p.o.

.

“Vanessa, you know we don’t have a charge account system here. I think we go through this every month. If you want it, you have to pay for it just like everybody else,” Paul said in a voice that obviously gave away his frustration.

“Well, Frank let me charge it last time,” Vanessa shot back, “why won’t you?”

“And have you paid for that yet?” Paul answered her question with a question as he put his hands on his hips and broadened his chest. His small but noticeable man-boobs sprouted forth from his blue Oxford dress shirt. The resulting pose was one of authority conveying the message, “there is no way in hell I’m going to let you charge this!”

“Well… uh…no,” Vanessa admitted.

“Uh-huh,” Paul said philosophically. “So why would I let you charge more?”

“Hey Paul, hey Paul… I tell you what… I’m just an American girl… Hows ‘bout we work it out in trade?” propositioned Vanessa. “I may be 55 years old, but I have needs. I bet you have needs too. I’ll do anything you want if you give me my Xanies.” Graham began to snicker as Shawnia, along with the rest of the customers in the store, widened their eyes and opened their mouths in shock as Vanessa stuck out her tongue and mimicked exactly what she had in mind by the phrase “work it out in trade”.

“I don’t think so Vanessa. As a matter of fact, that repulses me,” Paul replied as he grew more agitated. The time wasted with Vanessa’s shenanigans was causing a back up of work as people kept coming in and phones kept ringing. It was the wasting of time that irked Paul the most. “I need $23.99, so see what you can come up with. In the mean time, let me take care of someone else here,” Paul said dismissing her.

“Alright, if that’s the way you’re going to be,” Vanessa scoffed. “I’ll go talk to one of my girlfriends and see if she’ll lend me the money.”

Vanessa then proceeded to walk out of the pharmacy, turned left and stood outside peering in through one of the windows along the store front. As Paul noticed her staring at him, he looked up and made eye contact with Vanessa. She then proceeded to stick her tongue out again and erotically licked the window up and down and back and forth. She then stood still with her tongue hanging out staring at Paul seductively with wide eyes. Everyone in the store was cognizant of the commotion and could see the black mark on her tongue that was once dirt on the window. She then shook her hips in some primitive sort of dance and winked at Paul before exiting stage left.

Even though there was plenty of other work to be done, as expected on a Monday morning, Paul stood frozen in thought. He pondered what a waste of humanity Vanessa was. Here was a woman, Paul thought to himself, who had lived in Durham all of her life. She never knew her father. He left town before her birth as soon as he got wind of impregnating a 15 year old. She was sexually abused by her mother’s boyfriend at the age of twelve. Vanessa was raised on the welfare system, as was the case with most people in the town of Durham. Here it was a way of life, a means to survive, and over the years the people of Durham learned how to work the system. The older generation taught the newer generation how to be lazy, how to never have a job, and have Uncle Sam pay for everything. And after 55 years, you get a Vanessa: a dirty, illiterate, drug abusing piece of poor white trash.