Whodunit

Chapter 7

Desi never considered himself a people person. The people he often had the pleasure of interacting with always kept their noses in his business and rarely truly had his best interest at heart. Getting him to open up was an accomplishment that deserved a gold medal. Most girls his age annoyed him. Most dudes his age couldn't be trusted. And older people got on his nerves with all their pestering and rules and thinking they knew everything.

Prime example.

"I'm sorry, sir. We don't accept EBT cards anymore," Desi said to a customer with the nicest face and voice he could muster, which he knew probably wasn't all that nice.

"Whatchu' mean? I just used a food stamp card to buy a whole buggy of groceries for one of my baby mamas yesterday," the bearded middle-aged man swore in his grimy white t-shirt and dingy, New Orleans Saints cap. "You can't tell me y'all don't take food stamps."

Desi held back a sigh. It had been a long first day of training. Between the bad ass kids moving stuff shelf to shelf and opening candy before paying, stupid thirteen-year-olds acting suspiciously obvious when trying to steal, and gray-haired ladies reprimanding him for how he bagged their food, he didn't know whether to cuss out the customers or his boss for even having the nerve to give him the job.

"And, Desiree," the man started back, pointing and squinting at Desi's nametag that read Desmond, "my sister told me just the other day she used those food stamps I sold her to get a good deal on ground beef and Flavor Aid."

"I don't know, sir. Today's my first day, but my manager explained to me earlier that we no longer accept EBT. Do you have any other form of payment you'd like to try?"

Desi tried harder and harder to keep his cool. As the end of his shift grew nearer, his patience grew thinner.

The man blew air through his lips, snatched his wallet off the conveyor belt, and pushed his cart full of groceries to the side. "Forget it. I'll take my money to the Jamaican store around the corner."

Desi wanted to remind him that it wasn't even his money, but if he opened his mouth, something much worse than that would come out.

A snicker came from one of the aisles followed by footsteps and the appearance of Brad, Desi's coworker for the night, in his matching lime green shirt and khakis with a broom in his grip. The bell on the door chimed as the rude man left no customers in the store.

"Having fun yet?" he chuckled as he pushed the broom near Desi's register.

The manager apparently thought Desi would be okay by himself at the register for closing hour as she'd retreated back to her office for the night while Brad swept and dusted the store.

"Hell nah." Desi slipped his phone out his back pocket for the time. 9:45. Only fifteen more minutes and he could spend the rest of the night with the girl of his teenage dreams.

"I feel ya'." Brad might've originally been from the seemingly pristine suburbs, but his history with hard drugs forced him to be just as street savvy as Desi and his homeboys. The workers at the store affectionally coined him B-Rad like the wannabe, gangster, white rapper Jamie Kennedy played in Malibu's Most Wanted. "Working here is like being in a comedy movie."

"Nah, working here is more like being in a horror movie," Desi asserted as he shook his head and placed his phone back in his pocket. "I'd rather be a black man in that neighborhood Chris was in in Get Out than work here for the rest of my life."

"Fasho'. I'd rather be a big tit, blonde bimbo in any horror movie than work here forever," Brad chuckled and swept spilled M&M's into a dustpan.