A More Convenient Truth

by

B. Craig Grafton

Just resting in aJohn and Karen Anderson were on their way to the supermarket when John noticed that the gas gauge was almost on empty.

"We better stop and get gas dear. We got less than an eighth of a tank left."

"Well, you know where the nearest convenience store is. Pull in there and fill her up."

"I hate that place. It's a hole. It's always so messy and cluttered and dirty. Besides the help there is always so rude to me."

Karen was about to say, "and why's that dear?" But she knew better. She didn't want to start anything since she was going to be trapped with him for the next hour or so. So instead, she said, "Well it's convenient and it's only a couple of blocks from here. We'd have to drive way out of our way to go to another one. So just stop your whining and bellyaching and stop there okay."

John drove on. The convenience store was just ahead on the other side of the intersection and as he approached it the light turned red and he had to stop.

"Oh look," said Karen, "See there's a sign there that says it's under new management. See it. See all the red, white, and blue balloons, banners, and streamers they got up. It's so patriotic. So American."

John pulled in next to a pump, got out, went to the pump, and was about to insert his credit card when he noticed a handwritten sign posted there on the pump that read "cash only."

"Cash only," said John, not believing his eyes. "Cash only. I hope I got enough on me. How much cash have you got Karen?"

"Not much," she answered. "I always use credit cards too." They examined their wallets and came to the conclusion that between them they did have enough for twenty dollars worth of gas. So John began filling the tank while Karen went on inside. He stopped pumping at nineteen ninety seven proud of himself for not having gone over twenty dollars.

As he went in and the first thing to hit him was the smell. It made him nauseous. Made him gag.

He went over to his wife who was browsing the aisles.

"Look how nice and neat and clean everything is," she said.

"Never mind that now. What is that god awful smell? I can't take it."

"It's curry."

"Curry. You mean that Indian food those Indian people eat? They selling curry here?"

"No but look at the clerk over there," said Karen, nodding her head toward the man behind the cash register waiting on a customer. "He's the new owner I bet and he's Indian."

John looked at him. The man was smallish in stature, fiftyish in age, dark-complected, thin-framed with coal black hair with just a touch of gray in it.

"Yah he's Indian or Pakistani or something like that. I tell ya all those kinds of foreign people are taking over all the convenient stores in this country. You can't find a convenience store anywhere run by an American any more."

"Well he's trying to be American."

"Well, ya just can't come over to this country and be American by putting up a bunch of red, white, and blue balloons now can ya. He's still Indian underneath it all and he always will be."

"He's just trying to draw in customers by being patriotic, that's all."

"Well he better do something about that smell in here if he wants to keep any customers. That's all I can say."

"His wife is probably in the back there cooking his lunch for him. That's what you smell. He's probably just homesick for a good old fashioned home cooked meal. That's all."

"Well he may be homesick but he's making the rest of us just plain sick. That's for damn sure."

"I like curry."

"Well I don't. And don't you ever be fixing it for me, ya hear."

"Have I ever fixed curry for you, John?"

"Well, no."

"You want to get anything?"

"No, I'm not buying anything here. It'll stink up the whole car. And when we get home make sure you wash our clothes immediately. I don't want them stinking up the place. Here smell my sleeve. It stinks like curry," said John, proffering her a smell of his right shirt sleeve.

"No thank you. Let's just pay up and go okay. And John be nice to the man okay. I know how you got into with the clerks here before. Be friendly. Give him a break. He's new here okay."

"Okay. Okay. I won't mess with him."

They went up to the man. He had a name tag on that read: Raghu.

Raghu thought John. Isn't that some kind of Italian sauce? Maybe this guy is Italian. Nah there's no Italian sauce that I know of that stinks like this.

The first words out of Raghu's mouth were "May I help you sir?"

John thought he said, "May I help you, Sahib." But in any event, Raghu gave away his identity when he opened his mouth.

He's Indian alright, thought John. He sounds just like those blankety blank telephone marketers always calling me from India. People he couldn't understand because their accents were so thick. People he had hung up on quite a number of times over the years.

"Pump number four please," said John.

"Nineteen ninety seven, please," responded Raghu."

John handed him twenty dollars and waited for his three cents change. He didn't get it. Raghu had slammed the cash register shut.

"My change please."

"Eet is just three cents. I don't bother weeth small change that small sir."

Or was it Sahib?

John was about to insist on his goddamn three cents worth of change when his wife pulled his sleeve. This was her signature way of telling him to drop whatever he was about to do and can it. She mouthed to him with her back to Raghu, "Will you please lighten up."

She wants me to lighten up. Alright I'll lighten up then, said John to himself.

"Your wife?" smiled Raghu.

"Ya one of them."

"One of them?" quizzed Raghu.

"Ya, she's wife number four. I been married four times but only to three women."

John liked to joke about being married four times but only to three women. It was a little routine of his that always rubbed Karen the wrong way and he used it on her whenever he wanted to get back at her. Like now when she told him to forget the three cents.

"Wife number one and three was the same woman. I have been married to this one now for thirteen, lucky thirteen, number of years," he said, putting his arm around Karen, pulling her to him, and giving her a one arm or armed hug. "Wouldn't trade her in for the world. Are you married?" asked John, just following his wife's instructions by trying to be friendly.

Just then a dark skinned beautiful young woman, probably twentyish something thought John, parted a colorful veil and came out from the back room. She gave Raghu a look that said, "Your lunch is ready." Then she disappeared back into the back again.

"Your daughter?" asked John.

"My wife."

"Your wife?"

"One of them."

"You've been married four times too huh?"

"Yes."

"Your latest one, huh?"

"Yes she's the latest one," confirmed Raghu.

Karen tugged John's sleeve again.

But he wasn't about to let it go. Not just yet anyway.

"Four marriages. How many women?

"Four."

"Thank you Raghu," said Karen as she drug John away from the cash register and out to the car.

"Get in," she growled.

John got in and started driving. Karen could see the wheels turning in his head as he multitasked, drove and thought at the same time that is.

"You know him requiring cash and not giving me my three cents back means he probably does that to everyone else too. So say he has a hundred customers a day, probably has more, and that he keeps on the average three cents from each of them. That's twenty one dollars a week. That's over a thousand dollars a year tax free. That's why he doesn't want any credit cards. He's ripping off the government like that while the rest of us, Americans, pay taxes on what we earn. Probably doing it too because he's got alimony payments to those ex wives of his and if they knew his true income he'd have to pay them more."

"Is that why you don't report those odd carpentry jobs you do on the side on our tax returns dear?"

"That's different. He's got three ex-wives. I only got one now that what's-her-name is dead."

"They're not ex-wives John. The man's a Muslim. He's got four wives. Muslims can have four wives. He hasn't been divorced four times, like some people I know."

"You mean three, dear. Anyway he ain't Muslim. He likes curry. That means he's from India. Indians like curry. Muslims don't eat that stuff. They eat figs, dates, goats, A-rab food like that. He's Hindu, not Muslim I tell ya. Indians are always Hindu. A-rabs are always Muslims. Hindus can only have one wife just like the rest of us. He just traded in an old wife for a younger one, that's all."

"You mean like you did, dear?"

The rest of the trip was in silence. So was their time at the supermarket and the trip back home as well until they came to the convenience store again and stopped at the light. That's when John finally broke the silence.

"Guess we're going to have to find us a more convenient convenience store."

"Ain't that the truth," mumbled Karen under her breath.

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B. Craig Grafton is a retired attorney and has had some legal fiction westerns published by Two Gun Publishing and Twenty First Century American Fairy Tales by The Scarlet Leaf Review. They are available on Amazon.