Convenience stores
Convenience stores must be easy, out there alone, late;
around here two or three get held up each week, as if
there were a quota on them. It’s easy to picture, the lone
clerk dozing a bit by the register when the guy comes in,
the only person in the store, brandishes a weapon, they
always say brandish for these guys, either a gun or knife
or what looks like a weapon, and the minimum wage night
clerk always turns over the cash, an undetermined amount
they always say, and then he’s gone back out into the night,
so often around here the bandit leaves the scene on foot, as
if familiar with his or her surroundings, some local talent
perhaps; then on the evening news they will show pictures of
the thief, caught on the convenience store’s security camera
and we are told to call the police if we recognize this person,
a person who someone will know, a person who, more often
than not is caught. It’s as if convenience stores have become
the stage, the backdrop for this predictable play, this tired story
about our world, a dark lonely place where it seems as if we
either tend the till or come in from the night brandishing or
pretending to brandish a weapon, then leave with a hard to
determine amount of money, leaving behind each time just
enough of ourselves that we get our picture on TV and finally
someone recognizes for what we are and calls it in.
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