John Wayne paid for a stranger’s groceries while Dean Martin watched from the next lane and neither of them ever spoke about what happened in that parking lot afterward. Wait, because the stranger holding that cloth bag had no idea that the folded piece of paper he wrote that night would still be sitting in a drawer in Chicago more than 40 years later and that the man who put it there never once mentioned John Wayne’s name.
March 1968, Los Angeles, California. At Gelson’s Market on Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood, 8:45 in the morning on a Wednesday. The store is not crowded at this hour. It has the particular quiet of a grocery store before 10:00 when the people who come in are the people who come in early by habit or necessity, the retirees, the people with nowhere pressing to be until later, the people who prefer a store that isn’t yet doing the full business of the day. John Wayne is in the express lane. He is 60 years old. He is wearing a flannel shirt and khakis and a ranch hat that he has owned long enough for it to have taken on the particular shape of something that belongs to a person rather than a store. He has a carton of orange juice, a loaf of rye bread, and a container of cottage cheese. He is not in a hurry. He has a meeting on the Paramount lot at 11:00, which gives him
2 hours and 15 minutes. And the drive from West Hollywood to Hollywood proper takes 11 minutes on a bad day and six on a good one. He has time. He is not looking at the man ahead of him in the express lane with any particular attention, not at first. He is looking at the rack of magazines beside the register the way a person looks at something when they are waiting and the waiting has not yet become interesting enough to require focus.
His eyes move from the magazines to the man at the register because the man at the register has been there longer than the express lane usually requires and the body registers duration before the mind decides to pay attention to it. The man at the register is named Walter Greer. He is 67 years old.
He is a small man, 5’7″ perhaps, with the particular build of someone who was once stronger and has not so much lost the strength as redistributed it the way bodies do when the work that built them stops. He has white hair cut close to the head and hands that show what decades of physical labor do to hands.
He is wearing a brown canvas work jacket over a plaid shirt and he has a cloth shopping bag on the counter that he has brought from home because the cloth bag is reusable and the paper bags at Gelson’s cost 3 cents each and 3 cents is 3 cents. The items on the belt are these: one can of chicken broth, one box of saltine crackers, one small jar of peanut butter, and one bunch of bananas.
Four bananas, the smallest bunch in the display, selected with the specific attention of a man who knows the price per pound and has done the arithmetic in his head before he put them in the bag. Walter Greer is a Korean War veteran. He served from 1950 to 1952 with the 7th Infantry Division and was at the Chosin Reservoir in November and December of 1950, which is a fact recorded files of the Department of Defense and visible nowhere on Walter Greer from the outside.
From the outside what is visible is the cloth shopping bag and the careful attention and the four bananas and the work jacket. He lives in a one-room apartment on Formosa Avenue, four blocks east of the store, which costs him $41 a month. He has lived there for 3 years. Before that, he lived in a a place on Fountain Avenue, but the rent went up and the fixed income did not.
And the arithmetic of that situation resolved itself in the only direction arithmetic of that kind resolves. He has a son in Chicago named Robert who works in insurance and calls on the first Sunday of every month. Walter does not tell Robert about the Formosa Avenue apartment or the $41 or the arithmetic. Robert thinks his father is managing.
Walter is managing in the way managing sometimes means that the week works out if nothing unexpected happens and the unexpected things, when they do happen, are small enough to absorb. He spent 22 years on the Southern Pacific Railroad after he came back from Korea. Maintenance of way, which means the tracks themselves, the inspection and the repair and the keeping of a thing that carries weight and speed and lives in a condition that can sustain all three. He was good at it in the way working men are good at things that require physical knowledge and patience and a tolerance for weather. He retired in 1965 when the knee that had been giving him trouble since Chosen finally gave more trouble than the work could accommodate. The pension from Southern Pacific covers the rent and a portion of the food and not much else. Social Security covers another portion. Together they cover the life, but the life they cover is one organized around the knowledge of what
things cost and the carrying of that knowledge into every transaction including this one. Look at what is about to happen because the man standing behind Walter Greer in this express lane has no idea who Walter Greer is. No idea about Chosen. No idea about the railroad. No idea about the $41. He is going to step forward anyway.
He is counting change. The change is coming from the right pocket of the work jacket where he keeps it separate from the bills, which are in his wallet, which is in his left breast pocket. He has the coins in his palm, and he is counting them with the slow deliberateness of someone who has already done this count once in the apartment on Formosa Avenue before he left, and is doing it again now because the register is showing a number, and the number needs to be confirmed against the count. The number on the register is $4.17. The count in his palm is $3 and $0.82. He looks at the gap between these two numbers with the expression of a man who has looked at gaps like this before. Not the expression of panic. Walter Greer is 67 years old and has been through Chosin and 22 years of track maintenance, and the arithmetic of a fixed income and panic left his
available range of responses somewhere in the 1950s. It is the expression of a man doing a calculation. $0.35. The question the calculation produces is which item comes off the belt, and the answer the calculation arrives at is the peanut butter, which is the most expensive single item and the one whose absence from the week’s groceries is most manageable, and he reaches for it.
John Wayne sets his orange juice and bread and cottage cheese on the belt. He steps forward. He says to the cashier, “Put it on one ticket.” Notice that he doesn’t say, “I’ll get it.” or “I’ll cover the difference.” or “Let me help.” He says, “Put it on one ticket.” as if the transaction has already been decided, and the only thing left is the mechanical execution of it.
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The cashier is a young man, perhaps 22, who has been working at this Gelson’s for 7 months and has not yet seen everything a register produces in the way of human situations, though he has seen a reasonable amount. He looks at Wayne. The looking takes a moment. The ordinary delay of a context that doesn’t fit the context.
John Wayne in a flannel shirt and ranch hat in the express lane of a West Hollywood Gelson’s on a Wednesday morning is not the frame the brain prepares for and the brain takes a moment to update. He says, “Sir.” Wayne says, “His items and mine, one ticket.” Walter Greer has turned around. The turning around is the moment.
Not the moment Wayne stepped forward. Not the moment he spoke. The moment Walter Greer turns around in the express lane of a Gelson’s on Santa Monica Boulevard and sees the face of the man who has just told the cashier to put it on one ticket is a moment with a particular quality.
The quality of the impossible presenting itself as ordinary. The brain’s first response is the wrong response. The one that says this is not what it appears to be and then the slower process arrives at the same evidence and confirms it. And the confirmation is followed by the particular silence of a man who has arrived at a fact and is deciding what to do with it.
Walter says, “I can’t let you do that.” Wayne says, “You’re not letting me do anything. I’m buying orange juice. Your groceries happen to be in front of mine.” Walter looks at the items on the belt. The peanut butter is still in his hand. He sets it back down on the belt. He says, “I know who you are.
” Wayne says, “Then you know I don’t change my mind in a grocery store.” He turns back to the belt and finishes setting down the bread and the cottage cheese with the particular movement of a man who has made a decision and considers the decision made. The cashier rings everything together.
Walter’s chicken broth and crackers and peanut butter and bananas and Wayne’s orange juice and bread and cottage cheese. The total is $6.41. Wayne pays with a 10. He takes his change without counting it, which is something Walter notices. Remember this detail because the man who understood exactly what the not counting meant was not Walter Greer at all.
Wait, because the man who noticed that Wayne didn’t count his change and who understood immediately what the not counting meant was not Walter Greer. Walter was watching Wayne put the change in his shirt pocket. The man who noticed and who had been watching the entire transaction from the next lane over was Dean Martin.
Dean Martin is in Gelson’s that morning because he has a recording session at Capitol Records on Vine Street at 10:00, which is 12 minutes from this store. And because he came out the previous night with Frank and the previous night with Frank always means the morning requires something simple and restorative.
And what is simple and restorative for Dean Martin on a Wednesday in March is ginger ale and saltines. And the particular brand of instant coffee that his housekeeper cannot find at the store near the house in Bel Air. He has been coming to this Gelson’s for 2 years for this specific coffee. It is not a remarkable errand.
It is the errand of a man who knows where the thing he wants is and goes to get it. He is not in costume. He is in gray slacks and a dark blue windbreaker and a pair of sunglasses that he has pushed up onto his forehead because the store’s lighting doesn’t require them. His hair is the same hair, the dark wave of it, the particular architecture that belongs to the photographs.
And it is possible, if you are looking directly at him, to know who he is. But the express lane is running and the cashier in Dean’s lane is running and the people in Dean’s lane are looking at their own groceries and their own receipts. And Dean Martin at 8:45 on a Wednesday in a windbreaker and gray slacks with his sunglasses pushed up is not what the attention goes to first.
He has been watching the transaction in the next lane for 40 seconds. He watched Wayne set the orange juice on the belt. He watched the delay at the register. He watched Wayne’s attention shift from the magazine rack to the man ahead of him. The specific kind of looking that means a person has registered something and is deciding what to do about it.
He watched Wayne step forward. He heard put it on one ticket. He watched Walter turn around. He watched the conversation, the three short exchanges, the peanut butter going back on the belt, the cashier ringing everything together. He watched Wayne pay and not count the change. He has paid for his own ginger ale and saltines and coffee.
His cashier has been efficient and the lane has moved and he is now standing at the end of his register with his bag in his hand and he is watching Wayne pick up his bag and say to Walter, “Have a good morning.” and turn toward the exit. Dean steps out of his lane. He says, “Duke.” Wayne stops. He turns. The recognition is immediate.
40 years of shared rooms and shared industry and shared friends, the specific familiarity of two men who have moved in the same world long enough that recognition requires no adjustment period. Wayne says, “Dino.” They step to the side of the express lane, out of the way of the line.
Walter Greer is at the counter putting his items carefully into the cloth bag he brought from home. The peanut butter goes in first, then the crackers, then the broth, then the bananas on top. He is doing this with more attention than the task requires, which is the particular attention of a man who needs a moment to put himself back together.
Dean says, “I watched what you did.” Wayne says. “Just buying breakfast,” Dean says. “You know what I mean.” Wayne looks at him. Not the impatient look, the considering look, the look of a man deciding how much of a real answer to give to a real question in a grocery store at 8:45 in the morning.
He says, “What’s your question?” Dean says, “I don’t know exactly. I’m standing there in my lane and I see you step forward and it was it was already done. Before you even moved, it was already done. You didn’t weigh it. You didn’t think about whether anybody was watching.” Wayne is quiet for a moment.
He says, “It gets that way.” Dean says, “What gets that way?” Wayne says, “The seeing it. After a while, you just see it and you move. There’s no thinking about it because the thinking already happened somewhere back along the line and you’re past it.” Dean looks at him. He tilts his head slightly, the way he does when something lands and he doesn’t want to show it landing too fast.
He says, “I would have stood there.” Wayne says, “Maybe.” Dean says, “Not maybe. I would have stood there and thought about it and by the time I decided, the moment was gone.” Wayne says, “That’s honest.” Dean says, “It’s not a compliment.” Wayne says, “I know.” He pauses.
“The problem isn’t that you think. The problem is when the thinking gets between you and the moving. When you see it and then ask yourself permission, that’s where it goes.” Dean says, “What did it cost you today?” Wayne looks at him for a moment. Then he says, “Change from a 10. I didn’t count it close.” He shrugs. “Didn’t need to.
” Dean says, “That’s it.” Wayne says, “That’s it.” He picks up his bag. He says, “I’ve got to get to Paramount. It was good to see you, Dino.” Dean says, “You too, Duke.” Wayne walks toward the exit. Dean watches him go. The particular watching of a man who has seen something and is holding it.
Notice what is about to happen on that sidewalk because Dean can see it from inside the store and he will think about what he sees for a long time afterward. Walter Greer is at the door ahead of Wayne. He went through the door before Dean and Wayne finished their conversation slowly with the cloth bag in both hands and he is on the sidewalk outside when Wayne comes through.
Wayne catches up to him at the edge of the parking lot. Dean, from the end of the express lane, watches them. He cannot hear what they say. It is brief, the exchange of two strangers when one has done something for the other and the other is trying to find words that fit the thing and the words don’t quite fit and the man who did it is making it easy by not requiring them to fit.
Wayne says something. Walter says something. Wayne says something else. Walter nods once. Wayne puts his hand briefly on the man’s shoulder, not the grip, just the placement, the weight of it, and then takes it away and they separate. Walter walks east on Santa Monica. Wayne walks to his car.
Dean stands in the Gelson’s on Santa Monica Boulevard with his ginger ale and his saltines and his coffee and watches them both go and stands there a moment after they are gone. He walks to his car. He sits in the car for a while without starting it. The thing Wayne said is in his head. The problem isn’t that you think.
The problem is when the thinking gets between you and the moving. Dean Martin is 47 years old in that parking lot. He has 17 years left. He has spent the previous 27 years building something so large and so complete that it has become its own weather system, the Rat Pack, the television show, the records, the rooms in Vegas, the entire climate of a life conducted at a volume that the world decided early on to pay close attention to.
And in that climate, the gesture has always been large enough to be seen from the back of the room. The production has always been part of the point. What Wayne did in that express lane had no production in it at all. No room, no audience, no back of the room. Just a man short and another man next to him and 45 seconds and change from a 10 that he didn’t bother to count.
Dean is not a man who thinks slowly. The quickness is in him, the reflexes, the instinct for the room. But he is sitting in a parking lot on a Wednesday in March and the recording session is in 40 minutes and he is using the time the way the time deserves to be used. He thinks about the moments in his own life that have that quality.
The ones that happened before the thinking. The ones that didn’t become a story. He can count them. They are fewer than he would like. He starts the car. He drives to Capitol Records on Vine Street. The session runs from 10:00 to 1:00. He records three songs, two of which will be released and one of which will not.
He goes home to Bel Air. He has dinner. He watches television. He goes to bed. He does not mention the morning to anyone that day or the day after or the week after. It is not the kind of thing Dean Martin says out loud. But the men who worked with him in the years that followed, the musicians, the producers, the people who were in rooms with him when something happened that required a response, some of them described in the accounts that came later a quality that was hard to put a name to.
The way he moved in certain situations, the way something in him seemed to have already decided before anyone else in the room had finished registering the situation. The seeing and then the moving and the not making a production. He carried it the way he carried most things, quietly and without requiring anyone else to know he was carrying it.
Walter Greer walked back to the apartment on Formosa Avenue with his chicken broth and crackers and peanut butter and bananas in the cloth bag he brought from home. He put the groceries away. He made coffee. He sat at the table by the window that looked onto the street and drank the coffee.
He called his son Robert in Chicago that Sunday as he always did on the first Sunday of the month. He did not tell Robert about the Gelson’s on Santa Monica or the man in the express lane or the brief exchange on the sidewalk afterward. He said he was doing fine. Robert asked if he needed anything. Walter said no.
He said he was doing fine. He was doing fine in the specific way a man is doing fine when the week has produced something he did not expect and the something he did not expect has been good. Not large. Not the kind of good that changes the arithmetic of a life. The arithmetic of Walter Greer’s life in March of 1968 was unchanged by the transaction in the Gelson’s express lane. The apartment still cost $41.
The pension still covered what it covered. The knee still required attention on the stairs, but the walk home was different from the walk that would have followed the other version of the morning. The version where he put the peanut butter back and recounted the change and came home with the smaller set of groceries that fit inside $3.82.
That walk in the other version has a quality he knows well. He has taken it before in other stores with other shortfalls and he knows the weight of it. Not shame exactly. Something adjacent to shame. The particular awareness of a gap between what you intended and what you managed.
The walk in this version does not have that weight. It has the weight of a full cloth bag and the specific lightness that comes with carrying everything you came for. Robert Greer found out about the morning at the Gelson’s 14 years later. Not from his father. Walter Greer died in 1979 in the apartment on Formosa Avenue.
In the March of that year, 11 years to the month after the Wednesday in the express lane, he died in his sleep, which his doctor described as the best available outcome for a man of 78 with the knee and the heart and the 11 years of Formosa Avenue behind him. Robert came out from Chicago for the service and for the apartment.
He was going through his father’s things, the careful things, the organized things, the life of a man who kept what mattered and let go of what didn’t. And he found in the top drawer of the dresser beside the bed a folded piece of paper. Listen, because what was written on that paper is the reason this story exists at all.
On the paper, in his father’s handwriting, the deliberate even handwriting of a man who wrote by hand as a matter of habit and took the habit seriously, was a date. March 1968 and below the date a brief account. Not a story, exactly. More the notation of a man who wanted to have it written down somewhere for reasons that are not explained in the notation itself.
The express lane, the items, the man who said put it on one ticket, the conversation on the sidewalk, the hand on the shoulder. The account is nine lines long. It does not name John Wayne. It refers to him as the man in the flannel shirt, which is the way Walter Greer processed the morning, not as the morning he met a movie star, but as the morning the man in the flannel shirt was standing next to him and closed the gap.
The name is not the point. The man in the flannel shirt understood that the name was not the point. That was in some way the whole of it. Robert read the nine lines standing in the apartment on Formosa Avenue. He read them twice. He folded the paper and put it in his jacket pocket and kept it. He has it still.
John Wayne was 60 years old in the Gelson’s on Santa Monica Boulevard in March of 1968. He had 11 years left. He spent them the way he had spent the previous 40, working and paying attention and doing the thing when the thing presented itself without production, without ceremony, without requiring the moment to mean more than it meant.
A man short at a register, another man standing next to him with orange juice and bread and cottage cheese. The gap between those two facts was small enough to close with change from a 10. Wayne closed it and moved on. Dean Martin was 47 years old in the parking lot on Santa Monica Boulevard on that Wednesday morning. He had 17 years left.
He used some of them the way he could and some of them the way he wished he could and some of them in between, which is how years get used. He carried what he heard in the parking lot the way a man carries something when he has decided it is worth carrying. Without display, without announcement, in the ordinary transactions of an ordinary life conducted at an extraordinary volume.
The seeing, the moving, the not making a production. He got better at it over time. The people who were in rooms with him said so in the accounts that came later, without knowing they were describing something that started in a parking lot on a Wednesday in March with a bag of ginger ale and saltines and the right brand of instant coffee.
That was the whole of it. That was everything. If you enjoyed spending this time here, I’d be grateful if you’d consider subscribing. A simple like also helps more than you’d think. If this brought back a memory or a thought you’d like to share, leave it in the comments. I read every single one and I reply to each one personally.
