Reif Larsen - I Am Radar

The automatic doors shuddered in horror as they slowly returned to their open position, watching him.

Radar quickly bent down to fetch his fallen cap. He glanced up to see if Ana Cristina had noticed his baldness. She had not. She was still busy with Fedora Man.

“Sorry,” he muttered to the doors. He said this to be nice, though he knew it was their fault. They lacked vision, flexibility, long-term goals.

One of the checkout women turned and stared at Radar standing in the doorway.

“Your doors,” he said nervously, trying to dispel the growing disquietude of the situation. He corrected the bill of his hat.

The checkout woman, who he believed was named Lydia, though he had never sought out her services, yelled, “You in, you out? We lose the cool when you stand there.”

“I’m in,” he said and took a step forward.

But once he was in, he found himself wondering what he should do. He couldn’t just march right up to Ana Cristina and ask her if she still wanted to be his girlfriend. He had to act casual. He needed to fetch some product so he had an excuse to approach the checkout counter. He picked up one of the yellow shopping baskets and began to wander the aisles. What should he get? A seemingly simple question that suddenly felt freighted with significance. Small flecks of panic began to run up and down his legs. He started to sweat into his crocodile boots. His limp grew more pronounced. He needed to pick something. Anything. In an act of desperation, he grabbed a jar of guacamole, only to realize once he was already in line that this was a stupid thing to purchase on its own. Guacamole needed a delivery device, like tortilla chips or a piece of celery. But now it was too late. He was already in Ana Cristina’s line. There was no turning back.

“I can take you over here,” said Lydia. Checkout lane number 1 was empty.

Radar shook his head.

“I can take you here,” she said again, louder this time, thinking that perhaps he had not heard her. Clearly Lydia did not know that he and Ana Cristina were not just commercial acquaintances. Her ignorance made him even more paranoid: clearly Ana Cristina had kept their relationship secret from her co-workers. Clearly she was embarrassed about him.

Radar panicked. He could feel the heat in his face. “My knee,” he said to Lydia, pointing. “My knee is broken.” Which, in a way, was true.

Lydia looked at him strangely, but then a shopper coming from the deli section approached her till and the crisis was narrowly averted.

When it was finally his turn to check out with Ana Cristina, he became flustered again. How on earth was he going to do this? He set his yellow basket on the floor next to the counter.

“Hi,” he said, more to his basket than to her.

“Hi,” she said.

He couldn’t properly read her tone, so he stole a glance at her. She was wearing the dark lipstick again. It covered only the edge of her lips; on the inner part, there was a softer shade of burnt sienna, and the duotone reminded Radar of the interior pattern of his mother’s still-operational 1976 Oldsmobile Omega, an image that should have dispelled the sexiness of her lips but somehow only enhanced it.

Briefly stunned by her chromatic splendor, he bent down and picked up the jar of guacamole from his basket. The basket was covered in a thin brown film. This was the subtle, pernicious ooze of a thousand shoppers’ products — wet bags of cabbage and salami cold cuts and leaky containers of mayonnaise. I cannot be that ooze, he thought. I must be the guacamole and not the ooze.

He came up, guacamole in hand, and said, “I am the guacamole!”

Idiot!

Ana Cristina froze, confused.

“I mean. .” He tried to recover. “I mean, it was fun last night.”

“Yeah,” she laughed nervously. “You were sweet.”

“I was?”

“Yeah. I was gonna call you when I got off. Are you free tonight?”

Radar was so stunned by this reply that he felt his entire body go limp and realized too late that the guacamole had slipped from his grasp. He watched in horror as it rolled along the very edge of the counter in an excruciatingly slow display of physics and then fell and fell and fell until it shattered onto the floor in an octopus splatter of tomato chunks and processed avocado solution.

Radar and Ana Cristina both stared as the puddle slowly grew before their eyes. A green paradise island of guacamole.

“I’m sorry,” said Radar. “I’m so, so sorry.” He could not bear to look at her, so he instead fixed his gaze on the rack of Dentyne Ice gum, which caused a strange sensory dissonance: the promise of spearmint paired with the vulgar wafts of salsa fresca and avocado preservatives.

“It’s okay,” he heard her say. “It’s no problem.”

He stole another quick glance at her and saw that she was not in fact angry, but still smiling, almost laughing, as she thumbed at the microphone above the register. “Javi, Enchanted Valley Light Guacamole spill, checkout 2.” He was amazed at the specificity of her announcement, the natural roll of the word guacamole off her tongue.

“Do you want to get another one?” she asked.

“Another what?”

“Another guacamole?” There it was again. He could listen to her say that word all day.

“Not really,” he said. “You really still like me? Even after everything?”

“Of course,” she said. “Why would I not like you?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Because?”

“What is there not to like?”

“Oh, plenty, believe me.”

“You’re like the nicest boy I ever met.”

“I am?” he said.

“Cutest and nicest.” She hesitated, wiping back a stray hair. “Do you want to meet my mama? She’s cooking tonight.”

“Your mama?” His heart soared.

Javier showed up with a mop and bucket. Fifteen-year-old skinny boy Javier. The wolf. He who did not rid the baskets of their ooze. He who carefully launched his coagulate hair heavenward with a pound of toxic gel, he who always kept a white shirt tucked into the back pocket of his shorts, as if he were ready to change at any moment and enter a televised street fight. When had the bad blood started between them, really? Radar had never said a word to Javier, and yet he sensed evil in those bony, slumped shoulders. Maybe he was being unfair. Maybe he was being racist. Maybe Javier was a nice kid. Maybe Javier was in love with Ana Cristina.

And now Javier was mopping at the spill, and Ana Cristina was saying something to him in Spanish, and Radar was straining to pick up its meaning. Javi sighed and propped the mop against Radar and left the scene. He was now pinned to the rack of Dentyne by the mop handle.

“Do you want me to clean it up?” he asked.

Ana Cristina shook her head. “No, no. I told him to get a paper towel. For the glass,” she said. “So, can you come tonight? No pressure or anything, but she asks about you all the time, and I was like, Okay, mama, all right already, you can meet him, jeez . She’s going to cook her empanadas. They’re really good.”

“Empanadas?” he said. Asks about me all the time? “I would love to. Nothing would make me happier.”

She smiled and then leaned across the conveyor belt and took his hand, just for a second, but her touch sent such a strong electrical current through his body that he thought he might have another seizure.

Javier returned, paper towel in hand. He scowled at Radar as he got down on all fours and began picking up the pieces of glass.

Radar. Un conquistador . A man among men.

Do it because you must.

He swept the mop handle aside and carefully sidestepped around the guacamole explosion.