The Last One

The clerk told me I could find it in aisle 7, but as much as I looked, up and down the shelves, left to right and back again, I couldnā€™t find it, not a one. It didnā€™t seem like the right aisle at all, since the things I did see were totally unrelated items. For instance, there was shaving cream and after-shave, old brands, like Burma Shave and Aqua Velva. I knew there was something about an Aqua Velva man, but I was sure I didnā€™t want to know what it was. There were books, two books to be precise, both collections of racy cartoons, Over Sexteen and Sam, the Ceiling Needs Painting. I saw packages of Sichuan peppercorns and French ticklers, side by side. Lug nuts galore. A couple of 45 rpm records, ā€œThe Ballad of the Green Berets,ā€ by Sgt. Barry Sadler and ā€œGallant Men,ā€ by Senator Everett Dirksen. A travel-size navel-lint remover. Legal formsā€”assisted death templates from a state that permits such things. A few splits of Chianti, in those straw-covered bottles. Chinese coloring books from the Cultural Revolution. Environmentally friendly toilet bowl cleaner, in unscented and fresh scent. But not what I was looking for. I caught the clerkā€™s attention as he was passing buy. ā€œAre you sure you told me the right aisle?ā€ I said. ā€œI canā€™t find any.ā€ He came over, moved some sticks of dynamite on the bottom shelf, and found one that had fallen behind the dynamite. He handed it to me. ā€œYouā€™re in luck,ā€ he said. ā€œThe last one.ā€