"Bagged, but Not Counted"
by Dot Smith
Every Friday night when Fred came home from work, the children received their weekly allowance. This weekly ritual began several years before with no increase in the weekly allotment, so that now, for what seems like forever, the children each received a nickel. Fred got paid; the kids got paid, too. The children quietly discussed among themselves the need to request an increase in the amount they received. To date, however, no one built up enough courage to broach the subject with Fred. As it was, based on Fred's little talk every week, they hardly earned what they received. Under the circumstances, a nickel was plenty.
It was a humid summer day during those nickel days of '61 that Dot's love affair with two-for-a-penny cookies took a dramatic nosedive. Dot was the epitome of frugality. The buying power of a nickel, even in the early '60's, extended only so far, but Dot was determined to make every penny go as far as possible. A routine developed based on Dot's disbursement of her limited funds. In fact, after receiving her nickel, the first order of business was to get the nickel changed into five pennies. Once the nickel departed Fred's firm grasp and in her possession, Dot, along with the twins, Rob and Ray, hightailed it to the corner sundry. Dot got change and contemplated future expenditures; the twins always made an initial purchase. They, the twins, generally either bought bubble gum or penny candy, and most times, saved a penny or two for the absolute guaranteed next visit to the store; they knew Dot. She would savor the feel of the five pennies jingling in her pocket, while the twins savored their treats, all the while wondering what Dot would eventually get with her money. Of course, while she and the boys wondered what she would buy, she was not averse to helping the boys consume their goodies. She routinely promised a share of whatever she bought. And, share she always did.
The corner sundry was not really on the corner from their house. It was actually situated cattycornered from the house, across the street, but not the same street as the house because the two buildings were further separated by an overgrown field. A white man named Mr. Johnson owned and operated the store. It was mostly a convenience store specializing in the things people generally forget or ran out of before shopping at a larger supermarket. Mr. Johnson was well known and apparently liked by his customers. The children certainly liked shopping for their goodies at Mr. Johnson's store. He carried a wide variety of two for a penny candies and cookies. And it was so close to their house that Ada did not object to unsupervised visits.
The cookies were packaged loose in large plastic see through containers with bright red tin lids. Mr. Johnson filled cookie requests by simply reaching into the containers, counting out the amount requested, and putting them in a brown paper bag. Mr. Johnson kept small brown bags to fill cookie orders lying on the counter near the cash register. If he was busy, certain customers freely helped themselves. Needless to say, Mr. Johnson verified the number of cookies in the bags. This practice was adhered to even for some of his best customers. When they got ready to pay for their purchases, their cookies were hand-counted by Mr. Johnson.
Because Dot spent a penny at a time or maybe two, when she was splurging, she usually helped herself. And, Mr. Johnson would not have to touch the cookies in order to count this small amount. He simply peered into the bag and ascertained the amount. If you bagged more that four, Mr. Johnson would invariably have to move the cookies around in the bag in order to verify the actual number. No one got away with more cookies than they paid for. Although, as Dot had observed on a number of occasions, there were some customers who bagged their cookies and closed the bag telling Mr. Johnson how many they had. Mr. Johnson did not question these customers' veracity by checking the actual count. There were only a few customers accorded this special privilege, and they were all women.
Like most neighborhood sundries in poor communities in the early '60's, Johnson's offered a limited amount of credit to certain residents. This accounted in part for his popularity in the immediate area. Credit was extended primarily to those on some kind of welfare and people with steady jobs. Fred and Ada had a small account at Johnson's; it was used only for emergencies, and a rare special occasion treat. Fred, Ada and Mr. Johnson all closely monitored items charged on this account.
Two-for-a-penny cookies lost much of their appeal for Dot that horrible summer of '61. It was the summer Maryanne moved into the house on the corner of Vaal and Farrington Streets, one of the better houses on the street but by no means luxurious. Maryanne, an only child, lived a wealthy life compared to Dot and her family, but Maryanne's family was far from rich. So, despite her relatively wealthy status, Maryanne did not have much more money than Dot and the twins. Like them she received a meager allowance on Friday, only she got a dime. While a source of considerable envy, Maryanne's dime brought her no more satisfaction than Dot's nickel brought her. Maryanne rashly spent her allowance on large ticket items that were quickly consumed, while Dot bought two for a penny cookies and candy.
When Maryanne joined the group's Friday evening vignette, the whole routine changed. Inexplicable things started happening, things that changed the way the children viewed themselves and the world around them. By summer's end they were not nearly so innocent as when summer began.
Maryanne was full of tales and eager to share her experiences, experiences the children only dreamed about. After listening to her for a couple of weeks, the children decided that Maryanne was a liar. Maryanne, they concluded, did a great deal of downright exaggerating. She assumed, because they appeared ignorant about some things, which no one could successfully challenge whatever she said. One thing for sure, Maryanne introduced them to some, some new things. Maryanne was bursting with gossip; she found willing vessels to empty her nonsense in the ears of Dot and the twins. Being an only child, it could only be supposed that Maryanne was exposed to mostly adult conversations. At any rate, she pursued gossip and passed it on like a seasoned veteran at the tender age of ten. She squeezed each juicy morsel, a master of the art. Maryanne relished passing any little tidbit obtained along to her newly acquired audience, Dot and the twins.
One very annoying bit of gossip spread by Maryanne, given the right set of circumstances, could prove her a liar. And, the children were determined to do precisely that. It was Maryanne's contention that Mr. Johnson was a dirty old man who was conducting adulterous relationships with certain women in the neighborhood. At least, that was the case according to Maryanne. They were not sure what all this meant, but it appeared that Mr. Johnson was doing what Ada had accused Fred of doing with the widow woman the night she took the red handle ice pick for a walk. Exactly what it entailed they were not sure, but now they could find out what Fred had been doing with the widow. Or, prove Maryanne a liar once and for all. According to Maryanne, Mr. Johnson had his women in the store after closing time. They unanimously agreed to check this out after closing on Friday night. If nothing happened, Maryanne would be branded a liar, and they would no longer be tortured by her phenomenal experiences.
It was a hot night; the children were sitting on the front porch. Dot had finally made her purchase; she had decided to really splurge and bought three pennies worth of lemon cookies. Because this exceeded her normal purchase, Mr. Johnson ended up counting the bagged cookies. She had just finished the second cookie when the lights on Johnson's store went off, signalling the sundry was closed. The long awaited moment to test Maryanne's credibility had arrived. As it was, the verification plan was simple; they needed access to the store. Luckily, the back of Johnson's store faced the children's house. It was separated from the house by the narrow semi-paved street and an open field. The field was covered with grass and God only knows what else. A narrow passageway from the street to the front of the store had been carved out of the field by years of foot traffic; it was the route used by everybody in the immediate vicinity living behind the store. Probably because of the field, Johnson did not bother with curtains at the back window of the store. There were iron bars there to prevent anyone from gaining illegal entrance, but they did not obscure the view of whatever was going on in the store.
Shortly after the store's outside front lights went out, the inside lighting dimmed as the final customers left the store. The children casually made their way to the path leading to Johnson's just as though they were headed to buy something else. Halfway down the path, furtively they moved through the field to the uncurtained back window. A primitive path led to the window courtesy of a previous day's foray to case the premises. So they knew the window's vantage point provided a view of the entire right-hand side of the store. This included the cash register, checkout counter, and the wall of merchandise extending along the right side behind the counter and ending at the store's front window. At a certain angle, one could even see the front door. Making their way through the field, the children were certain Mr. Johnson was still in the store. His black pick up truck could be seen prominently parked in its special space out front.
With their faces pressed to the window, the children watched Mr. Johnson. He was talking with a woman who lived on another street. From their position at the back window, the children were afforded a side view of the couple. The woman was standing with her back pressed against the right-hand wall, which was filled from floor to ceiling with canned goods. Mr. Johnson was standing really close to the woman. In fact, they were so close you could not see any space between them. At first, the children guessed they were whispering about something they wanted no one to know about. The strange thing about that was there was no one else in the store, unless they were on the far left-hand side. They stretched their necks trying to see if anyone else was in the store. Apparently, the store was empty except for Mr. Johnson and the woman. What secret did they share requiring them to stand so close and whisper when no one else was around?
The children continued watching and wondering what could they be talking about. As they avidly watched, it became obvious the discussion was leading to something else, because the couple was no longer talking. Nobody talked that way, not even Mr. Johnson, for all his talking fast. Mr. Johnson and the woman had their mouths glued together. It was not a pretty sight. Old short bald slightly overweight Mr. Johnson glued to this tall big boned fat black woman. Before their very eyes, making matters worse, Mr. Johnson reached down, with his mouth still glued to the woman's, and pulled up her skirt. He wrestled under the long skirt finally pulling up her petticoat. With her petticoat and skirt draped over his arm, the children's view of the couple's activities was obscured. But they could tell that Mr. Johnson was hard at work on the woman. As the pace of his arm movements increased, the woman's stance grew wider to accommodate his rapid movement. For a few frenzied minutes, Mr. Johnson continued working with his hand beneath this woman's dress.
By the time the woman reached her shuttering climax, it dawned on the children that what they had just witnessed was an illicit act. While their view were obscured by the woman's skirt and petticoats, they were none the less convinced that something bad had just happened, proving Maryanne's gossip. More important, Ada had every right to take a pick to Fred, if that was what he did with the widow woman. If anything more occurred, they never saw because the knowledge that they were looking at something this bad forced them to vacate the premises. They ran back through the field feeling a bit dirty.
After much discussion, it was decided that Mr. Johnson had his hands in the woman's drawers and was feeling her up, this according to Maryanne. For Dot that meant Mr. Johnson had his hand in the woman's pot. Pot in this instance referring to the woman's vagina. If was the term given the organ by her elder sister when Dot was a toddler learning to talk. The hand Mr. Johnson used to get cookies out of their plastic containers was the same hand he used in that woman's honey-pot. The thought of him playing in that woman's honey pot and then reaching in the cookie container was enough to make Dot a little queasy; she had eaten cookies that Mr. Johnson had handled that very day.
The children never told anyone about Mr. Johnson's activities after closing, because it would mean having to admit that they had been spying on the man. They figured the folks would be really mad about them spying on adults. For some obscure reason, they knew that the information gathered and any lessons learned were strictly adult things, and Ada, especially, would pitch a bitch. So, the kids never openly shared their experience at the back window. But, from that day forward, Dot's love affair with lemon cookies, particularly loose two for a penny cookies from Johnson's diminished. She wholeheartedly embraced wrapped penny candy in practicing her frugality. She never saw men's hands quite the same again. And, while Maryanne was not proven a liar outright, everything she said was still subject to verification.