Meating Nan's Expectations

"Tommy, get my bag."
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Oh, Christ, I thought. Slowly, I made my way through the railroad apartment looking for my grandmother's gang box. The pocketbook weighed more than my brother, Rory, and when I heaved the thing, I imagined how well Nan would do on Let's Make A Deal, easily meeting Monty Hall's challenge to draw an Indian head penny out of her bag, or an Al Smith for President 1928 pencil with Al's head on top (I still have that item).
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I returned to the kitchen with the bag. The day before, I bought fruit and got pounded for buying the wrong bananas.
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"These rocks will be ripe in two weeks, what were you thinking?"
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It didn't matter, she could tell me a hundred times, I remembered nothing.
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It was Saturday, and that meant meat shopping. Nan liked Schaller & Weber's hot dogs, Karl Ehmer's pork chops and Murray's chop meat and veal cutlets, and Murray threw in a pound of skirt steak if he was in a good mood. Schaller and Weber was always first stop, major crowd on Saturday's and no matter what, you had a long line. I wanted to play ball sometime that day, so I'd minimize the wait by getting there early.
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"Make sure you see the guy's hands at all times. If they drop below the counter, and he comes up with franks, tell him to put them back and take the fresh ones out of the glass display."
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I nearly had a baby watching the guys hands like he was a card cheat. It only happened once, "Mister, I don't want those franks, give me two pounds of these." I pointed to the glass, the guy gave me a dirty look and put the old franks back below the counter.
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" Tell the guy to leave all the fat on the pork chops."
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The Karl Ehmer guy loved me. He had zero work. I'd point out pork chops in the glass, he grabbed them and wrapped them in paper. He never picked up a knife to trim.
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After Ehmer's, I'm walking down 85th with four pounds of meat in paper bags and all the dogs I pass are looking at me funny. In the street, a German Shepherd in mid-crap, leaped onto the curb going for the meat bag, she nearly took a chunk out of my elbow with a snap of her jaw. I walked the rest of the way carrying the bags like precious footballs in our team's last effort to score and win. There'd be no fumbles.
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"Make sure Murray throws in the skirt steak."
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Murray was a problem. He knew my grandparents bought lots of meat, but only bought part of their meat from him. He wanted all their business. He'd torture me and there was no way I'd bring the meat into his store, and I was too lazy to run it up the house. I'd hide it outside the shop. In the gutter, In the basket of the delivery bike, I'd throw it up on an awning, I had plenty of places but they all had potential consequences. Lots of people and animals comb the gutter for whatever, and might pick it up or eat it right there. The delivery boy could somehow get by me and take my meat for an unwanted ride. Up on the awning, pigeons could use the bags for target practice or I might not be able to find something to reach the bags to get them down.
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"Why you so antsy?"
"Huh?"
What are you looking for?"
"Nothing."
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I'm second on line, Murray's working alone, and he's annoyed that I keep leaving the line, and asking the lady behind me with the baby, to hold my place while I check out my hidden meat.
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"No Franks and chops today?" Murray leans over the counter.
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He knows. He knows everyone's meat desires.
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"No thank you, Murray, just the chuck chop and the cutlets, please."
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I want to get out of there. He puts my stuff in a bag and eyes me over, while I give him a nod towards the skirt steak with a pathetic look. He grudgingly wraps a chunk of steak in paper and throws it in the bag. On the way out, Murray shouts a farewell.
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"How long was the line at Schaller & Weber's?"
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The hair on my neck stood up, I didn't turn around and I begin looking for something to knock my bags off the Chinese Laundry's awning.
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