at the sip and save, 1978

Eileen Toomey

The walk-in cooler
is my favorite spot
in the whole liquor store.
Cases of beer stacked
like buildings:
Budweiser, Old Style, Miller,
chimney necks
of Boone’s Farm wine.

I ask my mother
if we are middle class.
She laughs:

Oh no, not even close.

She carries two six packs
of Bud and a pint of Seagrams.
I walk behind her hefting
a two-liter of Seven-Up.
My parents are playing cards
at our house with friends:

Middle class
lives in the suburbs
or neighborhoods like Evergreen Park.
Not here.

Aunt Dorothy and Aunt Rita aren’t middle class?

No! Not even close.
They don’t even have husbands.

She puts the beer and whiskey
on the formica counter
between airplane bottles
of Jim Beam
and plastic lighters.
She asked for Winstons, and yes,
she wants matches.

Middle class people own china
and go on vacation every year.

We swing through
the heavy glass double doors,
the store bell
ringing behind us.

They have cottages
in Michigan and Wisconsin.

The 8 and Halsted bus
pauses at the stop
in front of the Sip and Save
letting off people I don’t know.

Are we poor?

No! We live
paycheck to paycheck
like everyone else.

But we own our house now!
I sing.

Yep.
Why are you asking me this?
She pauses at the car door.

Everything is good
until Daddy goes to the hospital again,
I insist.

She is already behind the wheel
opening her cigarette case,
impatient to get on with the night.
She will let me stir
the onion soup mix
into the sour cream,
squirt Easy Cheese
on a few Ritz crackers.

Tufty grass. Two-flats.
Chain link fences,
peeling paint,
crooked front porches.

Working class means
you pay your bills.

My mom pulls out of the parking lot,
cigarette balanced between her lipsticked lips,
smoke rising from the triangular side window.

You have your fun, though.

Eileen Toomey’s works have appeared in The Rumpus, The Tishman Review, Fish Food Magazine, The Eastern Iowa Review, and the Museum of Americana. She lives in Red Bank, NJ with her husband, Michael.