Brer Rabbit and the Women of Kroger

In my twenties, it seemed like the world was filled with beautiful women, all lined up, ready to pick, like the produce department at Kroger with better music. All I had to do was know the difference between the ripe and the green and watch out for the bruised or spoiled.

I began to develop a reputation for being inconsistent and inconsiderate with the single women in Jackson. If something powerful wasn’t holding me to somebody, I’d sample the wares and then move on after two or three dates. Sex was common and plentiful—probably too common. I began to expect the same from everyone, which wasn’t fair. If someone didn’t respond like the last four did, I’d discuss it for an hour, then move on and never call again.

I think the real problem was that I didn’t know what I wanted out of life, and if I didn’t know what I wanted out of life, how could I know what I wanted out of a companion? And, if I didn’t know what I wanted out of a companion, then cutting somebody off after a half-hearted effort wasn’t really denying them anything of any value. Not knowing what I wanted in life made me a pretty low-value boyfriend, and I knew that, so I kept moving.

There were a couple of ways to keep my attention with one person rather than moving on to the next. One girl figured out that if she called every night at about the same time, she could keep my attention almost indefinitely. When I was so sick last year, she started calling at the same time every night again. “This is so strange,” I said. “It’s like the last thirty-five years never happened.”

There were times when she would call and be promised to someone else. I always assumed that meant she was ready to move on from the other guy. It really bothered her, though. Then he started doing the same to her, and I don’t think she felt so bad.

I never tried talking to one girl while promised to another, but that shouldn’t be particularly impressive because my idea of being promised to somebody wasn’t normal. I never promised myself to anyone because I loved them or because they loved me, but because something was happening in their life, and they made me believe they needed me. Having somebody say they need you can make you feel very powerful but also make you feel very lonely.

One night, I randomly met a girl I hadn’t seen in a while at M&M’s in Banner Hall. Saying “hello,” I learned she was single again, and I began to call. After a few dates, our relationship was unremarkable but pleasant.

One day, I heard she lost her job under questionable circumstances. I called to say I was sorry. I offered to buy her dinner, intending to listen to her complaints for a few hours, and she’d feel better and then move on with my life.

After a while, she started to ask if I could help her find a new job. I said I’d be happy to keep an ear out for any new opportunities; being her friend, that seemed reasonable.

She asked if there were any positions she might take at my father’s company. I said that I didn’t think there were, but more than that, it really wasn’t a good idea to bring somebody from my personal life into the company. That wouldn’t be fair to the other employees.

That’s when she began trying to really sell me on the idea. Knowing I was interested in her before, she used that to get my attention, holding my hands and touching her feet to mine under the table. “How about a temporary position?” I offered as a compromise. “You can work for me for half a day and then spend the rest of the day looking for a more permanent position. That way, you’ll have a little money coming in and a place to take phone calls and use the fax machine for potential employers.”

I knew full well that people at work would click their tongues if I showed up with a girlfriend as an employee. “It’s just temporary,” I told myself—and them, only it didn’t turn out that way.

At work, it became pretty convenient to ask this pretty girl I’d been out with before, “What are you doing for dinner?” and end up on another date, even though I was starting to have pretty serious doubts about what I was getting into.

At one of these impromptu dinners, she talked me into hiring her full-time in a management training position, which was not that different from the job she lost. I’m still not sure how she managed it. I was pretty set against the idea.

Feeling like I’d lost an important tactical negotiation, I laid out pretty specific goals and parameters for her job. If she met those, we agreed, nobody could claim I was giving her an unfair advantage because of our personal relationship; she’d be making the company a clear profit. That seemed reasonable. Money is money.

After a few months of this, she decided she didn’t want to date anymore. As long as she started producing according to the guidelines we laid out when she was hired, I didn’t feel like I had anything to complain about. That seemed reasonable.

That should have been the end of it, but it wasn’t. Since part of her compensation was based on her performance, she wouldn’t have that much money to spend when she didn't meet performance goals, which was nearly every month.

When that happened, she would again appeal to our personal connection. When I resisted, she started doing what she had done before, holding my hands, touching her feet to mine, and asking why I didn’t call anymore.

I told her I couldn’t advance her any money from the company because that wouldn’t be fair to everybody else. I said I could possibly make her a personal loan, but even that didn’t seem fair because I couldn’t afford to do it for every employee who came up short a few dollars.

Any argument I made about treating her differently from the other employees wouldn’t sink in at all. She had my number, and she intended to use it. Predictably, once I gave her the money she wanted, all those questions of “When are we going to get together again?” turned into “Oh, I can’t go this weekend; try again sometime.”

One day, she yet again failed to meet her sales projections, projections I’d twice revised downward at her insistence. Her brother was coming into town, and she needed cash to entertain him.

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m involved with someone else now. I don’t know how she’d feel if she found out I gave you money.”

The look on her face told me this was some sort of betrayal. I was supposed to be available on demand. “Well, don’t tell her.” was her response.

At that moment, I began calculating my exit strategy. This had to end. Every week, I’d remind her of what her sales goals were and what she’d actually accomplished. Every month, I laid out precisely how much she cost the company versus how much she brought in and the difference between the two.

“I wasn’t being supportive,” she complained. I insisted that we had worked together to set her sales goals, which we twice revised downward. I was under pressure and criticism for hiring my friends rather than being impartial, but it would all work out if she just did the job she was hired to do.

I began to talk with my father about the best and fairest way to separate myself from this woman. “I thought you really liked her,” he said.

“I thought I did, too, but I don’t know if what she wants from me is what I want to give,” I said. That probably sounded confused and cryptic, but I didn’t want to admit to my father that I let somebody fool me into thinking she liked me, so I’d give her money and a job.

It was a good five or six years after this before I was willing to admit to myself, or anyone else, that this woman never had anything but bad intentions where I was concerned. She could talk me into giving her whatever she wanted. To her, that meant she deserved it, and I let her do it.

This would have never happened had I pursued the career and life I wanted. Happy, well-adjusted people attract other happy, well-adjusted people. Miserable people attract other miserable people.

Limping along, trying to please everybody but myself, left me open, ripe for anyone with unscrupulous intentions. If it weren’t her, it would have been somebody like her. I should be grateful it wasn’t somebody with considerably more evil in their heart willing to try and take me for much more.

I knew so many beautiful, utterly ethical girls; hooking into one that wasn’t was probably my punishment for not appreciating the ones that were. I thought I could coast as far as women were concerned, and somebody wonderful would find me. It never worked out that way. Stepping my foot in a trap like this didn’t make anything any better.

Joel Chandler Harris was a reporter in Georgia. His life spanned from twenty years before the Civil War to the turn of the new century. In his most famous work, Harris collected stories from among Georgia's former slaves and published them under the name “Uncle Remus.”

His most famous story involved the eternal protagonist Brer Rabbit, who was fooled by Brer Fox and Brer Bear, who built a dummy out of tar to trick and trap Brer Rabbit when he stopped to say “hello” to this sticky bait.

“Tar Baby” had always been a racist euphemism for African children, sort of like “pickaninny” or “gator bait.” Harris changed it so that the “tar baby” became a fraud to entrap his African rabbit protagonist.

One night, I was marinating my troubles in whiskey and branch water, and I complained to the barkeep, “All I did was stop and say hello to this woman, and look what it got me.” Brer Rabbit found his freedom when they threw him in the briar patch. It took a while to find my briar patch, but once I did, I was truly free.

Except for this one woman, I’m still friends with nearly all the fresh produce I chased when I was young. One, in particular, didn’t live long enough to read this story, even though she was the “other woman” I began seeing in the middle of the story. After all this time, I suspect she would just laugh. “Life is tough, dude.” She’d say.

Bad things happen to good people when they’re in the wrong place. I stopped and said hello to a beautiful woman made of tar when I should have been looking for somebody who understood I was meant for different things in life. A thing like that can get a fella pretty confused and confounded for a while.