I decided to go to the local market for an aloe drink on this day on which most Americans are worshipping their One True God. As I entered the store Megan told me that I had to come over to her register so she could tell me what happened at 8:30 in the morning, with their first customer.
I grabbed the aloe drink and stood in line at Mike’s register behind some stoned mixed-race junkie that had a tattoo on his neck that read “Fear the Beard,” just below his beard. He mumbled through a mouth full of lemon cake as he tore open another package of snacks and drooled all over his gray hooded sweatshirt, “Go on around, man. I’m not in line.”
Mike shook his head in disgust at this munching fiend who was using his register as a banquet table, and told me to have a nice day.
I then went over to Megan—as the day after Thanksgiving is the slowest day in retail food annually, ad she had no customers—and inquired, pen and register receipt in hand:
“I clock in at eight-thirty just as the first customer comes up front, an older black man. I’ve got three cashiers, all black, and me. He buys a coffee and gets in Tanishia’s line. He is taking his time and she has this nervous habit of clicking the key on her register. He yells at her, “Stop smacking your lips at me, niցցer!”
He then drops his five on the belt and she picks it up. He yells at her for touching his money so I tell her, “Tanishia, step back. I’ll refund his purchase. Sir, you can buy your coffee elsewhere today.”
He then glares at me, “You’re just a mean-ass niցցer bitch!”
I said, “That’s funny, last time I looked in the mirror I was a mean-ass Polish bitch! You can get the hell out!”
Then he says, “Awl, y’all jus’ a pack a niցցers!”
Then Jeremy comes out from behind his register flexing his fists and yelling, “Who you callin’ niցցer, niցցer?! We can take this shit outside right now!”
“I grabbed Jeremy and held him back while that mean old man cussed us on the way out the door.”
On my way across the street to the alleyway I saw Mister Africa coming across the lot. The locals call him Jingles, for the many sleigh bells he wears on his flowing African robes all year round, and hangs from his knit dreadlock sack. He has a beard, a reddish cast to his complexion, and always walks with a large satchel and a cane, complete with shepherd bells.
I waved to him and said, “Hey, Mister Africa.”
He Held his shepherd’s crook up, jangled it, and greeted, “Good afternoon, My Brother,” and continued on his way, an enigma, who walks up my street every day, looking like a biblical patriarch out of a children’s book.
On my way up to the house I see a speeding cop car with lights and no sirens. When I get home I hear the BPD chopper coming closer.
I am so glad that I am just a supermarket clerk, and no longer a manager.
