Buying Beer for Underaged Kids

I meet groups of 16 or 17 year olds a block away from the Circle K and they hand me too many crumpled bills to buy them a case of this or a mix bag of six packs to split when their parents think they’re at a friend’s house. The cashier never takes a second look at me, just another junky or drunk pushing his paycheck or welfare into the hands of macro-breweries. I shuffle back outside with the excess money in my pocket, hand the cold cans or glittering glass bottles to the shaggy haired kids or girls with too tight tops and we all disappear until next time. The money either goes into my arm or into a handle that goes down too easy and the day bleeds or blurs into night. Soon I’m standing in an unlit alley breathing fire and smoke into the dark air, the dragon that all the brave middle class knights want to slay after watching their kid puking into their perfectly white porcelain toilet.