Necessities (June 5, 2020)

by Sara Davis

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

United States

It is one of the first truly summery days in June, with blazing blue skies and the neighborhood drenched in golden sunlight. I cross over to the shady side of a quiet street to call a friend, standing in the shadow cast by a brick-faced block of South Philly rowhomes.

“I’m okay,” I say as soon as my friend picks up. These days, it’s best to clarify. Slightly muffled by my handmade mask, I tell her that I am outside the grocery store around the corner from her house. My regular grocery delivery has been delayed by blockaded streets in Center City, and every shop I passed on the way is closed. I ask her if she needs anything. She laughs in relief and suggests peanut butter. 

I wait my turn to go in. The neighborhood grocery occupies the ground level of a rowhouse, long and narrow like our homes. The young owners only allow four customers inside at a time, and even then I feel like a knight on a chessboard trying to sidle around the produce case without brushing against a masked stranger at the register. The owners have been providing nitrile gloves at the door; you can’t wear your own. 

It hasn’t been easy to shop from a list at the neighborhood grocery. They stock good cheese, local vegetables, and staples like rice and vinegar, but rarely all at the same time. Some of their suppliers have staffing issues from COVID-19. Today, I suspect they too had deliveries delayed by the police blockade. I put peanut butter and eggs in my basket. The produce case has been picked over but I select some slightly withered strawberries for my friend and some slightly blackened kale for myself, plus four oranges that smell as bright as the sun. 

I knock on the yellow door of my friend’s building and retreat down the front steps, leaving the strawberries and peanut butter on the stoop. We exchange pleasantries from what we estimate is six feet apart. I set my grocery bag under her window box and move around a lot as we talk, from nervous energy but also to emphasize the expressions on my half-covered face. We discuss what we’ll do with our groceries, how remote work has been going this week, and which supplies to bring to the march this weekend. We plan how to walk at the protest, and what we will do in case one of us is hurt or arrested. 

A warm summer rain begins to fall — I hadn’t noticed, under the trees, that dark rain clouds had blown in so quickly. My friend is agitated by the tiny winged insects stirred up by the raindrops, so I tell her I’ll see her soon. We make heart shapes with our hands as I walk away. 

The rain continues to fall softly and the air smells of fresh soil and green leaves. I feel an urge to keep walking. In any other summer, I would. We had a long, chilly spring, and there were weeks that I passed almost entirely indoors, orchestrating work and friendships and hobbies from my failing laptop. On other days, after visiting the neighborhood grocery and my nearby friend, I would stop to buy necessities in one of the two 24-hour drug stores at the major intersection near my house: toothpaste, toilet paper, sometimes food if I couldn’t get it elsewhere. There’s nothing for me there today: both stores are closed, boarded-up windows staring blankly at each other across Broad Street.

I pass Passyunk Avenue, lined with window boxes and string lights like my friend’s quiet street, but also with shops and cafés and triangular concrete parks with benches and outdoor chess boards. Though the cafés are empty and most of the shops have been closed, some continue to take orders. There is a butcher shop where I can sometimes get dried beans and fresh vegetables when the neighborhood grocery runs low; if I had already placed an order, the woman who owns the butcher shop would bag it up and place it outside the door when I waved through the plate glass. There is a distillery that has become my exclusive supplier for the vodka I use to make cordials at home, though it costs twice as much as what I used to buy. If her window were open today, the proprietor would carefully pass me bottles across the winter pansies that are still blooming yellow and orange, and if I asked, she would chat with me about how each spirit is made. But these are not necessities, and if the shops are boarded up today, I do not want to see them. 

I walk home in the summer rain, and try to enjoy the wild air while it lasts.

At home, I change into dry clothes and put the groceries away. I respond to messages and feed the cats. Then I open my front door and stand in the doorway for a while. My narrow street has no trees or flower boxes, but there are positive messages and rainbows taped in the windows that I can see. The young couple in the apartment across the street is having beers on their roof. We wave to each other, and their big yellow dog gives his tail a sociable wag. The rain has stopped and a humid heat rises from the concrete. Periodically a low, rumbling boom, like fireworks, echoes over our neighborhood.

I peel an orange. It smells like summer.