Jew Store by Stella Suberman Page A

described as like ice forming.
    My father said to the man, “I was wondering . . .” The man answered, “Ain’t nothing for you to wonder about in here.” The man said further that he knew why my father was in town, had known ever since he got there. (Were spies hanging from Miss Brookie’s crape myrtle?) And, the man wanted to know, wasn’t it true that Tom Dillon had my father under lock and key?
    My father said nobody had him under lock and key.
    It didn’t make any difference. “Quit wasting my time,” the man told him.
    Another
momzer
, my father thought. Were there nothing but
momzers
in this town? The conversation going nowhere, in fact at a dead stop, my father turned and retraced his steps. The tinkling bell tinkled.
    Once outside, he felt all at once something of a drop-off in spirits. Where were the people whose hearts beat faster at the thought of a Jew store coming to town? Where were the drums and the trumpets? Well, he didn’t expect pounding hearts and drums exactly, but where was at least somebody agreeable to taking his money?
    In fewer minutes than he would have liked, he had re-crossed the street to the real estate office.
    Inside he again faced Tucker. The minute he looked at him, he knew nothing good would be coming from that smile. It was a smile of which my father had grown very weary indeed. Tucker said again that all he had was the blacksmith shop and the “nigger” church.
    To try to project a calm that he certainly wasn’t feeling, my father walked to the calendar on the wall and pretended to scrutinizethe girl on it—a puffy-cheeked girl, preternaturally pink and white, smiling brilliantly over the slogan FOR SERVICE WITH A SMILE, CALL CRUICKSHANK’S PLUMBING . “You can’t be doing much business with such few listings,” he said to the wall.
    Tucker wanted to help “like the very dickens” and said he would give it another think. My father turned from the calendar and took a look as Tucker embarked on his “think.” As the man leaned back in his chair, his head fell back, his eyes closed, his mouth sprang open, and his tongue ran under his upper dentures, as if, my father said, searching out diamonds hidden in molars. Suddenly the eyelids lifted, and there came the revelation that Tom Dillon had the store my father was looking for.
    This was news? Of course it wasn’t, but what could my father do? He retreated to the little wooden chair, positioned just as he had left it yesterday, and asked Tucker if he thought Dillon was ready to talk business.
    Tucker answered that he never spoke for Tom Dillon.
    My father gave his almost silent “uh-huh” and sat on.
    Tucker suggested that my father try some other town, that there were a lot of little towns that might be in the market for a Jew store. “So why not just go on and look further?” he asked my father.
    My father was suddenly undone, his confidence seriously compromised. This guy Tucker was peeing on his back and calling it rain. The man knew the shoe factory was the attraction and here he was smiling his kulak smile and telling him to go someplace else. Did he have it wrong? Had Tom Dillon
ever
taken him seriously? After all, with the shoe factory coming in, lots of merchants could be wanting a store.
    My father struggled for something light—
frailech
was his word—to make the man loosen up, come around. He had some jokes, but when he ran them through his head, he realized they were about Jews, so they were out. Jewish jokes were only for other Jews’ ears.
    Traveling salesman jokes were out as well. My father was not a goody-goody, but he was also not a traveling salesman and didn’t want to sound like one. Traveling salesmen’s reputations were not of the finest.
    He set himself to come up with something funny about the ride from Nashville but soon realized there was nothing funny about that ride. And if he