"I got $140 and I went to Washington Wholesale. I bought some candy, some sodas and some cookies, and I opened the door. On Monday, when I got up, I counted my money and I had $1,000. I said, 'I'm going to take this money and buy me a whole lot of stuff.' "
Fire Cracker, the red-hot pickled sausage, pork and beans, honey buns, Andre champagne, Epsom salts, calamine lotion, Peach Sweet Snuff.
Mattie McLain, co-owner of Carrie's Foodmart and Deli, talks to Domingo Salazar, who has come to buy cigarettes. Miss Mattie is closing out, having rented the store to a woman from Central America.
(Juana Arias -- The Washington Post)
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Soon she had so much money she didn't know what to do. "I took in enough so the thieves could have some and I had some and Carrie had some." She figured out the way to bring in business was to sell penny cookies because if the children came for the cookies, the adults would follow. From there, Mattie and Carrie opened seven more stores.
And they never closed -- except for two funerals. Either their mother's or father's (Miss Mattie can't remember which) and Jittybug's. Now that was a sad day.
"I didn't have no problem till they killed my friend right where you standing," Miss Mattie says. "From then on things got tight." Jittybug was on the phone when a kid came in and shot him in a botched robbery. "That took a lot out of me. But time take care of everything."
A jar of Skippy peanut butter, a can of stewed tomatoes, a bowl of rainbow-colored bubble gum, Tootsie Rolls. A can of shaving cream. A withered grapefruit.
From her window, she has seen the drug boys, seen them live and seen them die. Took in the thieves who would take, then come back and tell her, "Look, I took something. I'm going to come back and work it off." She knew they were stealing, but they were boys, hadn't yet experienced life. They were "my strength, my people." They were the ones who came back to help her move.
She's trying to make this her last day, but customers keep coming.
A rap at the door as the sun sinks. It's Angela Nance, who has come here since she was a little girl, when everyone called her Cookie because she had freckles. "Ain't no black girl have freckles," they said, so she'd wear glasses to cover them up, messing up her eyes.
"Miss Mattie, where you going? You should go visit somewhere. Take a trip!" Nance says, dreaming. "I would go to the Bahamas or Paris."
"I don't know nobody in Paris," Miss Mattie says. "Plus it take money to go to Paris."
"You can't take it with you," Nance says.
"If I go anywhere it will be to Georgia," Mattie says.
Chef Boyardee, Vintage #25 Steak Sauce, Real Mayonnaise.
In pushes Salvador Martinez de Salvador. He points.
"This is my Red Man Tobacco man here," Mattie says.
Martinez nods.
"This is going to be my last day," she tells him.
He smiles until a customer translates. Then he nods.
"But the next woman," says Mattie, "I think she from Guatemala, well, somewhere down there. She gonna take care of you."
You take mozzarella cheese and beef or pork, and pat with your hands, then fry it. Now, the pupusas are ready.
