“fuck off,” the old man said
as he heaved a black trash bag
into the dumpster behind the Safeway.
karsten blinked.
“well damn.
i just said hey, man.”
we were sitting on the busted bench
where the store employees sneak smokes.
karsten had just sparked a joint,
and now he looked personally offended
by a guy who probably remembers the moon landing.
“old people are nasty,” karsten said.
“nah,” i replied.
“they’re just done pretending.
you spend decades smiling through bullshit—
meetings, marriages,
appliance warranties,
school plays that never end—
until one day
you just start saying ‘fuck off’
because it saves time.”
he handed me the joint.
“imagine,” i said,
“spending forty years
getting up at four-thirty,
packing lunches,
scraping frost off your windshield with a CD case,
driving to a job where your name
is misspelled on the breakroom birthday card.”
karsten laughed.
“c’mon, man.”
“no, really,” i said.
“you raise a couple of kids
who forget to call.
you save just enough to worry about losing it.
you buy a house,
then spend twenty years
fixing things that shouldn’t break—
a furnace, your marriage, your knees.
you throw out your back
bending down to pick up someone else’s sock.
you learn to budget joy
like a utility bill.”
“damn.”
“and eventually,” i went on,
“you realize the stuff you collected—
vinyl, velvet paintings,
state spoons,
refrigerator magnets from Myrtle Beach—
none of it matters.
your legacy fits in a file folder
and a few dusty photos
with people no one can place.”
karsten exhaled,
watching the smoke get swallowed
by the sky above the loading dock.
“and when the bitterness sets in,” i said,
“when you realize
the world’s moved on
and you’re just background now—
too slow at the checkout,
too confused by the touchscreen menu—
you say ‘fuck off’
because what else is there?”
he nodded.
“wow, man.”
then, after a pause—
“you gonna pass that back?”
i handed it to him,
and we sat there in silence
watching a shopping cart
drift into a puddle and stay there.
