Supermarket Sadhu, Barry Rachin [best classic books to read .TXT] 📗

some discrete place – under the bed, the top shelf in his closet, beneath the soft porn magazines in his dresser drawer - to hide his latest stash of drugs. “The mail … it could be important, you know,” Fanny’s mother pressed. Mrs. Hazelton left the living room momentarily and returned with the unopened mail which she slid onto the arm of the sofa next to her daughter. “The letters are from colleges you applied to.”

Fanny opened the first letter, read it and did the same with the second. “Boston University and Brandeis accepted me for the September, freshman class,” she announced in a flat monotone, handing the letters across to her mother. On the television, Senator Rangel, the democratic from New York had just resigned his position on the house finance committee due to ethics violations, the Greece economy was near collapse and Israel announced the building of sixteen hundred Jewish apartment units on occupied territory in Arab East Jerusalem.

“Which school are you planning to attend?”

Fanny balked at the question. She could play it coy and study ‘liberal arts’, but what the hell were ‘liberal arts’ and could anybody on planet earth explain the value of a four year education in nothing-in-particular? “Neither,” Fanny muttered without looking away from the television.

A brief, uncomfortable silence ensued. Mrs. Jackson bent over and kissed her daughter on the cheek. “You had me going there,” the woman blurted with obvious relief. “I forgot that you’re still waiting to hear from Colby and Simmons College.” She picked up the empty dish and retreated to the kitchen.

  

“Look what I found while cleaning out the basement.” Later that night Mrs. Hazelton shuffled into her daughter’s bedroom as Fanny was turning down the covers. In her right hand was a shiny silver object with a round disk fused to a metal stem. A frayed and discolored string was loosely wrapped around the center post.

“My old gyroscope.” Fanny set the gadget on her dresser. When her mother was gone, she lay under the covers but was too agitated to sleep. Ten minutes later Fanny relit the lamp and crawled back out of bed. She threaded the worn string through the eye on the gyroscope post, winding it neatly in a tight coil. Gripping the mechanism by the gimbal, she gave a fierce tug on the tattered string. The gyroscope gave off an energetic hum that fed sympathetic vibrations up her forearm halfway to the elbow. She placed the stem upright on an outstretched finger. Half a minute later, as the rotor lost strength, the device began to wobble drunkenly and eventually toppled into her outstretched palm. Fanny set the gyroscope aside on the dresser and climbed back in bed.

The National Geographic article she had been telling Bert Weiner about featured a full-page picture of Sufi mystics in sacred dance. The bearded dervishes whirled faster and faster around a central axis in search of spiritual transcendence. They pivoted on one leg, while thrusting with the other to gather speed and momentum. Round and round they spun like human gyroscopes where the human gimbal pivoted effortlessly about an axis on its own plane. Round and round they twirled in search of some ineffable equilibrium.

The main thing is you gotta take care of business in the here and now. The next world – the one with all the celestial mumbo jumbo and enraptured souls – takes care of itself. Like the hard-core mystics, Mr. Weiner was sublimely centered; he always could be counted on to do the right thing. Whether it was offering paper or plastic or a sappy joke, the slope-shouldered man with the hairy ears remained imperturbably balanced. He never disappointed.

Before returning to bed, Fanny drank a glass of juice. Norman’s fingerprints, literally speaking, were everywhere in the kitchen. A fresh loaf of sourdough bread lay abandoned on the counter, the individual slices fanned out like a deck of playing cards. Alongside the uncovered bread were a serrate knife and mound of breadcrumbs. A second knife smeared with raspberry jam and peanut butter – her brother never bothered with separate utensils – was abandoned near the dishwasher with a lengthy streak of red jelly dribbling across the Formica. On the kitchen table, a plastic cup with milk residue lay on its side. He couldn’t bother to put the soiled cup in the sink.

If Fanny wrapped a cord around Norman’s chest and spun him like a gyroscope the man would blow a series of fetid farts and, like an incendiary device, immediately implode. He was a person with no hub, nucleus, middle, focal point, foundation, boundaries or essence. Once in a fit of anger Fanny shouted, “When you move your bowels, do you even bother to wipe your butt hole or just wait until your monthly shower?” The question elicited a howl of delight but little else.

  

Monday evening, Mr. Weiner called Fanny shortly after supper, requesting a ride to the social security office. “My left front tire's flat and it’s too late to call a repair shop.”
“When is your appointment?”

“Tomorrow morning, nine o’clock.”

Fanny had a free period first thing followed by gym. She could shuttle Mr. Weiner to his appointment and still get to school with time to spare. “Sure that’s no problem.”

In the morning Fanny picked Bert up around eight-thirty, and they were standing outside the social security office with fifteen minutes to spare. He tried the handle, but the front doors were still locked. “I’ve already got a scheduled appointment so it shouldn’t be long,” he noted apologetically. “They loused up the survivor benefits after my wife passed away. Once the bureaucrats sort out the mess, I’ll receive the money in a lump sum.”

“Well, that’s nice.” Though Mr. Weiner rarely spoke of his wife, his voice was always tinged with muted reverence. Strangely, there were no images of the woman anywhere in the house. A vacant spot on the wall near the fireplace where a large picture had hung was lighter than the surrounding wallpaper. Fanny conjured up a wedding portrait in muted sepia tones dating back to the Vietnam War gracing the wall.

The front door of a car parked in the corner of the lot opened. A middle-aged man wearing a ‘Dizzy Gillespie for President’ T-shirt climbed out and sauntered toward the front door. Inside the building people were scurrying about as a row of fluorescent lights lit up the reception area. An oriental woman wearing a mint green, floral print dress hurried around the corner of the building dragging a much older woman, presumably her mother, by the wrist. They were speaking an Asian dialect with an endless barrage of ‘n’s’ and ‘g’s’ that sounded like Chinese but Fanny couldn’t be sure. The oriental woman glowered at them as, head bowed like a brown-skinned battering ram, she bullied her way to the front of the door, causing both men to back off several paces. Mr. Weiner had been unceremoniously bumped to second and the fellow with the funny T-shirt dropped back to third.

Neither woman acknowledged the existence of the other visitors waiting in line; when the security guard finally stepped forward with the key, they stampeded through the door and hurried to the service desk. Mr. Weiner took a number and sat in the waiting area. The security guard approached. “Any weapons, firearms or knives?” He gestured indicating Fanny’s purse.

“No, nothing.”

“I still have to look.” She handed him the bag which he unzipped and examined with a bored expression before returning. “Thank you.”

A rather disheveled, middle-aged woman with gray-streaked hair and a jumbo cup of coffee entered. A teenage boy dressed like a skinhead was bringing up the rear. “No food or drinks.” The guard pointed at a sign strategically placed over the facing wall.
The woman went out, disposed of the coffee and returned to where the guard was standing. “Where do I sign in?”

The man gestured toward the help desk. “Just give them the last four digits of your social security number and wait with the others until they call your name.”

“It’s for him not me.” She indicated the boy.

“Then give his social security number.”

“Don’t know it.” She exploded in a hacking, smoker’s cough.

The guard gave her a dirty look. “You don’t know his number?”

The woman just shrugged and screwed up her face in a dull-witted frown. He turned to the boy. “What’s your social security number?”

The boy bit his lip and cocked his head to one side. “I dunno.”

“Last name?”

“Corrigan.” The guard disappeared down the corridor.

At the service desk a worker was getting the Orientals squared away. “Who’s applying?”

“My muddah.” The woman in the floral dress yanked the equally dour-faced, older woman closer to the window.

“Does she speak English?”

“No English! No English!”

“Has your mother ever worked or collected taxable income since arriving in the United States of –

“No work. No taxes,” the angry mama-san sputtered.

Fanny leaned closer and was about to say something when Mr. Weiner’s name was called. “This won’t be long,” he assured her and disappeared down the hallway.

Fanny glanced around the reception room, which was filling slowly. With the exception of Mr. Weiner and the Orientals, most of the people were quite young. The security guard reappeared and approached the young boy and scruffy woman. “You’re all set. Take a seat and they’ll call your name.”

The twosome sat down next to Fanny. The dull-witted woman, who wasn't the boy's mother, reminded Fanny of the welfare recipients who flooded the market after the first of the month with their food stamps, AFDC and welfare vouchers. They loaded up on TV dinners, ice cream, over-priced junk food, peanut butter, bologna and pastas. When the manager, out of a sense of misplaced altruism, put one of them to work at the market, she seldom lasted much beyond the first paycheck. Viewing work as an avocation - something you did for amusement or under protest for short duration; they used the system to beat the system. In many respects they reminded Fanny of her brother, Norman, who smoked dope, frittered and farted his self-indulgent life away.

“I ain’t got no goddamn clothes,” the skinhead said, turning to the woman. Fanny noted a metal ring in the youth's left nostril and matching silver hoop dangling from his top lip. “Maybe I should shoot by the house… get my stuff.”

“Okay,” the woman replied hoarsely.

“What if my old man called the cops?”

“Why would he do that?”

“Trespassing.”

“Hadn’t thought of that.” The woman seemed stymied. “Tough call.”

“Hell, it’s not like I did anything wrong,” he sputtered weakly. “Not really.” The mystery woman, who taxied him to the social security office, shrugged noncommittally.

Fanny rose and went to wait outside until Mr. Weiner finished his meeting. Ten minutes later they were back on the highway heading home. “How’d it go?”

“The administrator was very helpful.” He seemed genuinely pleased. “I’ll know more in a day or two.”

“Those two Orientals …Why should a foreigner who never worked a stinking day in her life here and can’t speak English collect benefits?” Fanny made a hard right onto Commerce Ave.

“Beats me,” he replied.

“And that teenage boy with the black leather jacket and body piercings – the one who didn’t know his own social security number … He isn’t even in high school yet. Why the hell’s he getting benefits?”