Free Like We Care by Tom Matthews Page A

Hopefully, he could bum a smoke from someone in the teacher’s lounge. When the rain started and the students scattered, he would sneak out to the Happy Snack during his sixth hour free time and stock up.

Stand
    T he sign on the Happy Snack’s front door read “No More Than Two Students During School Hours.” At ten o’clock this morning, more than twenty students were inside. Daljit Singh couldn’t possibly monitor them all, and knew for a fact that inventory was being stolen all around him, while he basked in the glow of the market at work.
    He had once seen the tightly-guarded formula with which the Happy Snack corporate office folded estimated theft losses into the skyrocketing mark-up of shelf prices, leading to record-high company earnings despite the fact that seemingly a third of its stock was being shop-lifted.
    It was an artful exercise in supply-and-demand hijacking, the bean-counters at corporate gauging with fascination the point at which cash-flush consumers would balk at the high prices. Like the proverbial frog in the pot of water, blissfully boiling to death as the temperature rises degree by subtle degree, the secret was to bone the customer a penny at a time.
    They hadn’t caught on yet. Not even close.
    Daljit Singh understood that the more that was stolen, the higher he could raise his prices. The more children he allowed in, the more inventory went out.
    There went a pack of Oreos—over there, a bag of rubber bands. Could a six dollar hotdog (wholesale cost: 43 cents) be far behind? Daljit thought so, maybe in his lifetime. If he was not shot dead behind the register.
    Not all kids stole, of course, because that would interfere with their spending. So they lined up five-deep at the counter, these moneyed young jackals who took for granted the privilege of education, which they rejected at the school down the street. This was what Daljit Singh hated about them most of all: that they should be offered so much of substance, only to throw it away in favor of squalor and frivolity.
    The money changed hands skillfully, smooth, uncalloused white palms emerging from pockets and wallets laden with cash, to be deposited into the brown, needy palm of the humble storeowner.
    Sometimes these children, aiming for a show of defiance and disdain in front of their friends, threw the money down onto the counter rather than into Daljit’s hand. He liked this fine—liked to see the cash spread out before him. To these hate-laden toughs, he always offered a timid bow and a slight tremor to the hand as he quickly, fearfully, made their change. He wanted them to know how inferior he felt to their American swagger. He knew they’d come back two or three times during the day to buy more, just for the chance to sneer at a foreigner.
    Joel rocked on his feet, almost preferring to be in class than endure this wait.
    Oh, the ways to make a dollar in this wondrous, wondrous land.

    “The fuck’s the problem up there?” he grumbled.
    Todd stood beside him with a one-liter bottle—a vat, really—of Coke. Somewhere in Todd’s brief lifespan, the twelve-ounce can had become a kiddie thing, like training wheels or a hand held crossing the street. Children begged quarters off their mommies to buy cans from a vending machine; teenagers demanded vastly more to satisfy their needs.
    Now that he was seventeen, Todd just wanted heft for his dollar. Coke in a twelve-ounce can was just as sweet, its simple, classic red-and-white packaging just as seductive and fine. But look here: feel the weight of the one-liter bottle. Note how its bulk announces itself to your arm, your wrist. This is a purchase. Look through the clearness of the plastic (can you see through the can? No!): There’s more Coke in there. The red and white label? It’s bigger . There’s more bright color. Maybe the eye shouldn’t even see this much red; the optic nerve just might burst from such an intense rush of red . Red like a fire truck, like a bouncy