Writings and Reflections

The Souvenir Salesman

by Lloyd B. Abrams

On yet another dismal fall day, while the Econoline’s chattering wiper blades barely kept up with the relentless rain, Harry Roth was finally heading to the place he called home.

Weary and worn out at fifty-nine, Harry could have been retired for four years if he had stayed in teaching, a profession he had fallen into mostly by accident. Instead, after nine years of increasing frustration teaching algebra to resistant and surly ninth-graders, several years before he became vested in his pension, and eager for any kind of change, he took over his father-in-law’s business when the old man’s health began to fail. At the time, it hadn’t taken too much coercion from his then devoted wife, or her conniving family, to persuade him to do so. But now, years later, he was still out on the road drumming up business and paying a tithe, in the form of an agreed-upon percentage of the profits, to his long-estranged ex-wife.

Harry made his way from one Civil War reenactment and encampment to the next in the rusted-out Ford van that had over 220,000 miles when the odometer froze. He drove the circuit from the Battle of Bean’s Station in Rutledge, Tennessee in May, to Grace Under Fire in Williamsport, Maryland in October, stopping at Milwaukee, Gettysburg, Lancaster, Fredericksburg and London, Kentucky and backwater stops in between.

When Harry showed up, he would unpack boxes and set up shop out of the back of his van. He sold imprinted T-shirts and maps, costumes and memorabilia, and “gen-u-wine, believe-you-me” muskets and artillery manufactured in China and the Philippines, to the fanatics and good ol’ boys who had gathered there together with their loved ones, to watch other fanatics, self-proclaimed historians, and human toy soldiers marching in formation, playing shoot-‘em-up, on the fields of bloodshed and carnage of long ago. But none of the money he made at these events went to his ex-wife, for this was Harry’s own cash-only, off-the-books business.

The legitimate money that he declared and paid taxes on – the income that was divvied up, much to Harry’s chagrin – came from the remnants of the passed-down business of which, as it turned out, he had assumed only partial ownership. Between reenactments, he made the rounds of small-town luncheonettes and souvenir joints, drug stores and gas stations and gentrified general stores, where he would ply them and supply them with mugs and decals and pennants, “wish you were here” postcards and engraved pocket knives – all the useless items that would languish in junk drawers or be relegated to the backs of closets, only to be resurrected at garage sales or to be buried in landfills. Now, in late November, Harry was finishing up his last business trip of the season.

The Roth clan – a son and two daughters with whom he had lost touch – had been dispersed into the diasporas of California and Florida, so there was no family anxiously awaiting his return home for Thanksgiving. He had no reason to rush back from his West Virginia stops to the nondescript Philadelphia suburb where he rented a drafty attic room from a seventy-two-year-old widow, a Jehovah Witness who had committed herself to helping Harry find Jesus. With Country and Western scratching out from the staticky AM radio as company, and the discordant beat of the rain pelting on the roof of the van, Harry was making his way back to the interstate on a rutted backwoods road.

If Harry had to urinate, he would usually pull over to the side of the road and walk several yards into the woods, but it was pouring so hard that he decided to wait until he got to the next town. With his prostate acting up again, he knew he could not wait too long. After a half hour of mounting discomfort, he came upon a row of dilapidated stores that appeared derelict and deserted – almost, he thought, like the set of some grade-B movie. If not for the orange neon sign announcing EATS in one of the storefronts, Harry would have driven right through. He made a U-turn and parked the van alongside a Dodge Dakota pickup with a two-rifle gun rack inside the rear window.

A jingling bell was set off as he walked through the door. Puffy, contemptuous faces turned towards him. After the jingling stopped, the only sound came from the buzzing neon sign. The over-heated warmth and the welcoming odor of French fries and bacon grease, pancake batter, and brewing coffee was offset by the cold, hard stares of men in overalls and flannel shirts – some young, but most older – wearing John Deere and Peterbilt and Steelers and Pirates caps, who had been sitting at the counter, hunched over their plates. Harry nodded to no one in particular as he shook the droplets from his hat and then wiped his shoes on the mat. His glasses had fogged up so he couldn’t place who had spat out the word “Jew,” just above a whisper.

All the seats at the counter were taken, so Harry walked towards the rear, to one of two empty tables next to the rear window. On the back of his neck, he felt the prickly heat of angry eyes following him. When he took off his raincoat and folded it over the back of a wooden chair, the murmur of drawled chatter slowly resumed. Harry left his hat on the table and looked around for the men’s room. The bathroom, unisex by default, consisted of a chain-pull toilet and a tiny sink with rust stains covering the chipped enamel. There was no soap or paper towels, so he had to rinse his hands in cold water and then dry them off with his own handkerchief. When he got back to his seat, a paper place mat, cutlery and a red plastic tumbler filled with ice water had already been placed on the table.

The waitress came over just as he sat down. She took a pad out of her apron pocket and asked, as one slurred word “Dyaknowwhatchahavin?”

“Can I see a menu?”

“We ain’t got no menu. Just tell me what you’ll be wantin’, and I’ll tell you if we got it.”

Harry didn’t want to call any extra attention to himself so he decided to play it safe. “How ’bout a hamburger and fries, a slice of onion on the side, and a diet Coke.”

“Don’t got no diet. Just regular.”

“Okay, then. Regular’ll be fine.”

“Comin’ right up.” The waitress reached for a bottle of ketchup from the other table and slid it next to him.

Because Harry wanted to avoid confrontation – “Whatcha lookin’ at, boy?” he imagined them asking – he could not afford to stare, so he glanced around surreptitiously. Some of the men were smoking cigarettes, a joy he had been forced to give up because of his asthma. He turned to look outside where there loomed a solitary oak tree, almost black in silhouette against the somber gray backdrop. Lichen, mold and moss glowed green on its massive trunk and on several of its huge limbs which stretched out, askew, like broken arms and legs. A few branches, swaying in the wind, were still covered with brown leaves that had refused to be shed.

The waitress soon returned with his order and plunked the plate down in front of him along with a can of Coke and a straw. “Here ya go. Enjoy.” Her voice was joyless, indifferent. There was no onion on his plate but Harry did not bother to call her back.

Harry smothered the burger with ketchup and grimaced when he took his first bite. The hamburger tasted as if it had been left on the griddle far too long. But he was so hungry that he gulped downed a second mouthful and then a third, interrupting only to sip some soda. For some reason, he remembered how his ex-wife could never stand how quickly he gobbled down his meals. And how scornful she was when she castigated him about it.

Suddenly, as he started working on his fries, a crowd of men charged through the front door, setting off the jangling bell. Looks of hatred filled their dripping faces, drenched from sweat and the rain. Some were clearing the way; others were dragging a man by his legs, mindless to his struggling and his begging. As they barged past the men at the counter, those sitting turned, stood up and reached for their coats to follow as if an everyday, but not-to-be-missed occurrence, were about to take place.

In seconds, the mass of bodies were at Harry’s table. The helpless man was squirming and grabbing at anything to free himself from them. In the melee, the table was slammed into Harry’s stomach. He spit out what he was chewing and gasped to catch his breath. The manhandled man was so close that Harry could not avoid his sour stench of animal fear and desperation. He stared down at the man’s panicked, chalky-white face whose horror-stricken eyes were pleading for Harry – for anyone – to do something.

It suddenly became clear to Harry – before, he had only a vague notion – that the man being dragged was a Chasid. A Chasid? he thought. What the fuck? But he was definitely a Chasid, dressed in the traditional garb: black pants, white shirt, payess curling over his ears, and the telltale fringes of tzitzis sticking out from under his shirt. But there was no yarmulke or Borsalino covering his shaved head; it must have fallen off or yanked from his head.

But a Chasid? Harry had always reviled the ultra-orthodox and would have as little as possible to do with them, but this, this abomination, was entirely different. This man was kin. This man was somehow related. This man, in a jumble of broken English and Yiddish, was shouting at these brutal men turned into monsters, while praying, in Hebrew, to a preoccupied God whose attention must have been diverted elsewhere. And mostly, this man, with one hand reaching up towards him, was pleading for Harry Roth, the traveling souvenir salesman, to somehow save him.

Harry wanted to do something. He had to do something. But when he started to push himself up, one of the men – this one wearing a camouflage jacket and thick leather boots – raised his shotgun and pointed it at him, saying, “Sit your ass back down, boy.” Harry could do nothing but stay put.

The back door was thrown open and windswept rain blew through. The Chasid grasped at the leg of a table but he was pulled away. Then, as the writhing man was dragged through the doorway, he dug his fingernails into the rotted door sill. His hands and fingers were stomped on; he yelped in pain and he was forced to let go. Once they had all passed through, the wielder of the shotgun remained in place to stand guard at the back door. He glared at Harry as if he were itching to pull the trigger.

Harry could only watch as the men sloshed through the flooded yard with their struggling, moaning Chasid in tow, to the oak tree waiting so patiently. One of the men showed up with a coil of thick rope, which he took his sweet time untangling. He tied one end to a stone and heaved it up and over an outstretched limb. A noose was tied on the other end. The Chasid, covered with mud, was dragged over and then kicked and punched and prodded until he got to his feet. While he was restrained by the men, the noose was slipped over his neck was and the knot was pulled tight. Harry wanted to cry out, to scream and to look away, but he just sat, transfixed and impotent, staring out the window, bearing witness to the atrocity unfolding before him.

Between whistling gusts, Harry could hear the Chasid’s muffled appeals, his plaintive cries, his pitiful weeping. What came through, loud and clear, were words bellowed as a declaration of final judgment: “That’s it for you, you thievin’, fuckin’ Jew!” Six of the men, well-practiced and carefully choreographed, gripped the other end of the rope and slowly pulled on it until the Chasid was lifted off the ground.

The Chasid’s arms were flailing to grab and pull himself up on the taut rope that was extinguishing his life while his dancing feet were struggling to reach the ground. From far away, from far outside of himself, Harry saw it all as a tug of war with a souvenir rag doll hung from a rear view mirror – an item number 278 rag doll jerking and fluttering, and then, only swinging and swaying.

The men finally let go of the rope, and the Chasid crumpled to the ground. It took several of them to loosen the knot because the rope that had broken his neck and mangled his windpipe had also embedded itself into his skin. The rope was coiled and carried away. The men dispersed, but none returned through the luncheonette. A few minutes passed and then the man with the shotgun turned to Harry and said, “You best be goin’ now.”

“But what about him?” Harry gestured towards the window. “You can’t leave him there by himself. You’ve got to bury him.”

“Now don’t you worry one bit,” he replied, his voice as slow and smooth as warm molasses. “We’ll take right good care of ’im.”

“But you don’t understand. According to the law, you’ve got to ...”

“Whatcha’ll know about the law, as you call it?” His voice was hardening. “What makes you such a damn know-it-all? Wait, just a gosh-darn minute ... you’re a Jew ... ain’t that so?”

“Believe me. I just know.”

“Listen, Jew. If you want him buried so bad, you can just go on back and dig the hole yourself.”

“What do you mean?”

“Just like I said. There’s a good ol’ shovel out back o’ here, leanin’ up against the wall. Go on. Go ahead. Y’all take care of it.” The man turned and left through the back door, and only Harry, the waitress and the counterman remained.

Harry slipped on his hat and raincoat, fished a ten-dollar bill from his wallet and slid it under his water glass. He turned and walked out through the back door and trudged through the waterlogged yard to the broken body.

Harry was hoping and praying for some sign of life, but when he bent over to touch the body, its dripping skin had already begun to cool. He reached into his back pocket for his handkerchief and wiped off the streaks of dirt that covered the Chasid’s face. Ignoring the remorseless rain, he took off his own hat and covered the Chasid’s head.

Then, Harry got down on his knees to lift up the Chasid’s befouled, defiled body and to cradle it in his arms. And while he held it and rocked it and protected it, he started to recite what he could remember of the mourner’s Kaddish: “Yitgadal, v’yitkadash sh’mayh rabo. B’ol’mo di v’ro chir-usayh ...

After he was finished and, a long while later, when he had no more tears to shed, he said his final omayn. Then he stood up to get that good ol’ shovel, leanin’ up against the wall.

Up to the beginning of the story
Rev 17 / Nov. 22, 2006 .. Rev 18 / May 18, 2011 .. Rev 19 / March 30, 2012

March 2012…Copyright © 2012, Lloyd B. Abrams
-- Appeared in Grassroot Reflections Issue 23, May 2012

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