The crowd was clustered together in a tight circle near the entrance of the building. There was yelling and pointing, and it looked like the old days of Three Card Monte games on a sidewalk.
Except it wasn’t the old days. It was pandemic days, and I was on my way into work and wondering what all the commotion was about.
I slowed as I got closer and heard voices, muffled through face masks but plenty clear enough to understand.
“A buck-fifty, but no more.”
“I got one-sixty over here.”
“It ain’t worth a dollar.”
“It’s a bargain. You know how much this stuff goes for at Costco?”
I moved closer but was content to stay on the outside of the crowd for now. I craned my neck to see who or what was at the center of the action. I should have known.
It was Wilson.
He was standing behind a little folding table. Set out in front of him were an odd array of food and household items. Industrial sized tins of spices, bags of potatoes, piles of lemons, and what appeared to be a food processor.
His eyes were wide and he was jabbering away like an auctioneer.
“Lemons, lemons, who needs lemons? Come on now, it’s Friday, the weekend is here. You’re going to want a lemon or two. Don’t get caught short.”
“I’ll take six,” a woman yelled. “For a dollar.”
“Buck fifty,” Wilson yelled back. “And you know that’s a bargain.”
“I’ll take her six, and another two for a buck seventy-five,” a guy yelled.
“Done,” Wilson yelled, snapping open a paper bag and counting the lemons in.
“Hey,” the lady yelled. “What the hell?”
“Don’t mess with him,” someone else yelled. “He means business.”
I stared at Wilson, mesmerized. His eyes were steely above his face mask. The eyes of a shark.
“Spices, spices,” he was yelling, holding up dozens of Ziploc baggies with red, brown and tan spices. “We got a special on paprika. Who needs?”
“You got any broccoli today?” someone yelled.
“Do I ever,” Wilson said, reaching under the table and lifting up a milk crate full of the vegetable.
“I thought I was ordering one bunch,” he said “but I fat-fingered the order and got a hundred. How many you need.”
“Not that many, that’s for sure,” the guy said. “Gimme one bunch. And I mean one.”
I was shoved from behind as newcomers jostled for position. So much for social distancing. I had seen enough and turned and burrowed my way out of the crowd. I broke free and found a spot off to the side where I could watch Wilson work his magic without being breathed on.
There went a tin of black pepper big enough for an army battalion. A ten dollar bill came back for that. There went three grapefruit for two dollars. Not a bad price, I thought.
“Can I Venmo the money?” someone yelled from deep within the crowd.
“Cash only,” Wilson barked, pulling out a softball sized wad of bills and counting out change for someone.
“How much for a baggie of the red?” someone yelled.
“Paprika’s fifty-cents,” Wilson said.
“That ain’t no bargain,” the guy said. “Keep it.”
“Rip off,” someone else yelled.
“Get outta here,” Wilson yelled back, waving his hands. “I don’t need your money.”
A siren sounded a few blocks away and Wilson sped up his sales pitch even more.
“Food processor just marked down. Twenty-five. Brand new. Got the box right here under the table.”
“Fifteen,” a woman yelled. “How do I know you haven’t used it?”
“Twenty,” Wilson snapped.
“Ten,” a guy yelled.
The siren grew louder.
“The heat,” someone yelled and the group started to scatter.
I was knocked backwards and jostled by the fleeing crowd. But I stood my ground until I was the only one left. I watched Wilson frantically throwing everything into a suitcase, including the table which broke down and somehow folded into a square the size of a deck of cards.
He looked up and we made eye contact for the first time. His eyes were wide and wild.
“What? You got a spice you didn’t like or something? Sorry, pal, but no returns,” he said.
The siren disappeared somewhere crosstown, a false alarm.
“You got a problem?” he growled, still not recognizing me.
I stepped closer and gave him a slap across the face, and then shook him by shoulders.
“Wilson, Wilson, it’s me, snap out of it,” I said. “Look at yourself, out here like a crazed spice merchant in a bazaar.”
He jerked his head a few times like he was coming out of some hypnosis.
“What…what am I doing out here on the sidewalk?” he asked.
“You were selling spices, fruits, vegetables, even small appliances,” I said. “What the heck has gotten into you?”
Wilson’s shoulders slumped, and he started quivering and sobbing.
“I…I don’t know,” he said, between sobs. “The last thing I remember I was getting dressed for work.”
“Good heavens, man. You’ve got to pull yourself together,” I said, going the tough love route.
He hung his head and buried his face in his hands. “I can’t take it anymore,” he said. “I just can’t take it.”
“Look,” I said, “the vaccines are here, hang on a bit longer, we’ll all get through this, and all that other crap we hear, okay?”
“No, no, it’s not the pandemic. Well, it is in a way, but it’s all the…all the stuff. It’s everywhere in the house. We’ve been ordering food, household things online for ten months now. And they keep sending too much, or we get the quantity wrong, or there’s some other screw up. Roxanne ordered a bathroom scale, but it came up as a gross. Do you know how much a gross is?”
“One hundred and forty-four,” I said.
“What am I going to do with one hundred and forty-four bathroom scales?” he yelled.
“How many bathrooms do you have?” I asked, offering little to no comfort to the man.
“And the paprika,” he said, breaking down. “They sent a ten-pound tin of it. We’ve been putting it on, and in everything.”
He was sobbing uncontrollably now.
“Roxanne put it on my cereal yesterday, and in my coffee. Do you have any idea what paprika flavored coffee tastes like?” he asked.
“No, I don’t,” I said.
Wilson choked back a sob, looked to the sky, clenched his fists and screamed. “I am soooo sick of paprika.”
A woman passing by looked over and veered toward us.
“You got paprika? You selling?” she asked.