Six Ninety

(A vegetable stall at the Saturday market on Fulton Street. Ije's card machine has just died.)

Ije: It's broken. It won't even turn on.

Grady: You're joking. I don't carry cash. Nobody carries cash.

Ije: Then I'll do the addition myself. Pass me that paper bag.

Grady: By hand? Seriously?

Ije: By hand. Two bags of rice, four dollars twenty. Tomatoes, one dollar eighty. Peppers, ninety cents.

Grady: Hang on, let me get my phone out.

Ije: Six ninety.

Grady: …Yeah. Six ninety. That's what it says.

Ije: I know.

Grady: My grandmother could do that. I thought it died with her.

Ije: I was doing it before the machines. I'll be doing it after them.

Grady: Okay, look. I've stood here ten minutes. Give me a deal.

Ije: Fine. Take double the peppers and pay double for them.

Grady: That's not a deal.

Ije: No, it's addition.

(Grady turns his card over in his fingers.)

Grady: Is there a cash machine near here?

Ije: Outside the bank. And that one's not broken.