that extra hundred at the grocery store.

She saw more customers, too, many more from through the years.

She had never known what happened to most of these customers. Now Maggie knew. She knew that in some way she had an impact on so many lives of the people who came in and out of this convenience store.

Maggie looked at the Coke bottle which had become a cup filled with waters as blue and as deep as the man’s eyes before her. The man said, Because you have sent so many others to seek it, without even realizing your deeds, you have sipped from the Grail.

The man smiled and was gone. The cup’s water turned to fizzy Coke then the cup was again a bottle. Barely a drop had touched her lips.

Clanging from the door’s bell caught Maggie’s attention. She felt the warmth of the humid evening. Too Much walked in the store. Maggie thought of Too Much as Too Much because he drank too much. He only came into her store when the nearby liquor store was out of something. This time the liquor store was out of Coke for his chaser.

Maggie smiled and handed him the bottle on her counter. It’s on the house, she said.

Later that night, Too Much took a swig of the Coke after a gulp of whiskey. He put the whiskey aside and drank more of the Coke. The Coca-Cola seemed to last forever.

It was the best Coke that Too Much had ever tasted, and he never drank whiskey again.

Dean Poling is an editor with The Valdosta Daily Times.