rafael, his day …
Rafael works behind a cash register in the local hardware complex, him and a dozen others all dressed in corporate black and gold, nameplates prominent. My Name Is Rafael is working the garden section today and dealing with a stocky little middle-aged individual who is paying for his two punnets of immature basil and a wilted petunia via his iPhone.
We wait while he fingers off a please pay message to his credit provider. Whoever that may be.
Fifteen seconds. Thirty seconds.
We wait.
Sixty seconds.
Rafael waits. I wait. the woman behind me waits. I have a large bag of potting soil resting on my shoulder and am being reminded that the punk-ass muscles I used to have up there aren’t what they used to be.
Two minutes. The little man is finally done and gone.
The queue moves up and my bag of dirt is clicked through by Rafael in fifteen seconds. He’s a young fellow with black hair and soulful downcast eyes he could only have inherited from his mother.
I ask … ‘How’s it going with you today, Rafael?’
He hands me the receipt, flicks up a glance, says ..
‘Living the dream, bro ….you?’
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