Bananas

“Just the one banana?” the cashier asked. I knew I should have used the self checkout.

I nodded, giving a stern “yes” that came across colder than I had anticipated.

“Wow. What a great way to save money,” the girl mumbled sarcastically. She put down her scanner and leaned against the conveyer belt. Staring directly into my eyes, she continued loudly chewing a piece of gum I suspected she had since she came into work that morning. “You can’t just take a banana off of a bunch. Have to buy the whole thing.”

“Who are you, the banana police?” I jabbed back. “And what am I going to do with ten bananas?”

She shrugged. “Make bread? Drink smoothies? Eat them? Share them with–”

“All right, all right,” I grumbled. “The question was rhetorical.”

“Looks like someone has anger issues.” She cocked her head, narrowing her tired eyes.

Begrudgingly, but too weary to bicker with the sarcastic bark of the cashier, I ambled back through the aisles of the store. “Hurry up!” I heard her holler. “Shift ends in five.” I rolled my eyes and mumbled beneath my breath, not that any of that ever helps.

I reached a high-hanging sign labeled “FRUITS & VEG TABLES.” “Unbelievable,” I muttered, although I was unsure why the misspelling bothered me so much. Vehemently, I reached for a fresh bunch of bananas, discomforted by the sheer amount of fruit clutched in my single hand.

“You might want to fix that sign, kid,” I stated when I approached the cashier. She was not listening. Instead, she pulled on her cardigan, pocketed her name tag, and picked up two bags full of bread and canned foods well past their expiration dates. “You might want to fix that sign,” I repeated, motioning to the aisle I just emerged from.

“Not my job,” she shrugged. I pointed to my bananas, showing them to her as if I were a dog fetching a stick. “Self checkout. Shift’s over.” I sucked air through the tiny gap in my front teeth. Her chewing became increasingly irritating; I had to swallow the urge to pin her against the glass door, shove my fingers into her mouth, and yank out that horrid piece of gum she was so desperately clinging onto.

“Fine.” As I watched her walk out the door, braving the ice and snow hailing from the sky, I slammed the bananas onto the nearest self checkout. The metal counter wobbled underneath the force of the fruit as I turned the bunch of bananas, looking for the barcode. When I scanned it, however, the screen turned blue and told me with a startling beep! to “please wait for an authorized user to continue.”

“Hey!” I yelled, pressing my face against and rapping on the glass window. Only a few feet away, she heard my incessant banging and turned. Visibly annoyed, she briskly paced up to the window, peering at the bananas still clutched in my hand and then at the blue screen.

“Oh, yeah!” she hollered back, over emphasizing the mouthing of her words. “You pay by weight! Oh well!” She then proceeded to nearly skip away, content with leaving me alone to my own devices.

“Just great.” I turned to face the store. For the first time, I noticed how intimidatingly large it was. The whistling winds permeating through the windows, coupled with the faint hum of the overhead lights, cast an eerie glow over the entire store. Despite it being a few minutes past midnight, I felt as if I were in a world of never-ending daylight. Time seemed irrelevant here, and yet I could feel my heart rhythmically beating against my chest like a clock hanging on a lonely wall.

“Can somebody help me?!” I shouted out, expecting to at least hear the opening of a fridge by someone restocking the frozen foods aisle. “I just want to buy my bananas and leave. And maybe talk to you about firing an employee!” Still, no answer. Not a single sign of life.

For a couple of minutes, I considered ambling around the store. Surely that girl, no matter how poor of a worker she was, would never leave me alone in here. My annoyance had reached a boiling point.

Here I was, standing in the middle of a seemingly empty store with a bunch of bananas I could not even purchase. I looked at my watch, disdainfully calculating how much time I spent in this wasteland disguised as a produce market.

Suddenly, the overhead lights shut off. The only light now emanated from the refrigerators on the other side of the store. They look ethereal, angelic even. “Hey!” I called out. My heart was beating faster now, and the store seemed colder, almost as if someone had opened a window and let in the raging storm. No… it was literally colder. Someone was opening a door.

I turned around, watching a man in a long overcoat and thick earmuffs light a cigarette as he began locking the front sliding doors from the outside. I rushed over to him, ferociously waving the bananas above my head, feebly trying to grab his attention. Old as he was, he did not seem to hear me. Instead, he hobbled towards the parking lot, climbing into a silver Nissan. My car, contrarily, sat all by its lonesome, collecting snow as if wrapping itself in a warm comforter to escape the bitter cold.

“Dammit!” I kicked the metal bottom of the sliding doors, feeling the shock of the impact quake throughout my toes. I bit my lip, instantly regretting the physical outburst and trying to redirect my energy on an escape plan.

I pulled out my phone, walking towards the frozen foods section as I flipped through my address book. I considered calling my parents, but what could they do? They lived nearly three hours away and at this hour, they were either asleep or dead. I chuckled at the thought, slightly scolding myself for even considering their demise. I then considered calling my sister, but what good would that do? She was at some highly-esteemed university, studying some intellectually stimulating field related to female empowerment. At least, that’s what she tells our parents. I would bet my entire life savings that she is out on the town, drinking way more than any girl should in front of crude college boys.

That leaves me with… no one. I scrolled through my address book a few more times, not that it takes too long to do so. Besides my immediately family, the only numbers I had saved are two of my high school friends I had not spoken to since graduation and that Italian guy that delivers me pizza nearly twice a week.

I shut my phone off, deciding that I would rather not call the police for a matter as trivial as this. After all, what would they say? “You should’ve left when you had the chance,” I grumbled in my best cop impression. “Now leave us alone to eat our donuts.”

I sighed, resolved to leave by any means necessary. I moved towards the back of the store, slipping into a room labeled “EMPLOYEES ONLY.” The words were empty threats at this point, and I was even tempted to use the bathroom that I am constantly told does not exist.

Almost immediately, I see a small door leading to the back of the building. I rifled through the drawers of a nearby desk, feeling around for keys. My fingers, however, were only met with empty candy wrappers and balled-up papers. My frustration skyrocketed. The nape of my neck began to itch. I slammed my fist atop the table; the sound of flesh striking metal reverberated throughout the store. Impulsively, I kicked the door. It budged ever so slightly. Trying to calm myself down, I inspected the door further, seeing that it was, in fact, unlocked this entire time.

Scolding myself for the second time tonight, I swung the door open, letting the bitter winds whip against my underdressed body. The bananas still clutched in my hand, I triumphantly took my first step into the ivory world in front of me. Before I could take a second, however, I heard it:

The incessant and undeniable wailing of an infant just woken up from peaceful slumber.

I am ashamed to admit that I nearly ignored the cries, telling myself to just keep walking, climb into my car, and head home to my apartment. I took a half step forward, then a half step back. For a hefty thirty seconds, I hesitantly convinced myself that the right thing to do was to find the source of the crying and get help. At last, I shut the door behind me, navigating the labyrinth of unswept aisles and fresh produce. My ears eventually led me to a small room on the easternmost part of the store. I opened the door to find the smallest, and potentially loudest, child I had ever seen swaddled tightly in an empty milk crate.

“Who the hell are you?” I whispered as I picked her up. Her delicate nose scrunched up as she continued bawling. She pressed her eyes together tightly as her entire face reddened with dissatisfaction. “I know the feeling, kid.”

I did everything I saw mothers do on television sitcoms, from rocking her gently to patting her on the back. I even considered lifting up my shirt and letting her latch onto one of my nipples, hoping that something would come out. Instead, however, I managed to find some empty bottles in the childcare section, filling one up with two-percent milk from the dairy aisle and pressing it against the baby’s mouth. She immediately stopped crying and started guzzling the milk. I could not help but smile at the voracious little thing. For a brief moment, the anger and frustration that weighed heavily on my heart vaporized.

Then, I heard another voice, this one much older than the baby’s – and much more familiar.

“Dalia!” the voice whispered. I saw the outline of a girl’s body enter the store from the back door. She began moving towards us, shouldering a large backpack and dragging a sleeping back behind her. As soon as she saw me, however, she stopped in her tracks. “Armondo, I’m sorry. I had no other options,” she frantically began, pacing closer towards me. As she neared, I could see more of her face. It did not take long for me to recognize her as that same teenager who was tremendously unhelpful not an hour earlier. “I just–”

“It’s you,” I whispered, watching her expression change from apologetic to irritated as she recognized me, too.

“I thought you were my manager,” she hissed with an exasperated sigh. She then dropped the pack and the bag, pulling the child out of my hands and into her own. Immediately, she ripped the bottle away from the baby. “Are you giving her cold milk?”

“Actually, it’s two-percent.”

“She’s not old enough to drink this! Are you an idiot, or just plain stupid?”

“Hey!” I protested. “I’m not the one who left a baby all by herself in the back of the store, now am I?”

“I had no other choice,” she repeated, now cooing the baby in a motherly attempt to pacify her. Without warning, she lifted her shirt, stuffing her left breast into her daughter’s mouth. Instinctively, and rather discomforted by the situation, I turned around, doing my best to give the impression that I was admiring the loaves of bread wonderfully wrapped next to me. “Oh, relax. She’s eating, just like any person would do.”

“Isn’t it a little late for her to be eating, though?”

“Oh, yeah. Like you’re not the type of guy to eat an entire pizza by himself on a Wednesday night.”

“Thursday night, actually,” I corrected her. How did she know? “And I see your point. But this… this is crazy. I mean, what is this?” I motioned to her sleeping bag and her over-stuffed backpack. “It’s like you live here or something.”

I expected her to deny the allegation, even laugh about it. But I sensed her large, round, tired eyes fixated on the back of my head. “Please don’t tell me you live here,” I spoke again, desperately hoping to break the awkward silence that had befallen the entirety of the store.

She sighed. “It’s just temporary, just until I rake up enough money to get my own place.”

“But you’re… you’re young! I have a sister around your age. You should be in college, getting hit on by boys, complaining about the wage gap… stuff like that.” As soon as the words left my mouth, I instantly regretted uttering them. For the third time that night, I scolded myself, tossing around profanities in my head as quickly as I thought of them.

“And what is it you do with your life, huh?” the girl snapped. “What, you sit around, eating your single bananas, telling girls how to live their lives?”

“No, no. I didn’t mean–”

“Newsflash, buddy. Not everyone is made for a life of books.” I sighed, turning around to face her. She still had her breast out, but at least the baby was seemingly mollified, comforted by her mother’s warm milk.

“Could you just…” I trailed off, pointing to the sleeping back on the floor.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” she uttered, realizing what I wanted from her. With one hand and the help of her feet, she pulled the sleeping bag out of its sack, draping it delicately over herself and sinking to the floor. I then took a seat across from her, both of us leaning against the rigid shelves of the bread aisle.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I just… I’m a little confused. Why are you here?”

She exhaled deeply; her chest rises from beneath the sleeping bag. For a while, she contemplated my question, letting the sound of her daughter feeding be the only noise connecting the two of us.

“I had Dalia,” she finally explained. “Right about this time last year. I was all set to go off to college. My mom was going to take care of her, at least for the first few years of her life. You know, the years that count.”

“Guess plans changed?”

“No, Sherlock,” she snarked. “Clearly, everything is just as it should be.” I arched my brow, sucking air through my teeth. “Sorry,” she quickly apologized. “Mom just… had a change of heart. She told me to leave. Just out of the blue. Said I – we – weren’t welcome in her house anymore. Long story short, I got a job here. Armondo, my manager, agreed to let me sleep in the back of the store, in that supply closet, on the condition that I left everyday and came back after closing through the back door.”

I was impressed by her casualty, the ease and indifference with which she spoke. She did not well up or shed a tear. She did not pause for dramatic effect like so many people usually do. I did not feel even remotely sorry for her, for I could not find in her voice the slightest bit of self-pity.

“So why did you apologize when you thought I was Armondo?” I asked. She shook her head, giving me a slight smile.

“A few weeks ago, some customers heard Dalia crying in the closet. We had to give them over a hundred dollars worth of groceries to not call the police. Funny, isn’t it? How quickly people’s sense of integrity falters when free stuff is on the table? Almost as if–”

“Almost as if the only reason they cared at all about your baby was because other people probably heard her cry, too.”

For a moment, I almost felt as if she would say something kind. Her features softened. I did my best to give her an empathetic glance. “Well, pat yourself on the back,” she finally chirped. “Aren’t you a modern-day Captain America?”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” I chuckled. “Hell, I almost left her. Considered just heading home with these… well, I guess they’re stolen bananas, aren’t they?” At this, she let out a slight laugh.

“What’s your deal with bananas, anyway? You live alone? I mean, obviously, you do. But why not just buy the whole bunch to begin with?”

“Honestly?” I ask. She nods her head. “I have no freakin’ idea.” At this, she let out a bigger laugh, shaking her head. I could heard the corners of her mouth peel up as her mouth curved into a genuine smile. “I just… why buy ten of something I’m only going to eat one of? It’s easier to live when you’re living for yourself. I don’t like a lot of stress. Or clutter.”

“That may be true,” she whispers, looking down at the bundle of her own creation still latched onto her breast. “But sometimes, I think I’d rather have the stress and the clutter if it means just a few hours with this one.”

“Do you regret it?”

“Eh. Do I wish I had more time to sleep? Yes. More time for myself? Absolutely. But do I regret having someone else in my life, someone to share in my worries and problems? Not at all.”

For the rest of the night, well after the blizzard let up, we sat there. That girl, the same girl who was too bothered to help me earlier in the night, was now slumped against the dirty floor caring for her little Dalia with the most motherly hands. And I, for the first time, was finally unable to find something to be angry about.