Freddogg Off The Chain

The young girl “running the register” at the local Food Lion has “Cabbage Patch” cuteness. Short with puffy freckled cheeks I just watch her and I’m amazed by her intrinsically nice and kind and helpful personality.
And so when the elderly guy in front of me grew totally confused at what he called the paperless world around him as he struggled with the credit/debit touch pad that seemed at cross purposed with logic. And he fumbled through his wallet saying he had a 20 but now couldn’t find it.
Tiffany was there with him every step of the way assuring him of places the 20 may be hiding and telling him if she found one she would put it aside for him.
“Where did you go to high school Tiffany,”I asked her, as I ask all register running strangers in my knock about world.
“I graduated from Cape last year,”she said. “I graduated a year early.”
“I taught there but retired two years ago,”I said. “Do I look familiar to you? They call me Fredman.”
Her big eyes got bigger and her face softer and she said,” I never had you but you know my brother Will. He wrote the valentines poem for my mother and you published it in the paper for him. And then we all went to her graveside and Will read the poem to her then taped it to her gravestone. Will said you were the nicest teacher he ever had. I never got a chance to thank you so thank you for being so nice to us.”
And now the tragic twist. I had first met Will’s step brother inside the maximum security section of the local prison He was cuffed and in orange jump suit. Just 23 years old he had received a life sentence for murdering his step mother, the mother of Will and Tiffany. He had stabbed her 23 times on some Friday night outside a trailer. There was drinking to drunkenness and drugs to oblivion involved with other people inside the trailer partying it was just an ugly and nasty story.
That school year I had Will as a student and through some conversation realized he was the step brother of my interviewee, the guy who had murdered his mother.
I told Will I knew the story and had interviewed his step brother and we established a relationship of trust and it was an emotional release for Will to come to school knowing “his teacher” had a grasp of what he deals with everyday of his life.
“Will’s living in Florida and doing good,” Tiffany said. “He writes all the time. He said you told him to keep writing that he was good at it and has stories to tell.”
I pushed my dumb little cart across the parking lot to my 4runner. I didn’t quite know where to put myself saying out loud “what the hell just happened back there?”
I think that may be the mantra for my entire life.