Brave New World

I went to MassBuy.* I never do that. The other stores in town are dropping stuff people need, like backpacks, so I went there. It feels like the airport. An internal road runs between the parking garage and the front doors. A security guard stands permanently at the door. They set the front doors deliberately off kilter with the parking rows, including the disabled spaces of which there are twenty. Even though there could be a thousand spaces on three levels, you have to hunt for parking. Inside, the oversize carts can't pass each other in the aisles. It's a summer Sunday and there are thousands of people.

I run into my friend Chatsworth wearing a purple hat. In spite of the fact that he is in perfect physical condition, he is sitting on one of the store's scooters for the disabled. He said he flashed his disabled bus pass to get it, the one he has for his learning disabilities. Chatsworth does martial arts. Apparently he gets a kick out of riding around MassBuy on a scooter. He was accompanied by Russell, a forty year old friend who apparently walks around the store with Chatsworth on these excursions, where they buy nothing. Chatsworth told me that he had found that this scooter, number three, was given to stalling. I told him that sometimes people actually need the scooters.

I never go to MassBuy. I don't like their social policies. Apparently, a lot of people who don't think social policies. The store goes on for days. I actually had to borrow the scooter to use for real. It wasn't that easy to dislodge Chatsworth from it. Russell and Chatsworth accompanied me as I shopped for coolers, car shades, and other necessities. The scooter did nod out at times and I had to learn to use it on the fly as well. Not the first time. I turned down the liquor aisle to hunt for brandy. Did you know MassBuy doesn't have good brandy?

The food in the fridges was very mainstreamy towards the low end. There wasn't much variety. I got some bell peppers. Chatsworth saw an elderly lady with a small dog. The dog was afraid of him but he got in its face, causing the elderly owner with permed hair to call him "an asshole."

"I apologize Ma'am." I said. "He didn't mean anything by it. Come on Chatworth, let's go." I imagine this sounds like something someone is MassBuy would have to say about their son, the one who has to go to the special school, like Chatsworth did. The last time Chatsworth encountered a dog we ended up dealing with the police. The owner didn't appreciate him saying, "What do you get when you combine a Shitzu with a Bulldog--a BULLSHIT!" He thought this was so brilliant that when the lady came back on her way home, he repeated it, like it would get better with age. That's probably when she called the police and said were were we were drinking in the park. Chatsworth is thirty four years old.

At MassBuy when were were just far enough away, Chatsworth said,"Who has a bug up their ass?" He has a gift for getting away with stuff like that because he is always a little too far away to be heard clearly. It's a honed skill. We parted ways at the check out aisle. The clerk with a brace on his wrist seemed to take forever. I inspected my cooler bags and found they were shoddy. I put them in a basket full of stuff that looked like it had also been discarded by people in line. I had been hoping to see people who look like they live in trailer parks because that is what MassBuy is known for. Unfortunately trailers are illegal here. No one was fully trailer parked out, but a few were a little closer then the norm. Or was that wishful thinking? Maybe I and my purple-hatted "son" and our scooter were the ones I was looking for.

I mentioned the change of hands of the scooter to the security guard, who seemed o.k. with it. On my drive out I had to wait for a line of a hundred shopping carts crossing the driveway; a chromed steel train extending as far as the eye could see.

*details have been changed.

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