My bill

Not enough to buy peaches and peppers and lettuce and radishes, so 'Please, take this off,' and in a moment-- seven cents short--'I guess I'm going to leave this too,' when, out of the blue, the young black woman behind me said, 'Put it on my bill.'

I usually stop by Baby Nat's produce store once a week to get berries for breakfast, lettuce for lunch, and sometimes random Caribbean comestibles I've never eaten before, for the patrons of the place are generally people from that region; Anglos and Asians are usually there for the low prices. The staff is Hispanic--lots of laughing conversation going on between cashiers and baggers--and the clientèle very often Haitian or from the other islands. Lots of yams, rice, sugar cane, big bunches of greens, mangos, papayas are heaped on the counters before being efficiently priced and packed for carrying away.

I, cool, self-contained, enter, look for what I want to find, quickly take my place in line, pay and leave, with only a word or two of greeting to the cashier, and thanks to the bagger. Often I'm behind black ladies, some large, some old and bent, some in the company of others or managing children, their carts often full of bulky items, but sometimes only purchasing a few things, often searching in their purses for coins to make payment. What they are buying is food, the matter of nourishment, that which they will stand in the kitchen cooking and serve to their families, or dip into by themselves.

At Baby Nat's, I feel, not unwelcome, but invisible, but I'm clearly not. For the young woman with the khaki cap with the amused and friendly smile on her dark face had clearly noticed me and decided to make a generous gesture, which, why not? I took at face value.

Had I asked anyone for money? no; had I pleaded with the cashier? no; or promised to come back in a minute with pennies from my car? In fact, I was simply resigned to completing only half my shopping on that trip. So what you, my benefactor, did was obviate a second trip for me (if you indeed thought I had the wherewithal to make one.)

You eased my way in the world, but you did more. You opened a window into a world beyond the pay-as-you-go, the world of pay-as-the one behind or the one ahead-goes. I like the look of that world. I want to help make it work.