Spoiled Brats: Short Stories

by Simon Rich

  I would never violence a woman. But when she says these words, I feel the urge to do so.

  “Do you know who you are speaking with?” I say, my voice like the growl of an animal. “I am Herschel Rich!”

  She swallows. The rain is pouring down now and I must shout to be heard.

  “I crossed an ocean without pants!” I remind her. “I am not going to lie down in coffin! I am going to climb up this city until I have conquered my dream!”

  I point at the brownstone down the block, the one Simon told me is for sale.

  “How much is that building costing?”

  “I don’t know, Herschel. Probably, like, two million dollars.”

  “Tell Simon that I will earn the two millions first—and buy the big house before he can! And I will start new line of descendants without him. I may be old man of twenty-seven. But there is still grease in my bucket. There is still plenty of grease.”

  I put the seven pennies back in pocket and walk on through the rain. In the distance, I can see the Statue of Liberty. I figure that is as good a direction as any. I button my wool and march forward.

  Even though I possess seven pennies, I know I must be careful about spending them. New York is expensive city. There is no telling how long they will last.

  The trick to surviving with low funds is to not have such high standards. For example, in Slupsk, you could buy bowl of milk for three rubles. But they would sell you milk for just two rubles if you drank it directly from goat. It was not easy drinking from the goat, because she was strong and had problems with her anger. Still, a ruble is a ruble, and I always made sure to refuse bowl. As the saying goes in Slupsk: “Sometimes you must drink milk right out of the goat, because it costs two rubles instead of the three rubles.”

  I think about this saying as I walk the streets of Brooklyn. There are so many decadent restaurants, each one more luxurious than the last. I pass one named in honor of the pirate Long John Silver, which serves assorted treasures from the sea. Then I pass one that serves chicken that is crisped, in the style of Kentucky. Most amazing to me is a large white castle that sells Salisbury steaks between breads. Their food is so rich I can smell it from the street. My stomach is rumbling, but I know that these places are beyond me. Their signs are spelled out with electric flashing lights. If I want to survive, I must find someplace more humble.

  Eventually, after hours of walking, I find simple market. I can tell from its bare green sign and drab brick walls that it is modest and affordable. I take out my pennies and go inside, grateful to have come across this “Whole Foods.”

  I select my potato and wait in line to buy. It is on the small side but very clean, without any filth on its skin. I am very excited to eat it.

  A woman in man’s clothes calls me over to her cash register.

  “Will you need a bag?” she asks as I hand her my meal.

  “No,” I say. “I have pocket.”

  “That’s the spirit!” she says. “I wish everyone were as eco as you.”

  “Is fine,” I say. I am very hungry and want her to hurry with her movements. Eventually, she sets down my potato and weighs it. Then she looks at her screen and tells me the price.

  I do not remember losing consciousness, but I am able now to piece together events. First I hear price of potato. Then I begin to shake. My vision blurs and I hear sound of screaming. After long time, I realize that it is my own voice. I am the one who is screaming. I fall on ground and lose some time. When I wake up, the woman is kneeling over me.

  “Sir,” she says, “would you like us to call someone?”

  I glare at her. By this point, my shock has turned to rage.

  “I want you to call the police,” I say. “And arrest yourself for robbery.”

  I point my finger at her face.

  “How can you sleep at night charging eight dimes for potato from the ground? You are so greedy, so evil—like a monster!”

  I gesture wide with my arms.

  “This store is run by monsters!”

  At this point, something strange happens, which is that the other customers in the Whole Foods start applauding. I am very confused. I decide it is best idea to flee.

  I run through a door in the back and find myself in area with trash. I am catching my breath when I hear the sound of laughter.

  “Whoa,” a young man says. “Score.”

  I look and see a gang of bearded hobos. They are scavenging through trash bin, picking out packages of food.

  “Check the sell-by date,” one says. “I bet these things aren’t even stale.”

  It is amazing, I think, that these bums have so happy a spirit. I decide it is safe to introduce myself. I step out of the shadows and hold up my palms in show of peace.

  “I am Herschel,” I say. “From village of Slupsk.”

  “Cool,” one of them says. “An international student.”

  Another one squints at my wool and pokes his fingers at the buttons.

  “Where’d you get this?” he asks. “Housing Works?”

  “I make it from old rags,” I admit.

  For some reason, this pathetic fact impresses them.

  “That’s rad,” they say. “Talk about DIY.”

  “I am very hungry,” I say.

  “You came to the right place,” says the man with the longest beard. “We’ve been Dumpster diving all semester, and this place is by far the sickest.”

  I do not want to become sick, but my hunger is extreme. I say a quick prayer and then dive inside the trash bin.

  “Oh my God,” I say when my eyes adjust to the light. “There is so much food!”

  “I know,” says the long-beard man. “Have you ever seen anything so fucking First World? It’s, like, ‘Hey, I’ve got a good idea. Let’s rape the earth with chemicals, wrap the crops in plastic, drive them across the country, then bury them all in a landfill.’ ”

  “Is fine,” I say. I am not really listening. There are so many foods in front of me that my mouth has started dripping. Suddenly, I see something shocking. There is entire package of beef sausage completely unopened. Somehow the hobos have missed the best item. I rip off the wrapper and shove it in my face before anyone can take it from me. The meat is so delicious that my eyes fill up with tears. When I climb out of Dumpster, the bums are all staring at me, a look of horror in their eyes.

  “I am sorry,” I say, offering them rest of my sausage. “We can share the remaining flesh.”

  They hop back a step, like they are afraid.

  “We’re freegans,” one of them says.

  “Where is Freega?” I ask them.

  “It’s a political philosophy,” the long-beard man explains. “We only eat discarded food that’s cruelty-free.”

  “Why?” I ask.

  They all start speaking rapidly of books and essays they have read. Their words are so long I cannot understand how they have learned them. Eventually, though, I understand their point: their parents are millionaires and they live this way for sport. I am so impressed, I nearly drop my sausage.

  “Someday I will be wealthy like you,” I vow. “And you will teach me to play your rich-man games.”

  I lean back into Dumpster and grab more meats. Soon, I have stuffed my coat so full that one of my pockets unravels. A penny falls out and I watch with panic as it rolls toward the group of wealthy children. A boy with glasses picks it up and gasps.

  “Whoa,” he says. “How did you get this?”

  “Through labors,” I say. “Please return.”

  “It’s a 1906,” he says, squinting at the coin. “And barely circulated. Holy shit—look at the polish on that Indian head!”

  His bearded comrade glares at him.

  “Indian head?”

  “Sorry,” the boy says. “First Nation… head.”

  He clears his throat and smiles at me.

  “How much do you want for this thing?”

  At this point, I begin to get excited. I do not know much of coins, but
I am skillful with negotiations.

  “How much will you pay?” I ask.

  The boy reaches into his pocket and pulls out clump of moneys.

  “I’ll give you ten bucks.”

  I bite my lip to keep myself from grinning. Ten dollars is more than one week’s salary in pickle factory. I want to take his offer, but I know I must hold out for more. When there is an opportunity in life, you must take biggest advantage.

  “Twelve,” I say, speaking firmly.

  A long time passes. My heart is beating so fast in my chest, I am worried the freegans can hear it.

  “Fine,” says the boy with the glasses. “Twelve.”

  He peels me off some banknotes and chuckles to himself.

  “Where else am I gonna find another 1906, right?”

  I smile with triumph and pull out rest of pennies.

  “Right here,” I say—and sell them all.

  I spend the afternoon by water, eating my sausage and counting my stack of moneys. It is eighty-four dollars, more than I have seen in my whole life. I know from experience in Whole Foods that prices in Brooklyn have increased. But it is still a sizable fortune—enough to buy more potatoes than I could even carry.

  As I gaze at the Statue of Liberty, I begin to think of Sarah. Sometimes, when it was too cold to sleep, she would ask me to speak make-believe.

  “Close your eyes,” I would say as I wrapped blanket tight around her body. “I have found gold on the street and we are rich.”

  Then I would tell story of our day. For breakfast we eat entire tin of herring. Then we take bath, using water so hot it can melt soap. In the middle of work, we take hour-long break from our factories. And what do we eat? Another tin of herring, our second of the day. It is even bigger than the first. We have seltzer from the cart. Each one of us gets our own glass. Would you like a refill? asks the seltzer man. Yes, I say, but please this time with flavors. I will have to charge double, he says. That is acceptable, I reply, the price does not upset me. We drink two more glasses of seltzer, with red and purple.

  After work we meet and it is light, because we only labored for twelve hours. We put on store-bought clothes and spend the evening promenading. Sarah is dressed in ribbons that I have purchased new. She is so beautiful that no one can believe it. The women compliment her ribbons and her face, which is covered in the powder that she likes. I take her to the picture show and we sit in the cushioned chairs in front. You cannot sit there, says the usher, unless you order candied orange. That is not a problem, I say. Here is the money for candied orange. The man is shocked and has no choice but to bring us the candied orange in front of everyone. People see that he was wrong to doubt us.

  For dinner we eat two more tins of herring. We are so full of foods, we do not even want to eat more. If there was more food there, we would not eat it. I crank the Victrola, which I have purchased in full, and we dance to the song of our choice. Then we lie with each other, on pillows stitched from cotton and stuffed with the feathers of a bird.

  We always said that if I died in factory, or she from birthing child, then the other would keep fighting for this dream. It is one thing saying words, but another thing to live them.

  I look out at the statue and imagine she is Sarah, dressed in stylish green robe from the Gimbels. With one arm she holds English book, which she used to teach me spell. With other arm, she waves to me from across the sparkling bay, her hand raised high in the clouds.

  “Look, I found the money,” I whisper to her. “It is just like how we dreamed.”

  She looks down on me with tight-pressed lips and steely eyes. I laugh to myself, because of course I have seen this expression before. It is like the look she gave me on her birthday, when I dipped into savings jar to buy her salted shrimps.

  “Do not worry, my love,” I say to her. “Your Herschel is not getting lazy.”

  I gaze into her bright-green eyes and grin.

  “He is only just now getting started.”

  There are three important keys to pickling: patience, hard work, and rage. Rage, of these three, is by far the most vital. Pickling can be torture, like living inside endless nightmare. The only way to have success is to approach each day with violence.

  As crazy as it is to believe, my eighty-four-dollar fortune is not so vast. Prices have changed in past one hundred years, and I must use my moneys cleverly.

  I spend forty-two dollars on supplies I need to make first batch of pickles. That includes twenty glass jars, one tub of vinegar, garlic, salt, and herbs. I also buy ladle, to scoop water out from river. The cucumbers I get from the Whole Foods, inside their garbage bins.

  It takes three days for scum to form in jars and pickles to be sour. During this time, I prepare my vending cart. It is not so hard because people in Cobble Hill are insane and leave perfect, clean furniture on sidewalk. I find dark-wood bureau outside of brownstone and place it on wheels of old baby carriage.

  With rest of my money I buy living supplies, to help me survive until wealthy. For shelter, I buy tarp and rope at hardware store. For hygiene, I buy soap and toothbrush from Duane Reade. For eating, I go to Key Food and buy butter made from peanuts. All of these things together cost twenty-one dollars.

  I also buy lockbox to keep all my money and crowbar in case there is thief, and I must violence. These two necessities cost me nineteen dollars.

  I am left now with two dollars. If it runs out, I know I will have many troubles. But all I can feel is excitement. I know it sounds strange, but I have truly missed doing work.

  When I was the rat man at pickle factory, I did not have much influence on company policy. This was unfortunate, because sometimes I had decent ideas. For example, one day I realized that things would run better if the labeling girls wore hairnets, because they would not get pulled into the gears so much by their hair. I told my supervisor, and he nodded like he was listening, but the girls never got any hairnets and they kept getting pulled into the gears, about three of them each month, screaming, “No, my God!” while everybody wept and so on. It slowed production. I always dreamed someday I would be boss and run things in the way that I thought best.

  Now that I have my own business, I am in charge of everything. I get to decide recipe (salt and garlics). I get to decide uniform (gray). I even get to decide name of company. It takes me long time to invent one, because titles are so important. It must be something snappy and stylish that will stick in people’s heads. Eventually, after several hours, I think of good one and write it onto cart: SARAH’S STATUE OF LIBERTY GARLIC PICKLES WITH SALT PICKLE COMPANY.

  All that is left to decide now is location—and it is easy choice.

  I have spent ten days lounging on the western shore of Brooklyn, idling among the brownstones of the wealthy. But, if I am to succeed as peddler, I must go back to old neighborhood, where the streets are always clogged with hungry laborers. I must return at once to Williamsburg.

  “Are these gluten-free?” the tattooed man asks me, holding up jar to his face.

  I hesitate with fear. I have been at Driggs and Ninth since sunrise and he is first person I have seen.

  “They are pickles,” I explain.

  He squints some more at jar.

  “What about sulfites?” he asks.

  I do not know his words, but I sense he is starting to lose interest. I decide it is good time to make pitch.

  “Whole Foods sells pickle jar for seven. I sell for four and include all the scum.”

  I point to the scum, which has collected nicely inside top of jar. The man smiles tightly as he hands me back the pickles.

  “I’ll come back later,” he says.

  I sigh as he rides off on bicycle. It is almost seven and still I have no sales.

  “Pickles here!” I scream. “Pickles with garlic and scum!”

  My voice becomes hoarse, but still nobody comes. I do not understand it. The streets are mostly empty, even though the sun has risen. How could the people of Williamsburg sleep so late on a
Thursday? Do they not have factories to go to? There must be some holiday that I do not know about.

  I am thinking about finding new location, when I spot two skinny men eyeballing cart.

  “Check it out,” one of them says. “Artisanal pickles.”

  I stare at the pair. One has taken tiny gadget out of pocket.

  “He’s not on Yelp,” he says. He picks up one of my pickle jars and holds it to the light.

  “How local is your produce?” asks the other.

  I am confused as usual but decide it is best not to show it.

  “I make pickles here,” I say. “In Brooklyn.”

  The men smile and nod, impressed for some reason by this information.

  “And is it all natural?” one asks.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Do you add any chemicals? Like benzoates or preservatives?”

  “I do not know what any of that is.”

  The men nod some more, impressed again.

  “You know what?” one of them says. “I think I’ll take a jar.”

  He pulls out his wallet.

  “Do you take Amex?”

  “Only cash,” I say.

  “Good for you,” he says. “The credit-card conglomerates are murdering small businesses. If we’re going to fight them, we need to start on the microlevel.”

  “Is fine,” I say. “Four dollars.”

  I crack my neck and get into haggling stance. But, to my shock, he does not argue price.

  “Here you go,” he says, taking dollars from his pocket. I grab them and stuff them into lockbox before he can change his mind.

  When I look up, the men have opened the pickle jar and are sniffing the brine.

  “It’s got an amazing bouquet,” one says with his eyes closed tight. “Really vegetal.”

  “It’ll go great with the quinoa,” says the other.

  After some more strange sniffs, they close the jar and start to walk away. They are holding hands, I notice. I am so confused by this that I almost forget to shout important thing.

  “Wait!” I call out after them. “You must bring back jar!”

  They turn around and squint at me.

  “Excuse me?”

  “You must bring it back when you are done,” I explain. “So that I can reuse.”