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James Hughes At the Large Mart Where several of us scholars of the heart moonlight for our spending money. Several lanes open always so there's never a wait. Giant frost dens; fountains squirting every juice. Mountains of snackfood, genetically improved. Do you want a lot of things but don't have a lot of patience? At Large Mart "big" doesn't mean "inconvenient ." OK, so we charge a little more, and what for? To speed you down the aisle by conveyor belt, for one thing. Remember the Jetsons? Oops, well, forget them. Seems some of us don't care to share a wink over kitschy TV trivia. Here is the parttime gig our kind can dig, a great second job for people with an interest in people. We're here to scope out our fellows in living, to unwind the wilyways of theircontradictory hearts. Some of themjust now are grillingbison meat over buffalo chips or polishing their speedboats—not studying us, at any rate. But—no hard feelings—we get all the reciprocation we need from one another , and then some. Meet Rex, our resident primping dandy. Tex—the cowboy critic with his shitkicker schtick. Flex—a former pro wrestler lately exploring her sensitive side. And Tiny, largest-hearted of us all, at least in his own mind. The Large Mart also employs a stockboy, all but invisible on the job and so not likely to appear in this story, and a good-hearted store manager who rates at least a cameo appearance. We pedal our bikes to work with an elevate's flair, treating all within earshot to four-part renditions of obscure garage-band classics . But unlike certain ex-colleagues of ours, we aren't looking to be pop stars. The punk trapeze artist. The noir gardener, so-called. The wordsmith who called her starlit sensitives "rock'n'roll poetry," every one ofthem composed tothe music ofthatsyrup king, Pablum Otis. Check out the bookjacket photo of her with her thumb hooked in her beltloop and her navel showing—the picture of hardluck cool—and then consider that she lives in the beachside bungalow ofherrich parents. On the otherhand there's Flex,a truewild woman who only recently renounced ass-kicking. Wedon't quite knowwhat to make of her new sensibility. Well, Rex does. Or anyway, he loves spouting blurbs. He calls Flex an artist of the first rank exhilarant breathless, comparing her to so-and-so the Hollywood bosom. But—"There you go again," cries Tex in protest, "sucking up to the popular culture." Inbetween sizing up the shoppers we keep our own in line. 36 the minnesota review Rex to regain favor calls Tex the searingest penetrator we now have, the burningest quester of his blah-blah superlative. Looking to Tex for a response in kind and getting none, he sighs and returns to ringing up purchases. All of us rattling our registers, shoving this and that into sacks. It's a sale-spectacular day, this everyday (see store circular for details ). And not a single gumball missed nor a package of shad roe smushed. We keep the customers moving or we let them dally and chat. "Mmm, this double-zygote corn smells nice. I may take home a bushel." "I wouldn't, Jean. I hear it comes from nuclear silos." Hello ladies, paper or plastic? Others are waiting for corn. If you'll make your selections and turn loose of the bin.... Yonder glides an old miss fastened to her teeming cart. Zips into Tiny's lane and provokes a slight slowdown. She is sickly and slow, but our conveyor keeps her moving. Well then, what's the holdup? It's Tiny. He's at his register but he isn't all there. What is he thinking as he frowns, punches, tosses? Now he drops a head of cabbage as though in a daze. He must be—yes, he's spiraling inward , spinning a silentsoliloquy for the aging girlacross the counter. Poor desiccated specimen. Her crinklyfingers can hardly grasp that pack ofcheese slices. So easyfor her tofall and break, and I can't sell her on the calcium tablets. Yet a hale ship's captain...

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