Black Friday

The lines of frustrated people, bickering and jockeying for position, meandered around the block when Liz arrived. She sat down on a square of cold concrete and wrapped her old tweed coat around herself as best she could. She knew this was going to be a long, cold night. Others wore warm quilted coats and some even brought blankets, but Liz considered herself lucky enough to have one blanket for each bed in her house. She owned no extras.

Liz was, by nature, a timid person. She rarely asserted herself. After a long day on her feet as a waitress in The Blue Plate, a diner near the industrial park, she wouldn’t approach people sitting on the bench at the bus stop to ask to sit with them. She stood alone and leaned on the bus-stop sign. She didn’t belong in this anxious crowd prepared to wait hours to start Black Friday shopping.

The Thanksgiving holiday was not yet over. Only a short time ago, these people shared meals with their families, prayed together, and gave thanks for all their blessings this year. Now they maneuvered to obtain the best position in line, focused on the prize ahead when the store doors opened in the morning. Too soon, they went from a state of grace to a state of anticipation. They went from counting their blessings to counting their money in a quest for more; more possessions, more material objects they did not necessarily need, just wanted.

Liz did not want to be in the mall. But she needed to be there, to spend the night breathing the frigid air into lungs already congested, waiting for her opportunity to buy, not for herself, but for her three children.

As the sky gradually darkened, Liz tucked her head down into the top of her old coat, like a duck trying to evade the winds on a winter pond, and thought about her three little girls at home with Liz's sister.

Her daughter, Georgia, was the oldest at ten, with copper curls framing her serious little face. She worried almost as much as her mother. Virginia came next in line at eight; a paler version of her sister, with light red curls the color of once ripe cherries bleached by the sun. She was timid like her mother, a lonely child who reminded Liz of a much-loved rag doll left behind when the owner grew up. Little Carolina, at age four, was the baby. She was full of sass and temper to match her fiery red curls, which constantly bounced in a matching beat to the energetic movements of her little body. Liz named the girls after states she wanted to see, but did not believe she ever would.

The girls never asked for much because they understood the mechanics of being poor. However, this year Carolina wanted a ‘My Pretty Baby’ doll, and the other two asked for a small CD player and the music of some teen pop star Liz could not remember the name of, but she wrote it on a scrap of paper in her pocket. When she figured the sale prices of the items, plus tax, she should have just enough money. The money could be better spent on items like warm clothes for the kids, but they needed and deserved a little pleasure in their lives. Liz had spent the better part of the last two months cursing under her breath at the commercials on TV hawking new toys to introduce another element of disappointment into the lives of poor children.

A man sat behind Liz, bundled up in knitted cap, hooded parka, and thick scarf knotted around his neck. He interrupted her musings to offer her a blanket. Gratitude won out over feelings of embarrassment, and Liz thanked him in a voice so quiet, he had to lean forward to hear. His movements caused Liz to retreat into the fragile shell of her coat.

A woman with a red nose in front of Liz offered her a cup of hot coffee from a thermos held with thick-gloved hands. She asked what Liz was doing there.

Liz pulled her head from her cocoon, accepted the coffee gratefully, and wrapped her bare, chapped hands around the cup. She tucked her cold, aching feet encased in thin canvas shoes under the loaned blanket, while trying to formulate an answer. Did this woman, who offered a name of Carrie, really want to hear what led Liz to this point? Did she want to know of all the girlish dreams burned to ashes when life's sun struck them?

Liz, though only twenty-six, gave the appearance of a much older woman, who had staggered many years with a basket of burdens strapped to her back. She remembered her youth with the intensity of an old woman trying to recapture moments from half a century before.

Liz still smelled the hot dogs and cotton candy from the food vendors at the carnival. She tasted an ice-cold strawberry sno-cone, chewed the flavored ice while she strutted proudly, holding her boyfriend's hand. Jory was the catch of the school, and he wanted shy Liz.

Only when she looked at his brown eyes could she find the courage to speak her mind. She held her head high when standing by his side. Liz could still feel the smoothness of his red-brown, shaggy hair against her fingers. He instilled in her the ability to touch another, to accept the gift of touch from another.

Jory also showed her how to recognize and embrace her feelings of teenage desire, reaching for something unexplainable that was right there, almost within reach. From him she got the sense that whatever it was, it would be worth the sprint to the finish. Liz remembered the taste of sweat and salty tears shed by both her and Jory when she became a fifteen-year-old ex-virgin.

Liz felt like life slapped all the marbles out of her hands just when she got them all picked up. The shooter rolled the farthest from her chalked-in circle containing what was familiar and safe. By the time she chased it down, she was in unfamiliar territory. Becoming pregnant at fifteen voided all their dreams, plans, and goals.

Jory worked up his courage and married Liz right before Georgia was born. Ten years, three children, and an unending string of menial jobs later, Liz was alone again.

Jory gave Liz strength and courage. He guided and protected their little girls, and brought joy into all their meager lives. Jory had no problem sitting with strangers, but he always stood under the sign, like Liz. Knowing he did it too, made her feel connected instead of isolated.

The driver of the car was busy looking at his GPS system, trying to figure out where he was going. He jumped the curb at the bus stop.

The police officer shifted from foot to foot when he informed Liz at the diner. “The car came from behind. Your husband never knew what hit him. He died instantly.”

Liz definitely knew what hit her, the big backhand of life, once more.

No, Carrie probably did not want to know all this. She asked only to be polite, and Liz didn’t want her to think she was like some elderly people who felt the need to list their many and varied medical ailments every time someone said, "How are you?"

Liz took a sip of her rapidly cooling coffee and summarized what could be a long-winded

soliloquy into a few sentences.

"Thanksgiving wasn’t good for my girls. We just buried their father. It will be their first Christmas without him. They only asked for one thing each, and I can afford the items at these sale prices. By the way, thank you for the coffee. I usually have better manners, but spending the night out here with strangers is more that I’m used to."

“What did they ask for? “asked Carrie, as Liz handed back the thermos cup.

“That new ‘My Pretty Baby’ doll, a small CD player, and something to play on it.”

Liz shifted her weight, trying to keep her bottom in the warm spot it already made on the concrete. She leaned forward, balanced her elbows on her knees and her chin in her hands, and wrapped the borrowed blanket tighter. As she drifted into an exhausted sleep, she listened to Carrie and the man in the parka carry on a whispered conversation over her bent head.

They were both here to get newer updated versions of items they already had too many of, and never needed in the first place.

Carrie sought the exercise machine that focused on the butt and outer thighs, her problem areas. She also wanted new cookware, bake ware, mixers, blenders, choppers, slicers, dicers, to make it faster and easier to cook the rich foods that eventually resided in her thighs and butt.

The man in the parka, who had not offered his name, thought it was imperative to get new seats, bait bin, fresh catch bin, coolers, and a more powerful outboard motor for his fishing boat.

Although the Christmas shopping season would be considered officially open on Black Friday, neither Carrie nor the parka man discussed any family, friends, or gifts they wished to purchase. They only discussed their strategy for getting to their chosen items before they ran out.

Liz woke in the predawn darkness to people shuffling about and steadily pushing forward to the doors where employees' faces could be seen on the other side of the glass, wide-eyed and afraid like baby calves facing a stampede, and knowing they couldn’t run fast enough to keep up, or avoid it. Liz struggled to her feet and turned to return the blanket to parka man. He was already gone.

She tried to maintain her place in line during the forward rush, but people pushed her aside as they rushed past. Liz entered the building dead last, wasted time searching unsuccessfully for a shopping cart, and then headed for the toys. She waited properly, albeit impatiently, for an opening in the crowd of women in the doll aisle. By the time they moved on, all the dolls were gone. Sadly, and anxiously, Liz made her way to electronics and music. She got the last CD by the teen pop star, but couldn’t find the player.

* * *

Liz stood off by herself under the bus-stop sign and wondered how to obtain the other two-thirds of her Christmas list. Carrie and the man in the parka approached. He offered her a CD player with a radio. Carrie handed her a shopping bag with a ‘My Pretty Baby’ doll inside.

“We could tell that you were too shy to fight your way through the crowd, so we did it for you,” said Carrie. "You’re welcome to bring your girls for Christmas dinner at my house. I was going to spend it alone. If you don’t mind, I’ll ride the bus with you and we can talk."

Liz thanked them with some lingering twinges of awkwardness. She offered to give the man back his blanket.

"No," he replied. "Keep it. I have more than I need.”