I was tired, and it had never before occurred to me that I could spend so much money on bleach. The bottles were lined up on a shelf like they were waiting for something. The grocery store lights reflected off the white plastic and multicolored labels that read things like “environmentally-safe.” They promised to redefine “clean.” My old roommate had poured bleach into the kitchen sink to keep it sparkling. He’d used it on his laundry too. I only used detergent, though. I never worried about the sink. Then, I lived alone, and bleach had become just as fascinating as anything could be, a heading in the life cycle chart.

            I stared at the bottles as they sat patiently before me, still against the endless movement of shoppers and their carts, the Saturday afternoon crowd preparing for the week ahead. Bleach companies were selling me science at its very peak. Some of the products were even safe to drink. Others were not. Forty-two-ninety-nine for vibrant whites and glowing porcelain. I picked up the bottle and then put it back down again. A teenager in a black apron and a nametag wheeled a pallet of instant noodles past me.

            “Is this the most expensive bleach you’ve got?” I asked.

            The kid parked his pallet and poked around at the display. Dandruff flakes were like salt in his hair.

            “It looks like it’s going to be this forty-dollar bottle here, yeah,” he said.

            “You don’t have any more in the back?”

            “We just have what’s on the shelves.”

            The kid turned to walk away.

            “Do you know why it’s so much more expensive than the six-dollar bottle?” I asked.

            He took the bottle off the shelf and studied the label.

            “It says here that it’s good on outdoor stains as well as indoor stains,” he said. “I think it’s really just that the bottle’s bigger, though.”

            “What makes outdoor stains different from indoor stains?”

            “I don’t know, man. The cheaper bottle is probably fine.” 

            “That won’t do,” I said.

            The kid shook his head.

            “Can I help you find anything else today?” he asked. He looked like he was ready to get on with his day, all rigid and eager like a shark who would die as soon as he stopped moving.

            “No,” I said. “I’m just looking for bleach, and I want the good stuff, the nicest bleach in the city.”

            He went back to his pallet and continued down the aisle. I left the store without buying anything. It was almost noon, but it was dark outside on account of the clouds. I was wearing my heavy coat. Blackbirds picked at trash in the parking lot. I passed them on my way toward another grocery store across the shopping center. A shaggy-haired employee wrangled a line of shopping carts near the store’s entrance. I tried to ask him if the store sold bleach, but he had headphones in his ears. I unzipped my coat and went inside to see for myself. This store wasn’t as busy as the first one had been, and it wasn’t as brightly lit either. It specialized in organic grocery options and brands that I had never heard of. I didn’t recognize most of the products.

            I very nearly stepped out in front of a woman with a fleece vest and a stroller. She smiled without using her teeth, a forced, pitying smile. I nodded back at her. I followed her down an aisle and found cleaning supplies. A few bottles of bleach were wedged there between dish soap and paper towels. They were more expensive than the products that I had seen at the other store.

            The woman left her stroller between me and the bleach as she sorted through paper towels. I tried to look over the top of the stroller at the bleach without coming too close and making the woman uncomfortable. She glanced at me and then apologized as she moved the stroller. I stepped up to the shelf and picked up a bottle of the most expensive bleach. It was all natural, chlorine-free. I put it back. I needed the real thing. I read the label of a second bottle and found that it was also chlorine-free. I dropped it when I tried to return it to the shelf. It bounced off the tile floor and nearly hit the child in the stroller. The woman wheeled the stroller around and looked at her baby. The kid just smiled.

            “Oh my God,” I said. “I’m so sorry.”

            “It’s fine. It happens. Just be more careful next time.”

            “It won’t happen again.”

            She further inspected her child. I headed for another grocery store down the street. The sky was still covered in clouds. Cars passed me as I walked. I thought about the drivers as they rolled over the blacktop. I probably envied them. A dog poked its head out of a pickup truck. Its tongue went wild over the side of its face. It barked and was gone over a hill in front of me.

            On the other side of the hill, the line of cars honked and beeped at one another. Construction had halted traffic in one of the lanes, and the truck with the dog was caught behind a stoplight. It barked at me again. I almost smiled. Then I saw the grocery store and crossed the intersection. I considered petting the dog as I passed but decided against it. It was still barking when the truck sped off. Puffs of black diesel smoke followed along behind it and soured the air for blocks. I like to imagine that the dog never stopped barking for me.

            A chalkboard sign outside the third grocery store was covered with a list of sale items and drawings of pumpkins and falling leaves. The store itself was decorated as if the shoppers were adventurers who were leaving the city to pick up goods from all over the world. A mountain range mural covered the farthest wall from the door and someone had draped leis over a display of tropical fruit.

            On my way inside, I stopped and looked at some flowers on an end cap. They were no longer bright but instead had grown dark with the clouds over the city. They drooped, ashamed to show their faces. I left them behind and tried to find an associate to ask about the bleach. A redhead with a beard stocked sparkling water in glass bottles and didn’t seem to notice me. The bottles already on the shelf were scattered and haphazard. The man added new bottles to the clutter without straightening them. I stood behind him and watched him work for a few minutes, but he never turned around or said anything to me.

            I walked the aisles alone with my hands in my pockets. I wanted to look as if I belonged there or anywhere. The items tossed about the shelves were all generic plays at popular products from other stores, but I had to pretend that I was used to that sort of thing. I could buy “Admiral Pops” cereal or “Chocolate Wafers Filled with Cream,” just like anyone else. I once had a friend who shopped at the store before he was arrested for manufacturing methamphetamine. He’d never told me about all the generic brands. He would have said they were on-par, if not better, than the name brands. I don’t know if I would have believed him.

            I decided that I wouldn’t likely find what I was looking for and left. I sat alone on the curb outside and wondered whether or not I should just return to the first store and buy my bleach there. I looked for the truck with the dog, but I couldn’t hear any barking. The world was darker than it was supposed to be, and I hoped the sun would soon come out again. It was nearing evening. I couldn’t imagine staying awake much longer.

            A pair of teens pushed past me on skateboards. They laughed together. They wore shorts and loose tank top shirts. I sighed. Their laughing continued long after I could no longer see them, just like the dog.

            I knew of one other grocery store in the neighborhood. It was corporate-owned and always busy. There, people stood in long lines behind self-checkout registers without talking to one another. It had an unfriendly tile floor that turned grey under the ceiling lights. It had a blue-painted stripe along the walls. It was less than a mile away from home. The sky was growing darker. I kept my head down and started walking.

            When I got to the store, I looked over the signs that hung above the aisles and found the cleaning supplies much more quickly than I had at the other stores. They had all the well-known products the first store had, but their stock was more robust. I could only imagine my old roommate having to sort through so many bottles of bleach each week. Again, I checked the prices. I ignored the giant-sized bottles and sorted through the others. I could smell the thick and bitter cloud that followed me across town. I could feel dirt caked onto my wrists and ankles. I’d caught up with myself. It was time to buy bleach. I settled on a name-brand bottle I could have picked up anywhere.

            Other people’s hands reached around me and picked up their own bottles of bleach. I wondered if they knew what they were buying, if they really knew anything about bleach or about being clean. I took the bottle with me and stood in one of the checkout lines manned by a store employee. A couple in front of me argued as they unloaded their shopping cart. I held my bleach against my body and stared at the ground.

            The lady working the register was crying. She was an older woman with straight gray hair that hadn’t been brushed and that clung together in matted strands that fell onto her shoulders. She sniffled and cried and put the couple’s groceries into plastic bags. They kept arguing as if they were unaware of her. Then they paid for their groceries and pushed their cart out of the store and into the weary world.

            “Are you the praying type?” the cashier asked me as she scanned my bleach.

            “Every now and again, sure.”

            “Give a prayer of thanks today. My son won enough money to pay the rent.” Tears rolled down her face. “I thought we were going to move, but now we get to stay.”

            The woman raised her hands up over her head in praise. I thought about the bleach.

            “That’s truly something,” I said.

            “Your total is $7.84.”

            I handed her a ten-dollar bill. It was wrinkled from having been balled-up in my pocket, but it spent the same.

            “Keep the change,” I said.

            “I really can’t do that.”

            I picked up my bleach and started toward the door. Outside, the faintest afternoon glow gave way to a dark that would make a man forget it could ever be light again. Cars piled up in every intersection after their drivers got off work. I passed the people who waited for the bus. They smelled like worn leather and cigarette smoke. An ecstatic rubber man with a shopping cart filled with teddy bears asked me if I wanted to buy one. I told him I didn’t. He followed me, so I stepped into the hardware store at the corner to avoid him. A man in a walking boot watched the sky from the front of the store. I asked him what had happened to his foot. He said he’d dropped some merchandise on it. He said it didn’t hurt too bad. He said he couldn’t pass a drug test for workman’s compensation. I told him I was looking for bleach.

            “But it looks to me like you’ve already got some bleach right there in your hand,” he said.

            “I’m looking to see if there’s something better than this,” I said. “This is my backup bleach.”

            “We’ve got something better than that.”

            He picked up a two-way radio from a nearby cash register.

            “Can we get someone to cleaners for a customer inquiry?” he asked into the radio. He turned back to me. “Go down aisle thirteen, all the way down to the back. He’ll meet you there.”

            I did as he said. A man poked at a cellphone at the end of the aisle. He had curly hair gelled to the top of his head like a scab. We’d gone to high school together.

            “I didn’t know that you worked here,” I said.

            “Have for six months,” he said. “How are you?”

            He looked me up and down like I’d walked in through the wall. His voice was rough and cracking between his vocal folds. I could hardly remember then what it sounded like when someone had words specifically meant for me. I wished for a moment in which to hide at the back of the store and listen to him talk to somebody else, only so I could know how his voice changed when he spoke to me.

            “I’m here,” I told him.

            “That’s great, I guess.”

            “I’m looking for the best bleach you have to offer,” I said.

            He didn’t miss a beat.

            “Oh, you want some of this industrial stuff,” he said.

            He picked up a translucent bottle and handed it to me. I watched its contents splash around inside. I watched them reach up to the lid and then fall back in place. My mouth was open. I could smell my own breath.

            “What makes it good?” I asked.

            “This is straight chemicals, the stuff they use in ‘extreme cleaning situations.’”

            He knew the terminology. Someone had done right by hiring him.

            “Will it take care of absolutely any job?” I asked.

            “No doubt,” he said.

            “It’s the nicest bleach you’ve got?”

            “The best bleach I’ve ever seen.”

     He patted me on the back and walked with me to the front of the store. There, the man I’d spoken to before rang up my purchase. I dug through my pockets for a wad of dollar bills to pay for the bleach. My former classmate wished me luck before I left. There were a handful of leaves scattered on the sidewalk outside. They marched nervously in circles beneath the wind. They knew the days were getting shorter.

            A woman pulled a stroller behind her bicycle in the parking lot. The stroller was filled with clothes she’d found in trashcans. When I’d seen her before on the street, she’d asked me to help her find more clothes to fill the stroller. This time, she didn’t say anything. I must have been a ghost. The thought tickled me beneath my coat. I ignored her and continued on my way, bleach in each hand. I could hear car horns. I laughed at the drivers.

            I turned into my neighborhood. The sidewalk was empty. A woman jogged on the street. Houses glared down with their chipped paint and lit-up panes. Inside one of the homes, a man in overalls sipped on his drink and watched me through the window. I made eye contact with him and then looked away. He turned out the lights as I passed his house.

            I approached a familiar overpass. Traffic screeched on the highway overhead. Someone was sleeping in a loft he’d fashioned out of blankets underneath the highway. The figure sat up and looked down at me as I came nearer to him. Then he lay back down, and I couldn’t see him from where I was standing.

            The evening had grown cold. I was glad I still had my coat. I leaned against the overpass with both bottles of bleach in my hands. When I closed my eyes, the bottles seemed to weigh about the same. I set them on the sidewalk and opened the name-brand bottle. I tossed the plastic seal into the street. When I smelled the bleach, it smelled about how I would have expected it to smell. I poured a little onto the ground in front of me, but I didn’t notice any difference in the color or cleanliness of the concrete. I spilled some more. Maybe a tiny change. I couldn’t tell. I poured out the rest of the bottle. The name-brand bleach was garbage. I couldn’t believe I’d spent my money on it.

            I picked up the other bottle from the sidewalk and looked at it. It seemed stale and unimportant, though I knew it couldn’t be any worse than the name-brand bleach was. It had come recommended. The sky was totally dark by that point. The sun was lost somewhere in the purple tar above me. I had trouble reading the fine print on the bleach bottle. Cars kept rumbling on top of the overpass. A breeze had me shivering, even with my coat. It had to be the breeze, because I had no other reason to shiver.

            I opened the bleach. I poked a hole in the seal with my thumb, but I didn’t tear it off completely as I had the other bottle. It smelled about the same, but it was richer, somehow, as if someone had put their heart and soul into it. I put the bottle to my mouth and poured its contents down my throat. Whatever I couldn’t swallow ran down my chin and onto my coat. It burned like holy fire and smelled like an indoor swimming pool. I closed my eyes and lay on the sidewalk beneath the overpass. I only heard the engines of cars and the tiny jumps of tires over uneven roadways. It sounded like a parade. Soon, the burning swallowed me whole, and I was changed into fire. I knew then I’d be home again soon, that I’d found the nicest bleach in the city.