To Serve, Part 2

Davis was rummaging through the trashcans in the driveway of his suburban ranch house. He picked through leftover food scraps and pulled newspapers from the recycling pile. He was stacking the papers into a makeshift bed next to the house.

“Did you lose something, Davis?

“No.” He used his ‘I’m busy’ voice.

“Ok, well dinner is ready, If you want to come in.”

“We’ve been through this already, dear.”

As the garage door whistled shut, Carol Young considered her pre-nuptial. She considered the waitress job she carried up until her marriage to Davis back in college. Having not worked for the better part of a decade they had been married, Carol had next to nothing without Davis’ support. Davis, who was now eating from his own trash.

Animals will sometimes eat the feces of other animals, but rarely do they eat their own. Some law of nature tells them this is wrong. Just a thought.

Davis found a plate in the trash that Tuesday night. It was a Corel ware dinner plate, wrapped in Saran. It sat on top of a bed of newspapers that separated it from the rest of the messier stuff in the can. Above the plate were more newspapers, still folded. Under the Saran wrap was a hot meal; a salmon filet smoked with bruschetta style chopped tomato, rice pilaf and two dinner rolls, the Hawaiian style ones he loves. Davis took the meal to his patio, sat in one of the chairs and ate at the metal backyard table, pulled the fork from under the Saran wrap, and ate.

As he ate, Davis felt uneasy about his plan. He watched the sun set over the Salinas Valley with a fork full of pilaf and thought about the church dining room. What was he missing? He needed to make sure that he fit in among the others if his plan was going to work. Still, there was something missing, though he couldn’t put his finger on it. Davis stopped with a mouthful of salmon when it came to him. He stood and chewed the rest on the way to the driveway.

Davis had chosen BMW because the other men at the office had chosen BMW. He had chosen the five series because the other men had chosen the five series. TOSERVE was the personal plate he chose because SERVICE and BRN2SRV were already taken. On this drive, however, choices were not on Davis Young’s mind. Davis Young was looking for a liquor store tonight.

Davis didn’t know many liquor stores. Carol was the only one who ever drank at home, unless there was a party being thrown. In those cases, plenty of liquor was available, and Davis felt the keen edge of sobriety as his peers became intoxicated on his dime. Even then though, Carol did all of the shopping, and he was oblivious when it came to buying booze. Luckily, Davis had chosen the navigation system as an extra because the others in the office did not. He entered “BEER” and came up with one location within three miles.

There was a little gas/liquor store about a mile from the entrance gate to his neighborhood. Davis stepped inside Moe’s Liquors and Spirits for the first time that Tuesday night, though he had fueled there weekly for over two years he was not surprised by this incongruity. He walked up to the clerk and asked what he suggested along the lines of beer.

“Uh, I like fat tire, I guess.” The clerk, a twenty-something with long hair and a week's beard, looked like he knew what he was talking about.

“Ok, I’ll take one.”

“It’s back there, dude, and you have to buy all six.” He pointed back past racks of cheap wine and hard liquor, to a fridge rack full of craft brew renaissance beers. There was fat tire in the middle, next to something called skinny dip, above them was one called IPA, next to that was another with an old man on the label. This one was Old Leper’s Stout. Davis enjoyed the irony in this and saw a bit of the men at the church in the label’s amalgamation of what reminded him also of the album cover of Jethro Tull’s Aqualung, so he pulled one from the pack and carried it to the counter.

“Uh, Dude, like I said you gotta get all six if you want that beer.”

“Oh, but I only need one.” Davis was intrigued, sort of.

“Well you have to pay for the whole six pack, man, that’s the boss’ rule, not mine.” The clerk was getting defensive, nervous. He looked Davis up and down quickly. At a glance, he looked like some thirty year old hipster, dirty, unshaven, but with a certain deliberacy, a refinement. The clerk thought back the psychology class he took during the first of his two semesters at the Junior College. The class he failed. He hastily added, “You know how it is.”

Davis could tell the clerk was edging for a common ground, “Boy do I,” he lied. This was absurd, that he was forced to purchase more than he needed, but this kid was in no position to negotiate, and if this experiment was to work, he had to do it right. Davis went back for the the rest of the six pack. Halfway back to the counter, he pulled his wallet from the grubby jeans. “You take Am-Ex, right?”

“Uh, Am-Ex?”

“You know, American Express.”

“Oh, right. Yeah, we take American Express.” He looked Davis up and down again, definitely a hipster. “Can I see your ID?”