Portrait of a Small-Town Smuggler
I place the brown Wendy's bag inside a Wal-Mart sack and tie the bunny ears around the middle-front of my bra, but it weighs me down too much, the bag peeking out the bottom of my sweatshirt, so I untie the bag and loop my arms through the handles instead, which works as long as I slouch my shoulders inward, American beef sitting heavy on my skin, the heat radiating through the paper-plastic layers, warming a perfect circle in the center of my stomach. Smelling like processed sugar and grease, I walk into the AMC, torso lumpy, and ask for one ticket for Venom. My body aches from my weird posture, the awkward bend of my elbow as I try to fish my wallet out of my back pocket without ripping the plastic holding my lunch. I imagine my food falling, slow yet impossible to reverse, like the steady frozen-yogurt swirl of a dog shitting in his neighbor's lawn. I don't know why I put myself through this. I like movie theater popcorn—the oil of the fake butter, the large, refillable tubs. I went from stuffing my pockets with M&M'S to hiding Ziploc bags of steaming tots in the neck of my knock-off Uggs in the span of a month. Last week, a stream of ramen broth spilled from the Tupperware I taped against my torso, soaking into my underwear and sliding piss-like down my inner thigh. But still, no one stopped me. I fear that Quinten, the teenage employee that usually sells me my tickets, is catching on. He narrows his eyes at me, my awkward reach finally locating my wallet, the smell of Wendy's wafting toward him in clear, cartoonish stench lines as I hand over my loyalty card. We stare at each other, sweat pooling on my upper lip, but there's nothing he can do—no obvious bulging bag to search—so he takes my money and I take my ticket and walk with my head high past the overpriced candies and sodas, steps slow and deliberate to keep the chocolate Frosty from disappearing completely inside the waistband of my dew-marked sweats, a plastic spoon inching eagerly out my sleeve.
