I have no cash. My magnetic phone wallet affords me no charity with space for just two cards, or less if I carry my ID.

Homelessness affects even Rhode Island, even in this wintry sleet. What's sad is that I doubt the existence of what I cannot see, as if homelessness should end when the homeless take shelter from the streets. My radicalized self politically corrects me: "houselessness." As if this man has a home. He is alone with his roller bag, a book bag, a baseball cap, an excess fifty pounds of fat, and a pulpy sign that reads, “God Bless.”

He has lucid eyes and no shame eyeing me through my turn into the Stop & Shop, the northeastern grocer whose name belies itself. Men blow for dough at the Kum & Go while sophisticated inventory bots patrol the grounds of the Stop & Shop. Yet, their names are of the same cheap class.

I enter upon the produce where an elder is trapped by the autonomous inventory bot, towering over her, towering over me. Its plastered googly eyes are crossed just below its actual eyes, a miniaturized LiDAR scanner, furiously spinning.

“You can walk past it,” the grocer says. “It’s waiting for you.”

The elder does, and hurries past it, a freed hostage — her expression is an apocalyptic watercolor, a variegated palette of terror, mystery, and awe. Worse is how easily she carries on as if this were life now, dodging robots at the super store. This is life now.

I tear a banana from the stand and purchase my dinner: Baba Ghanouj, Triscuits, a Sumo Orange, a mushroom fortified protein shake, and this banana.

Just so you know, you cannot ask for cash back because our cash machine in the back is broken.” He says okay and pays with card.

“Just so you know, you cannot ask for cash back because our cash machine in the back is broken.” I say okay and tap to pay. Is she saying that to everyone? Who carries cash anymore?

“What’s your reward number?” I’m from out of town. “Where from?” Atlanta.

Mistaking her friendliness, I go on about my excitement for Baba Ghanouj, how Stop & Shop sells products Georgia doesn't carry. She responds with my receipt. “Thanks.”

I contort my torso to have dinner over the mid-console. I gorge myself with food I don't quite need. Some football fields away is still that man, but this time I'm eyeing him from across the liminal void that is this deserted shopping plaza. He fidgets with his pants, his luggage, shifts his weight from side to side as the overweight do when in pain, as we do when uneasy. He begs but makes no great effort at it, just stands there with his cardboard plea. The light cycles every two minutes, and till now I have watched at least a dozen cycles, at least fifty vehicles have stopped and passed him without stopping. I keep on, watching him as best I can through the rain drops on my Mazda’s windshield, shielding me from Rhode Island’s dreariness.

Next to me, a retired mother takes flak from her balding son who convulses about something important (to him). I do not know. She keeps making as if to drive away, her driver door ajar. But every time she makes progress toward getting in, he starts again, and she opens the door again, and I won't see how it ends because it is time to catch my flight.

My turn lane from the Stop & Shop is feet from him; I am the only car. I knew it would come to this, except I have no cash. I roll down my window. “I have no cash, but I have a banana and an apple,” a good organic apple.

“The banana,” he says. “The apple and the banana?” I confirm, offering both. “No, just the banana.” I am disheartened. That’s a good organic apple I'm too stuffed to eat. Why doesn’t he want the apple? They don’t grow apples like that down south.

The banana went into his book bag. “Good luck,” I say, and was thankful the light turned green.

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