Dragonfly, Secondhand

by JOANNA BRICHETTO

At Goodwill last August, a thing flew past my face. I was near the however-many-toys-you-can-cram-in-a-bag-for-$2.99 table, which is where one might expect to meet projectiles, but the thing was not a Hot Wheels car or Nerf bullet. It was alive. And I was the only one who saw.

It perched on a T-shirt.

Goodwill tends to sort clothes by color, especially T-shirts. Men’s T-Shirts are visions of order. Only if hung in rainbow sequence could they be more beautiful. The flying thing aimed for the well-represented whites of the T-shirt spectrum. Right there on a shoulder seam: a dragonfly. Gorgeous. White body with black-striped wings in perch position: all four straight out and still. I kept still, too. When a shopper wheeled close, the dragonfly flew and I followed.

It perched on a ball cap.

Let me describe another merchandising tactic at which our Goodwill excels: Ballcaps. Above the highest wall rack around the perimeter of the store is a frieze of finishing nails. That many nails are necessary to accommodate donated ball caps because this is Nashville, and who doesn’t have at least five caps at home and two in the car? I don’t mean caps for ball games, although there will be some, but caps for every day: trucker hats. Mesh in back with snap closure, poly-cotton billboard in front with a logo. They are taller than athletic caps. Plenty of room for a dragonfly. 

The dragonfly had found a white cap. It paused. I paused. Were those wing stripes more brown than black? Hard to tell under fluorescent lights.

Here, I fretted someone would notice me acting weird, someone would notice the dragonfly, and someone would smack the dragonfly with secondhand sporting-goods equipment. But I was helpless to the chase. I tried to chase more casually.

Next, it flew to the color-coded Ladies’ Short-Sleeved Sweaters, and found another white shoulder. Then back to the white cap. What was up with all that white?

Not that color was my only question. Why was there a dragonfly in Goodwill? What kind was it? How could a dragonfly get out of Goodwill? How could I help a dragonfly get out of Goodwill?

I already knew that, every day, dragonflies throughout the world are losing habitat. I knew that in our own neighborhood the one storm sewer with a prayer of supporting semi-aquatic life got drained years ago. We found a baby snapping turtle there once, and another time, watched an orange salamander toddle across the nearest driveway. This was when we still had puddles: before “grade improvements.” After the grading: no wildlife, but SUVs in the driveway keep their tires clean.  

One of my Goodwill questions was easily answered later, with a field guide: common whitetail (Plathemis lydia), male. Known for perching on mud or on anything at all, known for basking in sun. Females lay eggs in shallow ponds after mating with the male who patrols the favored spot. Adults eat flying insects, can fly far from water, and do not live long: maybe a month, maybe more.   

There is no mud or sun at Goodwill. There is no water, unless one counts the Scary Bathroom We Never Use. There is no prey but the odd moth or mosquito. There are only shoppers, hunting for bargains.

If my family is wearing clothes (and we usually are), the clothes came from Goodwill (or Target), period. My clothes are even thriftier: they come from my kids’ hand-me-ups, which originally came from Goodwill (or Target). I get classroom materials at Goodwill. I get soccer cleats. I get Housewares, Books, Bedding, Toys, Office Supplies. Once, there was this pair of rubber hip-waders flopped all by their lonesome on top of Men’s Dress Shirts and had they been remotely close to my size I’d have bought them so fast my wallet would have been the flying projectile that day. Which goes to show that, though thrifty, I am not immune to impulse.

Impulse must explain why the dragonfly flew in. The shop is part of a busy, city grid, but its two glass doors face a railway easement across the street: a mini-wasteland of exotic thistle, bindweed, Johnson grass, and whatever else can survive railroad herbicides. Maybe those weeds looked like home. Maybe those double doors—so shiny when they open and close, open and close—shimmered like water. Maybe the male was on the hunt for new territory to patrol. And once he made it through the waterfall (double-glazed glass), he basked on pale mud (T-shirt, cap, sweater) to get his bearings.

When the dragonfly perched again on the white cap, I eased a neighboring cap off a nail and sidled toward him. In retrospect, I don’t remember being self-conscious at that moment. I was predator, he was prey, and we were all that was. My trucker hat ate him in one go, and with my other hand I swooped his ball cap under and in. I race-walked toward the door but detoured to the cashier nearest it to gush, I hope intelligibly, “I’ve captured a dragonfly in these hats and I’m going to set it free outside and I’ll be right back.” Because at this point, with my prey caught, we were no longer all that was, and I felt I had to explain why I was leaving the store with two hats I did not stand in line to pay for. The lady raised her chin as an Okay, whatever.

The waterfall parted with a push of my hip, and I stopped at the edge of the concrete porch. I faced the easement and the sun. I straightened my arms and lifted the trucker hat from the white one. The dragonfly shot toward the little field, away, completely. Gone.

I wanted to look for him, to scan the railroad weeds for a pond or even a puddle, to see that he stayed completely gone, but was too nervous about stolen merchandise so I turned around.

The doors looked like doors.

I had a smile ready for the cashier when I would tell her It was fine, the dragonfly was free, and thanks, but she didn’t look up so I didn’t say it. In that crowded store, I was still the only person to see the dragonfly.

What if I hadn’t been there? What would have happened? If a dragonfly falls in the Goodwill, and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?

Slow now, and tired, I stepped past customers and children and carts to loop back to the frieze, to hook the hats back on their respective nails. And then I perched. To get my bearings. I stood in an aisle—any aisle, I can’t remember which—and basked in fluorescence, trying to think what I’d come to Goodwill for in the first place.