Saturday, June 23, 2007

Don't bother, I'll give them to you

Picture a man, about 5'6" and 260 lbs. His beard has clearly not been trimmed in, at a rough estimate, at least six months. He leans back, nearly reclining, as he stands, even as he walks, seemingly using his head as a counter-balance against his belly. He wears a baseball cap, a t-shirt tucked deeply into jersey shorts that are pulled as high as they can be, black Velcro-fastened shoes, and long, white socks, drawn as his shorts to their vertical limit.

I can't begin to guess his age, or that of the teetering woman with whom he peruses the movies, but he calls her "Momma." Could be his mother, could be his wife. My grandparents call each other Mama and Daddy. (I know the spellings of Momma/Mama are inconsistent here, that is intentional, in deference to how my grandparents spell it [Mama] and how it seemed the man in question, based on his manner of speech, would have spelled it [Momma.])

He speaks very slowly, dragging each word from his mouth as though with great effort. Every syllable lasts about 2 1/2 times as long as it would if spoken by most other people in this area. I can hear a slow exchange between the two about the distinct lack of worthwhile films (not a quote, by any stretch of the imagination) in our collection as I approach the area with an armload of DVDs to reshelve.

"Heeey maw-muh," he quietly strains. "We could jes' rawb them deebeedee players what he's got thay-uhr." I suppose I could have continued shelving, but instead I turned to the table behind me, set down the movies, and left them in a pile through which the pair could rifle.

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