“Solidarity”

When people are happy in my town it’s like a found art object. One example would be the two liquor store clerks talking about STD’s. I said it was like something out of the movie Clerks. They asked me if I’d ever had an STD. I said no and that I even went to IU so that meant I’d been extra lucky and my guardian angel had been watching me. They accepted everything I said with this steady, semi-oblivious, slightly passive-aggressive element of disregard. The fat dude who was talking a lot would never laugh, but only offer, in jovial but finally indolent disposition, more anecdotes, like “I thought I had an STD but it turns out she just ruptured a blood vessel in my penis.” I loved how he blamed her. So authentic. The other guy only talked when he was spoken to, pretty much. They made the perfect work pair. I started bounding out, having declined a receipt and exchanged no more words with either of the two. It was a Saturday night at about 9:30 in early August, temperate and raining. As I was walking out, I heard the talking dude say something about how there’s a tube from the testes to the penis and his friend got his injured. The more you know, I thought. I got in my car, cracked a Summer Shandy, started driving home and just letting it all sink in. Tomorrow it would be back to sports, tattoos and Magic the Gathering, I figured. I mean, it’s only so often you get two guys alone in a liquor store at 9:30 on a rainy night in August.