“Oh, look Calvin; that weirdo from Psych class.” I followed Angie’s jabbing finger down the freeze aisle and there, swaying to the wheeze of his lungs, was Edwurd Evens.
Edwurd Evens had hooked his thumbs around the handle of a red Winco handbasket and was swinging it idly in front of his stomach, hunched over the bratwursts and wieners, occasionally smearing his wet heel into the glossy tile floor. His shorts—swim trunks?—displayed flamboyant Hawaiian flower blossoms floating in blue waves, and the irony it created against his exotic wool coat was laughable. His head looked smothered inside of a hood that was lined with a lion’s mane; his glasses were thicker than fishbowls.
“Why would any thinking person dress like that?” Angie said. “It’s so…unsocial.”
“He is who he is,” I took my hands off of the cart and picked up a block of blue cheese from the shelf, sniffed it tentatively and immediately set it back.
Angie’s eyes still hovered. “What do you call someone who’s not really gay, but not really straight either, but is, like, sexually neutered or whatever? You know? I think that’s what he his.”
I picked up another block of cheese, sniffed it twice. I coughed like a man who filled his lungs with death.
“Do you think he’s a cutter?”
“What?”
“Do you think freak-face Edwurd strips his wrists and stripes his thighs?”
I nearly swore. “Now how would I know that? I don’t run to bed with him nor hold his witch-skinny hands. Now help me pick out a block of cheese.”
Angie tucked her bottom lip under her perfectly cute front teeth, pouting. I ignored her, till she puffed out a pathetic sigh and I glanced her over. Her pouting tantrum suddenly shattered and out flew a flurry of giggles.
“It’s so funny that he’s picking out wieners, don’t you think?”
“Blue cheese, Swiss cheese, Alps cheese…Alps cheese?”
“Isn’t it funny, Calvin? Because you are what you eat.”
“‘Alp’s cheese: for the elevated connoisseurs of the finest quality…’”
“Calvin? Ch’yoo hear my joke? Calv—”
“Shut up!” I slammed the Alps cheese into the cart and it bounced off the bottom like a chunk of rubber, nearly toppling over the edge. “Are you his mother, Angie? You walk around with mushy Edwurd in your belly for 7 months, then crap him out all premature and stupid? Leave him alone, alright?”
She sniffled, ducked her face into the nook of her elbow and began to sob like a B-grade thespian.
But she wouldn’t have my sympathies this time. “Alps cheese doesn’t smell half bad, babe.”
“You… hate me.” And oh, dear God, her shoulders fell and resurrected with every breath now. Tiny bubbles of tears streaked along her nose and seeped between her lips.
People began to look, and stare. Looking at me with a narrowed blame. I starting tapping my foot and shook her shoulders a little. “C’mon. Stop it.” Eyeballs kept turning and sticking to us, questioning, condemning. I blushed. “C’mon, Angie. You’re embarrassing yourself.”
“You…jerk.”
“Angie—”
“You rude—!”
So I slapped her, not hard or violently but to just save her self-respect. It shocked the whine right out of her throat. Her still hands floated beside a red cheek, lips ripped apart, but silent.
Guilt suddenly hooked my pride and dragged it through my bowels.
“Okay. Alright. I’m sorry, babe.” I cupped her ears and pulled her close. “What do you want? What do you want me to do?”
“I just…I just wanted to know why he dresses like that.”
“Alright. Okay, babe.” I left the cart with Angie, speed-walked to Edwurd and tapped his shoulder. He looked and blazed me with those freakishly huge eyes.
“Edwurd, why do you dress like you lunatic clown?”
Edwurd didn’t hesitate. He didn’t stutter. “The apparel keeps bumhole jerks away so only the gospel-kind will approach me.”
“I ain’t gospel-like, and I approached you.”
“Yes, what the heck are you doing? Step off, creep.”
And freako Edwurd Evens stormed away.
I looked back; Angie was gone. My Alp’s cheese lay lonely and miserable in the bottom of an unattended cart as I stood alone beside the Oscar Meyer Wieners.
