Three people walking through a door at once.

1.

A man wearing a tan blazer and jeans steps off a bus. His head sags to the right in an attempt to hold his cellphone between his jaw and collar bone. The bus's right front tire jolts up and the door closes with a metallic thud. A child rubs his hands on the window, drawing stick figures and dogs with skinny legs. His mother draws a stick of gum from her purse and shoves it into her mouth without unwrapping the piece.

As the bus pulls away, the man shuffles onto the sidewalk and stands next to me. He's furious. His voice is drawn out, low like the dieseling tick of the bus that's now at the next stoplight. 

"FUCK YOU! WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU!?" 

He takes two small steps towards me. The man is now close enough that I can hear his cheek stubble grate against the number pad on his phone. I bend down and pull my Parkplace Fabrics tote closer to me. The man's clumsy dress shoes were dirtying the straps. Swearing continued. Spit flying from his lips. People around us began to sigh in discomfort and pick at their hands or dig through their shopping bags for receipts.

Another bus comes a few minutes later, this one covered in a large M&Ms advertisement. The man closes his phone, continuing to mumble fuck or shit every few seconds.

2. 

Two brothers walk out of a Meijer with a cart filled with grilling supplies. Jerry, the taller brother, counts his wad of singles and shoves it into the side pocket of his shorts. Maurice runs his fingers across a bag of Kingsford and looks up at a sagging gray cloud hanging almost low enough to touch the roof atop the strip mall.  

Maurice pulls his cell phone out of his pocket.

"11:43. We need to get home before the Ravens game is on. They're televising warm-ups today. Dad wants to watch Ray Lewis."

Jerry rips the side of a bag of Kingsford and rubs two pieces of charcoal together. The air smells like his backyard. His fingertips are black.

"Dad needs to stop yelling on the phone. He sounds like such an asshole. What was he even yelling about?"

Maurice drops the tailgate of his Silverado and pulls a rubber mat towards the end of the bed.

"I don't even know. He was pissed when I told him his barbecue sauce wasn't in the store. It's like he can't eat ribs without it. What an asshole."

Jerry and Maurice shoveled the bags of meat and charcoal and plastic cutlery into the bed of the truck. Blood seeped through the white bags, turning the rough black on Jerry's fingertips into a greasy paste.

"Dad just gets shitty every time he's between jobs." Jerry closes the tailgate and removes his cap. 

On their way home, Maurice calls his dad's phone a half-dozen times He's downstairs in the pantry chugging a warm bottle of Full Sail. The blazer is slung over a barstool with his cell phone vibrating against his garage door opener.

"You better not be calling to tell me to stop."