The Pinch

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In the beginning was the book. I found it in a dusty used book shop on Main Street where I was working, so to speak. The book was called The Pinch and subtitled a history. It was a bible-thick doorstop in a cheap cloth binding, its title and author — one Muni Pinsker — stamped on the cover in faded gilt lettering. I was shelving books for my boss, Avrom Slutsky, when he told me I was about to misplace it.

“It says ‘a history,’” I countered, pointing to the subtitle.

“So don’t believe everything you read,” replied Avrom, who’d been watching me from between the stacks of books on his desk. A veteran agoraphobe, the old man never left his shop and the cave-like apartment behind it, which is why he’d hired me in the first place. I was basically a glorified gofer who fetched his coffee and fried egg sandwiches from a nearby greasy spoon; I took his smelly laundry to the coin-op and got his prescriptions filled. I also shelved his recent purchases, an activity he seemed to think was a privilege, so he watched me like a myopic hawk through his Coke-bottle lenses.

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