Prices
"This is what I hate about them more than anything else."
The store had been empty except for the man at the counter and an elderly woman pricing eggs. The young girl was on a very specific journey to buy a day-old loaf of bread and milk. Nothing more, nothing less. "Don't go off and get any candy or gum. You'll up an lose all the teeth you have in your head. Plus, you won't have the money." Of course there wouldn't be enough money, the young girl thought to herself, this bread is almost a dollar's worth more than last week, and yet a slice worth more small too. The young girl swiftly moved along past the other isles of the store, pausing slightly at the cereal aisle.
"Just who do they think they are anyway? Goddamn them, sucking the system dry."
All the bright colors and texts coming from that aisle filled her mind, yet never spilled over into her empty stomach. Sighing, she put one foot in front of the other and headed toward the check-out counter. The girl began to unload the items from her arms up onto the counter. She tried very hard to not glance behind her at the gum and candy. She licked her salty teeth, feeling all the slime and gaps filling her mouth. She knew better, but she wanted them so badly anyway. She paused in her own thoughts. It just occurred to her that the check-out man had not yet started ringing-up her items. She looked up at him. He looked down at her, irritated, angry. She shuffled her feet, putting her hands in her pockets, feeling a wave of warmth fall over her face and a chill down her back.
"Is there something wrong?" She looked away, back to the candy and gum.
"Sure... no not really." The man kept staring at her, icy.
“Okay." The girl felt small, hot, cold, sad.
The silence persisted for a few moments until he spoke to her again. "And just how were you planning to pay for these?" A startled look took over the girl's face, the word “what” consuming her mind, but not her mouth. Without speaking, but still shrinking, she pulled her hands out of her pockets and placed three dollars of food stamps on the counter. She felt like she was two inches tall. She felt as red as a rose. "Yeah, that what I thought," He cut her bud right off its stem, sneering.
"Is something wrong.." the girl’s eyes began to water, her bones feeling soft, shaky, "Did I do something..."
"Yeah, actually," the man said getting very close to her face, his voice raised, "The next little welfare bitch that comes into my store with an expensive coat on her skinny ass trying to hand me food stamps..." the man paused for a second. He looked both justified and slightly embarrassed all the same time and stopped speaking. He took a deep breath out and finished ringing up her items.
The girl just stood there, silent, having forgotten she had even worn the jacket, tears streaming down her face, feeling slightly terrified and very embarrassed.
He turned to her without looking at her, “Forget it. Just get the hell out of here and take your welfare food with you. "
The girl ran all the way home, the unbagged food burning a hole in arms. When she reached her apartment, she ran in crying, looking for her mother.
"What the hell are you doing wearing that?" The girl turned around eyes a wide as quarters, facing her angry mom. "Have you no respect for your clothes? You do not get an expensive gift from your poor dead grandmother and wear it around town like an everyday play clothes."
The girl ran to her room, dropping the food right there on the floor. Laying on her bare mattress, she began sobbing uncontrollably.
“Do you even know how much that coat cost?” Her mother confused and angry, standing in the doorway.
“Yes.” The girl answered, “In more ways than one.”
1995, Ben Bisbee
I grew up pretty poor, but I had family that did like to spend money during the holidays on really nice things for us. So I remember sometimes feeling conflicted about having some things (nice toys, books, etc.) and not others (name brand and store-bought foods, new clothing, etc.). So when the assignment was to write a piece that focused on emotion, I wanted to take a different approach. I wanted to write about feelings of being anxious, embarrassed, misunderstood, and shame. I remember that during class critique, the class was really struck by this piece and it confirmed for me that I could write and I could manifest complex emotions, experiences, and feelings fairly well in just one page. I’m still proud of this, but its also a bit hard to re-read in some ways. Which, I also suppose is a sign that 25 years later it still works.