My guess was that the cashier had something with the bag boy, but who knows. We were in Fiesta Farms buying some mixer for a New Year’s party and the poor old guy ahead of us was chatting her up. All innocent, though. I mean this poor old guy could have been her dad, excuse the cliche. Maybe she felt sorry for him. I did. He was buying microwave popcorn and a bottle of ginger ale. Probably spending his night hanging on the couch watching the countdown on the local news. Maybe after he’d sit there and work on some screenplay. You know, he was sad like that.
But they were talking and maybe she’s a little bit intrigued by this poor old guy. Maybe under a different light things could have been different. This bag boy, though, is just staring at this man, not even throwing the shit in the bag, just watching him, like he’s got fire in his eyes.
Later, we’re in the car and deciding how we’re going to get where we’re going. We hadn’t broken up then, but it was close.
Then out in front of this little grocery store the bag boy has stopped him. He’s carrying a broom stick and he’s ready to unload on him. And just by watching you could tell this poor old guy didn’t have the foggiest clue about what to do. He was scared. The bag boy was yelling at him and swinging the stick. He puts down his bag and starts to hold his arms in front of his face, trying to duck out of the way.
So she says to me do something, but what the hell am I going to do? I start honking the horn, but the bag boy doesn’t flinch. Instead, these two other bag boys coming running out of the store. They go straight for the guy’s bag and the one he starts stomping on the box of popcorn and the other he takes the bottle of ginger ale and smashes it against a wall. He starts holding the jagged part of it out like he’s going to slash this poor old guy.
I keep my hand on the horn, real firm. She’s screaming at me and I’m screaming at her. Then this fat Italian guy comes running out and they stop. He goes over to the poor old guy and says something and then heads back to the store with the rest of them.
We pull out of the parking lot and see the poor old guy just standing there all confused and scared. She tells me to give him a lift. I pull over and he’s all nervous when I offer him a ride. He takes a look at me, then he looks at her. I’m not sure how she looked at him, but he got in. They talked for most of the ride, but not about the fight. Maybe she invited him to our party, I can’t remember. They would see each other a few more times after that night. Sometimes I knew about it and sometimes I didn’t.
