Sam squinted at the cupcake and hummed his suspicions. Pink, sure. Sprinkled, fine. But the slabs of chocolate like granite walls in a brutalist library, no. Artisanal chefs went to these kind of lengths but this was a damn truck stop.
“You,” Sam said, pointing at the figure behind the counter.
The clerk turned to face him but kept mumbling into his phone.
Sam sauntered to the counter. “Hey, Boss. You know it’s rude to talk on the phone when you got a customer talking to you?”
Now he got a mildly belligerent stare but the phone did not depart the ear.
Sam craned forward and plucked the rectangular electronic miracle from the hand. He tapped the red circle on the screen, terminating the call and the tiny voice that was squeaking from some faraway unseen place. Looking at the phone against the background of the heavily smudged yellow counter, he frowned, then moved it about an inch to the left.
“What business have you got with gourmet cupcakes?”
With a reach that tried to stay far away, the clerk snuck his phone into his hand and then deep into his pocket.
Sam flicked a chocolate crumb off the counter, perhaps purposely at the man behind the counter. It bounced off his green long sleeve shirt. “Hey boss, you going to answer my question?”
The clerks face screwed and unscrewed, twisted and untwisted, then with the prolonged exhale of a balloon deflating, settled deep into resignation. “Uh. Sorry, what now? What was the question, sir?”
Sam propped his elbows on the counter and made a smacking noise with his lips. He spun around, opened the baked goods box and while flatly whistling “row, row, row, your boat” tonged out the cupcake in question. “Exhibit A. Gourmet cupcake. Care to solve the origin riddle?”
The clerk shrugged. “I don’t have a clue, man. I mean, sir. That’s the morning shift. They get the baked goods, I think.” He wheeled around like a drone with low batteries and flipped through the barely held contents of a clipboard. “Maybe. It’s in here somewhere who does that. The baked goods delivery but I guess it makes sense that it’s the morning shift, right? I mean, right, sir? That makes sense to me.”
Sam raised up the cupcake with the brown plastic tongs his eyes extra wide as if he was watching the raising of a poison victim back from the grave. He cleared his throat and while making the toddler’s motorcycle noise, flipped the cupcake upside down, splattering the frosting onto the clipboard. He bounced up and down on his tippy toes and made his mouth into a tiny o. “Gather your focus, boss! I’m the customer, you’re the employee! You’re the knower! I’m the knowee!”
The clerk blinked and sighed, stepping back away from the counter and bumping into the wall of cigarettes behind him. “I think it’s time for you to go now.” He stopped a case covered in cancer warnings from spilling onto the floor.
Sam folded his arms across his chest, covering the wooden medallion of a wheel that hung from his neck. “Maybe you should go now, sir?”
“Sure.”
“Sure, whatever, sir?”
“Just go. We forget the cupcake, man. No charge.”
Sam vaulted over the counter and landed next to the clerk. “We trade.”
“You’re fucking crazy, man. Get outta here.”
“Here.” Sam took off his necklace and yellow shirt.
“What?”
Sam unzipped his pants and tossed them on the floor. “Simple dimple, pop a pimple. Your clothes. Take them off and put mine on.”
The clerk watched as Sam took off his running shoes and socks. “You’re naked,” the words barely seeped out of his mouth.
“No. Once again you are inncorrect,” Sam said, tapping gently on his shiny black boxers. “Now, your clothes, boss.”
“Or else what?”
Sam frowned and made a circular gesture with both hands, as if he was unwinding some invisible yarn from an imaginary loom. “Your clothes.”
“No, man, this…”
A hand grabbed the bottom of the clerk’s green shirt and yanked it up over his head. He stumbled back, knocking cigarettes and lighters all over the gray linoleum floor. Sam slipped the long sleeve shirt on bent over and began tugging at the clerks boring brown dress shoes.
“I’ll call the cops, man. I will…”
The shoes were off, and then the socks.
Sam threw the yellow shirt at the clerk, who caught it. In that instinctual and nearly invisible moment, the clerk’s pants were unbuttoned, unzipped, and removed.
“No one need know the underwear remain the same.”
Sam was already halfway dressed. The clerk stood still, holding the shirt.
The bell rang. Someone was coming through the door. The clerk flung himself to the floor and began throwing on Sam’s clothes.
“Help you find anything there, boss?”
“Yeah. Just the gas, thanks.”
“Sure boss.”
A card changed hands. A receipt was signed. The bell rang again.
The clerk stood up, fully dressed. “What are you doing?”
“You‘re me now. Follow the GPS back home.”
The clerk looked at the pile of clothes on the ground and then back up at Sam. “You’re crazy, man, you’re fucking crazy.”
Sam smiled. “Now you’re crazy.”
The clerk wrenched the clothes off the floor, flung them onto his body and stormed out the door.
“Customers,” Sam declared to the empty room.
