the fruit stand worker

in the stix,
where there is no union square---
no central place whereby sellers of all things
arts, crafts, vegetables, fruits, meats, & other various knick-knacks,
from the northeast coast and the state all over,
can come to push their products on the public---
the fruit stand or
vegetable stand
(name differs though the products sold do not)
reigns supreme---
as they are spread throughout the barren roadsides
hocking the goods that may or may not have been grown by the individual who
owns the stand.

the fruit stand worker is most often a teenager &
you gain this job solely through word of mouth---
your father knows the father of some kid who used to work for said farmer &
now that farmer is looking for a new kid to watch the stand
all day long
five or six days a week.

in the early morning you are dropped off at the site---
this site is a tarp or a tent over a red picnic table,
and soon thereafter,
the man who has been appointed to supply your stand,
will bring the bags of sweet corn, boxes of melons, tomatoes, etc.---
all the items which you will try to
push on old ladies & soccer moms
throughout the rest of the day.

being a teenager
you are probably bored out of your mind
sitting there in the hot sun, the cold rain, or worse yet,
the
“spit rain”
which we who have done our time
dub the rain which is so light it is as if the fictional character
which others call
“god”
is just constantly spitting on us all, but especially the
fruit stand worker---
he or she who in the early humid morning chose to wear
shorts,
only to discover in the middle of the day that a harsh rain
was about to fall,
bringing with it, the precursor
“spit rain”
which lightly glues itself to the legs of said fruitstand worker
and when the breeze follows
a cold isn’t far off in the making---
and nothing makes 10 hours a day spent on the side of the road alone hocking fruit & vegetables to old ladies better than
a full fledged bit of the flu.

being that you do your own books at the
fruitstand,
it isn’t hard for the teenager in question to feel the want to
abuse
the employer who is exploiting them---
marking up a dollar over the actual price for anything that is sold
at the stand, and
pocketing
it,
seems only fair---and so you start stealing from your
boss---
ushering in your first taste of a
life of crime.

selling to old annoying ladies & soccer mom’s whose own
bourgeois lifestyle just pisses your poor ass off
is something that can only last so long before you feel the need to be
sticking it to them as well---
so you blatantly lie
when they ask in their quivering shrill voice
“how do you tell if a melon is good?”
and somehow they stupidly pick up the most foul
smelling of the bunch---
you tell them that if you shake it and you here a
“chucka-chucka” sound,
that this
is
the
best
one---
and laughing your heart out inside,
you sell them the same rotten melon
for at least a dollar over &
pocket it.

the soccer moms deserve worse
because they are happy in their oblivious
complacence
& for some reason,
even as a teenager,
you think that is wrong---
you wonder just what this soccer mom does in a day
how much she knows about the world around her
if anything
at
all
grinds her gears,
or if she just keeps the home clean & makes sure dinner’s on the table
& the kiddies are in bed at the
right time---
yes, she makes you want to get out of the po-dunk town,
but alas,
you don’t even want to put anymore effort towards sticking it to her
than you did the old
lady---
and so you just sell her crap & overcharge her for it.

all the days bleed together when you have condemned yourself
to the
life of a fruitstand worker---
but you know the summer has an
end,
and that keeps you sitting there
staring at the grass &
listening to your
walkman.