A FAINT GLIMMER

Kim Aldrich

Since I haven't posted much since February, I thought I'd put something a little meatier up on the blog. The beginning of this story actually happened to me, and the rest, well...one of the wonderful things about writing is you can make the story end the way you WISH it had in real life.

As the young woman approached the row of Rite Aid cash registers, she let out an involuntary sigh. As usual, it looked like she’d be here a while.

“Would you like to go ahead of me?”

“Excuse me?”

He was the last person in line and his question left her bewildered.

“Would you like to go ahead of me, ma’am?” It was more of a plea than an offer.

“Well, uh…sure, I guess so. Thank you very much...”

“I may be a lot of things…but I’m still a gentleman.”

The comment came out of nowhere. She smiled in his general direction, all the while wondering what exactly he meant.

Then stealing a glance once he looked away, she discovered a clue.

His hands were full with two extra-large cans of beer that he cradled like a baby, and his scruffy salt-and-pepper beard, strong alcohol breath, and hazy eyes suggested the obvious. He was a drunk.

Her heart sank with compassion.

Then again, maybe she was wrong. Maybe he was just a regular guy on a beer run. But only two cans? And that breath.

As a checker droned on explaining “CRV tax” to the customer in front of them, the scruffy man turned to her and leaned in as if revealing a secret, “You know, they say they’re gonna raise that CRV tax…thanks to our illustrious governor, Mr. Schwarzenegger.” As he spoke, he nodded his head up and down and raised his eyebrows knowingly.

“Oh really?” she said, trying to sound interested while scanning her memory banks for what in the world CRV actually meant. She hadn’t been paying much attention to the checker’s description. “I hadn’t heard that.”

“Yeah,” he said knowingly, as if he’d just gotten off the phone with the Terminator himself.

Again she smiled, somehow sensing that his casual banter was a mere band-aid barely covering a deeper wound.

“Next, please,” barked the checker.

She approached the counter, laid down her purchases, and searched through her purse for her credit card. In the meantime, the scruffy man had stepped up to the register to her left to begin his transaction.

Without warning, the manager who was ringing her up bellowed, “Hey, we caught you stealing beer the last time you were here! If we catch you stealing again, we’re gonna call the cops!”

What followed was an awful gut-wrenching silence, as if last shred of dignity had just been stripped from the universe.

The scruffy man froze, realizing all eyes were on him. He stared at the manager with all the lucidity he could muster. His eyes wandered back and forth in spite of his best efforts to steady them, and it was obvious this was as “scared sober” as he got. He fumbled for a reply.

Finally, he managed, “Well, that seems…fair.”

The manager looked uncomfortable. Apparently that wasn’t the response he’d expected.
Still clinging to some semblance of normalcy, the scruffy man muttered half to himself and half to whoever was listening, “I-I know it’s hard to imagine not remembering a thing like that, but I just don’t…” and then fell silent again.

One woman in line shifted her weight nervously while the man behind her lowered his eyes and cleared his throat. The scruffy man looked like he might crumple over in a heap if anyone so much as breathed his direction.

Suddenly, on impulse, the young woman found herself asking, “How much does he owe?”

The confused teenage checker stammered, “Uh, well…he actually has money today…”

“No, not today—I mean from before. How much does he owe?” she asked, turning her gaze to the manager.

“Well, he took a six-pack, so that’s, well…about seven dollars.”

She pulled out a five and two ones, thought better of it, then plunked down a ten dollar bill on the counter instead and declared, “There, now he’s even—plus interest.” Then looking the scruffy man in the eye she said slowly and deliberately, “After all, a gentleman always pays his debts—right?”

They held each other’s gaze for what seemed a full minute. The scruffy man’s chin trembled as he grasped her meaning. Then gradually he squared his jaw and nodded his agreement. She smiled and nodded back.

With all the gentlemanly grace he could muster, the newly liberated man completed his modest purchase. Then he shuffled his way toward the exit, still a bit bewildered, yet holding his head noticeably higher, a faint glimmer of genuine dignity radiating from behind his hazy blue eyes.