He pulled into the Chevron station in Orlando, looked left and noticed Clint Eastwood pumping gas into his Ford F-150 while Marilyn Monroe, perched in the passenger seat, applied lipstick via the rearview mirror.
Moments later Elston pushed a shopping cart into Winn-Dixie for road snacks: chips, jerky, cheese, crackers, maybe something healthy. He rolled into produce, plucked a Pink Lady from a pyramid of apples. He flicked his finger against the fruit checking for crispness when something bumped into his backside. Elston calmly turned and discovered a gnome-like man navigating an electric shopping cart, a black fisherman’s cap rested slightly askew atop his bulbous head.
“A thousand pardons, sir,” said the skipper.
“All good. No harm, no foul.”
“Say, you’re that poet, James Tate!”
“No, sir.”
“Sure, you are.” The old man leaned over his basket full of TV dinners, squinted up at Elston and in a conspiratorial voice said, “I won’t tell a soul.”
“I don’t know who you’re talking about.”
“Don’t lie to me, boy.”
From the pocket of his overalls, the ancient mariner pulled a scrap of paper and a chewed pencil, the kind you get at miniature golf. He thrust both up at Elston. “C’mon now, write me a poem. And sign it.”
“I don’t write poetry. I don’t write nothing.”
“Don’t test me, son. I can hop out of this cart quicker than shit through a goose and whup your mendacious ass.” He raised both fists. “Golden Gloves 1976.”
“Sir, my name’s Elston Murphy. I’m a retired dock worker out of Baltimore on my way to New Orleans to see my daughter.”
“C’mon, Jimmy, only take you a minute,” the seafaring gnome pleaded.
Elston sighed, set the Pink Lady in his cart, took the offered pencil, paper, and pondered.
One side was scrawled with the captain’s shopping list: Salisbury steak, Hungry Man lasagna, Rolaids, Preparation H. Elston cupped the scrap in his palm, scribbled, handed it back.
“Hmph! Well, if that don’t that beat all. I knew it was you.” He stuffed the note back in his overall pocket, motored past Elston, avocados, tomatoes, bananas. “You could’ve written more than four lines about a missing fishing boat in the Gulf,” the sailor carped over his shoulder as he navigated his electric shopping cart out of produce.
Outside a coffee shop Elston watched a half dozen Elvis’ march into a deli next door. A sign in the window announced the daily special: Peanut Butter & Banana on Wonder Bread with local honey. Inside the coffee shop he witnessed Dolly Parton chatting up Kenny Rogers over Grandé Frappuccino’s.
Back on the Interstate, Elston zoomed past a billboard advertising the Sunburst Celebrity Impersonators Convention. He never saw it. Forty miles east of Tallahassee Elston grabbed a Pink Lady, polished it against his chest, took a big bite. The apple’s juice trickled down his chin. He wiped it with the back of his wrist and smiled. He liked writing that poem, thought he might could write another one. What the hell, he thought, I’m retired now.
Joe Grantham lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. He has waited tables, taught high school, worked in bookstores, sold information to bail bondsmen. On occasion he enjoys a well-made Sazerac. Fiction has appeared in Litro, Faded-Out, Wilderness House Literary Review, Monkeybicycle; poetry in Backlash, Had, and The Nervous Breakdown.
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