The Residue Years by Mitchell Jackson

Author:Mitchell Jackson
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: General Fiction
ISBN: 9781620400289
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Published: 2013-08-01T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 23

I’m fine, I say. Let me go.

—Grace

It’s friday night, a payday. I’m waiting at Check Mart, my uniform reeking of ground beef, worrying over how I’ll pay my fees and fines, my bus pass, my woman products, and groceries with yet another anemic check. All day, I’ve been back and forth, back and forth, about whether to call Champ. Whether to tell him giving it all back was mistake, that I need him after all.

Up ahead a stumpy Mexican is giving a cashier the Spanglish blues.

ID, sir, I need to see your ID, she says.

Que? he says.

ID, sir, she says. I-den-ti-fi-ca-tion.

Yo no tengo. Pero, necesito mi money, he says.

No ID, no check cashed, sir, she says.

The fine print of the Western Union poster that’s pinned to the back wall, that’s what I’m reading when Michael, yes, Michael pushes inside with a girl my first mind tells me has a suicide soul. She and he and what comes to mind is not tonight. I turn my back and spy them in the mirror, see him fix his shirt and tie his shoe and whisper to her. See her cover her mouth and titter. I scrounge my bag for coins and rub them together. Emergency change.

The Mexican gestures and grouses while the cashier looks on through bulletproof glass all tagged with rates and policies and wanted posters. Next, next, she says, and the Mexican grabs his check and stomps out the door cursing in English.

I slug up to the glass feeling every second of this week’s shifts in my legs and feet. The least they could do if they gone keep sneaking across the border is learn the damn language, she says. Up close the cashier has a soft chin and the cheeks of a baby. She slides my check through a scanner and asks for ID. The scanner lights green and spits out the check. She asks me how I’d like my money and I tell her, Big bills, please. She drops the coins on top and shoves all I have in the world—it wouldn’t pay rent—through the slot under the glass. Thank you, I say, stuffing the cash in my bra. He and I catch eyes. He motions for me to stop. Be blessed, I say, and flit by as fast as I can.

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