The optician didn't move. “You don't need to use language,” he said.
They'd sold him his glasses yesterday. One hundred dollars. He'd paid with cash, not out of a wallet.
The customer bounced from one foot to the other like a boxer. An ingrown beard scarred the underside of his long jaw. He pushed his chin forward, keeping his hands by his side. “Look. Same damn thing.”
The optician grunted slightly and moved to look. He was as tall as the customer, and fatter. “A smudge,” he said.
He was still purring in his boredom. This distraction hadn't persuaded him yet that it would become an event, a real dent in the afternoon.
“Scratched,” said the customer. “Same as the last pair. If you can't fix the problem why'd you sell me the damn glasses?”
“A smudge,” said the optician. “Clean it off. Here.”
The customer ducked backward. “Keep off. Don't fool with me. Can't clean it off. They're already messed up. Like the old ones. They're all messed up.”
“Let me see,” said the optician.
“Where's Dr. Bucket? I want to talk to the doctor.”
“Burkhardt. And he's not a doctor. Let me see.” The optician drew in his stomach, adjusted his own glasses.
“You're not the doctor, man.” The customer danced away recklessly, still thrusting out his chin.
“We're both the same,” said the optician wearily. “We make glasses. Let me see.”
The second optician came out of the back, smoothed his hair, and said, “What?”
“Bucket!”
The second optician looked at the first, then turned to the customer. “Something wrong with the glasses?”
“Same thing as yesterday. Same place. Look.” Checking his agitation, he stripped his glasses off with his right hand and offered them to the second optician.
“First of all, you should take them off with two hands, like I showed you,” said the second optician. He pinched the glasses at the two hinges, demonstrating. Then he turned them and raised them to his own face.
The inside of the lenses were marked, low and close to the nose.
“You touched them. That's the problem.”
“No.”
“Of course you did. That's fingerprints.”
“Damn, Bucket, man. I'll show you the old ones. You can't even fix the problem.”
“The problem is you touched them. Here.” The second optician went to the counter and dipped the glasses in a shallow bath of cleanser, dried them with a chamois cloth. The customer bobbed forward anxiously, trying to see.
“What do you, scratch at your eyes all the time?” said the first optician, smiling now. The problem was solved.
“Shut up,” said the customer, pointing a finger at the first optician. “Just shut up. You're not my doctor on this.”
“Nobody is,” said the first optician. “You don't need a doctor, you need to keep your hands out of your eyes.”
“Shut up.”
The second optician glared at the first. He handed the glasses to the customer. “Let me see you put them on.”
The customer bent his head down and lifted the glasses to his face.
“Wait a minute, I couldn't see. .”
“It's the fit.”
“The bill of your cap was in the way,” said the first optician.
“Put them on again,” said the second.
“Same thing,” said the customer, shaking his head. He pulled off the glasses, again with one hand. “Look. Still there. Little scratches.”
The first optician stepped up close to the customer. “Sure. You touched it again. When I couldn't see. It's how you put them on.”
“He uses his thumbs,” said the second, snorting.
“Little scratches, man. I paid a hundred dollars. Second day I got these little scratches again. Might as well kept the old ones.” He thrust the glasses at the first optician.
“They're not scratched,” said the first optician. “Just dirty. Your hands are dirty.”
The customer flared his nostrils, twitched his cheek, raised his eyebrows. “That's weak, Bucket. I come in here show you a pair of glasses get all rubbed and scratched, I'm looking for some help. You tell me I need some new glasses. Now the new ones got the same problem, you tell me I got dirty hands. These the glasses you sold me, my man.”
The second optician let air slip very slowly through his tightened lips. “Your old pair was scratched. You had them, what, ten years? They were falling off your face. The hinges were shot, the nosepiece was gone. The lens touched your cheek.” He paused to let this litany sink in. “The glasses I sold you are fine. The fit is fine. You just have to break some habits.”
“Habits!”
“He's a clown,” said the first optician, leaning back against the counter, sticking out his belly. “We should've thrown him out yesterday.”
“Instead you took my money,” hissed the customer. “Good enough for you yesterday. You couldn't see black for all the green yesterday. Now I look black to you. Now I'm a clown.”
“You think we need your hundred dollars?” The first optician managed a laugh.
“That's not necessary,” said the second, to the customer. He ignored his partner. “We'll take care of you. Sit down, let me look at the fit.”
“Shit. Your man needs to shut up.”
“Okay, please.” The second optician pulled up a chair from beside the counter. The padding was pink to match the carpet.
“Sit down.”
The partners fell easily into a good optician/bad optician routine. It was pure instinct. Perhaps the customer sensed his options dwindling, perhaps not. Probably he did. The air went out of him a little as he took the chair.
And the glasses, the proof, were in enemy hands. The second optician was rinsing them again.
“Shit, Bucket,” said the customer, petulance in his voice now. “What you know about my habits?”
“Okay,” said the second optician, ignoring the remark. His voice was soothing. “I just want to see you put them on. Just naturally, like you would. Don't push them into your face. They won't fall off. Just drop them over your ears. Then I'll check the fit.”
He offered the glasses, then pulled them back as the customer reached for them. “Take off your hat,” he said admonishingly.
The customer took off his hat. His hair was grooved where the lip of the hat had rested. The first optician, watching from his place at the counter, reflexively reached up and fluffed his own hair.
“Here you go. Nice and easy.” The second optician handed over the glasses.
The customer stuffed the hat in his ass pocket, then raised the glasses with both hands, holding them by the earpieces awkwardly. His hands trembled.
“That's it,” said the second optician. “Let's have a look at the fit.”
The customer dropped his hands to his lap. The second optician brought his face close to the customer's. For a moment they were still, breathing together tightly, eyes flickering. The intimacy calmed the customer. He was in some sense now getting his due, his money's worth. He could feel the second optician's breath graze his cheek.
Then the second optician saw the marks.
“Wait a minute,” said the second optician, straightening his body. “They're still smudged.”
“I told you!” said the customer.
“He touched them again,” said the first optician, back at the counter. “I told you, he puts his thumb on the lens.”
“You touched them again,” said the second optician.
“You watched me! You saw! I didn't touch them!”
The second optician shook his head, crestfallen. “I don't understand how it happened.”