Stanley Elkin - Criers & Kibitzers, Kibitzers & Criers

“I got to change,” he said to Shirley. “Call me if Siggie comes in.”

He went into the toilet off the small room at the rear of the store. He reached for the clothes he kept there on a hook on the back of the door and saw, hanging over his own clothes, a woman’s undergarments. A brassiere hung by one cup over his trousers. What is it here, a locker room? Does she take baths in the sink? he thought. Fastidiously he tried to remove his own clothes without touching the other garments, but he was clumsy, and the underwear, together with his trousers, tumbled in a heap to the floor. They looked, lying there, strangely obscene to him, as though two people, desperately in a hurry, had dropped them quickly and were somewhere near him even now, perhaps behind the very door, making love. He picked up his trousers and changed his clothes. Taking a hanger from a pipe under the sink, he hung the clothes he had worn to work and put the hanger on the hook. He stooped to pick up Shirley’s underwear. Placing it on the hook, his hand rested for a moment on the brassiere. He was immediately ashamed. He was terribly tired. He put his head through the loop of his apron and tied the apron behind the back of the old blue sweater he wore even in summer. He turned the sink’s single tap and rubbed his eyes with water. Bums, he thought. Bums. You put up mirrors to watch the customers so they shouldn’t get away with a stick of gum, and in the meanwhile Frank and Arnold walk off with the whole store. He sat down to try to move his bowels and the apron hung down from his chest like a barber’s sheet. He spread it across his knees. I must look like I’m getting a haircut, he thought irrelevantly. He looked suspiciously at Shirley’s underwear. My movie star. He wondered if it was true what Arnold told him, that she used to be a 26-girl. Something was going on between her and that Arnold. Two bums, he thought. He knew they drank together after work. That was one thing, bad enough, but were they screwing around in the back of the store? Arnold had a family. You couldn’t trust a young butcher. It was too much for him. Why didn’t he just sell and get the hell out? Did he have to look for grief? Was he making a fortune that he had to put up with it? It was crazy. All right, he thought, a man in business, there were things a man in business put up with. But this? It was crazy. Everywhere he was beset by thieves and cheats. They kept pushing him, pushing him. What did it mean? Why did they do it? All right, he thought, when Harold was alive was it any different? No, of course not, he knew plenty then too. But it didn’t make as much difference. Death is an education, he thought. Now there wasn’t any reason to put up with it. What did he need it? On the street, in the store, he saw everything. Everything. It was as if everybody else were made out of glass. Why all of a sudden was he like that?

Why? he thought. Jerk, because they’re hurting you , that’s why.

He stood up and looked absently into the toilet. “Maybe I need a laxative,” he said aloud. Troubled, he left the toilet.

In the back room, his “office,” he stood by the door to the toilet and looked around. Stacked against one wall he saw four or five cases of soups and canned vegetables. Against the meat locker he had pushed a small table, his desk. He went to it to pick up a pencil. Underneath the telephone was a pad of note paper. Something about it caught his eye and he picked up the pad. On the top sheet was writing, his son’s. He used to come down on Saturdays sometimes when they were busy; evidently this was an order he had taken down over the phone. He looked at the familiar writing and thought his heart would break. Harold, Harold, he thought. My God, Harold, you’re dead. He touched the sprawling, hastily written letters, the carelessly spelled words, and thought absently, He must have been busy. I can hardly read it. He looked at it more closely. “He was in a hurry,” he said, starting to sob. “My God, he was in a hurry.” He tore the sheet from the pad, and folding it, put it into his pocket. In a minute he was able to walk back out into the store.

In the front Shirley was talking to Siggie, the cheese man. Seeing him up there leaning casually on the counter, Greenspahn felt a quick anger. He walked up the aisle toward him.

Siggie saw him coming. “ Shalom , Jake,” he called.

“I want to talk to you.”

“Is it important, Jake, because I’m in some terrific hurry. I still got deliveries.”

“What did you leave me?”

“The same, Jake. The same. A couple pounds blue. Some Swiss. Delicious,” he said, smacking his lips.

“I been getting complaints, Siggie.”

“From the Americans, right? Your average American don’t know from cheese. It don’t mean nothing.” He turned to go.

“Siggie, where you running?”

“Jake, I’ll be back tomorrow. You can talk to me about it.”

“Now.”

He turned, reluctantly. “What’s the matter?”

“You’re leaving old stuff. Who’s your wholesaler?”

“Jake, Jake,” he said. “We already been over this. I pick up the returns, don’t I?”

“That’s not the point.”

“Have you ever lost a penny on account of me?”

“Siggie, who’s your wholesaler? Where do you get the stuff?”

“I’m cheaper than the dairy, right? Ain’t I cheaper than the dairy? Come on, Jake. What do you want?”

“Siggie, don’t be a jerk. Who are you talking to? Don’t be a jerk. You leave me cheap, crummy cheese, the dairies are ready to throw it away. I get everybody else’s returns. It’s old when I get it. Do you think a customer wants a cheese it goes off like a bomb two days after she gets it home? And what about the customers who don’t return it? They think I’m gypping them and they don’t come back. I don’t want the schlak stuff. Give me fresh or I’ll take from somebody else.”

“I couldn’t give you fresh for the same price, Jake. You know that.”

“The same price.”

“Jake,” he said, amazed.

“The same price. Come on, Siggie, don’t screw around with me.”

“Talk to me tomorrow. We’ll work something out.” He turned to go.

“Siggie,” Greenspahn called after him. “Siggie.” He was already out of the store. Greenspahn clenched his fists. “The bum,” he said.

“He’s always in a hurry, that guy,” Shirley said.

“Yeah, yeah,” Greenspahn said. He started to cross to the cheese locker to see what Siggie had left him.

“Say, Mr. Greenspahn,” Shirley said, “I don’t think I have enough change.”

“Where’s the schvartze? Send him to the bank.”

“He ain’t come in yet. Shall I run over?”

Greenspahn poked his fingers in the cash drawer. “You got till he comes,” he said.

“Well,” she said, “if you think so.”

“What do we do, a big business in change? I don’t see customers stumbling over each other in the aisles.”

“I told you, Jake,” Arnold said, coming up behind him. “It’s business. Business is lousy. People ain’t eating.”

“Here,” Greenspahn said, “give me ten dollars. I’ll go myself.” He turned to Arnold. “I seen some stock in the back. Put it up, Arnold.”

“I should put up the stock?” Arnold said.

“You told me yourself, business is lousy. Are you here to keep off the streets or something? What is it?”

“What do you pay the schvartze for?”

“He ain’t here,” Greenspahn said. “When he comes in I’ll have him cut up some meat, you’ll be even.”

He took the money and went out into the street. It was lousy, he thought. You had to be able to trust them or you could go crazy. Every retailer had the same problem; he winked his eye and figured, All right, so I’ll allow a certain percentage for shrinkage. You made it up on the register. But in his place it was ridiculous. They were professionals. Like the Mafia or something. What did it pay to aggravate himself, his wife would say. Now he was back he could watch them. Watch them. He couldn’t stand even to be in the place. They thought they were getting away with something, the podlers .