When I was home visiting Mom and Dad and making my way into town with them to check on some rental property, we drove past a fellow, who's struggle in life had become a series of accounts that had found itself in a small town legend, and after a few times around, became he, who was walking down the street as we made our way past the square towards our destination. "There's Mayonnaise!", Mom said, interrupting her sermon about needing to find a new painter, and how the last renters absolutely trashed the apartment, and she's not sure if she'll ever be able to get that carpet back like it was, swirling her finger in the air towards a harmless looking older gentleman, who seemed like he was continuing his quest for something from his younger days, but now, just out of habit and having forgotten what his pursuit was, had fixed himself to strolling along his course at a slow and steady pace, making shapes out of his progress throughout the town streets. As I looked in on his life from the backseat car window, watching it like an an old silent movie, I could have kept time by the gentle steady commitment of his worn shoes to the pavement below.
I found it strange that such a skinny man and such an old age would have the demeaning name of a substance that is made purely of fat and is a staple in every good person's gross potluck dish.
"Why Mayonnaise?", I proceeded.
"Well, ask your daddy." She looked at Dad who passed on it. "Well," she said, "Mayonnaise was a womanizer." "Well. A peeping tom. He used to look in on the women around town."
"So, why Mayonnaise?", I didn't understand.
"Well, he's afraid of mayonnaise."
"And?", impatiently.
"Well the women started putting mayonnaise on the windows of their home."
"Like a jar of it?" I said. "Like, they'd set an open jar of mayonnaise in the window and off he would go?" "What about flies?", I carried on cautiously, smiling and looking around as if I was feeding a practical joke.
"Well, the women would smear mayonnaise on the windows and he'd see it and run off."
"Really?, and that's it?"
"Yeah, he didn't like it. He hated it. He hated mayonnaise." Breath. "Yep, they'd smear it. And he wouldn't come around it."
"Like smear it all over the window? Like, making it so you couldn't see in through the window?"
"Yeah, but it was the mayonnaise that he hated." "You know. It was mayonnaise. Smeared. He could have still seen through it. If he got close enough to it. But he was scared of it." Her sentences short and breathy like a smoker's, blowing words out with a sudden gush, and adding a few at a time with each quick inhale, and repeating herself nervously.
Dad put the car in park and snapped the key out.
"You coming in?" she asked.
"No. I'll stay here." I replied.
"It's hot in this car. I don't know why you want to sit out in this car. If that's what you're gonna do. Don't overheat. Why don't you come in? Don't you overheat out here girl. You can die. Here. Here's the keys. If you're gonna sit out here roll down the window." mom said.
I measured the air as I breathed rationing it as if I were lost in outer space and I had only a 3 day supply of it, and watched them go inside. I continued my commitment to the car window, trying to soothe myself with it's rounded-squarish corners, and questions of whether it was Hellmann's or Blue Plate.
