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spoken a real word in the whole four years since you moved here, and now the first
real word you say is
mayonnaise.
Well, well. Is that what you've been waiting for? Your mayonnaise to run out?
    You say
mayonnaise,
then something about a chicken. And I think,
Chicken? What's
a chicken have to do with mayonnaise? But you aren't asking me to approve or disapprove of whatever goes on in your kitchen. You are asking for mayonnaise, and if something about mayonnaise and chicken inspired you to come to my door and knock, well, so be it. Still, I can't help being curious about what you're up to. Maybe you started a chicken sandwich with lettuce and tomato, then discovered the mayo missing. Not chicken soup. Nobody puts mayo in chicken soup, do they. Perhaps you're preparing a deli tray with cold sliced chicken and need mayonnaise for deviled eggs. No, you didn't say eggs, you said chicken, but mayonnaise is fall of eggs, isn't it, either way the chicken comes first, doesn't it. And that dumb thought reminds me that people can't answer the simplest questions, and also that I haven't answered yours.
    Then you say, "I can't go to the grocery store. I hate to disturb you, but I just can't make it to the grocery store."
    I look at him, perhaps look closely for the first time. When I say closely, I mean I find myself seeing his color at the very moment I realize color is mostly what I've been seeing for four years. Now, I'm not strange about race. I don't think color makes a difference. People are people. In fact, I thought the man was handsome the first time I saw him. I would have responded to him the way I respond to any neighbor and maybe with more enthusiasm since I seldom run into good-looking men, colored or not, around here. But I was put off by his stern expression, his silly game of pretending not to notice me. I'm certain there wasn't anything I did that prevented a polite conversational exchange from starting up. This man has a problem with white people, I figured. The surly look on his face says he doesn't like white people, and I'm sure not going to force myself on him. After one of our stiff mini-meetings and greetings, a snowy, windy day, nobody out but the two of us, I couldn't help
asking myself,
If he doesn't like white people, why is he living here in Fairwood, where just about everybody, if you don't count a handful of Asians, is white?
One question leading to others, not many others really, but over the years such questions would arise when I'd see him on the street, and since I continued to pass him quite frequently, I guess there were more than a few questions, even though they weren't exactly burning questions because I just kind of left them alone, took them for granted buzzing around in the silent air between us, just like I took his color for granted till the moment I believed I'd sneaked a peek beneath it.
    Today as I look at him in my kitchen I wonder why I've never thought of him eating. Not eating chicken necessarily. Not fried chicken, certainly, not the soul-food cliché of greasy fried chicken. I'm not that kind of person. Not one of those people I really don't appreciate living in our neighborhood. Not thinking anything like those people have in mind when they complain about colored or Negroes or worse. I'm not that kind of person. I raised my children not to hate. But it's strange to look at him, one foot, no, two, three feet inside my door, and realize I've never thought of him in a kitchen, sitting down to a meal with his family. As I study his face, he seems thinner, less dark than I recalled. Then I see from the way he's looking at me, I must be taking too long to answer his request for mayonnaise. His jaw begins to drop. I see him, believe it or not, start to come apart before my eyes.
    "I can't stand it," he says. "I just can't go to the grocery store. When I bought the chicken, I thought I would be safe for at least a few days. With food in the house I could stay at home and concentrate on