Scenes From an American Walmart

A small-town Walmart. Rural. Lots of rusty trucks and 20-year-old cars. Busy. Tons of people from different walks.

The first thing you pass when you enter the crowded store is the greeter. An older Black woman, sitting on a stool. Blue vest.

Her smile is communicable. There’s something so happy in her eyes. Not fake. A warm, maternal energy.

Remember when you were little, and you’d show up to a church potluck with your mom? And all the church mothers would be there, buzzing around, setting up various casseroles, erecting card tables? All that maternal energy. All those smiles.

Remember how everybody knew everybody else? And everyone there was basically family? Remember what that felt like? Remember how even as a small child, you felt so… I don’t know. So not-alone. You felt so loved.

That’s what her smile somehow does to me.

Whereupon, I walk through this average Wally World, finding that I, too, am now smiling at random people.

There’s the guy at the pharmacy. He’s wearing construction clothes. Big guy. Covered in grime. Marlboros in his shirt pocket. He’s missing teeth. He’s holding his little boy’s hand. And you can just FEEL how much his son worships him. You can also feel amazing love being exponentially returned by the father.

I smile at them. They both smile back.

In another aisle, a teenage girl, helping her mother. Mom is riding a motorized scooter. Mom has a surplus of tattoos on her bare shoulders and thighs, her head is half shaved, half permed. She doesn’t look that much older than the daughter.

They’re talking about something important, I can tell by body language. The girl is underconfident, struggling with something, and her mother is actively encouraging her child. I sense a deep, profoundly deep everlasting affection between them. A love so deep, I feel my eyes begin to burn.

They smile at me first.

Sporting goods. Fishing section. I see four Latino boys. Mexican I think, from their accents. They speak no English because when the employee asks if they need help, they are only able to shrug.

The young men are conferring with one another. I overhear their Español.

They are off work today and want to go fishing. But they don’t own fishing rods. And fishing gear is turning out to be MUCH more expensive than they thought.

So the boys dig into their pockets and pool their cash together, right there in the aisle. Coins and crumpled dollar bills. They all agree to share one fishing pole between them. They are going to take turns fishing.

As I eavesdrop, I can almost feel the bond between them. It is an intense connection. Deeper than anything I’ve probably ever known.

You can just tell, whatever gels them together, whatever unites them, it is so remarkably dense. So powerful. So richly, unfailingly loyal. These young men are so beautiful they are practically glowing.

I smile. They smile. We all smile.

I smile at many others, too. At a little girl who is maybe five. She rides in the cart pushed by Big Brother, maybe 12. The little girl says, “Hello,” and waves her little hand at me. The other hand is deep within her nose.

In the soda aisle, I smile at an elderly woman. She is arthritic. Ivory skin, hair that is more blue than gray.

She is receiving help from an employee who is tall, with hair in cornrows, covered in tats. They are an unlikely couple.

And yet they are laughing and cracking jokes. The employee places ginger ale into her cart and asks if she needs any more help. She says yes, she does, so he sticks by her side and SHOPS FOR HER.

I see him hook arms with her, to help her balance. Together they shuffle through the store.

And I wish I had room to tell you all the other things I saw inside this beautiful place. I’ve been inside this particular Walmart a million-and-one times before, but I never really saw it. Not until that greeter smiled at me.

You know how they say blood is thicker than water? Well, I believe love is thicker than blood.

And on this Fourth of July, that’s the kind of America I choose to believe in.