NEEDLING

Grunt grunt grunt. The old man walked into the store. He could barely walk. Five feet tall. Dressed in beige golfer’s shorts and a white polo shirt. He had some sort of bandage around his right ankle. Probably around his early eighties. He grumbled as a way of communication.

I saw him coming, getting out of his oversized Cadillac, and bee-lining towards the liquor store. Grumpy old men, there seems to be an endless ration of them. I held the door open to him.

“How you doing today,” I said.
“Gin,” he grumbled, “where’s the gin...”
“Right this way, sir.”
“Where’s the gin?” He repeated a few times, never having ever said hello or anything.

I lead the way.

“Right this way, sir.”

He followed me on his heavy foot, stumbling along as best he could. At this point, I was still being nice to him, figuring he was just another grumpy old man, one among thousands, and that I owed him some sort of respect or something. I took him to the gin section.

“I usually like this Bombay stuff,” he says.
“You like it dry or do you like the newer stuff.”
“Dry,” he said dryly with a rough throat.
He was looking at the Bombay Sapphire.
“Then you might want to go with the Bombay 86, it’s more of your classic dry gin.”
“I’ll take that one, then.”

“Where’s your cognac?”
“Right this way, sir. Here, let me take this bottle from you, I’ll go ahead and place it on the counter for your convenience.”
“Where the hell’s the cognac? The French cognac...”
“Right over here, sir...”
“Not that I want to buy anything French, those bastards... but they make the best damn cognac around, those damn French.”
“Right over here, sir,” I’m now talking on the tonal basis of cold steel. I figure it’s no use getting into it with the old geezer.

He’s grumbling to himself. He’s standing in front of all the cognacs and other brandies. I can barely understand a word he says.

“Don’t you have none of that Corboisshon’s?”
“What?”
“Corboisshon’s... are you deaph?”
“I... I’m not sure, sir... don’t think so... what is it exactly?”
“It’s some of that damn French Cognac... those damn French... I can’t stand buying their stuff, but heck, they make the best stuff you ever darn tasted in your life. Corboisshon’s!!!!”
“Well...”
“V.S.O.P.!”
“Uhm... do you mean Courvoisier?”

I point out the bottles to him.

“No...”
He grumbles, clears his throat a few times, and continues, “V.S.O.P. Corboisshon’s!! Damnit, everybody has it.”
“I’m sorry, sir, I’m at a loss.”

And he looks at the Courvoisier for good this time.

“There it is!” He exclaims. “Corboisshon!”
“Yes, sir, that’s the Courvoisier I just it pointed out to you.”

He ignores my last remark completely.

“You got this stuff in your store and you don’t even know it! What kind of store is this anyway?”
“I don’t know, sir. Will that be all?”
“Rumph.... those damn French, I hate their guts!”

And he grumbles all the way back to the counter, where I charge him for his two bottles. At the beginning, I thought about giving him hell, then I though about it, this old piece of angry shit will be dead soon. Fuck him. I rang him up and looked at him thinking, ‘You’re angry and hateful and an asshole, but soon, you’ll be dead, and I’ll still be alive, and I’ll live many more years, while your body will be the playground of worms and maggots.’

That made me feel better. I smiled at him. No a single moment throughout our encounter did this man actually look at me or listen to me. He never heard my accent – light as it is – nor calculate that I might not be an American, that I might not agree with his narrow-minded republican ideals, that I might actually even be French (the evil of all evil), the very representation of those awful people he despises so much, those awful people who make such a wonderful drink... Damn Them!