Richard Pryor

Yesterday at night I placed an order for dinner online with an expected hour window before delivery. Bad planning all around, no planning actually, I stepped out for a quick errand, there'd be enough time. The shop didn't have what I wanted so I spun out and left immediately making my entry/exit appear suspicious. Tall oafish Lurch, the bottle shop clerk was engaged listening to a customer animated in conversation about the Dallas sniper shootings. Lurch had nothing to say, he just listened.

The customer left after I passed by them, he's faster than I am going through two sets of double doors then we both ended outside on the night street together. "Hope I didn't scare you back there."

"No. They didn't restock 12 pack of Pepsis, so I intended to go over there." I pointed across the street, "and buy Pepsis there," but now this conversation is pinching my window. "What happened at the traffic stop?" The man, a young black man who I hadn't encountered before and still quite excited about the days events eagerly described the BLM protest in Dallas and the snipers that followed."

"Before that, the original traffic stop that was uploaded to Facebook video. What happened?"

"He was stopped. The officer told him to show his I.D. When he reached for his wallet the cop reacted and shot him."

"Shot him!"

"Yeah. Reaching for his wallet and shot him. I'm telling you. Whenever I'm stopped by police I'm looking straight ahead, holding my chin up and..."

"What are you going to do? "

"I
am
reaching
into
my
pocket
to get
my
wallet." (because I don't wanna be no motherfuk'n ackcident. )

He's too young to know he's delivering stand up comedy that was hilarious forty years ago. He sounded exactly like a specific Richard Pryor routine but without being the slightest bit funny. And like Lurch inside, I have nothing useful to add, so I stood outside with him as the minutes ticked away and my scratch plan abandoned, and just listened until he was done.