He eyed me up and down. She was doing the same, getting her first good look, probably surprised to learn she’d been chasing something in the line of grade-school cock.
“Do we need to call somebody, son? Or are you going to give this lady her money?”
“For Christ’s sakes,” I said. “It’s my goddamn money.”
“I don’t think so,” he said. “And your foul mouth isn’t helping you any.”
“Sorry. But it’s my money.”
The guy rolled his eyes. I was hugging my backpack in both arms like every friend I didn’t have. He would have to kill me for it.
He looked around at the gang of late-night shoppers watching the show. “Did any of y’all see this boy mugging my customer?”
Nobody said a word. They got interested in the snacks or souvenir bottle openers at hand. His so-called customer was now in a righteous old-lady snit, giving a fair impression of sober. Somewhere between outside and now, she’d pulled on this pink housedress or shirt type thing that made her look like somebody’s mammaw with a bad hand for makeup. She must have been living out of the giant purse. She buttoned her top button and sniveled. “It’s my pin money I been saving up that I keep in a peanut butter jar. This here little boy grabbed the jar out of my purse.”
This here little boy that one minute ago you wanted to party with, I thought. And not a person here was going to believe me. Because under the bright lights, this crap-jacked world is what it is and we were what we were: a grown-up and a kid.
“You were watching me like a damn hawk,” I told the cash register guy. “You saw me go in the men’s, and if you’ve got any eyes you saw her go in the men’s. She followed me in there trying to talk me into a …”
“That’s enough of that,” he said, holding up his big knuckly hand. I was terrified he would put it over my mouth. Because I knew what I would do.
“Just look in his backpack thing,” she said. “See if he’s got my jar in there.” Higher and mightier than you’d think possible for a truck-stop hooker. How could this guy not recognize her, if she was a regular? But what did I know. Maybe they shopped around.
“A Jiffy peanut butter jar,” she said. “Full of dimes and quarters.”
Holy shit. She didn’t even know about the bills. She must have seen it under the door while all the real cash was on my lap.
“Ask her how much money was in there,” I said. “If she gets it right, she can have it.”
That got her wailing. “I don’t know, I don’t know! It’s all my spare change I been saving up forever, how am I supposed to know how much it is?”
Customers were now shuffling over to the register.
“Nobody thinks you’re funny, kid. Give the lady her money and I’ll let you go.”
“It’s my money. Sir. She came in the bathroom and saw me with it, and now she’s scamming you, trying to get it away from me.”
I tried staring him down. He crossed his arms, shook his head, all the signs of “We’re done here and you are screwed.” I considered bolting out the door, running away into the dark. I was faster than anybody here. And he’d get the cops out on me for sure.
“Do I need to call your parents?” he asked.
I laughed. “Good luck with that.”
He didn’t get the joke. “Can I see some form of identification?”
“Form of identification like what?” I asked, and he named some things, driver’s license, school ID, nothing I had or ever did have. It dawned on me that I could get run over flat on the highway out there, and nobody would know or care what to call the carcass. Roadkill.
By this time the whole place is on edge, crazy lady caterwauling, people shifting around in the checkout line, and Willie throws a sucker punch that doubles me over. Grabs my backpack. Professional-quality moves. I can’t even catch my breath before he’s pulled out the jar and is asking all high-handed, “What do you call this, you little fucker?” Shaking it in my face like now he’s got me ha-ha, while the rage blows up in my gut, and the hooker bitch is all, I told you! Only she’s wide-eyed, seeing we are talking money plural, major bucks. Her shrieking goes sky-high. Singing her happy song of getting shitfaced for the foreseeable month of Sundays.
It doesn’t even seem real, seeing this guy put my money in her hands. With all those people watching, not one soul on my side. Nothing to do but punch the magazine rack so hard it crashes over, spilling free brochures all over the fucking welcome mat. Where the screaming is coming from, who knows, it doesn’t feel like me telling this guy he’s a Nazi and I worked all year at my job for that cash so he could give it to a lying fucked-up whore. Telling her off too, getting up in her little wrecked face, telling her to go buy herself a fucking overdose.