St. Anthony and the Keys - Part 3

The beer cans were moving toward him. He chuckled. The beer comes to me all by itself, how can I resist? The six-pack stopped moving when it reached the end of the conveyor belt. He looked at it and wondered if the check-out girl had a foot pedal or something that made the conveyor belt stop. At the end of the thought, he realized that the beer had been sitting still a lot longer than usual. Normally, a pair of hands would have appeared and lifted the six-pack out of view, but these cans just sat there, static, looking happy to be plastic-bound into a little family of six. He looked up and met the expectant eyes of the cashier.
"What?" he said. "Believe me. I’m old enough to buy those."
"I’m sure you are," she replied. "Do you have a fresh values card?"

He had not expected this. His hands explored the pockets of his jacket and found the key chain his wife had given him. He tried to think of a way to explain everything to the girl, but she had already snatched the keys from his hand. She ran the keys over the gadget at the end of the conveyor belt, and something beeped. He took the keys back, deciding it was better to just pretend they were his.

She picked up the six-pack and turned it over to find the barcode. He did not like the way she was looking at the beer. When did it become wrong for a forty-eight year old man to like beer? The thing that beeps, beeped once more, telling him it was time to pay.

"You kind of look like my wife, but younger," he said, setting a wad of bills and change on the platform. She did not react; she just counted the money, twice, and then held crinkliest of the bills over the little platform.

"It’s a dollar," he said. "It might be wrinkled but it’s worth the same as the others." She gave him a look that made him feel old.

"They’re on sale," she said. He was not sure if was smiling. "One dollar off ‘cause you used your card."

"Oh," he replied, looking at the green paper like it was a writhing wasp. "Why don’t you keep it?" She put the dollar into the pocket of her apron, and he left.

It felt good to pull the can from its plastic choke-chain. It felt even better to crack the seal and to hear the bubbles popping as the gas escaped. He drank it slowly, just like he did every Friday, thankful that his wife had insisted on getting the minivan with the tinted windows. Then, before he felt he had even tasted it, the can was empty.

The five full cans swung back and forth limply when he picked them up by the empty ring. He put them back into the paper bag along with the empty and scrunched it shut. He went over, as always, to leave the leftovers in the empty shopping cart, but a car full of teenagers had pulled into the spot next him. Their windows were rolled down and the kids were singing along enthusiastically to a song that he had once owned as a forty-five. He threw the cans in the dumpster.

On the way back to the van, he felt the intrusive weight of an extra set of keys in his pocket. He changed course and walked back into the grocery store, reliving the time he had lost his keys and sprained his ankle trying to break into the house.

"My wife found these on the train," he said, passing the key chain over the platform for the second time that evening. For the second time the girl snatched the keys, but didn't say anything. She didn't notice him slipping the pack of gum into his pocket either.