Be safe, mate

Last week I saw a student from my Winter course at the Holland Farmer’s Market. She watched a stand for her employers, a natural/organic grocery store, while I feigned interest in hanging flower baskets. Her name slipped from memory, though I recognised her immediately. The twenty dollar bill, crisp and folded in my wallet, was the entire market budget. I walked up to an ATM, rocking on my heels between two cars waiting for the same machine. My former student’s booth looked expensive (as organic products are wont to be). I focused on market stalls adjacent hers, feigning interest in floral hanging baskets ($10!). That mental persecutor’s voice: I’m on the student’s territory, not a respected teacher but a common (perhaps miserable) man trespassing in barely clean clothes and dishevelled hair hiding under a hat. Because life is life, I made eye contact and we shared a pleasant but fabricated hello. Did I mention that she earned a ‘D’ in my class? Her store sells hummus, peanut butter and the like. I like both of these things. Of course bought one container of each. Why? Obligation. Of what? The prospect of seeing delicious things for sale at 8a, unseasonably cold for even the predictably unseasonable Michigan, and not buying them didn’t sit well. The sale took nearly half of my market budget. Our brief conversation limited to the immediate perspective sale, the sale, the subjunctive future of enjoying said sale. Yikes. Awkward. Over to an opposite stall, stood a handsome young man selling peppers. He struck a pose of self-aware boredom mixed with the effort to mask said boredom. Buying a pound of red peppers he made note of my being his first sale of the day, to which I wondered aloud what the hell these people’s problem could be to not buy such good looking peppers. He shrugged and asked if I’m from Western. “I left two years ago,” he explained, seeing the old WMU faculty id card when the remaining $10 came out from my wallet. “I signed up for the Navy. Leave in February,” he volunteered. Jesus, it’s too cold outside for June; the mug of coffee a waning miracle. “Be safe, mate,” is all I could offer.