“Simple, he touched them,” said the first.
“Liar!” shouted the customer. “You watched me.”
“Listen,” said the second optician, rallying, a little frenzied. “This doesn't make sense. What do you think? They smudged themselves? You touched them!”
“I want my money back, Bucket.”
“Look, I can give you your money back, it's not going to do any good. You're screwing up your glasses yourself. It's going to be the same wherever you go.”
“It's the fit.”
“What are you saying, fit?” interrupted the first optician.
“You think they're touching your cheek?”
“That's right. My cheek.”
“Show me where,” said the first, leaning in.
“For chrissake, don't make him put his hands up there,” said the second. The opticians had traded places now, the fierce, the patient. Only the customer was unperturbed, true to himself. He moved his hand with slow drama, like a magician, to point at his face. Shifting and sighing, the opticians closed around him to see.
The rain outside slowed, died. Cars whirred through the water in the street.
“It's my cheek,” reminded the customer.
“Maybe your last ones touched you there,” said the second optician. “Your nosepiece was all worn down. These don't touch.”
“I feel it.”
“No, you don't. You're used to touching yourself there, putting your fingers in there,” said the second. “That's what I meant by habits.”
“You don't know,” said the customer quietly, with a Buddhist calm. “Now you got to give me my money back.”
“We'll see about that,” said the second optician grimly. He plucked the glasses from the customer's face.
“This is getting silly,” said the first optician to the second. “Give him his money. Get him out of here.”
“I'll make him sit here all night if I have to,” said the second. “He's putting his fingers on them.”
“I got all the time in the world,” said the customer happily.
“Sit still,” said the second optician. He again dried the glasses with the chamois, and replaced them on the customer's face. “Keep your hands down.”
The customer sat, his hands on his knees, the chord of tension in his body stilled at some cost. The second optician leaned in close to the customer's face to inspect the juncture of nosepiece and nose.
“How long are we going to keep him here?” said the first optician pleadingly.
“I told you, as long as it takes.”
“You're kidding me.”
“Help me watch him. Watch his hands.”
The customer smiled, delighted now. He could play this game and win. They'd see the scratches reappear. He focused on his hands. They were all focused on his hands. He kept his hands on his knees.
“We gotta get him out of the way at least,” said the first optician.
“Behind the counter,” said the second. In his determination he had an answer for everything.
“Here you go, Bucket,” said the customer.
“Keep your hands down!” said the second optician. “Let me move the chair. Joe, watch his hands.”
The customer was installed behind the counter, hands on his knees, chin up, waiting. The bill of his cap jutted from his back pocket.
The opticians leaned against the wall and the counter, inspecting the customer as though he were a horse on which they'd bet, and they gamblers looking for some giveaway imperfections, some tremble in its flank.
“He's gonna touch them,” said the first optician.
“He wants to,” said the second. “But he knows we're watching.”
“You'll see,” said the customer.
“Look at his hands,” said the first. “He can't take it, he's gotta go up there. It's like a tic, a whatchamacallit. He's got like Tourette's syndrome or something.”
“Fuck you, motherfucker,” said the customer genially.
“We've got forever,” said the second optician, his tone smooth, his calm restored. “We'll wait it out.”
The door chimed. They all turned. The new customer was young, in his late twenties. A boy to these men, a boy in a sweater. He turned to the glass shelves on the wall.
“Can I help you find something?” said the second optician, stepping up. Then he turned and hissed: “Watch his hands!”
“Just browsing,” said the new customer, and immediately wondered: Was browsing the right word for glasses?
And: Who was that black man in the chair?
“You have glasses before?” asked the second optician.
“Yes, uh, I don't always wear them.”
“You want to see anything, let me know.”
“Okay.”
The new customer moved along the wall of frames, searching for the expensive ones, the Japanese titanium-alloy designs.
Almost involuntarily, he glanced back, and the black man in the chair bugged his eyes at him. A plea for help?
The two opticians in their white coats, gold glasses, and puffy hair reminded him of Nazis. Nazi doctors. Or perhaps Mafia. Yes, definitely Mafia. He'd heard about this neighborhood. He knew of the dark old economic engines still humming away under the bright yuppie surface.
But should he get involved?
He slid closer along the back wall and had another look. The black man sat with his hands on his knees, obviously containing himself. His keepers' eyes shifted from their prisoner to the new customer, watching. What was it they'd said—Watch his hands?
“Are you okay?” the new customer blurted.
“Fuck you think, jackass? Fuck you staring at? You see something wrong with me?”
The black man gesticulated, waving the new customer away, and the second optician said: “The hands, the hands.”
“What's wrong with his hands?” said the new customer, even as he backed away.
“Mind your own business,” said the first optician.
“Damn. He thinks I'm a shoplifter, Bucket. Fucking racist motherfucker.”
“I'm sorry.”
“Tell him, Bucket. I'm a paying customer.”
“It's okay,” said the new customer, moving to the door, and out, into the dying afternoon. The sun had arrived just to depart, to throw a few long shadows around as though it had worked the whole day.
The three of them watched the new customer disappear from view of the shop window.
“Now you're scaring off our customers,” said the second optician fondly.
“Screw him,” said the first optician, waving dismissively at the door. “He was a looker. Just browsing, you heard him.”
“Racist jackass got to go jumping to conclusions,” said the customer, fingers bouncing on his knees.
“Let me see your hands,” said the first optician.
“You got eyes!”
“No, I mean turn them over. Let me take a look.”
The customer furrowed his brow. The first optician took the customer's left hand in his own and gently turned it over.
“You're got very rough hands,” said the first optician. “Look at your fingertips. Very rough.”
The second optician bent in to look, and so did the customer, their heads all drawing together.
“See that?” said the first optician. “Think he could of scratched up his lenses with his fingers like that?”
“Hmmm,” said the second optician. “Plastic lenses, sure. Like his old ones. Not glass. Only smudge glass.”
“If I touched it,” said the customer.
“Yeah, right, if,” said the first optician, still holding the customer's hand. “We're suspending judgment.”
“That's what makes you a good man,” said the customer. “You want to do the right thing.”
“Yes we do,” said the first optician. “That's why we're sitting here. Long as it takes.”