(This is a re-post of a story I posted here the first week I was a blogger. I thought I’d re-share it. Sarah)
Velma was the oldest fixture in the neighborhood; some say even older than the candy store which she owned and operated as far back as anybody could remember. People also said (sometimes, behind her back so as not to hurt her feelings) that she was batty. It wasn’t that she wasn’t well-liked because she was. She was famous for giving away candy, soda and chips to the kids who couldn’t afford to pay and who she often found trying to steal from her.“Just tell me you’re hungry, child,” is all she would say to the surprised child as she handed him or her a bag full of candy and other treats. “I understand what it’s like to be hungry and afraid,” she’d say. “You don’t know it, but I understand.”
Consequently, she would have a constant band of rag-a-muffins hanging about the store, mixing up the stock, making noise and in some (rare) cases, attempting to sweep the floor or dust the shelves for her. Velma didn’t mind. She loved children and regarded it as her most sincere sadness that she never had any children. Not for any lack of trying; she and her husband, Frank had tried all of the years of their marriage, but to no avail. Velma and Frank were destined to be a childless couple, who doted on any child who might cross their paths.The candy store had been Velma’s idea. She reasoned that if she couldn’t have a house full of children as she had prayed to God she might, she could surely have a store full of children. Even if they only came and went and she saw their soft, shining faces for seconds at a time, it was more than she could have hoped for otherwise. After Frank died, she dressed only in black, often with a babushka tied tightly under her chin. She often mumbled aloud conversations she had with Frank. And at times, even arguments, which all of the neighbors heard, causing everyone to feel sorry and a little afraid of her at once.Occasionally, a do-gooder from the neighborhood would come by and try to help her with the store, which always seemed to be on the verge of ruin. But she would just smile at their suggestions and nod her head and say,” Do you remember the time you tried to steal that red licorice out the jar? Remember how the whole jar fell to the floor and my Lord there was licorice everywheres?” She cackled. “I think the rats was eating licorice for days and days after that.”The do-gooder would shrug and realize Velma was never going to change and would never really be part of the present world in which they lived. “I was just trying to help, Velma,” is all they would say.“I know child, I know,” her grin exposed two gaps in front where teeth used to be. “And I appreciate it, child, I do. Here,” she handed them licorice, ” you have something sweet, it’ll brighten your day.”The do-gooder would accept the gift and leave pensive and chewing on soft, sweet licorice. Perhaps, even, in their own small way, remembering the days of childhood in the neighborhood, always with the soft croak of Velma and the sweet taste of candy.
At the end of the day, Velma would sweep the dust on the floor and scoop it into an ancient dustpan, deposit it in the wastebasket, dust the shelves with a duster made of peacock feathers, pull the shade in the store window and turn the sign around to read, closed. She would scuffle across the floor to the stairway in the back and climb the stairs to her apartment above the store.
On a hot plate, she would boil water for peppermint tea and make sandwiches out of whatever she had pulled out of the cold case in the store. After her dinner, she would open a can of tuna and place it on her window sill for any stray cat who might be hungry and toss the remnants of her sandwich in small pieces out the window for the pigeons and sometimes robins who had not found much that day in their scavenging efforts.
Her favorite stray, a big orange tabby, who she named Sweet Pea, almost always arrived for the tuna and ate as much as he could before the other cats arrived. When he was finished, he licked his paws, dropped down from the sill and sat with Velma on the brocade settee which was just a little older than she was. Together they would watch Jeopardy on the little black and white set that Velma had found on her doorstep one morning. There was a note written on a paper bag in crayon which read: “I found this for you Miss Velma.” She never learned who it was had left the set, but she treasured it and considered it one of her most valued possessions.
One night, during the final Jeopardy round, Velma and Sweet Pea heard a noise from downstairs. Sweet Pea jumped down from the settee and began to pace back and forth in front of the door, yowling, his tail straight up in the air. “Oh hush, Sweet Pea,” Velma said, “I’m trying to listen to the show.”
But Sweet Pea wouldn’t hush and the pitch of the yowl set Velma’s teeth on edge. She acquiesced and rose from her seat and went to the door. The cat paced between and around her legs, the yowling subsiding somewhat.
“Well, what do you think it is?” she asked the Tabby. “Think the rats are in the gum balls again? Sweet Pea got up on his hind legs and scratched at the door with his front paws. “All right, all right, let’s go see.”
Velma opened the door and Sweet Pea shot down the stairs ahead of her. She reached for the light switch and flipped it on but got no light. Then she remembered that she’d been meaning to change the bulb and just never had. She came down the stairs slowly, relying on the little light provided from her apartment above. By the time she got to the bottom of the stairs, her eyes had adjusted to the darkness and she could make out the figure of a young man, hunched over the counter by the cash register.
“Hello there,” Velma called out.
The figure jumped and turned on her, his arm outstretched and pointing at her. Velma figured it was probably a gun, for a moment she thought she saw a glint of light reflected on it. “Don’t move,” a shaky voice instructed.
“What you want, child?” Velma asked. “Are you hungry? You need something to eat?”
The stranger hesitated, as if to determine what was wrong with the old woman. Didn’t she know he had a gun on her?
Velma began to move toward him, but he extended his arm even further to emphasize he meant business. “I said, don’t move!”
Velma stopped and chuckled softly. “All right, all right, if that’s the way you want it. What are you looking for?”
“Money, you stupid old bitch,” he said impatiently. “Where the hell do you keep the money?”
Velma laughed. “Oh, you want the money. Well, it ain’t in there!” she laughed a little louder. “Do you think I was born yesterday? Well I wasn’t born yesterday and if the lights was on you’d see I wasn’t born yesterday.”
Angrily, the intruder came around the corner, his arm still extended, and moved toward her. “I didn’t come here for no conversation, I came here for the money. Now where is it?”
Velma pointed to the cold case. “Over there, behind the bologna.”The trespasser was confused for a moment, then believed she was trying to trick him. “Oh yeah?”
“Well, I wouldn’t lie to you child,” she said quietly. “You having a gun and all, that is a gun you’re pointing at me, ain’t it? You having a gun pointed at me, I wouldn’t lie to you. It wasn’t my idea, putting the money in the cold case, it was the Burley’s, known them since they was just little ones. Well, they told me I should keep the money in the register on account there might be someone, like you, who’d come in one night and try to steal it. They said, you’d look in the register, find it empty and think there wasn’t no money. Said you wouldn’t never think to look in the cold cuts. And by golly, I guess they was right. If I wasn’t here to tell you, would you have thought to look there?”
“Just get the money,” he said his voice starting to ring a bell in Velma’s mind. Velma shuffled over to the cold case, reached behind the Oscar Meyer and pulled out a cloth sack, he could hear the change jangling as she held it out to him. “Here you go, child. I hope it helps with your troubles.”The kid took the bag abruptly, and still holding the gun on her, opened the bag and peered inside. “It ain’t much,” he said suspiciously.“No child, it sure ain’t. Candy store ain’t really a thriving business. But it’s enough for me. I get by because I don’t need much.”“There must be more,” he insisted.Velma shook her head and grinned her toothless smile. “Not in this life son, not in this life. Bible says, that what we suffer in this life, we are rewarded a thousand-fold in the after-life.” She nodded. “Yes, I think it’s true, don’t you?”
“I wouldn’t do this if I didn’t have to,” the thief sounded remorseful. “I don’t have no choice.”
“I don’t mind, really I don’t,” Velma assured him. “I understand, child, I really do. You’re hungry and you got to eat, ain’t that right?”
“I never done this before,” he told her, sounding near tears.
“Don’t feel bad,” she comforted him, “I understand. Besides, you ain’t stealing, not if I give you the money.”
“You didn’t give it to me. I made you give it to me, I have a gun,” he insisted.
“Ain’t nothing in this world could make me do something I don’t want to do. You just ask anybody. They’ll tell you. Old Velma don’t do nothing she don’t want to.”
The boy could take no more and gave her back the bag. “No, I can’t,” he cried, “I can’t take the little bit you got.”
Velma refused to take the bag and pushed it back in his hands. “Yes you can, sure you can child. Go on, take it. You need it. I don’t need it near as much as you. Go on.”
The boy’s arm dropped, he let the gun fall to the floor. The sound of it, told Velma it wasn’t a real gun, but a toy, made of plastic and cheap metal. “I’m sorry Ma’am, I’m real sorry,” he cried so hard he shook.
Velma shuffled the four or five feet to him and put her arm around his shoulders. “There, there, now, don’t cry. You ain’t done nothing wrong. You just take the money and think of it as a loan. When you’re back on top you pay me back. How about that?”
The boy stopped crying, wiped his nose with the back of his hand. “Can I?”
“Course you can,” she said sweetly. There was an awkward silence; then. “Now you go home and get some sleep, growing boy like you needs his sleep.”
The boy nodded, walked toward the door and stopped. “Thank you Velma,” he said quietly, opened the door and stepped outside.
“You’re welcome Danny Boyd,” she called after him, “and tell your mama I said hello.”
copyright 2006
