Six of Wands [Reversed]

The Market—NIGHT

We are very late making it back to the City from the Mountains. I have Sailor Lou drive straight to the Market to buy booze. We make it to the store just before closing. The whole crew has some per diem to spend so we all lumber inside.

Inside it looks like a hotel lobby with lots of customers, mostly young hoods sitting on sofas. I grab several bottles and get in the line. Mary grabs some wine and joins me.

While standing in the queue, Mary is telling me about her sex life with her new boyfriend. She is attempting to make me jealous.

“We have really rough the sex.” She beams proudly.

“Do you torture his cock?” I ask matter-of-factly. My revenge for too much information is to solicit more.

“Oh, no!” She is horrified. “We don’t do anything on that sick, fetish level. I may really squeeze and bite it, a lot though.”

“Does he beat you?”

“He may slap my ass but never hits me.”

“Sure,” I agree, with a sigh, “That’s the way to do it.”

God damn. I am so lonely.

Thankfully, we have made it up to the register before I have to continue this conversation. The cashier, a large, older black woman, jokes as I approach with my bottles.

“You made it just in time didn’t you? Good timing. I can’t sell anything in a minute.”

I smile back wryly. “The hours the state requires stores to follow are sometimes hard to meet.”

One of the punks calls sarcastically from a sofa, “So why don’t you leave earlier?”

The cashier begins to lecture him. “There are plenty of perfectly non-alcoholics, who have schedules conflicts, and without planning to have a drink days in advance are unable to get a liquor store.”

I nod and sneak out while they argue. Outside I feel burdened, guilty and obvious with the bottles. I tell Lou that I am walking home, and further decide to walk behind the back the next few stores to get to my place.

But crossing the next street I have to pass behind a pretty lively bar and some drunk redneck in the parking lot hollers something at me, but I am pretty far past him.

I wave a bottle menacingly. “I’m on an important errand!”