Someone once said that there is a special “teacher smell” made up of equal parts chalk dust, flop sweat and cheap clothing. That’s what I smell like. I don’t normally notice it, but it’s a hot afternoon and I didn’t have a chance to run home and change after school today, so I’m driving with the window open.
With any luck, I can wrap this story up in an hour or so. My editor wants a 600-700 word piece for the College Issue on the best places in the city to buy beer – simple enough. I’ve already done the leg-work on the big, obvious, 200-brands-of-microbrew stores and I just want to do some research on a couple of smaller, less visible stores that sell beer. In a town like Manchester, with two or three Mom&Pop places on every corner, that shouldn’t be too challenging.
I swing into the “Tree Street” area of town and pull up to the first bodega I see. I grab my notebook and pop inside. I look over the beer selection (which frankly, isn’t as good as I’d hoped) and make a few notes. The manager behind the cash register looks at me with profound suspicion. I write down everything I can think of about the beer, then nod to the manager and go back to my car.
I sit in my front seat for a minute or two, looking over my notes. There isn’t much here to build a beer story on. Why would a college kid make the trip to this part of town, when he could find a bigger selection at one of the stores on the edge of town? Something niggles at the back of my brain and I search my memory. After a minute or two of staring up at the store’s sign, it comes back to me. A year or so ago, while I was working on a totally different story, I’d been in this store and if memory serves, they stock about 15 different varieties of pork rind here. Now that would be worth a trip into the city! I grab my notebook again and head back into the store.
The manager, a fairly scruffy-looking French guy with a cast over one eye, glares even more suspiciously at me as I make my way through the aisles of the store, looking for pork rinds. My memory turns out to be semi-reliable for a change and while there are fewer varieties than I’d remembered, there are five different types in stock – enough of a hook to hang a story on. I make a couple more notes on my pad, then close it and head for the door. This is too much for the manager, and he finally approaches me.
He obviously wants to demand what the hell I’m doing, but that would be admitting that he cares, and he just can’t bring himself to do that. On the other hand, it would probably kill him to let me go without getting some sort of information, so he finds a compromise.
“Is there something I can help you with?” he asks, radiating suspicion from every pore.
“No thanks,” I say, “I’m just taking a few notes,” then walk out of the store under what can only be described as a baleful glare.
It is only later, when I’m going over my notes that I start to see the situation from his perspective:
In my teacher clothes, I was dressed exactly like a mid-level government functionary. I came in, took notes, left the store for a few minutes – just enough time to have made a quick phone call to headquarters – then returned to take a few more cryptic notes, then left again without explaining myself.
Now obviously, I have no idea how the manager reacted to all this, but I have a vision that I’d like to believe:
Maurice watches the G-Man leave the store and waits until he drives away. He stands deep in thought for a moment or two, then reaches a decision. He goes to the front door, locks it and turns around a sign so that it reads “Closed”. He goes to the back of the store and opens the door to the meat locker. He quickly strips off his clothes and changes into a tuxedo he has hanging inside the refrigerator.
With a quick, worried glance out the front window, he goes behind the counter and opens the cash register. He reaches behind the drawer and flips a hidden switch. Several stacks of beer crates swing forward to reveal a staircase. He hurries down the stairs into the dark. A moment later, he opens a door to the secret, smoke-filled room in the basement full of martini-drinking men and women in evening wear gathered around baccarat and roulette tables.
“I’m sorry,” he tells them. “You’ll have to go home.”
