Samples
The cops found him at the Harris Teeter in midtown. He was standing at the sample table by the bread section where a man wearing a white chef’s hat was serving quarters of a spicy sausage patty. He was telling him about his morning and going for a second sample when the cops walked up and asked for his name.
I’m the sample man, he said. He smiled real big. They didn’t call him that and asked what he was doing, going from store to store like he was.
We’ve been following you since ten this morning, one cop said. He was tall with red hair and freckles filling his nose and cheeks. It’s nearly five now, he said. You’ve been at it all day.
Well yessir, said the sample man. I started at the store downtown and have been making rounds since then. It’s Saturday, you know. There are always good samples on Saturdays.
The red-headed cop looked to his partner, a woman with brown hair parted down the middle.
These patties are good, the woman said. She grabbed a sample from the man in the chef’s hat as they walked the sample man out of the store.
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My wife left me, the sample man said after the cops put him in the back of their car. There was a glass window separating the front seats from the back, but the cops left it open.
She used to make these delicious meals. Things like pork chops and cinnamon apples, a spicy meatloaf with mashed potatoes. I would come home from work, kiss her on the cheek, and eat a feast. It was a feast, he said. He was trying to make eye contact with the red-head in the rearview mirror. It was really a feast, and now she doesn’t do it for me anymore.
The red-headed man kept his eyes on the road, holding the wheel with both hands. The woman turned back to look at the sample man. She smiled, looking like she wanted to say something.
Well let me ask you both, since we’re all in here together, the sample man said. He leaned forward in his seat and the belt’s safety caught him, separating his fleshy chest into two parts. Have you ever been in love so bad that when it ends, you don’t know what to do? You just have absolutely no idea what to do? I want to know your answers. I really do.
The red-headed man glanced at the woman then looked briefly back at the sample man.
You don’t have any business asking questions like that, you know that right? You’re in the back of a cop car.
The sample man laughed, a real belly laugh. I’m in the back of a cop car? I’m in the back of a cop car! Just tell me, officer, come on, have you ever been in love so bad?
I’ve been married almost four years, he said. I love my wife.
Well good, good, the sample man said. I’m glad you love your wife.
The red-head nodded and readjusted his fingers on the wheel. They were almost to the police station, not more than five minutes away. As they drove, they passed other grocery stores and chain restaurants and a laundromat and cars filled with people who were mostly just looking at the road, like the cop. Some people were looking down. Some were looking at the person in the passenger seat, laughing or talking or smiling at them.
Does she love you though? That’s where marriage gets you, you know. You think you love each other and then one day you wake up and there’s no love there anymore. No love, just another body in a bed. He sighed and turned toward the window.
The woman turned around to look at him. I left my husband a few months ago, she said. He said he didn’t see it coming, said he thought we promised to be in this thing forever.
Oh come on, the red-head said. Don’t entertain him.
I’m not entertaining him. I’m answering his question.
Thank you, the sample man said.
They didn’t talk anymore until they got to the station, driving for two or so minutes in silence. At the station, the cops had the sample man searched and put through the standard tests. In his pockets, they found toothpicks and several crumpled napkins. They were charging him with loitering. In his statement, he talked about the sausage sample, how it was spicier than he remembered it being.
The interviewer asked him why he was spending his days at Harris Teeters, why he didn’t just buy some groceries and make the food on his own.
He nodded back toward the front of the station, which is where he assumed the cops he’d been in the car with were hanging out. Like I told them, he said. My wife left me. It’s been a year, sure, but what difference does time make. I mean really, what difference does it make. I could be ten, twenty years from a heartbreak and still remember the way it felt that first morning, the first time I woke up and realized the woman I’ve been living for doesn’t want to live with me.
Answer the question, please, the interviewer said.
All the workers serving the samples know me, he said. He shrugged. It’s nice, you know, to have someone say hello like they recognize you, to ask about my day and hand me something warm to eat. He laughed and shrugged again. I guess sometimes they give cold things, but still. You know what I mean.
Jamie is an MFA candidate in creative nonfiction at the University of North Carolina – Wilmington, and just finished her term as the nonfiction editor for Ecotone. You can find her work in The Racket, The Chestnut Review, Press Pause Press (forthcoming), and Appalachian Voices, among others.
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Art Gandalf’s Gallery, Lucien Freud CC2.0 Alt Man in a Mackintosh portrait
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