When you're black, you're always black

I went back a week later for my edging. It wasn't in and I waited at the register while the white clerk paged through a book trying to figure out why. Three black boys, two in football gear, approached the register to pay for an electrical cord. The clerk looked up at them.

"Roy, haven't seen you around for a while. You been too busy dealing drugs?" I spun around to look at the boys. Two were looking at one who was looking back at the clerk. The boy looked frightened.

"No, I don't deal drugs." A joke between the two of them, perhaps? I looked back at the clerk. His expression was cool, satisfied, there was a shadow of hostility.

A week later I returned to the hardware store. The same white guy was behind the counter. The edging was in, he totaled the bill and as I wrote my check I heard a man behind me call out, "I made it back here."

"Is that good or bad," said the white guy behind the counter. I turned to look at the man he was talking to. There was no one around except a black man in his thirties wearing a jean jacket very similar to the one I was wearing. The black man was not looking at the counter man, but had his face averted. He was intensely examining a display of paint. Another joke and no one was laughing. It was not funny what was going on in there and it was the only hardware store in that neighborhood.