The Box Man
There is a large bin of boxes by the exit of the big box store. After self-checking out, customers rummage through the bin of boxes hoping to salvage a choice candidate to carry their bulk bargains home. Carts, like freighters loaded with shipping containers, line up awaiting departure.
There is a box man. He comes pulling his cart piled up with boxes recently freed of their contents. His jumbled cardboard payload has been quarried from every distant aisle of the store. The box man weaves his cart between obstacles and impatient shoppers with honed skill and almost sacral care. He is an old man, slightly bent forward, with heavy eye brows and white wispy hair. He steps with a slight limp. His clothes — off-white polo, baggy dark brown pants, almost corduroy — are entirely plain and unnoticeable, except His belt which hangs starkly lower on one side, far askew from horizontal. These garments are too big for him as though he’s shrunk inside them. Age and wear show in his movements. He bends down to pick up a shallow lid from the floor, dutifully yet slowly.
He begins to unload his cart into the bin, taking time to wish a departing customer a cheerful “Have a good day.” Then he stops to help a retiree select the perfect box for his wine bottles and cheese, pointing to a corner where suitable carriers can be found. The box man places each new box onto the pile in the bin with care and calculation. He perches them one atop the other at angles, but not in disarray, like a bower bird arranging his display. There is a care, an admiration, an art at work here. This work his habit. This bin his cathedral, an edifice imprinted with his devotion. Day upon day, load after load, he builds a monument that will never be completed. And one day a novice will replace him when his body can no longer take on the work. He’ll ferry his last cartload and set his last box in its place.
It’s remarkable if your eyes can see it.
A shopper impatiently grabs a box and hurries on his way, deaf to the benediction, “Have a good day.” And another after him and another and another. And the box man pushes his cart back to find another load of cardboard for the bin.
