“Pack of Marlboro Reds, please.”
A stitch of a short Story Unbound, “He Hits Me Because he Loves Me.” Write the story with us.
I hear make the demand, but I’m busy watching the woman — who I’ve caught stealing three times — roam the aisles. She is good. Sneaky. I wonder if she knows the owner does inventory once a week, and anything that comes up short is divided evenly amongst the employees and taken out of our paychecks.
America.
The tall guy with the beard paid for cigarettes in exact change, like he always does. It’s too bad his wife wasn’t with him today. She’s easy on the eyes. As he walked out, the thief placed a bottle of vodka, a tall can, and an airplane-size bottle of Tequila on the counter.
Purchases like these are telling.
A very specific type of person buys these small bottles of liquor — the type who is going to drink and drive home. They can’t wait so they buy a small, easily concealable bottle they can swig in my parking lot before hitting the road. They pretend that if they just drink the mini-bottles, they only have a mini-drinking problem.
I sell these small bottles to people who have shaking hands, not just wanting the drink, but needing the drink, getting drunk in $0.99 increments. It’s sad, really. Americans are funny like that. Every day I sell these people an escape to oblivion.
But what are they escaping from?
I came to America nine years ago from Bihar, India, along the river Ganges, where each day we welcomed gifts from those living up-river: sewage, industrial waste, and the occasional religious offering, wrapped in non-degradable plastic.
Despite living along a river full of raw sewage, nobody tried to escape. Nobody got drunk. Drugs were non-existent. We dealt with it. We faced it. Nobody ran from their problems. Hell, the putrid stench of that river is what drove me to work so hard to get out. I wanted out. I got out! And here I am, selling alcohol to citizens of the most powerful nation on earth, because they can’t deal with their problems.
I respected Americans until I got to America.
“$9.84 please,” I tell her. I’m not asking.
She pulls out her EBT card, as if I’m going to let her pay for alcohol with food stamps.
“No. You can’t use EBT,” I say, pointing to a sign on the counter that says the same exact thing.
“Nice try, though,” I tell her. She glances up as if she’s going to say something, but lacks the courage to follow through.
I watch as she pulls out two one-dollar bills, and then starts digging for change.
This is going to take a while.
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