When he sets the two tall cans of Olde English on the counter, he knows he can't pay for them. Stood in line ten minutes, talked with the lady behind him, waited patiently as a man with money. Now what would it mean to not have any? The cashier holding the scanning wand rolls his eyes as he pats his back pockets, digs the front, looks around as if someone just lifted both cash and spare change right off him, just passing an eye over him--quick, filching telepathy. Six deep behind him the other folks stare ahead like camels. He stalled as long as he could but then comes the moment of embarrassment: looking in the cashier's eyes and feeling them push him away. Instead he exercises what little face he has left and turns, like that, like a sleepwalker who's just woken up, abandons the counter in drowsy confusion, an improvised ruse that lets him live another day. Soon, and he's sure of it, if he keeps doing it, bringing those cans to the counter (double doors closing behind him) two tallboys of Olde English will pay for themselves. On that good day, he'll make sure to toast the sky in honor of the always spontaneous multiplication of small money. It knows no end, like rain.
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