He could be a veteran. He was very tall, his hair all shaggy and time has dusted it all with grayness. He's wearing a nondescript hat that pleaded allegiance to no sports team, no company, not entirely even to any entity. It was so wrinkled and worn out that it might not be of any particular type of hat. He was very tall, tallest person in the supermarket, and he towered over the small, black cashier whose cashier screen he was staring very intently at.
"That ain't right. The candies, the food, the milk, they are all under food stamp. The cat treats I gave you a two-dollar coupon. So why are you charging me $4.25 still? That ain't right. You did it wrong. Get someone to come here," he said, without looking at the much shorter and smaller woman in front of him, his lips quivering a little, his whole body a little shaky. He was wearing a light cotton jacket, as worn out as his cap, as faded, as tired as his face. His face, a marvel to look at. So many wrinkles and yet, despite the grayness of his relatively long hair, you know he's not that old. Like the hair, the face has been weathered by more than just time, but times of many ordeals. On the right side of his neck is a tattoo that remained unmoving. It was a dagger with embellishments around it. The design remained in some ways the most solid part of his existence but also its possible history invoked some sense of a lost strength and confidence. And what a contrast to his eyes now, which were trying to be defiant, trying to stick to his claim that the cashier must have made an error and that he shouldn't be paying so much for what he was buying. But deep down he felt the shame of having to fight over two dollars that he believe she had made a mistake over. He was flustered, somewhere in his buried soul, about the meaning of those two dollars for an unemployed man who once did something much grander than that measly amount.
His cats would enjoy those treats. But now he had to fight for those treats, for he actually couldn't afford to pay $4.25 for those treats, which was why he used the coupons. He heard the customer behind him, another black, short woman, but older than the cashier, tell another customer that "candies shouldn't be under food stamps." He said nothing. It was his way of having the government pay for a small pleasure of his when it had failed to pay anything else back for his efforts. He kept quiet because he was fighting just this one front; he needn't open another one; the cashier and that opinionated customer weren't allies even though they were the same race.
A white woman came over, a manager, and started asking what the problem was. He had to explain again, his voice remained loud but quivering. The woman didn't look at him, as he didn't look at her. She was a short, overweight woman who had to deal with all this customer related issues whole day every day. It was not even noon yet.
She punches the keys on one of the little machines connected to the cashier machine, looking very busy and displaying her confidence in the resolution of a problem that seems to be as complex as it is unreal. The only thing truly calm here, and not even the customers waiting on the growing line were calm, was the tattoo on the man's neck. It stood its ground, still, not bothered, a relic of a past that will forever be immutable. The man's voice became softer as he continued to repeat his mantra that he wouldn't be paying $4.25 for his cat snacks. He finally shut up when the manager accepted his $2.25 and let him have everything and leave.
The man, towering above everyone and yet feeling like the only dwarf in the store, grabbed his bags of food and the cat treat, and with a slight limp, he wanted slowly out the door. He could hear the black customer behind him complaining again that candies should not be covered by food stamps. The automatic doors opened, welcoming him back out to the real world where problems would often be a lot less easy to resolve than the two-dollar discrepancy. The sun was shining and the weather was warming up. He could see still some traces of the snow, now all darkened, at various corners of the parking lot. And when he took another step, he was slightly startled by the closing of the automatic doors. He felt a little excluded; he dared not turn around and look at the people behind him, lest they weren't looking at him at all.
