May 16, 2006
Good Morning, Los Angeles
I poured my coffee and popped a lid onto the cup. After digging in my pocket for my wallet, I took out a dollar and headed for the cash register.
The door alarm did its customary beep, and a quick glance to my left afforded me the view of a crusty-looking woman with a frame that made skeletons look fat. She could have been forty, she could have been sixty, but no matter how long she'd been around, time had not been kind to her. A dirty pair of emerald green sweatpants and a pink Mickey Mouse t-shirt hung limply on her body. The thinning blonde hair sat atop her head like a bad comb-over. Her sunken eyes peered out from a haggard, weatherbeaten face outlined with too much make-up, and she shuffled straight for the register. She leered at the clerk and croaked:
"Is it too early for me to buy a beer?"
The cashier looked at his watch and said "Yes ma'am, it's 5:45 in the morning. Come back in fifteen minutes."
"I really want one though. Fifteen minutes? You can't just sell me one right now?"
"You can't wait?"
"Well, I probably could, but..."
"Fifteen minutes, ma'am."
She grumbled and shuffled out the door, her exit punctuated by the trilling of the door alarm. I looked down at my cup of coffee and walked up to the register, where the tired-looking clerk smiled and greeted me. I paid for my coffee and headed for the bus stop as the clerk turned and stared out the window, watching the sun as it slowly crept up the skyline and burned orange over the buildings like a wave of fire, ready to engulf the whole fucking city.
After boarding the bus, I plopped into a dingy plastic seat and took a look out the window as the woman shuffled back to the convenience store.
I looked at my watch. It wasn't beer-thirty.
Posted by Jake at May 16, 2006 10:37 AM
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