Creole Memories

I'm from the South. Women are revered - as mothers, as daughters, as wives. But none so much as the one that's out of your league.

  I can never look at a tomato without thinking of her. It’s been years, and lots of water has gone under this bridge. But she’s still there in my mind, with the tomatoes. 

         I had driven up to Kiln with the guys to check out a couple of deer stand possibilities. One thing led to another, and someone broke out, of all things, a jug of Sangria. We were guys. Beer or Jack would have been better, but heck. We weren’t going to turn down anything that had alcohol content. We all swigged until the jug was dry.

         So, I was feeling in the swing as I drove down the road toward home, sun setting to my right, shacks and open space before and behind me. Hand-painted signs had been popping up along the road for miles advertising everything from peaches to strawberries to the best okra in the South.

         I started picturing a fat, bloody steak plastered on my grill with a perfectly baked potato waiting to sit alongside it in front of a frosty Corona. My mouth was watering. When I reached the sign proclaiming “Best Produce Ferever �" HERE” I pulled in looking for that potato. The steak was resting in my fridge.

         The guy running that place out in the middle of nowhere Misla (Mississippi/Louisiana borderland for those not from around here) was a great salesman. He should have been in a big city with a suit selling something a lot more complicated than fruit and veggies. In about a minute, he had me sampling fruit I hadn’t tasted since elementary school, and testing the ripeness of vegetables I didn’t even know how to cook.

         Just as I found the perfect potato and a spare, she drove up. Late model, dark blue Malibu. A freeze-tag pose took me over as she slid out of the driver’s seat. Jet black hair in a fancy braid hanging down her back, white peasant shirt finding a breeze that hadn’t been there minutes ago, and legs that could have spanned the state.

         Her jeans fit her butt like I wish my sheets fit my bed, tight enough to press into every curve. The sound of those wedge-heeled red shoes crunching across the dirt on the side of the road was music. She passed me without a glance; her full attention fixed on a display of Creole tomatoes. When she slid her palm under one of those red beauties, I shivered.

         I know I’m not exaggerating her effect. That great salesman guy was standing there with his mouth clamped in a vise grip, blinking to beat the band. It took him a full two minutes of her caressing his tomatoes before he pushed his feet into gear and staggered to her side.

         It’s a really good thing those potatoes weren’t right out of an oven. I’d have needed skin grafts on my hands. I couldn’t put them down or make a decision to save my soul.

         She was oblivious. The tomatoes held her full focus. She had one hip thrust to the side. The foot attached to the leg attached to that thrown out hip was tapping a slow personal rhythm that I wanted desperately to hear.

         For five minutes of time in heaven, I stood there watching her haggle over the price of a case of those Creoles.

         My brain kept saying to show some interest in Creoles. My body was afraid any movement would make her evaporate. Just drink it in was the consensus.

         Now, years later, I have a list of things I could have should have said. I picture me scuffing the dust between us as I offer to heft the case of Creoles and tote them to her car. Sometimes, I can even feel the sweet wave that washes over me when she rewards me with a smile.

         What really happened though was I stood there for going on five minutes after the gentle thrum of her car echoed on the asphalt for the last time before I bought the two potatoes, and five Creole tomatoes.

         As I paid for the produce, that salesman and I finally looked at each other. One word hung in the air between us.

         “Dayyyuuuummmm!”

         Trips to the produce department still trigger the memory. And every 

time it happens, I take my time picking out a couple of Creole tomatoes.

Reviews

[RKB]

definitely has some voice and humor!

[Thomas W Case]

Brilliant work. Vivid and sharp.