Mary Grimm
Winner – Editor’s Spotlight Award in Prose
The Ghost President Visits Our Supermarket
He arrives in a white van, followed by two more white vans. When he gets out he stands in the parking lot for a minute, rubbing his hands. Some shoppers go in to the supermarket, sneaking glances. Some stand around waiting to see what the ghost president will do. Some back out and drive away. He’s wearing sunglasses although the sky is the cloudy kind of partly cloudy.
I am already inside the store, in the cookie/cracker aisle, trying to decide between Cheez-Its and mini saltines. The trouble with Cheez-Its is that they make your fingers orange. The trouble with mini saltines is that they are bland. I watch the ghost president walk in, flanked by several secret service agents, some shady guys in neon green jackets, and a young woman who is taking notes on her phone. He seems pleased to be here, showing his teeth, which are very white, as if they are made out of plastic. “Who’s in charge?” he says, and then repeats it, making a megaphone of his hands.
I’m ready to check out as soon as I decide on my cracker purchase, but I can’t help but linger. Is he going to make a speech? Will someone be detained? Will he buy something, and if so, what?
I come to this supermarket because my ex girlfriend works here. We don’t usually speak, although she will point out specials that I’ve missed. Today she comes up behind me and together we watch the ghost president make his way down the produce aisle. He picks up an avocado and drops it back into the bin. He pokes at the bagged grapes. He is mostly solid today, so much so that it seems wrong to call him the ghost president, but that’s who he is and always will be.
What do you think he wants? I ask my ex. She shakes her head sorrowfully. She looks wonderful in her supermarket-issued pullover. I notice that she’s gotten her hair cut. “I’m probably going to be moving,” she says.
“Moving where?” I ask, but she doesn’t answer. The ghost president has entered the cookie/cracker aisle and is pacing slowly past the expansive display of Oreos, his entourage fanned out behind him. He gestures at the Limited Edition Space Dunk Oreos and one of the secret service men picks up five packages.
“This might be the last time we see each other,” my ex says. She is fond of dramatic announcements.
The ghost president advances and my ex and I flatten ourselves against the Cheez-It boxes to stay out of his way. “Hello, girls,” he says although clearly we are both over thirty. “If you voted for me, you have my sincere and wholehearted thanks. If you didn’t, you’ll be regretting it sooner or later.” He gestures, and one of the neon-jacketed men asks for our names.
“Virginia Woolf,” I say, and “Simone de Beauvoir,” says my ex. We smirk at each other. Our pseudonyms are entered into the young woman’s phone. “Are you foreign-born?” she asks my ex, who answers, “If only.”
Meanwhile the ghost president is examining a pack of Chewy Chips Ahoy, but puts it back on the shelf. “Who’s in charge?” he says again, but no one shows themselves. (Later, I hear that the manager was on a vape break by the dumpsters, checking his doorbell camera on his phone to see if anyone had broken in. No one had, but a week later someone got in through the basement window and made off with his gun collection.)
No one asks the ghost president to pay and so he doesn’t. He stands in the parking lot as if waiting for something and my ex and I watch from behind the ranks of grocery carts. We are holding hands. The sun has come out and little by little he starts to fade into the light. He opens the Space Dunk Oreos, and before he vanishes altogether, he hands them out to the people still in the parking lot one by one.
Mary Grimm has had three books published, Left to Themselves, Transubstantiation, and Stealing Time. Her stories have appeared in The New Yorker, Antioch Review, and the Mississippi Review, as well as in a number of journals that publish flash fiction, including Helen, The Citron Review, and Tiferet. Currently, she is working on a series of climate change novellas set in past and future Cleveland.
Banner Art:
Veil Dance, Paul Klee, 1920
