shrinking

by Tom Newcomer

He wished for exciting memories, to have enjoyed a memorable life. Intriguing and mysterious events, secrets left untold. The kind of past that catches up with you, he thought. That’s the thing.

Stirring his coffee, he moped in the food court next to the supermarket Starbucks. There were no diners this early, only store employees on break. Cashiers and merchandisers, stockers and baggers. A twenty-four-seven business that never stops, relentless and monotonous, marking time.

A Fred Meyer bagger, he felt, would be a job about his speed.

He was holding a worn and folded piece of paper he’d discovered at his table, foxed and yellow, with a powdery feel. It was frayed along one edge, with a shine from time spent compressed in darkness, a century crushed in a forgotten memory album, years misplaced in a back pocket.

An ancient document, perhaps, hidden from sight then mistakenly uncovered.

He thought of his father, gone so long. Forgotten now, buried with his secrets. Memorialized in gloom, an intimacy too close for display. He’d grown up without him. A long, forgettable journey.

The cashier had rung up his coffee order - his usual - and the price had increased. Yesterday’s price had been much lower, but a really great discount, and he’d gotten excited. In his advancing years he became obsessed with deals. His father had been notoriously cheap, always opting for the lowest-priced options. He was getting cheaper the older he got, like his father. He was becoming his dad.

“What’s this?” he’d challenged the cashier over the price, pointing at the small screen where you tap your card. He had become less reticent lately about asking questions or voicing protest, especially over prices. Another side effect of aging, he was becoming a worse customer the older he got.

“What happened to the price?” he’d asked, clarifying and unabashed, defensive of the deal he’d uncovered.

In the doctor’s office earlier in the week, the intake nurse had measured his height at just 5 feet 8 inches. “Does that sound about right?” she’d asked casually.

It must have been a mistake, an inaccurate reading. She was juggling several patients like him, in for annual physicals, and she’d simply made a mistake. He was becoming consumed by medical readings lately, all of which were working against him as he aged: blood pressure, cholesterol, weight, what-not. Now he’d shrunk an inch-and-a-half. Add height to the list, apparently.

He objected with a startled “No.”

“Well, that’s what I marked you at,” she replied curtly to what had come out as an accusation, which is honestly how he’d meant it. She eyed him in challenge, her demeanor shifting from accommodating to overworked.

“Do you want to go re-measure?” she asked impatiently, her head cocked, her face all glasses and a surgical mask. He looked down at the tiled floor.

“I want you to put it back to what it was.”

She ignored him, clacked something at the keyboard, then took his blood pressure before leaving him alone in the exam room.

His doctor arrived twenty minutes later to discuss his general health. He was friendly, in a sort of vulnerable, unassuming way, a 40-something dad, slightly disheveled, someone who started out skinny and who’s now put on a few pounds. Just one of the guys, his doctor came across as normal and nice, and he’d always liked him. This day, however, the doctor was seated in the chair the nurse had occupied a few moments ago, and he couldn’t warm up to him.

Later, outside the doctor’s office on his way through the parking lot, he noted on the After Visit Summary that the nurse had recorded his height at 5-8 and 3/4 inches. It seems they’d reached a compromise in the end.

At his table he carefully unfolded the brittle page, which exposed is linen-soft. The faded script on the sepia-stained paper reveals a shopping list.

Tomatoes, dough, mushrooms, pesto. Ingredients for an ancient pizza.

Buried secrets, he thinks to his father, alone in the Fred Meyer. Why did you do it? Where did you go?

He’d just finished a short back-and-forth with the friendly Starbucks cashier over the price of his coffee.

“Nothing’s happened to the price,” she’d responded to his protest.

To which he said he’d been charged less the previous day.

To which she’d responded that he’d been given the senior discount.

His first ever; it struck like a gut punch.

“I see,” was all he answered, slightly winded, staring vaguely at the price screen, the numbers blurry. He reminded himself to close his mouth.

She’d knocked a buck off the price then, before he could say more, ending their conversation, the transaction completed at a price closer to yesterday’s. “Sorry about that…” she’d smiled at the cash register.

Another compromise.

That’s something, he thought, recovered and settling-in, there with his coffee and forgotten shopping list. That was still a great deal on Starbucks. One had to admit that was something.

Photo of Tom Newcomer

BIO: Tom Newcomer is a part-time writer and public school teacher currently living in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He's lived all over and has so far survived fatherhood, marriage, retirement and the hazards of public school teaching.