Jamison Pink

She smiles in a way that nice old ladies aren't supposed to.

"Well, I'm done with these fucking squirrels on my birdfeeder, I'll tell you that much."

15/15

The owner leans forward on his elbows, his low voice confident but soothing. Non-judgmental. He hopes it's enough. "Listen, ma'am, I don't mean to intrude, but... is everything all right at home?"
14/15

"How about we get you a bag for that? Make it a little easier to handle."

He nods at his son, who practically growls as he goes to fetch the bag.
13/15

The owner reaches around and plucks the receipt off the machine himself, and for a split second their eyes lock in mutual resentment before they both turn, smiling, back to the customer. The owner will finish the transaction at his own speed, damn it.
12/15

He can't just ask her why she wants it; he needs time to gain her trust. But the boy is rushing now. He knows why the old man has come over, and he's tired of being interfered with.
11/15

Situations have slipped through that smart men would have caught, in the old days, because they deferred to a computer that was only ever meant to raise the bar a few critical inches. They are living in the era of the lowest common denominator, and far too many are content with that.
10/15

They've shown him statistics--good numbers going up, bad numbers going down, nationwide--and the owner doesn't even deny them. He will readily admit that catastrophes have been averted. But confidence in the program has also brought complacency.
9/15

The woman's RedFlag score comes up on the screen, and it's as wrong as the owner knew it would be. He's tried to make the boy understand that there's more to it, but the boy laughs him off every time. He and all the other staff trust the algorithm with their lives.
8/15

scrapes with the bitter smugness of one who has suffered for decades, but will now prevail? How can he not see what is going on here?
7/15

She's got one picked out now, and the owner wants to grab his son by the shoulders and shake him--not even five minutes of dithering? A firearms novice--who wears a wedding ring but makes no mention of her husband, despite multiple conversational openings--whose voice
6/15

But her eyes are set and her hands are steady as she raises each rifle to her shoulder, judging them more by feel than any mechanical pros and cons. She absolutely will be buying a weapon today, and only one of the men behind the counter is concerned about it.
5/15

The owner approaches and joins the conversation with an affable smile. Nothing nosy or distrustful here: just a family business, where the customers are family, too. The woman is in her sixties, with a grandmother's cardigan and a careworker's comfortable shoes.
4/15

no reassurance can penetrate his conviction that things really are different these days. The world has changed, and the kids haven't been all right for a while now.
3/15

and the boy--a father himself these days, but still maddeningly a boy--can't be allowed to take over the business until he gets it. The owner fears he never will. He tells himself that he was useless at that age, too, that every generation feels this way about their replacement, but so far
2/15

ONE:

A woman enters the shop with too much intent. The owner sees is, but his son does not. He can tell by the way his son shows her the merchandise in exactly the way he was taught, without variation or nuance. Knowing the rules is just the first step in knowing when to break them,
1/15