Turncoat

On line at Rite-Aid where a woman cuts in front of me, says: He
was saving my place. There’s no saving places, I say. She says to
him, Did I not ask you to save my place? He says nothing. She
prods. She goads. He relents: There’s no saving places. Then I’ll
just leave, she says, you two asshole gentlemen to yourselves. She
gets behind me. He shakes his head, shoots a look my way, laugh
ing. There’s a term, she says, for people like you: Turncoat. The
smell of a snuffed taper burnishes the air. The smile slips off his
face. Don’t call me an asshole, he says, for your problems. That’s
just what you are, she says, a coward! His laugh now resumes.
Ma’am, he says, enjoy your place in line. Caught as we were be-
tween the actual and the real. A woman cutting in line. A cock-
roach scuttling across linoleum where the traps were sold. Things
that happened in the corners of our eyes. A jar of blue Gatorade. A
bed perfectly made. Unseen paratroopers overhead diving out of
planes smoldering in flak as we stumbled out of our clothes. The
TV on. The sound off. A coward! she said. Little monuments piled
up on a desert floor.