Stickup

He shut off the ignition and stepped out of the pickup. A quick scan of the lot. A blue Chevy Malibu and rusted out Geo Prizm at the gas pumps. Three additional cars parked in front of the convenience store. The station was surrounded on all sides by burnt grass. This summer had been a scorcher, and the heat radiating from the blacktop warped the air above it, giving a liquid quality to every visual. He moved toward the glass double doors and pulled the right one open, bells jangling. He was hit instantly by a blast of cold from the air conditioning inside. He adjusted his Brockway trucker hat and made his way toward the refrigerator section looking for a 12-pack of Natural Light. He was a Coors Light drinker, but it had been a slow week, and he was a bit short on the rent. A dozen steps in it suddenly struck him that no one in the store had moved since he entered. A bleached-blond woman well past her prime wearing a leopard print miniskirt and black tube top stood in the toiletries aisle taking way too long to look for a product given the limited selection. A black teenage boy stood holding a 20 ounce cup in front of an Icee machine, as if trying to decide what flavor to choose. Problem was he pondered over it with the gravity of a decision over where to go to college. A short white-haired woman remained motionless in front of the ATM machine, back to the cashier. The machine, in fact, was beeping. It had spit out her card, waiting for her to retrieve it. Instead, she just stared at the screen as if waiting for an answer to a question, and she trembled ever so slightly. Behind the counter, a balding man of about 40 with a black beard and wearing a short-sleeved red and blue plaid shirt and a furrowed brow locked his eyes on the man standing in front of him. That man sported a brown ponytail covered by a Union Jack print bandana and a jacket both too long and too heavy for the weather. Neither of his hands were visible.

He opened the glass door of the refrigerator and grabbed a case of beer, walked across the back of the store and up the aisle to the cashier. Still no one moved. The eyes of the cashier met his then returned to those of the man in front of him. The Confederate sympathizer turned toward him and narrowed his eyes. He returned the stare. It was a stickup, of that he was sure.

What would happen next was anyone’s guess.