Unlucky Friday the 13th: An Evening Breaking Bread with the Enemy

They say bad luck comes in threes. Tonight, it came in the form of a broken freezer case, a shoplifter with the audacity to make eye contact, and a lukewarm hot dog from the deli counter, my dinner. It's 7:43 p.m. on Friday the 13th. The fluorescent lights hum their same indifferent tune above me as I make my rounds through the bread aisle. My walkie-talkie crackles. My feet already ache. And somewhere near the bakery section, a man I've been watching for the better part of forty minutes is pretending to read the nutritional label on a sourdough loaf he has absolutely no intention of buying.

I know his type. He knows I know. We've been circling each other like planets in a slow, polite orbit for the better part of an hour.

Then something strange happens.

He sits down on the little bench near the front entrance, the one meant for seniors waiting on their rides and he pulls out half a sandwich from his jacket pocket. He looks up at me, completely unashamed, and gestures to the empty space beside him like we're old friends.

I should walk away. Protocol says I should walk away.

I sit down.

"You working all night?" he asks, tearing off a corner of his sandwich and setting it on the bench between us like a peace offering.

"Till close," I say.

He nods. Chews. Doesn't say anything for a moment.

"Friday the 13th," he finally offers, as if that explains everything; the sandwich, the sourdough, the whole strange evening.

"Yeah," I say.

The store is almost empty now. A teenager drifts past with a basket of energy drinks. An older woman debates canned tomatoes with quiet intensity. The PA system announces a sale on rotisserie chicken that nobody in the store seems to care about.

I didn't eat his sandwich. But I sat there for four minutes, four whole minutes off my feet, off my guard, off the clock in every way that mattered. And somehow, in the most unlucky of hours, on the most unlucky of nights, that felt like the best luck I'd had all week.

He left without taking anything.

The fastest truce is a shared plate of something hot on the unluckiest Friday of the year.