american spirit

The guy at the liquor store isn't a friend of mine, but he might as well be. I see him more than most of my friends. Every time I see him, he gives a big smile and a hearty hello and he's always curious about what beer I'm going to buy. I get a lot of the weirder stuff, a lot of the stronger stuff, which he takes pride in stocking. Once he told me that he wished all his customers had the same taste in beer as I did. I said well, yeah, because it's more expensive, but really, he just seemed bored with the seemingly endless parade of Coors and Budweiser 30 packs that are slapped on his counter. Maybe my sixes of whatever broke up the monotony of his day. I don't know.

Like I said, we're not really friends. I don't know his name. I never ask people's names (I figure they'll tell me if they want me to know), but I do get weirded out when I see someone else working the counter. I think the guy's from the Middle East somewhere. I heard him talking to a younger guy who also works there in a foreign language that could've been Arabic. I'm not a linguist, but he's definitely not a white dude. Today, I picked up a six of Moose Drool and got in line behind these two guys. I wasn't paying attention. Shit can happen right in front of me without me noticing. Once my mind gets going on something, it's really hard to get my attention. It's not usual for the place to have a line, though I know it must do good business. It's just that people usually go in, get what they want, and leave. It's all very efficient. I don't know what grabbed my attention, but I could tell the dudes in front of me were riled up about something. There was a third guy too, ordering American Spirits, but I don't think he was with the two in front of me. The liquor store guy asked him if he wanted a pack or the pouch of tobacco you can roll. That's when one of the guys in front of me piped up.

"You know what he wants," he said.

I was in my own world till just about then. I have no idea what transpired before that even though it was right in front of me. But there was something about the way the guy said it that got my attention. Then I noticed his shaved head, his white wife beater, his pasty complexion and the tattoos on his large triceps that read "white" and "anger" left to right respectively.

Him and his skinhead buddy kept shooting underhanded comments at the liquor store guy, but nothing overt or all that offensive. They'd get snide, and the liquor store guy would just kinda laugh them off. He looked completely indifferent to their comments; he just kept smiling and laughing. After they paid for they're tall boys, the talkative one dropped a penny from the change on the table hard, kinda just tossing it at the liquor store guy, but not so much to hit him with it and said something else I don't remember (I know, I'm doing a great job of telling this story), and the liquor store guy said chuckling, "That's ok, I'll forgive you this time."

I thought he handled it all very well. When I got up to the counter, I joked around with him and told him that I didn't realize the storm troopers were in town. He laughed and rung me up, but the whole time I was standing in line and looking at these guys, I couldn't help getting really angry. I wondered if one of them would notice me and think I was Jewish, because I get that a lot, and try to start shit with me in the store, or wait for me outside. I thought maybe I should hit one of them with a bottle. I figured I could get one real good before the other one pummeled me something awful. As I walked home with my six pack, I got increasingly more angry, like I should've done something, even though I didn't know what or why. Any shouting or bottle clubbing wouldn't have solved anything. They'd still be racist pricks, and I'd still be a whiny liberal (but with some whiny liberal bruises). And even worse, all that hate and anger would've made me just as bad as they were.