Brooke sent me into Walgreens to buy an EPT
and I was concerned about that
but a guy in his car next spot over
was looking at a vagina
enveloping a midget’s fist
right there with his window down
and the magazine spread across the steering wheel
of his late model Lexus. I stood there
staring, uneasy, almost hoping
he’d notice me
in which case I might have winked and said
Man, that’s a good one
or something encouraging like that
because something should be said
but what is that something? Instead,
the guy, maybe thirty, with his pink cherubic face
and his childish blonde locks
was so absorbed by the porn
he didn’t give a shit who saw
so I walked into Walgreens feeling conflicted—
Good thing he didn’t see me, right?
Good thing I didn’t say what I might have
but when I came out of Walgreens with the EPT
he was still looking intensely
at two-dimensional sex
and there was no one in the store meaning
no one to wait for
and both his hands held the magazine
so I figured it was simply some kind of fetish,
ogling pornography in public—
a way to exhibit
what I shouldn’t condemn or understand.
And that was that.
I lit a cigarette.
We ran other errands.
Half-hour later we drove past Walgreens
and stopped at a red light just down the road
near Southdowns Preschool playground where
we saw the Lexus and the cherub inside
waving with his free hand
at two boys no older than five
whose lunch boxes lay in the dirt
and I smacked the Walgreens bag from Brooke’s lap
so I could grab her leg. She grabbed her cell phone,
flipped it open and asked me “Should I?”
I said “I don’t know”
and she asked me again
and I promised
..............“I think so.”

Copyright © Brock Guthrie