LitWriter2013
Really Experienced
- Joined
- Apr 29, 2013
- Posts
- 164
A Benevolent Man?
Trent Taylor was just finishing in the check out line when he glanced past the checker to a small disturbance that was taking place three stands down.
"Do you have a debit card that works, Miss?" the female cashier was saying in a not to polite tone. "You're still fifty-six fifty short."
"C'mon, lady," a man in line was moaning. "Use your credit card ... or cash or something. I got places to be."
Trent realized he knew the face of the woman in line. And he hated seeing the glaze that was forming in her eyes. He snatched up his bag of groceries and made his way her direction. As he neared her, he watched her swipe her debit card, and then again; each time, the familiar negative tone of a non-functioning card sounded.
"Do you have another card?" the cashier was asking, her tone getting more impatient.
Trent swiped his card through the machine, garnering surprised looks from the cashier, the other customers, and the woman he recognized as living two floors below him on the block kitty-corner to the grocery.
"Yes, she has another card," he said to the cashier. Looking to his neighbor -- whose eyes were opened with shock now -- he smiled and said, "Honey, you left the other bank card on the kitchen table. I told you I had that one shut off 'cause I thought I lost it."
He stepped a bit closer to his neighbor, feigning familiarity with the woman he only knew by sight. Trent hated seeing a woman cry in public, particularly when driven to tears by rude strangers. He wasn't about to let this one begin sobbing in front of these assholes, here today.
"Sixty dollars cash back, too, please," he said to the cashier. He smiled to his neighbor, winked inconspicuously, and said, "I saw Bob James in the parking lot, honey. I'm gonna jump out there and say hi. You got the bags okay...?"
He didn't wait for her to answer. Trent may have saved her from crying because of these assholes, but that didn't mean she wasn't going to start crying because of the new asshole, the one who thought he could just throw money at her without asking her permission.
He turned quickly and headed out of the grocery, leaving her, her groceries, and his sixty bucks cash behind. He made his way to a little table near the coffee cart on the corner. He signaled for his usual house coffee and sat, intentionally putting his back to the grocery entrance.
Trent was giving his neighbor the opportunity to see him and the opportunity to pretend as if she didn't. If she came over to thank him -- or to curse him -- that would be her choice. If she chose to ignore him and flee the scene, that was her choice.
The important thing was that she had to make the choice. Trent hadn't done what he'd done for no reason at all. He had a goal in mind, an oft-played out goal. And it began with his neighbor making the choice between taking the help without comment, or coming to sit with him ... and see where things went from there.