“Store closing in one week,” the big, hand-lettered signs
announced. “20% off sale on all merchandise.”
Most people called it Star Market. Its proper name was Lembo’s
Family Market. The Lembo family had disaffiliated from the Star
chain years before. It was a simple, eight-aisle, medium-small
grocery store smack in the middle of our town, an easy mile and a
half drive from most people’s houses, set in a small shopping
center next door to a CVS Pharmacy, a liquor store, and a gaggle of
smaller shops — a pet store, a barber shop, a bookstore, a video
store, a chowder restaurant.
The owner had taped up an explanatory notice: “After many years,
we must close due to higher insurance costs, more competition, and
higher labor costs,” the note explained. A market Lembo’s size
finds itself behind the eight ball in the supply chain, too. You
learned quickly not to buy things that spoiled, like strawberries
or avocadoes. I returned spoiled meat there at least three times
before giving up on their meat market entirely.
Nonetheless, everybody in the neighborhood shopped there for
grocery staples, household cleaners, paper and plastic goods,
packaged and frozen foods, and deli items because it was so handy.
From our house, if I needed to shop before dinner, I could make a
round trip to Lembo’s in 20 minutes. Now, I have to think about
grocery shopping and buy for the long term. It’s really no fun,
when you’re a cook, like I am. The closest grocery store — 20
minutes one-way — is a Super Stop ‘n’ Shop, where you get an
Olympic-length walk through the aisles, and which, granted, has
absolutely everything, and everything of a very high quality.
But it’s not the same.
I GOT TO KNOW SEVERAL of Lembo’s employees by name. A cashier,
Jeannette, a lady of retirement age, became my friend when I used
to take my older boy to elementary school, then stopped in to shop
with my younger son, Joe. I struck up friendly conversations with
the half-dozen local teenagers who worked there, year after
year.
And then there was Jimmy.
“Hi, howya doin’?” That was Jimmy, bagging groceries. “Wonderful
day, isn’t it? I always say, any day you can get up is a good
day.”
Relentlessly cheerful, almost comically upbeat, Jimmy obviously
had something wrong with him, in the cognitive sense. You could see
it in his face, which had no age. I don’t know if he was 20 or 30
years old. He was small. He was ruddy. He was boyish. He always
smiled. And, whatever is the opposite of Tourette’s syndrome, Jimmy
had it.
“Rain is beautiful, isn’t it? It makes all the flowers
bloom.”
“You can’t beat having a good job. I’ve got the greatest job in
the world.”
“Hey, little buddy! Howya doin’? Gimme five. C’mon, gimme five.
Attaboy. Good piece o’ candy, huh?”
He worked at a dead run, packing groceries, retrieving shopping
carts from the parking lot in the sometimes incredibly violent
weather we get in New England.
“Boy, it’s sure snowing out there! Be careful going home now.
Best thing in the world, being alive on a stormy day!”
I spoke with Jeannette once during closing week. She’s in her
seventies, and she did not know whether she would take another job
anywhere.
“I don’t want to just sit around the house,” she said. “I don’t
know.”
Thinking back on that week now, I don’t remember seeing Jimmy. I
was in and out of the store half a dozen times, loading up on
non-perishables of all kinds at a 20 percent discount: mayonnaise,
ketchup, dog food, coffee, anything I could think of.
I don’t know what happened to Jimmy. I could imagine him sitting
home crying. I can also imagine that I’ll come across him again
working somewhere else, giving out with his relentlessly cheery
line of patter.
“Oh, jobs come and jobs go. Doesn’t matter. I’ve got the best
job in the world now. It’s a great day, just bein’ alive.”
You tell ‘em, Jimmy.
