“Half-Jew,” she says, as if that makes it better or worse. “I just can’t imagine you getting into a fight. Who was it who thought he was in front of you?” “A woman with a stroller.” He pauses. “Her stroller was in front of me, but she wasn’t. She wasn’t even with the stroller, nowhere near. She was going up and down looking in the cases, and I was standing there, stuck, trapped, trying to entertain . . .” He pauses again. “. . . the inhabitant.” “You mean the baby?” “I mean the inhabitant, a blob of flesh, with an enormous bobblehead.” “Babies have big heads.”
thing, a stroller the size of a Buick. And it’s been pimped out, it has enormous tires like it’s also a dirt bike, and my foot gets stuck in the hole of this fucking all-terrain tire, and I’m still trying to walk forward, and everything is going haywire. All I want is to get out of there, and the woman comes over and she’s hitting me with the nova all wrapped up and telling me to stop touching her child, who, of course, I’m not touching. But the stroller is tipping over, and it looks like I’m kicking it, but of course I’m not kicking it, I’m just moving my foot back and forth trying to get free. It was awful, beyond awful.”
“It didn’t move, but its eyes kept rolling around—trying to get a read on me. It was sucking its bottle, totally self-satisfied, like everything in life came so easily, so naturally. It made me crazy.” “You were jealous of the baby’s contentment?” “His eyes were enormous, like the heads of octopi.” “Really?” “It felt that way.” “Then what?” “‘Who’s next?’ the guy called out. ‘I am,’ I said, raising my hand. ‘I’m next.’ ‘I’ll have a half pound of nova,’ the woman with the baby says from the other side of the room. The guy looks at her. ‘Half pound?’ ‘I would do more,’ she says, ‘but it’s so expensive.’
“HER STROLLER WAS IN FRONT OF ME, BUT SHE WASN’T. SHE WASN’T EVEN WITH THE STROLLER, NOWHERE NEAR. SHE WAS GOING UP AND DOWN LOOKING IN THE CASES, AND I WAS STANDING THERE, STUCK, TRAPPED, TRYING TO ENTERTAIN . . .” HE PAUSES AGAIN. “. . . THE INHABITANT.”
‘It’s not your turn,’ I say. ‘You’re not next.’ She doesn’t even look at me. ‘It’s not all about you,’ I say. I may or may not have added another word, a word that would not be a good word, I just can’t remember if I said it out loud or just in my head.” “What was the word?” He hesitates. “The B word.” “Ummm. Well, at least it wasn’t the C word.” “The guy just looks at me. Maybe it was the word. Maybe I actually said the word, I have no idea. . . . ‘Anything else?’ the guy says to her as he’s wrapping the fish. ‘Is the macaroni salad house made?’ she asks. And then I lost it. ‘Her stroller is parked here, parked and unattended, that does not equal a place in line. It is a fire hazard,’ I shouted. ‘Foul ball, on the six and ten.’ She stares at me. ‘Oh my god,’ she says. ‘Will you just stop.’ Her voice is more grating than horseradish on a blade. And now the guy behind the counter has something on his finger—some- thing kind of yellow and shiny. He leans forward, and like magic, the octopi pulls his bottle out of his mouth, and the thick finger goes in. ‘A little something for the baby.’‘What was that?’ the woman screams, still on the other side of the store. ‘Butter,’ the guy says. ‘My mother used to give it to me like that, a little bit on her finger. She’d say, “I’m going to butter you up.”’ ‘Is it organic?’ the woman asks, panicked. ‘Are your hands clean?’ The big man wipes his hands on his apron. ‘It’s New York,’ he says. Everyone in the store is now staring. I turn quickly and try to get out of there. My shoe gets hooked on the stroller because of course it’s not a regular stroller, it’s a massive
“Did the octopi fall out of the stroller?” “The octopi was fine, the stroller tipped, but he was entirely strapped in, never knew what happened, the thing even had a roll bar. He never even let go of his bottle, just clutched it the whole way over.” “Amazing that no one was injured,” she says. “I was injured. I did something to my knee. I barely got out of there alive—I probably need physical therapy.” “That might be the least of it,” she says. There’s a pause. “It doesn’t sound like you,” she says. “You don’t really have what I’d call a temper.” A yellow cab comes around the corner, cutting in too close. He bangs on the hood with the handle of his umbrella. “Butt fucker,” he calls out. “Butt fucker?” “It’s all I could think of, I had the butter on my mind. Bud- der fucker.” A long silence between them. “Anyway, it’s nice we always agreed about children, we still have that in common— not liking children,” he says. “I don’t not like children,” she says. “I am a teacher, after all. I teach children.” “That’s a double negative,” he says. “Grammatically incorrect and you didn’t want any of your own.” “That’s right,” she says. “It’s unusual, isn’t it,” he says, “for a woman not to want
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