Shoplifter

Flash Fiction by Michael Fontana

Jake grew tense as he scanned the convenience store’s racks with their candy and condoms and Coke cans neatly lined up. The lone straggler in the store was a ragged black man purchasing lottery tickets, scratchers that the clerk behind the counter offered him with haste. But the process bogged down when the man insisted on selecting his own numbers for the nightly drawings, staring as if at an oracle in the overhead lights for inspiration.

The tension in Jake’s body abated as he located the candy bar he wanted. He picked it up and palmed it before deftly dumping it in his jacket pocket. Then he moved to the doors of the refrigerator where he drew out a tall can of beer. He intended to pay for this and so stood in line behind the man ordering lottery tickets, who reeked. The man pocketed his final ticket and headed out the door. Jake moved up to the register.

“Did you smell the pee on that guy?” the clerk said.

“Cat pee,” Jake noted. “Not human pee.”

“That makes it worse,” the clerk said. “I hate fucking cats.”

“Then don’t fuck them,” Jake said, peeling dollar bills from his wallet.

The clerk glared back before taking his money. “A happy-ass day to you too.”

Jake entered his car, catching his breath. He was tall, thin, white, blond, and twenty-six, dressed in tan slacks, a cashmere sweater and docksiders without socks. A well-paid manager in an ad firm, he was unsure why he risked everything over a candy bar but nonetheless stole one almost daily, driving to a different store each time so he didn’t risk getting caught through repetition. He sat in the car for long moments, moving from fear to exhilaration, laughing as he finally rolled out of the parking lot and into traffic.

The following day he entered a different store, surveyed the racks, and dropped another candy bar into his jacket pocket. Then he bought the beer he would later coax down his throat.

“Sir?” the clerk said. “I think you forgot an item.”

“I just gave you money for the can of beer,” Jake said.

“A candy bar, sir,” the clerk said.

Jake froze. He had never been caught before. Stumbling for an explanation but unable to find one readily, he played stupid instead. “What candy bar?”

“In your right jacket pocket, sir,” the clerk said.

Jake’s face burned. He reached into the pocket and removed the candy bar, setting it on the counter at a distance from his body like a turd. “It must have fallen in there when I wasn’t looking,” he said. He licked his lips and pulled out another bill to cover its cost.

The clerk inspected the bill. “It happens, sir,” he said.

Jake took the beer and the bar and walked out. Then he sat behind the wheel of his car and pounded on the steering wheel. “The nerve of questioning me,” he muttered. This helped him regain his composure. Soon after, he fled the parking lot.

The following day, he located a store in an unfamiliar part of town. Everyone inside was black, which immediately cautioned him against shoplifting. He already stood out. Surely they would keep a deeper watch on him.

But as he looked further, he didn’t see any sign of it. The buzz of activity among them convinced him he was safe there, perhaps because he was only white guy. So convinced, he slowed down, looked at the candy bars, and selected one. He dropped it into his pocket and then moved over to the beer, where a man in a three-piece suit peered into the glass doors with him.

Jake smiled at the man. The man nodded. Jake finally said, “excuse me” and opened the door to retrieve a can of beer.

The clerk also nodded as he rang up the beer. Jake pulled out his wallet and handed the clerk the appropriate cash. Meanwhile the man from the beer case moved behind Jake in line. He tapped Jake on the shoulder. “You buying that candy bar too?” the man said.

“Candy bar?” Jake said.

“The one you put in your pocket,” the man said.

The clerk grew wide-eyed. “You skip paying for merchandise?”

Jake licked his lips. A sense of danger radiated through him. He checked his pocket and removed the candy bar. “It must have accidentally fallen in there,” he said.

“Just like I accidentally fell into prison ten years back,” the man behind him said.

Fear tethered Jake there. His hands shook as he pulled more money from his wallet. He handed it to the clerk, who glowered at him. The clerk dropped the money in the register and pushed the candy bar back at him. “Don’t try that shit again,” the clerk said. “That may fly in your neighborhood but not here. Next time I’ll show you my Glock for emphasis. Got it?”

Jake left the candy bar as he fled. “You forgot your supper,” the man behind him shouted.

Speeding out of the lot, Jake nearly hit another car along the way. He was nervous without the prize, the candy bar. Its absence from his hand, his pocket, his possession, rendered the theft incomplete. At home, he chugged his beer down like he hadn’t since college. He spoke to the air: “No due respect.” But this time he couldn’t regain his composure.

The next day as he sat in the lot of another convenience store, he couldn’t make his way inside. The black clerk seemed a demigod with his threat of a handgun, occupying vital space in Jake’s head. He left and drove home empty-handed, body trembling as if already under fire.

By night, Jake had dreams that featured the same clerk: staring down the barrel of his Glock, sweating through pleas to be left alive. But alive for what? Creating copy for candy bar wrappers? Jingles for jerky? What he did every day for a living suddenly made him feel uneasy. He dreamed of himself as behind bars already, without a single arrest for shoplifting, just by moving through his week.

Soon Jake returned to the black clerk’s store.

The clerk looked at him, squinted, opened a drawer, and pulled out the Glock. “I thought I told you not to try that shit again,” the clerk said. “I follow through on my promises.”

Jake’s throat tightened but he forced words out anyway. “I came to apologize.”

“Apologize?” the clerk said, still holding the Glock with a sharp bead on Jake’s head.

“I quit,” Jake said.

“Quit what? Start making sense,” the clerk said, slightly lowering the gun.

“Quit shoplifting,” Jake said, his voice growing steadier with the gun no longer trained so tightly on him. “I’m going on the straight and narrow.”

“I don’t give a shit what you do,” the clerk said after a pause. “Just don’t do it around here anymore.”

“Got it,” Jake said.

“Now get out of here before I change my mind and open fire,” the clerk said.

“I respect you,” Jake said on his way out the door.

“Get the fuck out!” the clerk said.

Jake left. Then he called his office, hands-free as he drove, and quit there too. He had no idea what lay ahead. It just made him feel calmer and freer and no longer like stealing anything.

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Bio: Michael Fontana is a retired activist, teacher and fundraiser who lives in beautiful Bella Vista, Arkansas. His crime writing has appeared in The Yard: Crime Blog, as well as on the website and apps of Mystery Tribune. You can find him at his website HERE.

Read more Flash Fiction on The Yard: Crime Blog

Cover Photo by:pexels/Erik Mclean, Edited by The Yard

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