I went to grab an extra-large cup of my frozen Arctic Blu–Coca-Cola Slush Special. I needed it more than ever. My stomach was restless and gurgling, and I wanted something with a little fizz to settle it.
I had hardly finished adding the last neon-bright splash of Blu when the Phoenician pushed in the door with his forearm, giving it a hard shove like he had something personal against it. The open door blocked his view of the soda dispenser, which is the only reason he didn’t see me as he cast his glare around the room. He didn’t miss a step but stalked up to Mrs. Matsuzaka.
“What’s a man got to do to get a tank of fucking gas around this joint? Why’d you shut off the pump?”
Mrs. Matsuzaka was barely five feet tall and delicately built, and she had mastered the blank, uncomprehending expression common to first-generation immigrants who understand the language just fine but occasionally find it easier to feign bafflement. She lifted her shoulders in a weak shrug and let Mat do the talking for her.
“You pay ten dollars, brah, ten dollars of gas is what you get,” Mat said from his position on a stool behind the counter, under the racks of cigarettes.
“Either of you two know how to count in English?” said the Phoenician. “I sent the kid in with a fucking twenty.”
It was like I drank my entire Arctic Blu–Coca-Cola Slush Special in one swallow. My blood surged with cold shock. I clapped a hand to my shirt pocket with a thrill of horror. Right away I knew what I’d done. I had reached into my pocket, felt money there, and tossed it on the counter without looking at it. But I’d handed over the ten that Larry Beukes had forced on me earlier, not the twenty the Phoenician had given me in the parking lot.
The only thing I could think to do was abase myself, as quickly and fully as possible. I was ready to cry, and the Phoenician hadn’t even screamed at me yet. I reeled into the front of the store, hip-checking a wire shelf of potato chips. Bags of Lays scattered everywhere. I clawed the twenty out of my shirt pocket.
“Oh man oh man I’m sorry oh man. Oh, I screwed that up. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I didn’t even look at the money when I threw it on the counter, mister, and I must’ve put down my ten instead of your twenty. I swear, I swear, I didn’t—”
“When I said you could keep the change to buy yourself some weight-loss pills, I didn’t mean you could fuck me out of a sawbuck.” He lifted one hand as if he had a mind to catch me upside the head.
He’d come in with his camera—it was clutched in his other hand—and even as rattled as I was, I thought it was odd he wouldn’t have just left it in the car.
“No, really, I’d never, I swear to God—” I was babbling, my eyes tingling dangerously, threatening to spill tears. In my haste I set my enormous thirty-two-ounce Blu slurry on the edge of the counter, and the moment I let go of it, a bad situation turned so, so much worse. The cup toppled and dropped, hit the floor, and exploded in a vibrant gout of blue ice. Glowing blue chips sprayed the Phoenician’s perfectly pressed black pants, splashed his crotch, and threw sapphire droplets on his camera.
“The fuck!” he screamed, dancing back on the toes of his cowboy boots. “Are you fucking retarded, you enormous pile of turd?”
“ ’Ey!” shouted Mat’s mom, pointing at the Phoenician. “ ’Ey, ’ey, ’ey, no fight in store, I call cop!”
The Phoenician looked down at his Blu-spattered clothes and back up at me. His face darkened. He put the Polaroid-that-wasn’t on the counter and took a step toward me. I don’t know what he meant to do, but he was shaken up, and his left foot skidded in the spreading pile of Arctic Blu–Coke slush. Those boots had high Cuban heels, and they looked good but must’ve been as tricky as walking around in six-inch stilettos. He came very close to slamming down on one knee.
“I’ll clean it up!” I cried out. “Oh, man, I’m so sorry, I’ll clean it all up, and, oh, Jesus, believe me, I’ve never tried to cheat anyone out of anything, I’m really honest, if I fart, I always cop right to it, even when I’m on the school bus, swear to God, swear—”
“Yeah, brah, chill,” Mat said, rising from his stool. He was sinewy and tall, and with his dark eyes and shaved head he didn’t need to make a threat to look like one. “Take it easy. Fags is okay. I guarantee he wasn’t trying to screw you.”
“And you can stay the fuck out of it,” the Phoenician said to him. “Or try paying attention before you choose sides. Kid rips me for ten bucks, throws his drink on me, and then I just about break my ass in this puddle of shit—”
“Don’t put the boots on if you can’t walk in ’em, pard,” Mat said, without looking at him. “You might get hurt one of these days.”
Mat handed a big roll of paper towels across the counter, and as I took them, he gave me a wink so quick, so subtle, I almost missed it. I felt almost shaky with gratitude, that was how relieved I was to have Mat on my side.
I tore off a fistful of paper towels and immediately dropped to my knees in the slush to begin swiping at the Phoenician’s trousers. You could be forgiven if you thought I was getting ready to give him a blow job by way of apology.
“Aw, man, I’ve always been clumsy, always, I can’t even roller-skate—”
He danced away (almost slipping again), then leaned in and snatched the clod of sodden paper towels away from me. “Hey! Hey, no touch! You get down there on your knees like someone who’s had way too much practice. Keep your hands off my dick, thank you. I got it.”
He gave me a look that said I had crossed the line from someone who needed an ass-stomping to someone he didn’t want anywhere near him. He swiped at his pants and shirt, whispering bitterly to himself.
I still had the paper-towel roll, though, and I splashed through slush and grabbed his camera to clean it off.
By then I was so nervous and wretched I was moving in spastic bursts, and when I picked up the camera, my hand pressed the big red button to take a shot. The lens was pointing across the counter, into Mat’s face, when the Polaroid went off with a snap of white light and a high-pitched mechanical whine.
The photo didn’t just pop out. The camera launched it from the slot, firing the square of plastic across the counter and over the far side. Mat snapped his head back, blinking rapidly, blinded by the flash perhaps.
I was a little blind myself. Weird, coppery glowworms crawled before my eyes. I shook my head, stared stupidly down at the camera in my right hand. The brand was “Solarid,” a company I’d never heard of and as far as I know never existed, not in this country or any other.
“Put that down,” the Phoenician said, in a new tone of voice.
I thought I’d heard him at his scariest when he was yelling at me, but this was different and much worse. This was the sound of the cylinder turning in a revolver, the click of the hammer cocking back.
“I was just trying to—” I began, my tongue thick in my mouth.