Why Me?

39

March is just about the end of the winter frolic season in the northeast quadrant of the United States. In the Sleet & Heat Sports Shoppe on lower Madison Avenue, late that afternoon, the staff was busily stashing its leftover stock of toboggans, ski boots, ice skates, parkas, crutches, and flasks to make room for summer fun equipment—sunburn lotion, chlorine, shark repellent, salt tablets, poison ivy spray, bug killer, arch support sneakers, decorator-designed sweatbands, and T-shirts bearing comical messages—when a clerk named Griswold, a chunky, healthy, wind-burned twentyish sports freak, a sail-boater and a hang-glider, a mountaineer and a cross-country skier, who was only working here anyway for the employee discount and what he could boost, looked out through his bushy red eyebrows and saw two men slinking into the store: old men, maybe even forty, no wind, no legs, no staying power. Midwinter pallor on their drawn faces. Abandoning the display of Ace bandages he'd been setting up, Griswold approached these two, on his face the smile of superior compassionate pity felt toward all losers by all perfect specimens. "Help you, gentlemen?"

They looked at him as though startled. Then the one with the sharp nose muttered to his friend, "You handle it," and drifted back to stand by the door, hands in his pockets as he gazed out at the overcast late afternoon and the sidewalks full of people rushing to get indoors before the storm.

Griswold gave his full alert attention to the one who would handle it, a slope-shouldered, depressed-looking fellow. Whatever sport he was involved with, Griswold thought, it hadn't done much for him: "Yes, sir?"

The man put his hand up to his mouth and mumbled something behind it, the meanwhile his eyes flicked this way and that, scanning the store.

Griswold leaned closer: "Sir?"

This time the mumble made words, barely audible: "Ski masks."

"Ski masks? Ah, skiing! You and your friend there indulge?"

"Yeah," the man said.

"Well, that's fine. Come right over this way." Leading the way deeper into the store, past splints and shoulder pads and groin cups, Griswold said, "You must have seen our ad in the paper."

"We just happened by," the man said, still talking into his hand, as though he had a tiny microphone in there.

"Is that so? Then this is your lucky day, if I may say so."

The man looked at him. "Yeah?"

"We're in the middle of our end-of-season ski sale." Griswold beamed happily at his customer. "Fantastic savings, right on down the line."

"Oh, yeah?"

The other customer was still back by the door, looking out, and thus was out of earshot, so Griswold concentrated on the bird in hand. "That's right, sir," he said. "Now, here, for instance, are these magnificent Head skis. Now, you know how much these little beauties would normally set you back."

"Ski masks," the man muttered, not even looking at the beautiful skis.

"All set for skis?" Griswold reluctantly let the beauties lean again against the wall. "How about boots? Poles? You see hanging on the wall there, sir—"

"Masks."

"Oh, of course, sir, that's right here in this display case. Take your time. We also have more in the back I could bring out if you—"

"Those two," the man said, pointing.

"These? Of course, sir. May I ask, what color is your primary ski outfit?"

The man frowned at him: "You gonna sell me these masks?"

"Certainly, sir, certainly." Whipping out his sales book, remaining ineffably cheerful and polite, Griswold said, "Cash or charge, sir?"

"Cash."

"Yes, sir. Let me just get a box for these—"

"Paper bag."

"Are you certain, sir?"

"Yes."

"Very well." Writing out the sales slip, Griswold said, "I take it, this time of year, you're heading up Canada way. Ah, the Laurentians, they're wonderful. Best skiing in North America."

"Yeah," the man said.

"Can't beat the Alps, though."

"Naw," the man said.

"You get a lot of glare that far north. Could I interest you and your friend in goggles? Guaranteed Polaroid—"

"Just the masks," the man said, and handed Griswold two twenty-dollar bills.

"That's fine, then," Griswold said, went away, came back with the change and a paper bag, and as he turned over the customer's purchases made one last pitch: "Cold up there, sir. Now, our guaranteed Finnish Army parkas will keep your vital signs intact down to fifty-seven degrees below, or return with—"

"No," the ex-customer said. Stuffing the bag full of masks inside his coat, he turned away, shoulders hunched, and joined his partner at the front door. They exchanged a glance, then left. Griswold, watching through the glass, saw them pause in the doorway and look both ways before turning their coat collars up, tucking their chins down in, shoving their hands deep in their pockets and skulking away, keeping close to the building front. Odd ducks, Griswold thought. Not your ordinary outdoor-enthusiast types.

Half an hour later, stepping back to admire a just-completed pyramid of tennis ball cans surmounted by an elasticized elbow band, Griswold suddenly frowned, pondered, turned his head, and gazed inquiringly toward the front door. But of course they were gone by then.