Every Saturday, we’ll be posting a new illustration by David Lester. The Mecca Normal guitarist is visually documenting people, places and events from his band’s 28-year run, with text by vocalist Jean Smith.
A Public Apology to the Ladies of the Bakery
Continued.
In my mind, driving home in the dark, I imagine a guy—not my dad—with untied work boots and a bullhorn getting out of his old Ford truck, leaving a woman with damp curly red hair on the passenger side sobbing, her hands covering her face. Perhaps Catherine is embarrassed—maybe she knows where this is going. She’s overwhelmed by the non-stop antics of a guy with long history of trying to solve his problems with a bullhorn. She begged him not to do what he’s about to do.
Catherine is worried that he’s going to trip over his bootlaces as he pulls himself onto the truck; she taps on the inside of the windshield, pointing at his feet. He has no idea what she’s trying to tell him.
He switches on the bullhorn, making that squelchy-squealy sound. He taps the bullhorn with his index finger—clunk-clunk-clunk—before announcing, “I owe the ladies of the bakery a public apology.” He clears his throat. “To the ladies of the bakery, I’m sorry, I didn’t know you baked the cakes and made the pies in-store. I’ve shopped here 20 years, and I know you all by sight, if not by name. I’d never met a Zelda before. To the ladies of the bakery, I apologize. I didn’t listen when you told me whatever it was you said.”
In the back of the store, behind swinging doors where the paint has been worn down to the wood by 20 years of buttery palms and strong arms carrying trays of bread baked in-store—not trucked in from Saskatchewan—for men who solve their problems with bullhorns that women can’t hear. Twenty years of pushing and holding doors open.
At the front of the store, in the parking lot, we have ourselves a bona-fide situation. In his misguided attempt to apologize, his words go unheard by the ladies the bullhorn addresses. He climbs off the hood, gets back in the truck and slams it into reverse, cursing loudly, over and over and over again, at Catherine.
