The Big Sweep
art by Gregory Stump
by Patrick Browne
My grip slicks the shopping cart’s red plastic handlebar with sweat. Karen and Bob have already disappeared down the aisles with the ten- and fifteen-second headstarts that Dick’s earlier blunders handed them. I should have known not to bring him. In twenty years of marriage, the man can’t have stepped foot inside a supermarket more than a dozen times. He didn’t get a single question right during the Price Guess or the Product Name Scramble. Not one. Might as well have shown up blindfolded and sedated. A lifetime of inhaling Cool Ranch Doritos, and the minute DORITOS becomes RODISTO, he’s suddenly acting like he’s up against quantum physics. And then, after single-handedly tanking our team, he has the nerve to tell me he wants to run the Big Sweep because he’s “faster” and can haul a bigger load. Please. The man wouldn’t know Kleenex from Kotex.
I should have partnered with Tammy. If Jeopardy! ever created a category called “Products Found at Stop & Shop,” Tammy would retire undefeated.
No, I can’t let Karen and Bob’s extra seconds psych me out. This is for fifty thousand dollars. Enough to fix the roof, replace the water heater, maybe take a vacation that doesn’t involve staying with Dick’s relatives. I can do this.
Matthew Sullivan’s eyes lock onto mine as he raises a hand for the countdown.
Three.
Funny. On television he’s all wholesome enthusiasm and gleaming teeth, spewing commentary as contestants race through the aisles, congratulating strangers on their soup knowledge. In person, he’s a different story.
Two.
During the Price Guess, I caught him staring at my chest. Long enough to make me wonder if my nipple had slipped loose. During a break, he clapped Dick on the shoulder and said, “You’re a lucky man.”
One.
And Dick with that shit-eating grin he gets whenever someone compliments his life choices. Oh, what am I doing! Forget Dick!
Go!
The cart rattles in my hands. Fluorescent lights streak overhead. Shelves blur past me.
The honeyed hams are my first target, worth more than some people’s rent. As I barrel toward the refrigerator aisle, the cart picks up speed. Too much speed. My arms are locking. I yank left.
Too late. The rear wheels fishtail and clip the corner of the display. Boxes of Little Debbies explode into the aisle, cartwheeling through the air. For one horrifying instant, I imagine my teased perm whipping sideways on national television.
But the moment is gone, and these hams aren’t going to grab themselves.
I plough through the meat department and start hurling honeyed hocks over my shoulder. A miracle most of them land in the cart.
A few Christmases ago, I spent ten hours cooking dinner for Dick’s family. Ten hours. Basting, peeling, chopping, cleaning. When I finally pulled the ham from the oven, I burned my hand on the roasting pan and dropped the whole thing on the kitchen floor. The ham bounced. The meat juice splattered the cabinets. Dick’s mother gasped like she’d witnessed a murder.
Dick had just spent four hours watching football with his brothers. Not once did he ask whether I needed help. But apparently Christmas was my responsibility. Which meant I was the only one who could possibly ruin it.
These hams are monsters.
For the record, Dick ruined Christmas. And New Year’s. And most of 1998.
Straight ahead, the giant mozzarella blocks are waiting for me, but Bob from Team Two and his cameraman have parked themselves in my path.
“Shit,” I mutter.
Bob shoots me a look. Whatever.
I shoulder into the fray and start grabbing hunks of cheese like a starved rat. Three blocks, then four. We’re only allowed five. I lunge for my last, just as Bob reaches for the same one.
Not today, Robert.
Our hands collide. Mine keeps going, slapping his away. Bob shoots me another dirty look. Men always seem surprised when a woman decides not to make room for them. Our backs are facing the cameras, so I’m confident there’s no documented proof of the assault.
Before Bob can recover from being outwitted and outmuscled, I’m gone.
The health and beauty aisle stretches before me like the Promised Land.
Hemorrhoid cream. Laxatives. Denture adhesive. God bless America. I start flicking products into the cart so fast I wonder if the camera can register the speed.
The boxes of hair dye remind me that my perm could use a good refresher. I know we don’t get to keep the items we grab, but maybe Matthew will make an exception if I show a little cleavage. Then again, sex isn’t the game here. Unit price is. A kind of big-money perversity rules the Big Sweep. The winner isn’t the person with the fullest cart. It’s the person with the most expensive one. Hemorrhoid cream is an investment opportunity, and a block of cheese is worth more than a car.
The Platinum Blonde dye catches my eye first. Dick likes me blonde. Dick likes a lot of women blonde. The question of what I like never seems to come up. For years I kept my hair highlighted because he said it made me look younger. Every six weeks I’d sit under a dryer reading magazines I hated, listening to women discuss husbands who sounded suspiciously like mine.
My hand flies to the Mocha Brown box. Who cares what Dick thinks? Besides, at full retail price, brunette is worth exactly as much as blonde.
Hardware is the next aisle over and I’m not about to leave money on the shelf. I always assumed these two-gallon jugs of Penzoil would be heavy, but compared to raising kids, managing a house, and remembering every birthday, holiday, doctor’s appointment and school fundraiser, these bottles feel more like balloons. Turns out you get stronger when nobody helps.
The jugs sail into the cart two at a time. The cameraman, who’s been at my heels capturing my every erratic move, has drifted several feet back. Smart man. Clearly he’s learned what Dick never did.
My cart is filled to its max, so I have no choice but to head back to the register and swap it for an empty one. A human-size Pillsbury Doughboy, a bonus that could be worth hundreds, bobs directly in my path. I clothesline him without breaking stride. The inflatable bastard collapses into a heap as I drag him behind me.
Every time I see that little blue ascot, I think about the thousands of cookies I’ve baked over the years. School bake sales. Church fundraisers, Holidays. Birthdays. Dick’s office parties. And every cookie went straight to his gut. He had a trim waistline when we got married, but in no time he’d added three notches to his belt. And then he had the nerve to tell me I was looking ‘hefty’ during my first trimester. And after the delivery, a delivery that ended with tears in an empty nursery, he sat beside my bed and said, “At least you’ll have your figure back.” At the time I thought the comment was unbelievable. Now I realize the unbelievable part is that I stayed another fourteen years.
If only I’d had an income to fall back on.
The registers roll into view. Dick is bouncing on the balls of his feet like he’s personally responsible for all of this. The other contestants’ partners have been cheering nonstop. Funny how I haven’t heard a peep from him. As soon as I’m within striking distance, I heave the overflowing cart straight in his direction.
“Fresh cart!” I yell.
It slams against his belly like a wrecking ball, hard enough to knock an oof out of him.
Good. Any pain he’s experiencing pales in comparison to all that childbirth.
The thought of the girls sends me straight toward the diaper aisle. Expensive, lightweight, perfect. An item that could make or break my final tally. For nearly a year after Gregory died, I couldn’t walk down a baby aisle without feeling like I was in the middle of an asthma attack. I’d been alone most of the time I was in the hospital. Dick said he wasn’t cut out for hospital rooms. I’d already picked out the name Gregory. My first-born. The one I was going to raise to be nothing like his father.
The live audience is suddenly chanting the final countdown.
Fifteen seconds.
Fourteen.
Thirteen.
I dive for the diapers and start loading packs into the cart.
One. Two. Three. Four…
The fifth lands just as the buzzer sounds.
I nearly collapse.
[SECTION BREAK]
When they start totaling the carts, the register’s steady beep seems to sync with the pounding in my chest. I’m barely holding it together.
Matthew Sullivan stands beside us with that polished television smirk of his, the one that says friendly neighborhood game-show host but disappears the second the cameras stop rolling. He announces my total first.
“$843!”
Not bad, but nothing to rest easy on.
One glance at Bob’s cart tells me everything I need to know. The man spent half the Sweep standing in my way and still somehow lost. His wife’s smile tells me she’s rehearsing a supportive speech for the drive home.
Karen’s cart is the only one that worries me. That woman knew what she was doing out there. Matthew is drawing out the suspense so much I struggle with the urge to tackle him.
“Karen, your total today is…$841!”
The audience erupts.
Two dollars! Two dollars.
“Which means,” Matthew continues, “Team Three will advance to the Bonus Sweep!”
Dick grabs my arm and starts jumping up and down.
“We did it!” he shouts.
We.
I look at the register totals, the cart, Dick.
We. Right.
Matthew launches into the rules of the final segment of the game, the Bonus Sweep.
Come on, Matthew. Three clues. One minute. Find the products. Win the cash. I’ve spent years clipping coupons and planning grocery routes. Save the explanation for somebody who wandered in here by accident.
“If you want to treat your little tots,” Matthew says, reading out the first clue, “give them a sip of a juice called _____.”
“Motts!” I spit in Dick’s face.
As I break into a run, I snatch the clue card from Matthew’s hand.
The aisles fly past. Rows of bottles blur together. I circle both hands over the shelves like a witch casting a wide spell.
“Motts, Motts, Motts…where is it?!” I have no time to look, so I can only imagine the expression on Dick’s face, scanning the shelves like he’s trying to spot land from a lifeboat.
“There!” Dick shouts, pointing, as if the bottle is going to float off the shelf and into his hands.
I grab the marked bottle. On the back, the next clue. “If someone asks you lots of questions, they’re giving you the third ______.”
“Degree!” I shout, slapping Dick in the face with my perm as I whip around and sprint to the personal care aisle.
Deodorant everywhere. Secret. Dove. Old Spice. Mitchum. Where the hell—
I clasp the sides of my hair with both hands as Dick strolls up. My perm is already ruined. About time. I’ve been looking for a reason to kill it for years.
“Help me find it!” I shriek.
“Degree!” Dick points. The second semi-useful contribution he’s made all day, and naturally he looks proud of himself.
I grab the deodorant. On the back, the final clue: “This lucky part of a chicken works well with a salad: ______ _______ _______”
The audience begins counting down.
Ten.
Lucky part of a chicken? Chicken leg? Chicken wing? Chicken ass? No. Not chicken ass.
Eight.
What the….a three-word answer… Lucky Cluck Dressing? Colonel Sanders Italian?
Jesus Christ, think.
“Wishbone Salad Dressing!” I scream at the top of my lungs. Where the hell did that come from? But it’s right. I know it’s right. There’s so little time. I shove Dick aside. Not hard. Hard enough. He stumbles into a display of cereal boxes.
Five.
I tear into the next aisle.
Four.
Three.
Two.
My hand closes around the marked bottle. Behind it sits the cash. For a moment, everything goes silent. The cheers, Matthew’s voiceover, Dick’s screeches—all silent. I can’t see the lights or the cameras. All I can see is the cash.
Fifty thousand dollars. Not enough to change my life, but enough to start a new one.
Dick wraps me in a bear hug.
“We did it!” he shouts again.
We.
Dick is panting and dripping with secondhand accomplishment, somehow winded from spectating. All these years, he’s not been cruel or malicious, just perpetually absent whenever life gets heavy, happy to believe that dinner appears, laundry folds itself, birthdays remember themselves, and someone else will carry whatever needs to be carried.
Someone else? Not anymore.
“We sure did,” I say. And for the first time in twenty years, I hear the lie.
I smile for the cameras. Tomorrow can wait till tomorrow.
Patrick Browne is an emerging author whose fiction has previously appeared in the Clackamas Literary Review. He serves as the Associate Director of Global Strategic Partnerships at his alma mater, New York University, and holds a master’s degree in international development from Tsinghua University in Beijing. Raised in New Jersey, Patrick currently lives in New York City and is working on his first novel.
Gregory Stump, an emeritus professor of linguistics, is a visual artist who currently works in digital media. His drawings juxtapose the familiar with the unfamiliar in enigmatic ways, often involving asemic representations of written language in a variety of contexts. He has provided cover art for books issued by Cambridge University Press, State Street Press, Finishing Line Press, Main Street Rag Publishers, and Pine Row Press; his art has also appeared in the journals Kansas City Voices, Glacial Hills Review, The MacGuffin, and Folio Literary Journal as well as in various juried exhibitions. He resides in Lenexa, Kansas. (See www.stumpdrawings.com for a partial portfolio of his digital work.)
