Haven't been to Target in two years. After UPS, I had time. Went in.
Found a good discounted sweater, jacket and pants. I heard Old Scratch keeps you thirsty.
Five white loss prevention guys started following me the minute I walked in. So I messed with them.
I took my own sweater and jacket off. I put their discounted sweater and jacket on. I walked to electronics and browsed. Let them know I saw them. They were bad at it. Their fake conversations were terrible. One pretending to shop, another came from the back and talked to him. I clocked all five men circling me.
After fifteen minutes I walked back, looked in the mirror, took their stuff off and put my own back on. The circling was blatant then.
I went and got some overpriced meat product and toilet bleach disks. The whole time, the wet saltine spies followed me in the same clumsy way.
When I went to checkout, one of the men slipped one of those control disks in and out of the card reader fast. So they could look at me and my purchases later. I paid. I left. No alarms. No stop.
I knew about the boycott. I knew they ended their DEl hiring. I shouldn't have bought the discounted sweater and jacket I tried on. I shouldn't have bought the discounted pants. Or the toilet bleach disks. Or the overpriced meat.
But I did. I wanted to make them look foolish. I wanted to get stopped. I wanted to cause a scene.
A scene never happens when you're around six foot and shaped like Grimace.
One day I'll tell how Target Corp. tried to steal one of my poems a day before the George Floyd protests. A couple days after that the Target and police precinct were burned down a neighborhood away from where I grew up.
Racism is absolute devastation, wearing justification as a mask.
