Jonathan Lethem - Men and Cartoons

“Damn, Bucket, man. I'll show you the old ones. You can't even fix the problem.”

“The problem is you touched them. Here.” The second optician went to the counter and dipped the glasses in a shallow bath of cleanser, dried them with a chamois cloth. The customer bobbed forward anxiously, trying to see.

“What do you, scratch at your eyes all the time?” said the first optician, smiling now. The problem was solved.

“Shut up,” said the customer, pointing a finger at the first optician. “Just shut up. You're not my doctor on this.”

“Nobody is,” said the first optician. “You don't need a doctor, you need to keep your hands out of your eyes.”

“Shut up.”

The second optician glared at the first. He handed the glasses to the customer. “Let me see you put them on.”

The customer bent his head down and lifted the glasses to his face.

“Wait a minute, I couldn't see. .”

“It's the fit .”

“The bill of your cap was in the way,” said the first optician.

“Put them on again,” said the second.

“Same thing,” said the customer, shaking his head. He pulled off the glasses, again with one hand. “Look. Still there. Little scratches.”

The first optician stepped up close to the customer. “Sure. You touched it again. When I couldn't see. It's how you put them on.”

“He uses his thumbs,” said the second, snorting.

“Little scratches, man. I paid a hundred dollars. Second day I got these little scratches again. Might as well kept the old ones.” He thrust the glasses at the first optician.

“They're not scratched,” said the first optician. “Just dirty. Your hands are dirty.”

The customer flared his nostrils, twitched his cheek, raised his eyebrows. “That's weak , Bucket. I come in here show you a pair of glasses get all rubbed and scratched, I'm looking for some help . You tell me I need some new glasses. Now the new ones got the same problem, you tell me I got dirty hands . These the glasses you sold me, my man.”

The second optician let air slip very slowly through his tightened lips. “Your old pair was scratched. You had them, what, ten years? They were falling off your face. The hinges were shot, the nosepiece was gone. The lens touched your cheek.” He paused to let this litany sink in. “The glasses I sold you are fine. The fit is fine. You just have to break some habits.”

“Habits!”

“He's a clown,” said the first optician, leaning back against the counter, sticking out his belly. “We should've thrown him out yesterday.”

“Instead you took my money ,” hissed the customer. “Good enough for you yesterday. You couldn't see black for all the green yesterday. Now I look black to you. Now I'm a clown.”

“You think we need your hundred dollars?” The first optician managed a laugh.

“That's not necessary,” said the second, to the customer. He ignored his partner. “We'll take care of you. Sit down, let me look at the fit.”

“Shit. Your man needs to shut up.”

“Okay, please.” The second optician pulled up a chair from beside the counter. The padding was pink to match the carpet.

“Sit down.”

The partners fell easily into a good optician/bad optician routine. It was pure instinct. Perhaps the customer sensed his options dwindling, perhaps not. Probably he did. The air went out of him a little as he took the chair.

And the glasses, the proof, were in enemy hands. The second optician was rinsing them again.

“Shit, Bucket,” said the customer, petulance in his voice now. “What you know about my habits ?”

“Okay,” said the second optician, ignoring the remark. His voice was soothing. “I just want to see you put them on. Just naturally, like you would. Don't push them into your face. They won't fall off. Just drop them over your ears. Then I'll check the fit.”

He offered the glasses, then pulled them back as the customer reached for them. “Take off your hat,” he said admonishingly.

The customer took off his hat. His hair was grooved where the lip of the hat had rested. The first optician, watching from his place at the counter, reflexively reached up and fluffed his own hair.

“Here you go. Nice and easy.” The second optician handed over the glasses.

The customer stuffed the hat in his ass pocket, then raised the glasses with both hands, holding them by the earpieces awkwardly. His hands trembled.

“That's it,” said the second optician. “Let's have a look at the fit.”

The customer dropped his hands to his lap. The second optician brought his face close to the customer's. For a moment they were still, breathing together tightly, eyes flickering. The intimacy calmed the customer. He was in some sense now getting his due, his money's worth. He could feel the second optician's breath graze his cheek.

Then the second optician saw the marks.

“Wait a minute,” said the second optician, straightening his body. “They're still smudged.”

“I told you!” said the customer.

“He touched them again,” said the first optician, back at the counter. “I told you, he puts his thumb on the lens.”

“You touched them again,” said the second optician.

“You watched me! You saw! I didn't touch them!”

The second optician shook his head, crestfallen. “I don't understand how it happened.”

“Simple, he touched them,” said the first.

“Liar!” shouted the customer. “You watched me.”

“Listen,” said the second optician, rallying, a little frenzied. “This doesn't make sense. What do you think? They smudged themselves? You touched them!”

“I want my money back, Bucket.”

“Look, I can give you your money back, it's not going to do any good. You're screwing up your glasses yourself. It's going to be the same wherever you go.”

“It's the fit.”

“What are you saying, fit?” interrupted the first optician.

“You think they're touching your cheek?”

“That's right. My cheek.”

“Show me where,” said the first, leaning in.

“For chrissake, don't make him put his hands up there,” said the second. The opticians had traded places now, the fierce, the patient. Only the customer was unperturbed, true to himself. He moved his hand with slow drama, like a magician, to point at his face. Shifting and sighing, the opticians closed around him to see.

The rain outside slowed, died. Cars whirred through the water in the street.

“It's my cheek ,” reminded the customer.

“Maybe your last ones touched you there,” said the second optician. “Your nosepiece was all worn down. These don't touch.”

“I feel it.”

“No, you don't. You're used to touching yourself there, putting your fingers in there,” said the second. “That's what I meant by habits.”

“You don't know,” said the customer quietly, with a Buddhist calm. “Now you got to give me my money back.”

“We'll see about that,” said the second optician grimly. He plucked the glasses from the customer's face.

“This is getting silly,” said the first optician to the second. “Give him his money. Get him out of here.”

“I'll make him sit here all night if I have to,” said the second. “He's putting his fingers on them.”

“I got all the time in the world,” said the customer happily.

“Sit still,” said the second optician. He again dried the glasses with the chamois, and replaced them on the customer's face. “Keep your hands down.”

The customer sat, his hands on his knees, the chord of tension in his body stilled at some cost. The second optician leaned in close to the customer's face to inspect the juncture of nosepiece and nose.