DUE TO THE COST OF AMMO WE NO LONGER FIRE A WARNING SHOT, says the black cap on the grizzled shopper’s head. He has limped up using a cane, clutching a bag of multicolored mini-marshmallows. That’s all you’ve got? I say, waving him ahead of me at the back of the little grocery’s one line. Which promptly stalls, so the micro-kindness flops. Several employees cluster around the register, where something or other isn’t adding up. I’m gonna be late to pick up our fur baby, Ammo Man tells me after a bit, voice creaking like a rusty seesaw. My wife’ll kill me. You’d better run, I say. And then: Sorry, that was a bad way of—which he interrupts with: Don’t worry about it, buddy. So I reach for the marshmallows and say, I’ll take care of that. He hands them over, tips his cap, limps on out.

Driving to the liquor store, I see a wild-eyed guy in a tracksuit jogging on the sidewalk, holding a taut leash that’s attached to an ostrich. Not jogging, actually—more like being towed. Stop and render aid, my gut says, but my brain proceeds to the destination. Inside, near the beer, a woman with a gray ponytail approaches a man with a gray ponytail and says, I saw a dude on TV being interviewed at a Trump rally yesterday who looked exactly like you. Me too! Gray Man responds. I saw him too! Back home with the wine, I relay all of this to my husband, who says, Are you sure it wasn’t an emu? I’m sure, I say, then ask if he knows why both of those big birds bury their heads in the sand. He doesn’t. They don’t, I say. We’re the ones who do that.

At the beauty parlor getting an almost crew cut, I listen to the gaunt woman in the next chair talk about her new job monitoring self-checkout stations at Walmart. Fifty cents less an hour, she tells the stylist, but it’s sooo much less stressful than the old job. Then comes a yarn about a lady who lost it the other day when asked to show a receipt for some strawberry-flavored lube and a pressure cooker. She started pulling hundred-dollar bills out of her camo purse, Walmart Woman says. She was waving them around and screaming, Bitch, do you think I can’t afford this shit? I said, Ma’am, I’m going to have to get my Taser out unless you calm the fuck down in five seconds or less. Where were you working before? I can’t resist asking. Oh sweetheart, she says, looking at me for the first time, I ran the cafeteria at the elementary school here.

In a jumble of jars at the ass end of his trailer, the Canning Master is hunting for the blackberry jam I crave and finding everything else—mayhaw jelly, chowchow, pickled okra, pickled jalapeños. Plus a half-rack of deer antlers and chainless chainsaw. Gotta be some here somewhere, he coos to the milk-eyed Jack Russell at his feet. Right, Baby Boy? Poor old fucker’s deaf, he whispers to me. Then reaches under an ashen avalanche of beard, pulls a tobacco pouch from the top pocket of his overalls, rolls a cigarette with one hand. Licks the strip, surveying me from tip to toe. Pops it in the corner of his mouth but doesn’t light it. Ain’t married, are you, he says, massaging his naked ring finger. I’m about to contradict him when crimson spots on the plywood floor distract me. Looks like blackberry juice here! I blurt. Those’re just blood drops from the dog’s penis, the master says. He sends me out with a jamless armful of concoctions, discounted over my protests. We linger in the muddy driveway, under leafless oaks. Something’s smoldering in a rusted trash barrel. A rooster crows in the collapsing light. Yep, he says, patting his pickup’s hood, I really need to clean this place up. But you know how bachelors are.

So you work for the university? the baby-faced optician asks, eyeing my purple cap. Just married to the mob, I say. He giggles while studying my insanely lopsided glasses. You sure did a number on these, didn’t you? I was rushing to get into the shower and sat on them, I say. He titters again while twisting the frame back toward normalcy. Your wife teaches up there? I don’t have a wife, I say, expecting to kill the chitchat. He squints at me through my lenses. Wipes them clean, hands them back, bites his lip. Is your T-shirt supposed to mean something? he asks, nodding at the rainbow-colored goose. My husband, I say, is a theater professor. Vision Man turns sunburn red. He scans the room, but no one is watching us. Everything’s going to be all right, I say. Well, not everything. You know what I mean. You’re going to be all right. And these glasses are as good as new. Thank you.