Thread by @elnathan_john

I walk into the Asian store, eyes trained on the freezer that normally has hot bell peppers. There are none. Woman who runs the store says she only has power chilli which is very hot. I want fresh pepper. She asks how much I want so she can sell me some from her personal stash...

She has to go in to get some but that will mean leaving the store unattended. A youngish white guy walks in with a backpack. Her face drops. She stiffens, glowers at him. She backs into a room which leads to another room inside. She peeps and signals to me: watch him please.

I am holding a tin of coconut milk as the Asian woman disappears into this maze of rooms, wondering if I have a choice in this matter: can I choose to ignore her request to watch this guy who is now going round the store? My eyes follow him, each second making me feel dirtier.

I am happy she is getting me peppers from her private stash inside this room or house, I do not know - I know it is the good stuff. But then the white guy disappears from view. I now pretend to be looking for items myself, until I can see him. I feel complicit in something filthy

It does not help when he picks the cheapest beer in the store: Sternburg Export-about 70cents per bottle and bearing the stigma of being loved by poor alcoholics. (Once while buying a beer in a Turkish store the owner shook his head disapprovingly when I reached for a Sternburg)

I interrogate myself. I ask myself why I am doing this: watching him like the store owner asked me to. I tell myself: well I am not watching him-watching him. I am just curious to see she has asked me, the black stranger, to watch this white guy in the store. Still I feel shitty

She is taking forever. The white guy goes round and round the store, Sternburg in hand. I feel my blood pressure spike. He goes around the door area and I feel urine leaving my bladder and threatening to shoot out without protocol. What do I do if he walks out? What can I do?

All this for pepper. All this because I did not go to the store when I was supposed to and now the last Asian store open which had hot peppers has dragged me into this mess. I question my life choices. Why I did not listen to my father who taught me to be diligent and strategic.

This white guy, I will him to stop moving. To maybe pick something else without going through the store and disappearing behind shelves. To walk toward me and wait for her. To be kind to me and my blood pressure. To think of my life expectancy, of which I still have 30% left...

I thonk of every single time I have been followed around the store in Europe by a security guard pretending not to follow me around the store. And I wonder what has led me to to this place today. Why do bad things happen to good people? Why can't I just be great? Why me?

When she finally reemerges, I feel a weight lifted from my neck. My throat is dry as I try to swallow. I can see her walking out but she can't see him. I see her eyes begin to widen. Where is he? She asks me quietly. He is beside a shelf behind me. I hope he can't hear her.

I feel him behind me. I see her in front of me. A double assault. Then without turning my head I execute the most discreet of responses with my facial muscles to say he is behind me. She peeps, sees him, looks at his hands, then relaxes a bit.

She hands me a half full bag of fresh hot chillies and tells me not to use more than one at a time. Very hot, she warns. Pepper doesn't scare me, I brag. The man walks up to her and asks for a particular drink. It is down the aisle she says to him, pointing, impatient...

She only takes her eyes off him to smile at me when I give her the money and then motions with her head toward him, rolling her eyes. I feel the intensity of this bonding, but I wonder, why? Does she expect that I know why he is a threat. Her eyes say: he thinks I am stupid...

Her eyes say: we have to take care of each other man. Her eyes say: these people. And then I wonder: which people? Sternburg-Export-ers? Shoplifters? People who move suspiciously around an Asian woman store with a less than 1 euro item? Short men? White people?

But then I know that once my eyes engage with those questions, they will lead to answers. And once the answers are given I will be implicated in ways I may not be able to recover from. I block my questions from filtering through my eyes.
My eyes say: ich weiß. I know.

I know nothing. But I feel many things. As soon as the change hits my hand, those feelings snatch me by the collar and throw me out, faster than I have ever left any store. I cycle home fast, breathless, asking baby Jesus to please fix me, fix my blood pressure, fix my life.