Mr. Finnigen’s Manhattan Grocery

by Paul Eckelmann

I started my job at The Gateway Market only four weeks ago. I don’t know exactly why it’s called The Gateway Market. The store front faces a vintage clothing company called Five and Dime, and right out the back door where we throw out the garbage is an alleyway shared between our store and the seafood market next door. The bricks and cement steps are always moist and manage to keep the odor of stale seafood lingering throughout the hot, thick air from the steaming manholes. We sell everything from low grade whiskey and hundred dollar bottles of wine that keep aging in our store, down to cheap syrup and minute pancakes.

I come in at eight four days of the week to stock and do inventory. I know it’s not the most promising job for a twenty-three year old, but to live in New York City and be a bum provides you with more company than most other places. Besides, I have no serious ties to anyone other than Mr. Finnigen, my boss and Super in the building I live in. He is thirty-five years old, and has lived in the same part of Yonkers for every one of those years. Mr. Finnigen’s father owned both the grocery store in Manhattan, and the apartment building in Yonkers. His older brother Harlo inherited the apartment building and allows Mr. Finnigen to live there for free as long as he maintains the job as Super. He supplies Harlo with free liquor whenever he wants it. The most interesting thing about the two is that Harlo is only eight minutes older than Mr. Finnigen is. They are both quite thin, pale, and part their curly black hair in the middle, revealing the trail of skin that makes its way just an inch shy from the cusp of their heads. I forgot which one of the two had a stronger argument about who had first started combing his hair like that. The slightest wind blows the cloud of hair covering their receding hairlines straight up into the air. I remember on one occasion, Harlo had me measure them both up against the wall to see who was taller, but they both stood at 5’10" even. I think Harlo had a curl that stood higher than Mr. Finnigen’s, but I didn’t give him the advantage. Even if Mr. Finnigen didn’t say, " Don’t count the curls Kurtis," right before backed into each other. My involvement with Harlo is something Mr. Finnigen doesn’t know about, and there is a reason why Harlo convinced him to give me a job immediately.

Because I’m not only employed through Mr. Finnigen Harlo chooses three of the four days he wants me to come into work. Every Monday the heroin is placed in the Tylenol boxes and marked " angel." A man named Dennis comes in around twelve and picks them up from the back door. On Thursdays and Saturdays the same is done, and those boxes are labeled " apollo," and are filled with cocaine. My main job in the mornings to stock and do inventory, so this was not a hard task to complete as long as Mr. Finnigen doesn’t suspect anything. Harlo always deposits the right amount to cover all the missing Tylenol boxes, which are about four hundred a week. I don’t particularly like this part of my job, but it pays a portion of my rent, puts a little money in my pocket, and supports my vein fucking habit. That’s what it’s like. The feeling you get in your genitals right when you have an orgasm, it feels like it shoots through your entire body, for hours. I was not likely to find a job easily, and I had already been suffering without a reliable connection. My relationship with Harlo only holds up because we both need something from each other. He has been overly generous these past two weeks, mainly because I came at a perfect time for him to start his business through Mr. Finnigen’s store, and I’m sure he has been planning it for much longer than he would have liked. Considering this, I began to think what Harlo’s consequences would be if I had ever decided to leave.

On the other hand, my relationship with Mr. Finnigen is becoming like that of a father and son. He is one of the most easy going people I have ever met. He never minds which days I come into work as long as I do a full day’s work, and I always do. Today, he has asked me to go fishing with him near the Adirondack Mountains. When I told Harlo he laughed and called me a queer. I knew he would judge me like that, but I had to pick up some "dope" before I left. From my understanding we would be staying the night, and leave Sunday afternoon so we could get some early morning fishing done. I have never been to the mountains before, and my time with Mr. Finnigen has never been much outside the work place, but I was excited to at least find out where this weekend would lead. I just hope I can make it until Sunday afternoon without any heroin. Harlo only gave me enough for today. He said that was all he had to give me, but I know he keeps a stash for the waiting period before each of his weekly pickups. Besides, if Harlo knows I will suffer from not getting enough, he will let me, and probably sit back and laugh about it as the drug took off like a numbing electrical charge through his body.

" You know, I own this cabin," Mr. Finnigen said. " My father bought it while Harlo was spending most of his teenage years in a detention facility up state in Poughkeepsie. He used to tell me he couldn’t be a father in the city. He needed to get away. His father died when he was young. They lived outside of the city, and I think he had an idea of the kind of father he wanted to be, and this was the place he could do it. Harlo to this day doesn’t know it exists."

" Yeah I guess he doesn’t understand about all that," I said.

" When my father died Harlo wanted half of everything he had. I just couldn’t see him using this the way he does the apartment buildings."

I couldn’t tell Mr. Finnigen Harlo knew. Once after their father died his mother had slipped and mentioned something in front of Harlo. He told me he almost had to beat the shit out of her before she told him, but he never said anything to Mr. Finnigen. He went to visit the cabin one time. I think Harlo knew there was no part of him that belonged out here. He didn’t need it. Not the way Mr. Finnigen needed it.

" You wanna just put all those groceries in the kitchen Kurtis."

The inside of the cabin smelled like wet wood, and the floors were rough enough to give splinters. There was no TV or radio, but I could hear the river sounding like an old washing machine, and the smell of a fresh fish still flipping inside the creel was carried in the wind. All I could think about was getting into the bathroom. I had to plug in the refrigerator, then run outside to the car to get my jacket. I could see Mr. Finnigen gathering cinder blocks on the side of the cabin to rebuild his fireplace. He even had a metal grill to throw over the fire. I wondered if he’d ever cleaned the thing; it looked like it was dipped in tar, and some of the larger bugs and insects that couldn’t detect it under the leaves were still trying to escape.

" The fireplace is all ready for the fish Kurtis, we just gotta catch em." Mr. Finnigen said.

I suspected he was planning on teaching me how, but he sent me off to the other side of the stream. This was fine, because if I found a flat rock out of his sight I could knock out a couple of lines first. I laid down my jacket and listened to the birds for awhile. I watched Mr. Finnigen jump from rock to rock moving from one side of the stream to the other, and finally make it around the bend. For a minute or so I could hear the sound of his rubber boots landing on each rock as he went. It’s all balance, he said.

Every twenty minutes or so, Mr. Finnigen would yell, "Did you get anything yet?" I shouted out no every time, or not yet, because I really wasn’t having any luck. After these last two lines I thought I’d definitely start trying. Sitting on the rock made me think about Harlo. How he was probably sitting on his old brown couch in a room full of stale smoke. Scratching over his entire body waiting for Jojo and Mike to come over with a couple dollars short for what they want. The rocks in the stream reminded me of fool’s gold. There was a flash of light around the edge of each rock as the water lightly rushed down from being pushed along by the current.

I dumped out some of the worms, stuck my pole in the water, and dragged it through the dirt so it would look like I was at least trying. I didn’t know what kind of signs I needed to be showing that would make it seem like I was fishing, but was sure Mr. Finnigen wouldn’t be looking too hard. When I came out around the bend in the stream, I couldn’t believe all the fish Mr. Finnigen had on his string. He must have caught nearly a dozen. He was walking through the stream with the string of fish tied to the back loop in his pants, and his shoes tied to the end of the string. He had his pants rolled up, but it didn’t look like it did much good because the water stain rose entirely above his knees.

Immediately, Mr. Finnigen threw a match into his homemade fireplace. He told me to go inside and get the two lawn chairs from the living room. Back in the city, he always has one chained to the bars on the front door of his store for the nicer days when he can sit outside. We sat down to the fire just as the sun was setting over the outstretched arms of the trees that were in full foliage. I started to get irritated now that I was coming down for the rest of the night. I knew tomorrow I was going to feel no different than those fish that were dragged through the stream with a hook in their gills, until they’ve been out of the water for so long that their insides dried up. Mr. Finnigen didn’t say much while we were eating. His fork kept making this cutting sound as he went through the fish onto his plastic plate. Our eyes occasionally met through the fire, but there seemed to be this tension of intimacy that made the thought of conversation uncomfortable. It was practically pitch dark now, and the crackling of the fire sent newspaper ash still caught underneath the wood into the air. The sudden loud pops nearly startled my thoughts into words, but all I kept thinking about was how Mr. Finnigen was the last guy you would want to pull something over on, but if you wanted to get away with it, he was the perfect person.

After dinner we brought in the dishes and things from outside. Mr. Finnigen and I sat on the couch in the front room and talked awhile mostly about how I grew up living with my aunt and uncle in Philadelphia until my uncle got into his car accident. Then he sat around sweating in his wheelchair all summer drinking and swearing at my aunt for not leaving him. I haven’t talked to either of them since I left there six weeks ago. We didn’t plunge too far into our lives, but it felt good to break another layer of ice. I felt guilty for hiding my entire body under the brown afghan on the couch, fondling the empty bags in my pocket. Tomorrow I wanted to follow Mr. Finnigen. I know I could balance myself across the rocks to the other side. I could learn to catch a fish tomorrow.

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