“All of it melted, just started oozin’ out all over the place. Ain’t got to cleanin’ all of it off the shelves there yet. Basically anything that can melt, has melted. I mean, the freezers, you see.” He gestured off to some bags of ice and various other perishables stuffed into the freezers. “I managed to save all that, but the rest ain’t nothin’ but somethin’ that once was.”
“You still got lentils?”
“Oh, sure. Those are some heatproof bastards there.”
*
With the lentils in hand, me and Sal left Juniper’s.
You could hear the whispers around us.
“There’s the devil.”
“He don’t look like no devil to me.”
“They never do.”
“Didn’t Grady meet the devil once?”
“Naw. Not face-to-face. Just presence-to-presence. Shucks, we all got that goin’ for us.”
In front of the yellow-painted brick of Dandelion Dimes, we ran into Otis Jeremiah with his pregnant wife, Dovey. Otis worked at the tennis shoe factory. He was usually the one to come to the house to update Mom on production.
“Hey, there, Fieldin’.” Otis grabbed my shoulders as if he were testing the strength of them. He always finished with a disappointed look that said I should exercise more.
Otis himself was one of those guys you thought they based video game soldiers on, with his prizefight biceps and log-laid abs. Every day you’d see him running around Breathed, doing his miles in a shirt cut off to his chest to go with his short cut-offs, so tight, cling wrap would’ve been looser. He was the only man I knew who wore shorts shorter than the girls’ and more belly shirts than a toddler. Every day he wore this workout gear, even when he wasn’t working out, which made him seem underdressed in those places without dumbbells.
He was a sweaty sight to behold, with his permed mullet kept back from his pyramidal face by a red, white, and blue sweatband that matched the bands on his wrists, like some sort of signature of Captain America. His striped socks stretched over his wide calves. His bright tennis shoes whitened daily. Forever loyal, Otis wore only tennis shoes that came from our factory. Our trademark was a large eye made of thread and sewn into the back of each shoe. Eyes in the backs of your heels was an image Grandfather had decided upon when he founded the factory.
“You know, Fieldin’, I’ve come up with a new shoe design I think your momma is really gonna love. Square shoes.” Otis moved his fingers in an air square, his pumped-up chest showing like cleavage beneath his neon pink tank.
“Square?”
“Now, hear me out. Ain’t square things easier to store than misshapen things like the average shoe? That’s why we store ’em in shoe boxes ’cause the boxes are square. But if the shoe itself is square, there’d be no need for the box. We could cut costs right there.”
Otis was the town kidder. Nobody ever smiled quite like him. His smiles were something that captured you, that took possession of you, that dared you to feel the joy. Above all else, his smiles were his big white teeth, almost even squares, they were. That was why Mom used to call his smiles the sheets on the clothesline.
“If you made square shoes, there’d certainly be a lot of people tripping.”
“What?” Otis chuckled at Sal, surprised at the loss of the joke. “Say that again.”
“Tripping. Square things on your feet means four corners will have the chance to be successful in eight different ways of making you fall.”
“Well, I…” Otis trailed into his thoughts, which you knew were all square falls.
“How far along?” Sal gestured to Dovey’s belly, as rising and as round as one of the hills surrounding us.
“Just over six months.” She giggled with a slight pig snort.
Dovey was as consumed by physical fitness as her husband. While being pregnant kept her back from the more strenuous activities she was used to, she was still the local Jazzercise instructor and wasn’t without her spandex leotards and leggings, even while pregnant, which made for a whole snake swallowed the world bit.
“Say”—Otis pointed his finger at Sal—“you’re the boy they all been squawkin’ ’bout to be the devil?”
Sal confirmed with a nod.
Otis grinned. “Well, whatcha wanna give me for my soul?”
“Otis.” Dovey grabbed the bulge in his forearm.
“It’s all right, sugar-sock, this kid ain’t nothin’ but two legs of human.”
Dovey wasn’t so sure.
“May I touch your stomach?” Sal held his hand up.
“Uh, gee, I don’t know, kid.” She leaned back, but Otis grabbed Sal’s hand and placed it on her stomach.
“There ya go, kiddo.” Otis beamed. I doubt there’s ever been a prouder father-to-be.
Sal closed his eyes, his hand tenderly cupping her roundness. “It feels like the seven millionth hand.”
Dovey stared at Sal’s hand as she asked just what the seven millionth hand was.
Sal began to speak about a staircase between heaven and earth, and as he did, his words were a little deeper, a little bleaker, a little more crafted to the haunt of what it means to speak fine.