49 Cents

                   I knew they'd have something to make a difference, but I had no idea the thrifty would have a hat that could mean so much.
         Well, it's more of a visor than a hat, really, like the kind with the open top and I can wear upside down. That way, I can look a little different, maybe a little dangerous. That's important sometimes, sometimes like on the street.
         Whoa, I'm getting way ahead of myself.
         Back-up, rewind, there's a little in between here and there, between walking in with only some stuff to peddle and walking out with that visor.
         I'll start with the walk over.
         To get to the thrifty store, it's a dangerous walk through a dangerous neighborhood filled with dangerous people. Danger. It's this neighborhood that has become the center of the whole battle between good and evil. I mean, even the way the neighborhood is laid out, it's clear that it's in a struggle between the two sides. There's a bunch of blocks, all in a row, that are laid out like, church, liquor store, church, liquor store, church liquor store. Good, evil, good, evil, good, evil, right there to see them fighting it out. Spray-painted curse words on the churches, posters about Christ on the liquor stores.
         Can't be scared though, not of the struggle and not of the neighborhood, least not on the outside. The inside can be my secret, safe to be scared there or whatever, but not on the outside. Be a solider on the outside. If I'm being a solider on the outside, then people think I am one of the dangerous ones that belong here. What they don't know won't hurt them, but it'll make them think maybe I will. Me the soldier, not me the secret.
         I make people uneasy and nervous ‘cause of two reasons, both of them having everything to do with me being a soldier.
         First, I appear as a solider from the streets, the kind of stuff that makes old ladies stay away from the mall nowadays and makes people take longer ways home from work so they can avoid the types of neighborhoods these soldiers rule over.
         Second, and more important, I'm a soldier of Christ. A Lamb and a soldier. Same time. Same time, I'm both. All three, really, street soldier and lamb and Soldier of the Lord. Make everyone shake, clear from little old ladies all the way to the devil himself.
         The devil. I ain't scared of him no more. I don't underestimate him, I just see it. I see it, I see the fear he has of my place in this Lord's army. I know that he can still work against me by getting into the eyes of other people, keep them from seeing and understanding where I'm coming from. He'll get in their ears and keep them from hearing my truths.
         Whoa, whoa, way off track again, I still ain't on the walk over. Back-up, rewind.
         I do two things on that dangerous walk to take away any sign that I feel or even think about the danger. I walk my soldier walk, that pimp-like stride where I kind of weave back and forth, ominous like a cobra slinking up on a victim. The other thing is in my mind, I play and replay that Bible verse about the Valley of the Shadow of Death, except something in there keeps it from playing all the way through, keeps all the words from playing out together, so it just plays and replays I'm walking through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, but I ain't fearin' no evil. My mind keeps telling me there's more to it, but it won't give it all to me. I guess God's just letting me have the important part right then. That's the only part I should really worry about.
         Shouldn't be any surprise really, with the efforts I make to advertise my bravery, but nobody messes with me on the way there. No one even looks my way, not that I notice.
Couldn't tell you why I knew I should go to the Goodwill that day. Sometimes you go somewhere or do something because you think about it and it sounds good, sounds like the right thing or fun thing to do right then. Other times, more important times, you get told to go someplace or to do something. Sometimes, I just get these ideas like, BLING! out of nowhere and I just know stuff. I learned to not question those ideas and to just follow them. I'm sure, sure, sure those types of ideas are gifts. Whatayacallit....divine interventions or inspirations, I'm not sure which. Doesn't really matter. If God wants to intervene or inspire, I'm not worried about which one to label it, I'm just gonna follow it. That's why I followed when led to the thrifty that day, why I was safe from danger all the way there.
         When I got to the thrifty's parking lot, I felt safe, safe without having to remind myself about the Valley and the fear. I let that feeling, that confidence be seen in my walk, the cocky smirk I decided to wear. I pulled an old, beat up ball cap out of my pocket and slapped it on my head, cocked it to the side, looking dangerous again, and strode into the front door.
         Before I'd realized it, I yelled out, almost singing, "Time to make my IMPAAAAAAACT!" Even though it happened before I'd had time to think about it, I didn't regret that announcement. It was very true.
         I seen them looking at me, all the customers and workers. Looking out of the corner of their eyes, pretending to keep shuffling through beat-up flannel work shirts, wrinkled and stained jeans, funny colored neck ties, and old, tired records of Herb Albert and some dude named Humperlink, or wink, or dink, or sink....Humpersomething. They pretend they didn't notice the impact, but just the pretending proves that the impact was made and felt and recognized and feared. The pretending was them trying to keep secret and safe, but I saw it.
         Since there wasn't gonna be anyone brave enough to speak about the change me being there had brought to the environment, I decided to make at least one them power through their fear and speak to me. For a minute, just a minute, I let the danger in my walk and talk slide away, not all the way, just enough to be approachable, and slide up to the front counter where the woman looked busy counting shirt hangers or something. Just trying to pretend she didn't notice either, really.
         "Look, uh," I said to the cashier in a cold voice that made me sound ready for something big without being intimidated by that big thing, one that probably made her think I could either be asking her out or getting ready to rob the place. A voice that keeps her guessing. Keeping people guessing is close enough to keeping secret. "I'm about to hang my coat by the door. I know you ain't responsible or nothin', just, uh," I paused for a second and did that cool thing guys do, you know, swipe their thumb between their nose and their top lip with a quick little flick, "Wanted you to know, is all."
         "I wouldn't do that," the clerk with a face as burnt black as charcoal warned me,          "Someone'll take it."
         "Oh, no they won't, cause," and I sang this next part, sang it loud enough for the whole store to hear, "I'm a No Limit Soldja!" It was just like in the rap songs that make grandma nervous and cross herself. The ones that when I play them make mom remind me over and over and over that I'm white and that I look/walk/sound/act ridiculous trying to walk and talk like one of the brothers from the block, that I'm embarrassing.
         The charcoal lady tried her best to act like she wasn't at least a little nervous or intimidated by my declaration to the store, rolling her eyes and turning away from me, but it was clear. Clear that she saw it. She saw the soldier before her. She saw it, she saw it. Why else act all cool like that if she wasn't trying to hide the secret her? The scared her.
         There was a headboard that somebody bought propped up against the wall right next to the front door. I knew someone had bought it because there was a big red "SOLD" sticker on it. Figured it was a good place to hang my coat, which is black and yellow, like a bee. Not striped like a bee, just the same colors as a bee. I realized the colors were the same as I took it off and draped it over the post of the headboard and began to make a buzzing sound, just loud enough for only me to hear. You gotta connect with nature, cause it was our first job. Man's I mean. The whole keeper of the garden thing.
         Over my buzzing, I heard a click, click, clicking on the cement floor. Maybe it's a concrete floor. I really don't know the difference. Maybe they're two different words that mean the same thing.
         The clicking was the heel of the cowboy boots of a guy looking at the old used tapes and CD's that were in this huge stand-up rack a few feet from the door. He was pacing back and forth as he read the back of a CD, talking on a cell phone about the album he found, checking with someone if they already owned that one or not. Judging by his shirt and haircut, I'd bet it wasn't a wife or girlfriend, but his sicko boyfriend he was asking. Boots looked gay, too. They were like a fake snakeskin, yellowish and unnatural. Gay jeans too. Too tight, too dark. Like we all wore when I was in grade school, when it was important to have the kind with the triangle on the butt pocket. Shirt and jean jacket to match. Match the other gay stuff.
         Everything made him look gay except the cell phone. The phone looked like an oversized metal pill, something from the future, like a capsule that you'd take instead of eating a meal. That phone to his ear made him look important, the kind of important that people couldn't let him have a few minutes at a store without them needing to talk to him.
I had to talk on it. And I had just the thing to make it happen.
The trip to the thrifty wasn't the only important thing I was told to do that week. I'd been given a gift, too.
         Three days before I went to the Goodwill store, I was out walking, no reason for it, just walking. About four blocks from home, standing right were the sidewalk running north and south up L Street meets up with the sidewalk running east and west along Wilmot Boulevard and the two paths make a kind of a cross, it hit me, this overwhelming dread. Impending doom. It was as if something was telling me I only had a minute, maybe a second, until I was caught by some major force, pulled into some tragic event that would end everything. That dread and that doom felt like everything bad from every ghost story I'd ever heard. Hot breath down my neck, ice in my veins, muscles pulled tight as violin strings, unseen eyes watching me, a silent warning on the wind, all that. I couldn't think of anything to do but run.
         I ran and ran and ran. Didn't now what from or where to, but I was running. Recklessly, over backyard fences and through alleys, I ran stumbling, my body a little ahead of my feet, for more blocks than I kept track of. If I was forced to guess, like someone put a gun to my head and said I had to guess, I must of run at least 10 blocks, probably more. Still didn't feel safe, so I still ran and ran. Even falling down, sliding hard on the blacktop of an alley, losing the skin off my palms and my knees, didn't keep me from getting away and putting more space between me and the doom.
         I could still feel my legs, but it didn't feel like they were under my control anymore, still pumping away, but wobbly and awkward feeling. My knees knocked together so hard a couple of times, it sounded like someone being punched and both times they knocked together, I fell again. Bam, once in someone's backyard and Bam, once that sent me sprawling head first into a privacy fence hard enough that I bounced back, the only time I moved in any direction but full steam ahead.
         As I bounced back off of that fence, I rolled backwards, my feet flipping straight up over my head and I did a backwards somersault without trying. My legs trembled so hard, I knew they'd never pull me back to my feet and my lungs were filled with a kind of burning pain that I guessed pneumonia must feel like. I thought I was done for, that the doom was going to catch me and I'd be finished.
         I crawled towards the side of the house next to the driveway I was lying flat on my stomach in, and slowly pulled myself up, using the warm, yellow sided wall to bring myself to my feet.
         Then it was gone. The doom. The dread. Gone.
         And I was standing right in front of an open window.
         Just inside that window, on an ugly end table with a lamp built right into it, or maybe it was a lamp with an end table built around it, there it was.
         The gift.
         It was shining like a mirror, the smooth sliver of the case. Slightly curved, it looked so perfect and elegant, like the case held the world‘s greatest treat or biggest secret.
         I knew what it was right away, but I'd only seen cigarette cases like that in James Bond movies or even older movies that Grandma watches on the weekends with Cary Grant and Clark Gable in them. Fancy stuff.
         I saw it. I saw it and knew I'd been led to it. Maybe it was real dread and doom I felt, but this gift was meant to keep those feelings away, I knew it. I was sure it was what made those feelings go away just a minute before. I don't know how it did, but that ain't for me to say.
         Sometimes you don't understand why you're told to do something until later. The thing is, if you waste all that time wondering why and asking how come, you'll probably miss the opportunity put before you and then it don't really matter "how come." This was one of those times, so I stuck my hand through the window and took my gift. Didn't think about anyone being home or getting caught, not until later. I just trusted in the gift, not wasting the once in a lifetime opportunity worrying about what I was supposed to do with it. I don't smoke, so I didn't even think about keeping it. I didn't even open it to see if it had squares in it. I just stuffed it in my pocket and didn't think about the why.
         Not until I saw the phone.
         Trade off, I thought. I'll trade Mr. 1986 gay cowboy the cigarette case for five minutes on that phone.
         "Hey, partner," I started as I walked up to Mr. 1986, trying again to sound like the brothers on the block. Smooth talkers. H-U-S-T-L-E-R hustlers. "Sorry to interrupt and all, but, uh, peep this." I moved in close and put my arm around his shoulder, like you do to tell a big secret. I felt his shoulder muscles flinch and get tense under my hand and hoped it was because he was afraid. "You think you could let me use that phone for a hot minute?"
         He didn't answer, but his face started saying no before he could make his mouth do it, so I went on, hoping I could stop that "no" from coming out. "I wouldn't ask, but I got a real emergency, yo."
         Mr. 1986 started shaking his head, avoiding looking at me and started to say, "I don't know, I..."
         There wasn't no real emergency, but I had to come up with something and it had to be done before I let this guy finish his sentence or get around to saying no. My mind spun and spun to come up with a story. In a flash, it had locked on to one that wasn‘t quite a story, not a completely made up one, at least. "It's my mom, dawg. She‘s trying to get me committed."
         It was a half-truth, almost a lie, but she probably did want me committed. I know she wanted it, I was just telling a partial truth about the "trying" part. I was sure it was the next step. She'd kept sayin' thing like she's running out of options and she'd tried everything else. She'd never said the word, but I knew those comments meant she was thinking about the next step.
         I'd never been committed, just hospitalized. Big, big difference. You get hospitalized, it might be a day or a weekend, or a week, then Mom or grandma comes and says they are ready to sign me out. Been through that more times than I want to think about. Enough times that the techs laugh and say they saved my regular room and that I'd come back so quick this time, the bed's still warm.
         I know I'd be forgiven for the half-truth though, if it was a sin, but I don't think He'd see it as a sin. The forgiving thing, that's what He does, but this was okay, the half-truth. It was okay because it was a means to an end, okay because it was part of the mission or purpose or whatever it was I'd been chosen for. Given the cigarette case for. It was okay because talking on the phone really would keep me from being committed.
         Important people don't get committed. They might get a little weekend getaway for med stabilization. I'd seen that weatherman from channel 8 that does the weird voices and lame jokes on the evening news be brought in to the ward for a weekend once. No one believes me, though. They keep that stuff hush-hush for bigwigs. So, important people might get that secret little weekend away, but they don't get committed.
         And important people talk on cell phones.
         People see you on one, saying stuff like, "A-SAP" and "I'll see if I can work you in," they automatically think you're calling the shots on something. Crackheads and crackpots don't talk on cell phones, just important people.
         I knew that was His plan right then. It was all coming together to make it possible for me to be seen with the phone to my ear, barking orders at someone, letting people see me as important. Important people don't get committed.
         "Committed?" Mr. 1986 repeated the word back to me like he'd never heard before.
         "Yeah, man," I had to be careful not to make the half-truth into a full lie at this point. Didn't want to stretch the truth until it broke, make it into some soap opera story. "I don't know what her deal is, dawg, but she ain't about the right. I just need to talk to some people, ya know? Keep her from bein' able to get me locked up." I suddenly began to worry that he'd ask me who I needed to talk to because I'd have to lie then. I didn't have no idea who I was going to call. That wasn't the important part. The important part, the essential part was just being seen with it.
         "I really can't," Mr. 1986 said as he was slowly stepping backwards, creeping away from me. "It's a company phone."
         Instead of busting him out on his lie, which I knew it was because, come on, I'd just heard him on a personal call, plus it was Sunday, I just smiled and decided to play my trump card I had in my back pocket.
         "Hey, brother-man, check this out." I reached back and pulled the gift out of my pocket and presented it to him. "I could let you have this gift from Him, in all it's shiny, shiny glory if you'd just give me like, five minutes to talk on that phone.
         I think the gift intimidated him or something because, all of a sudden, he couldn't seemed to look at it or at me. Instead, he went back to looking through the tapes and CD's, this time, all fast and almost urgently, like he was on a deadline to find the right one or something.  When he finally decided to say something, he stuttered a little, "I..I d-don't know, I really shouldn't."
         I was completely at a loss for words. How could he say no? I mean, how could he when he had seen the gift and heard me offer the blessing unto him? He had to even just feel the gift, you know, it's presence and everything. IT was the plan, after all. His plan. There couldn't possibly be a "no."
         But there was. Something was wrong.
         Needing to regroup or rethink, I just walked away, unable to speak, still at that same loss.
         I needed quiet. I needed somewhere to be away from everything and see where I had strayed from the plan, but stay close enough to Mr. 1986 and his phone that I could jump right back into putting His plan into action when I figured it out.
         I headed back towards the dressing rooms in the far back corner of the thrifty, meaning to disappear in one of the booths for a few minutes, but on the way there, I felt myself being drawn towards a bin in the lady's section . I let myself be drawn, be pulled over to it. I trusted the source of the pulling, especially since being led to that window to find my gift.
         The bin was full of lady's scarves, the silky, almost see-thru kind. The pile of silky scarves was like three feet deep , so I put both my arms shoulder deep into the fabric. It felt like what I guessed it would feel like to put my foot in a bucket of cold water if it was on fire, all like, "AAAAAHHHHH!"
         Then, again, like magic, another gift presented itself. No, not like magic, like miracle. Magic's a trick and that's not how to describe a gift from God, not a trick. That's what the other side does, what the enemy does is "trick."
         The gift was the visor.  There it was, placed on top of all the other second-hand hats, the reason for this whole story and the whole trip and the whole day. Clearer than anything's ever been to me in my life, there was no question that it all led up to this. The first gift, the walk over, even being told no about the phone. 
         The mountain of beat-up old hats that probably had those nasty yellow sweat stains on the inside of the brims formed a pedestal, a pedestal to present the gift on. There was this amazing light to it, highlighting it just like cigarette case, the color snapping off like POP! when you looked at it. That crackling brightness of it's purple made it stand out the way that girl in the red dress stood out in that movies about the Nazis and the Jews.
         Seeing that purple visor, glowing and calling me to the bin it laid on top of, I cried out, "AAAAAAAAWWW, Snap, yo!" and made my way to claim my gift. My prize for being a solider and a lamb.
         Oh, the phone didn't have nothin' to do with nothin.' I should have known anyway. There was no grand presentation with the phone the way there was with the two real gifts. I'd forced it, thinking I could just spot a gift, just stumble across it and decide it was a gift, like it was up to me or something to label it. 
         See, the visor had something the phone didn't.  Sure, the phone would make me look like an important person, but the hat would make me look cool.  Cool beats important any day.  Sure, important people get special treatment that some of us don't and are seen a little differently than unimportant people, but that don't mean people like them.  Everyone likes cool people.  If you're cool, you get respect. 
         You get the special treatment. 
         You get smiled at. 
         You get looked up to. 
         You get flirted with.
         You get talked about even when you're not around.  Like, for no reason, somebody might say, "You know who's cool?" and then, BAM, they drop your name.  People don't go around asking, "You know who's important?"  They might see someone important and then be like Oh, yeah, He is somebody, but when you're cool, you stay on their minds.
         You get all the good that comes along with being important, plus a ton more.
         And, best of all, you don't get committed. 
         Besides being  cool instead of important, the visor was better than the phone...not just better, effective... effective is the word.  Anyway, the visor was more effective than the phone because it was more permanent.  With the phone to my ear, barking orders and stuff into it, I could look important for a few minutes, long enough for maybe people to start talking about it.  But owning that visor, I could look cool for as long as I wanted.  Many more eyes seeing my cool than my importance, many more mouths talking about it, keeping me outside.
         I'd seen it all wrong, back when I thought it was all about important, but that was cool because I had to be thrown for that loop the phone and Mr. 1986 had thrown me for. Otherwise, I wouldn't have gone to the back of the store to regroup and found this crown presenting itself on the top of a pile of hats that were just....hats. Diamond in the rough. A diamond in the rough for a diamond in the rough. That was me and that was the visor.
         There was no price tag on it. Didn't really matter because it was priceless and I was penniless. Anyway, if I was led here to receive this gift, it could be marked for a gozillion bucks and there'd still be made a way for it to be mine. I did still need to know what I was working against though, so I lifted the visor off its pedestal and brought it up to the counter.          The Charcoal Lady was ringing up a lady with two screaming kids climbing in and out of her buggy. About a million people stood in line behind the mom to pay for their buggies full of junk. I couldn't wait in line, though. It was an emergency.
         I slid into the line right behind the mom.  I pretended not to see the enormous black lady with her breasts swaying like that thing that tick-tocks back and forth on a grandfather clock as I stepped between her and the mom in the never-ending line.  When she griped, "Hey, there's a line here, you know!" I pretended not to hear either.  I was able to tune her out completely shortly after she turned to the people in line behind her and started saying  "I  don't know who this white boy thinks he is, but..."
         The mom piled used shirt after used shirt and beat-up shoes after beat-up shoes on the counter. And pants and hats and jackets and an ugly green kitchen clock and belts....it went on and on as her kids climbed all over her and the buggy that, somehow, didn't seem to be getting any emptier despite the massive amount of stuff she'd already loaded onto the counter.  She must have had twenty more kids at home just like the two wild ones she brought with her, judging by the stockpile of clothes and junk she had scooped up.
         I couldn't wait any longer.  The visor burned in my hand and cried out for action, so I pried myself in-between her buggy and the counter, wedging myself directly between the mom and the Charcoal Lady.  Not wanting to be rude, I started with "Yo, excuse me," and lifted the visor high, straight into the air, "But, uh, how much?" 
         "Boy," the Charcoal lady said as she planted a fist against her hip.  "Cain't you see I'm waitin' on this lady here?"  I just held still, the visor still lofted and my eyes locked on hers.  There was a quiet moment that was a challenge or at least felt like one between me and the Charcoal lady.  A challenge that was all about the question was she gonna answer my question or I was I gonna put the visor down and walk away.  Just as I already knew, I won.  "It's 49 cents!  Now get your scrawny behind out from behind that lady's cart and get it to the back of that line!"
         Like I said, 49 cents was 49 cents more than what I had.  My mind was juggling two questions.  How was I gonna get 49 cents and where was I gonna get 49 cents?  How/Where?  Where/How?  My brain was still cycling through these when I saw him.
         Mr. 1986, in line right behind the massive woman I had pretended not to notice. 
         The how and the where were easy questions then.  How was selling the cigarette case and the where was from Mr. 1986.  I already kind of knew him and didn't have to go through the awkwardness of an introduction or anything.  I yelled out "Dawg!" like I was running into an old homey and headed towards him.  As I passed the massive woman, I heard her say to herself "Oh, Lord, what now."  Ignored it.  She almost didn't exist by then. 
         I grabbed his hand and shook it in the coolest way I knew how, the way that ends with my fingers snapping off of his, but he still didn't look at me.  I figured he was still worried about me using his phone so I let him off the hook.  "Hey, dawg, this ain't about the phone, so don't worry, man.  A work phone, I get it.  It's a work phone and I ain't gonna sweat you about it, but, uh you remember this, right."  I pulled the case out of my pocket again and held it out as straight as I could hold my arm, doing my best to make my hand into the same kind of pedestal the end table and the pile of hats had been for both my gifts. "Man, I can let it go for like 50 cents, brother.  All yours." 
         He didn't say nothing as the line finally moved up for the massive woman's turn at the counter, so I figured he needed to know more before he decided.  ൺ cents, man.  You can't put a price on this thing.  You know why.  You see, right?  You see."  He had to recognize the gift from God by that point.  He still wasn't looking, though, so I lifted the case up, just under his nose.
         Mr. 1986 let out a deep, fast sigh, the kind that says you've had just about enough.  He leaned forward, set his stuff down on the counter and, holding both hands out in front of him the way someone would when they were telling how big the fish they caught was, said, "Look!  I came here to shop....FROM THE STORE!  I didn't come here to be followed around or to be bothered nonstop and I especially  didn't come here to buy your...crap."  He flicked his hand in a disgusted gesture towards the cigarette case I was holding out towards him.
         Being so close to the second gift, though, I couldn't give up here.  It was close.  So close. Already in my hand, even, I just didn't own the gift yet.  Just two quarters was all I needed.  Two quarters.  Surely, a gift from God  Was worth more than two quarters.  I knew, knew, knew  I could get him to see this.  "Man, I'm just trying to take what I was given and pass it..."
         Then he cussed at me.  HE cut me off right in the middle of letting him know he was about to receive a gift from God and he cursed me. I will not, not, not repeat the words he used. It was the worst one. The G.D. one. He barked out those two hideous words and then yelled for me to just leave him alone.
         I felt dizzy and hot when he cursed me like that and my response jumped out of my throat so hard it hurt when I yelled it. "God does damn. God does damn, but not when you tell him to. Not when you say so. You'll find out. Keep talkin' like that."
         In my mind, before it happened, I saw this guy reach out and grab me by the neck, his thumb right across my Adam's apple ready to lock the air out and cut off my life just that easy.
         A tech on the ward tried that once. I didn't see him try until the thumb was already there, pressing down so hard, I thought both sides of my windpipe were going to touch. It happened in this big group tackle the staff did on me, trying to stick needles in me to calm me down after I spit in the face of that same tech when he was trying to make me take pills that I didn't know what was in. I know that kind of violence from staff is against the rules, but couldn't anybody see it at the bottom of that pile and I couldn't scream out to let anyone know as long as that thumb was there.
         I'd let it happen just by not seeing it coming, but not this time. I saw it.
         Instead of letting him get a jump on me, I put it all out there and said, "Yo, you want to step outside and we can handle this?" Even though I'd never asked another man to do this, seeing it on TV like a thousand time made it easy, as if it was something I said to a hundred guys a day.
         Mr. 1986 turned to me and, for the first time, look me right in the eye. Really slowly and calmly, scaring the hell out of me he was so casual about it, he said, "You know what? Yeah. Yeah, I do."
         Being scared like that, I had to move fast, before he could see how frightened I was and did something like those techs did to me on the ward, I turned it up a notch. Got physical. All in one big movement, I stepped into him, closing the gap of three feet or so between us and bumped my chest hard against his. He almost lost his balance altogether, but ended up only having to take a half-step backwards. This must have been just what it feels like for those male mountain goats with the big horns to butt their heads together, colliding and letting each other know I ain't scared of you. For a second, I felt like I was the one that made the other goat stumble back, legs wobbly while I just stood my ground.
         All this while, since the time I invited this guy to step outside, the charcoal lady was saying something to me, but it never really got through. I could hear her voice and the words, but my mind refused to put them together. That was, at least until she grabbed the thing for the loud speaker and yelled into it, "I NEED YOU TO LEAVE THE STORE RIGHT NOW!"
         These words echoed and echoed through the story and I looked over the tops of my raised fists to see the whole store full of people frozen. Some holding up shirts, some in the middle of pulling their kids close to them, some pointing right at me, but all of them staring.  Frozen right in place and staring right at me.
         That's when I knew. The word just popped right into my head, almost seeming like someone said it out loud.
         Failed. Failed a test. I failed by letting my first soldier role overpower the second and the role as a lamb instead of being all three still. By being strong in that one way, I was being weak in two others. Bad math.
         Straightaway, I made for the door. It's bad enough to fail in this role, but to do it in front of so many eyes was more than I could stand. As I grabbed my coat off of the headboard I'd left it on, I put the visor in it's place.  I wanted nothing more than to be out of that store, but by the time I made it to the door, me standing halfway in, halfway out, I knew I had to say something to tip the balance back.
         "I apologize, I apologize and I'll come back and work it off like community service in here. I'll even bring my Bible and you know then it's real." I stopped and crossed myself, just in case you-know-who was in their ears and wouldn't let them hear my truth. I don't think he can be in their ears and eyes at the same time, so they'd see me stamp the truth on what I was saying when I crossed myself.
         I turned to this Billy-Ray-looking sucker and spoke more of my truth. "And I'm sorry to you too, brother, but I saw you. I saw you about to grab me. I saw you, I saw you, I saw you. I saw you and I couldn't be havin' it!"
         At that, I slipped out of the door. The sun outside seemed too intense, almost like it was a spotlight from above and I was caught in it. It was pointed right at me to keep me from hiding or covering up what I had done. I'd misunderstood and misused a gift from God. The cigarette case. There was no questioning if it was a gift or not, a holy one. The thing was, I'd just messed up what I was supposed to do with it. I suddenly felt it's weight in my pocket, pulling me down, heavier than should have been possible. What was worse was, it didn't stop there. I could actually feel it start tugging at me on the inside, it's weight pulling at first my skin, then my guts, up to my heart, and, at last, at my soul. I could feel it pulling at my soul. Pulling and tugging. You pull and tug at something long enough, you change it forever. You corrupt it, destroy it.
         I had to do two things to make it right again. I had to get out of the spotlight by getting back in there and getting that visor I was brought here to get, but first, I had to get rid of the cigarette case. I had destroyed its chance to be the gift it was destined to be and it was now destroying me right down to my soul.
         That impending doom feeling was beginning to creep in, not as suddenly hitting me like it did the day I was given the gift, but it was nearing the same strength as it was that day.  My body was pulling apart, the muscles feeling like Silly Putty that could no longer hold me together.  As loose as the muscles felt, my lungs went in the opposite direction, being like kids balloons that only needed one more breath blown into them to pop.  I almost collapsed, but managed to stay on my feet by squatting down and pulling the back of my head toward my knees.  Inside my head, I was repeating the words I'm gonna die.  Man, oh, man, I'm gonna die, so loudly that I hadn't realized I was screaming until I had to pull in a deep breath to let the next scream out. 
         Suddenly there was a hand on my shoulder.  I fell forward to the ground just out of shock or being startled or whatever you want to call it.  I looked up, right into the sun, so see a man silhouetted against the burning spotlight.  His voice sounded a million miles away when he asked, "Are you okay?"  I didn't answer right away because I needed a minute to remember everything, like, where I was, what had happened,  why I was dying, so he repeated his question.
         By the time  I remembered everything, I could see his wife or girlfriend or whoever standing behind him.  They both shared that same worried look and I knew they saw that I was dying.  At last, someone saw.  "I need you for something," I managed to squeak out. "I need you to do something for me." 
         Like he didn't hear me, he asked "Can you get up.  Are you okay to get up?"  Instead of answering, I just put my hand out and he pulled me to my feet the way football players lift each other up after a leveling tackle. 
         Instantly, we were face to face, my nose just an inch away from his.  Without pause, I said, "I need you to buy something from me."  At some point between holding my hand out and being lifted to my feet, I had fished the cigarette case out without even thinking about it.  I held it out to him and, not meaning to at all, I yelled so loud, "FIFTY CENTS!"
         He started backing away in big exaggerated steps, but I saw it.  Saw it before he decided to take the steps back, so I matched him, step for step and stayed right in his face.  To his girl, who was yelling, "Just give him the 50 cents!" It probably looked like we were locked in some crazy, high-speed dance, my forward steps exactly matching his backwards ones.  He fumbled a hand into his pocket and pulled out the quarters, still walking backwards, only a little slower now, he told me just to take them and dropped them into my palm.  HE said to just take them and that he didn't want the case, but I had to get rid of it.  It still burned and weighed me down, the corrupted thing that I had caused it to become. 
         I slapped it into his palm and we both stopped taking our steps.  AS we stood there in the parking lot, I held the case in place firmly with both hands and, almost in a whisper let him know, "No, you have to.  You have to take it.  It's rotting my soul." 
         AS he whispered back, simply saying, "Okay," I knew he understood.  He had started to cry a little.  Two puddles of tears stood in the corners of his eyes, waiting to fall but somehow staying in place.  I thought What a good man.  I left him standing there holding the case, hoping that his good had restored it to what it was meant to be, and went back to get my gift. 
         Hoping not to be noticed, I opened the door to thrifty just enough to slide inside quietly one leg at a time.  I lifted the visor off the headboard the way you would if it were attached to a bed someone you didn't want to wake up was sleeping in.  Thank You for leaving it here for me still,  I thought...I prayed. 
         I thought for a second about going  quietly to the back of the line, which didn't look any shorter despite the mom, the massive woman, Mr. 1986, and probably a couple of people after him already having gone through it and left.  That way, I'd wouldn't call any attention to myself.  Then, I thought, In and out.  Just in and out would be better.  No one to see me and remember that I caused some trouble. 
         Instead of cutting in behind the first person in line this time, I just walked right up to the end of the counter  where they bag up all the stuff people buy and load it back into their buggies.  The Charcoal Lady saw me before I could even speak.  "Uh-uh, I done told your fool self once to get out of this store!  You're lucky I don't call the cops.  Won't be so lucky if you get out right now!"
         Terrified that I'd blow it again, knowing  it was the last chance, I pleaded with her.  "Sister, I just....I Just gotta...."  The words weren't coming, not the right ones, but then they just jumped out of me as I thrust the visor out towards her, my knuckles trembling and white with it in their grip.  "Please, please, PLEASE just let me buy this.  I need it, it's a gift, you dig, I..."
         "Boy, just take the hat and get your crazy ass out my store!"
         It was going to happen, finally, but it had to happen right.  Holding up the two quarters pinched between my thumb and finger,  I said, "Nope!  Nope!  It ain't mine until these are yours!" and I slapped them on the counter.
         Over.  Done.  It was mine.  I flipped it upside down, turned it sideways, and slipped it over my head.  The 49 cents weren't the real costs.  The feelings of doom, of failure, pain, fear, all of it were the tests I had to pass and the price I had to pay for my deliverance.  Having been so close to doom and death, it was still all worth it to know I was safe and rescued from that nightmare place.  What I'd been given was worth ten times the pain it took to get it.
         My gift.  My crown of cool.