Mel's Market

Johnnie walked down the sidewalk, carefully avoiding cracks, taking time to kick rocks and the first fallen leaves of autumn. He went past his mother’s hair salon and the newsstand where his father used to buy the paper in the morning. He saw the house his father had grown up in with his six brothers and sisters and waved to his grandparents, promising to come back to visit later. He touched the tree that his father had carved his name into as a boy. His older brother Mike gave him a penknife for his birthday one year, and Johnnie was going to carve his name right next to his dad’s, but then his dad left and it didn’t feel right anymore.

He crossed the street where his uncle Charlie had been hit by a car. He swerved off the sidewalk and into the street in order to avoid the house of the mean old woman at the end of the block. She always yelled at the neighbor kids for killing her flowers, but they never touched them.

Then he saw what he had come down the street to see, Mel’s Market. Its welcoming front steps led up to a glass double door. Candy and soda ads stretched along the walls like the ads at a major league baseball park. A group of kids that he knew and sometimes got along with were sitting on their bikes outside and laughing about something one of them had said. Across the street, about ten boys from his school played football in the grassy park. They beckoned to him to join in, but he said he was busy. Besides, the teams would be uneven if he joined in now. He could always play later.

Striding across the threshold, Johnnie nodded to the shopkeeper and headed for the soft drinks. He picked up a Coke and some Hostess cupcakes — the yellow ones with chocolate icing that would taste the same decades from now. He walked toward Mel while poking his finger into the fold of the wallet in his back pocket, testing to see if he had the money to buy the goods. The crisp edge of a bill caressed his fingertip, and someplace in Johnnie’s heart lit up.

He approached the counter, and his smile met Mel’s kind smile. Johnnie frequented the store. On the surface it was just a convenient place for him to buy snacks, but what really attracted him to the store was Mel himself. Johnnie had always loved to hear Mel’s stories about the old days and the neighborhood as it was before Johnnie was born.

“How are you, Johnnie? It’s been a while since you’ve come around,” the old man said as he totaled the items.

“Oh, you know. I was out of town for a school trip.”

“How was that?” Mel asked, pausing from the calculating.

“A lot of fun. It was in New York, but it was just a week.”

“Well, that’s great. I’ve heard nothing but great things about the city.”

“Yeah, I want to live there someday. Maybe play for the Yankees. I’m pretty good.”

“Sure you are. Just keep working at it. Did I ever tell you about the time I pitched a no-hitter?”

“I don’t think so,” Johnnie lied. He had heard the story at least twice.

“Well, back when I was about thirteen, I played for the Castle Street Braves. That was in the neighborhood league. They got rid of that a while before you were born.”

Johnnie nodded and shifted his weight on his feet to show that he was in rapt attention.

“So the story goes, I was a decent pitcher. Not the best, but I won a few games. One time we even won the city championship. But I’m getting sidetracked. One summer day, I was in the middle of pitching a no-hitter against our rivals, the Anderson Avenue Dodgers. Now, they had this ringer on the team who went by the name of Mickey Holland. Mickey could hit, pitch, field, run. He was the real deal. And I was scared. He was good, and I wasn’t too sure that I could beat him.”

“What did you do, Mel? I mean, Mr. Calvin.”

“Don’t worry, Johnnie, your mother isn’t here. Mel is just fine.” He continued, “Well, everyone wanted me to hit him. He was big, so everyone assumed he could take a hit and just get over it.”

“So what did you do?”

“I pitched to him,” Mel replied.

“But weren’t you afraid?”

“Of course. I ended up walking him in five pitches. But I realized something.”

Johnnie tilted his head. “What was that?”

“It doesn’t really matter how big you are. No one likes getting hit. Whether it’s because they’re different or because you’re afraid of them or for no

reason at all, no one likes to get hit. So I wasn’t about to hit him.”

“Oh,” Johnnie said as he tried to wrap his head around the idea. That was all he said.

“Well anyway, Johnnie, that will be two dollars and sixty-three cents.”

Johnnie fished in his wallet for the money but found only one dollar. A look of desperation came over his face, and Mel simply smiled. “You’re good for it. I trust you, after all.” They both laughed.

Johnnie stepped out of the store and waved. The football game was dying down, and the streetlights were coming to life. He jogged down the street so he could be home in time for dinner.

A couple of days later Johnnie returned to the store with two fresh one-dollar bills. It was what he owed Mel and something else called interest that he had heard about. He was not sure what interest was exactly, but he had heard that paying it was the right thing to do.

A note hung on the door.

“To the Patrons of Mel’s Market:<br>Mel passed away on Sunday. The family<br>asks for your prayers during this trying time.<br>We are sorry for any inconvenience.”

Johnnie shook his head when his eyes welled with tears. His clenched fist kept the two dollars secure in his grip. Inconvenience, he thought. He didn’t understand how one man’s death could inconvenience another.

Johnnie walked away with his head low. The fall wind blew brown leaves into storm drains, and a musty smell filled John’s nostrils. There was no football tonight and no kids on bicycles laughing with Cokes. He was alone, but he still held back his tears. He walked down the street with his eyes on his feet, disregarding the cracks in the sidewalk. Mel had told him once that to keep your head up is dignity, and a man always needs to be dignified.

But Johnnie’s head stayed low. He guessed he didn’t understand dignity either.

Richard Miller is a second-year biology major at St. John’s University in Queens, New York. Aside from researching fruit-fly genetics with the biology department and writing stories, he enjoys visiting museums and sleeping on trains between New York and Greensburg.