CURIOS by Simon Kamerow
After they sent me home from the war, I went to work for Wachsmann. I still hated the enemy and loved my country, but away from the front, those feelings could fade. At first, I watched the shop on Saturdays and Sundays while he went to every yard, garage, rummage and estate sale he could find, looking for more inventory. He never found anything, or at least, he never found anyone selling anything he wanted, for as little as he wanted to pay for it.
He didn’t like when I called it a pawn shop, but there was no better word for it. We just were more selective about what we’d buy. People came in with grandma’s pearls, or an instrument they’d lapsed in playing, but Wachsmann never went for any of the good stuff. He stayed away from what you’d call salable merchandise.
But he bought a radio that predicted the 1956 Kentucky Derby. Even when it was unplugged, it would shout “Needles,” over and over again. And he bought a snow globe that told if you had diabetes, and a Monopoly set that could actually send you to jail, and filled bin after bin with heads‑up pennies, which he purchased at ten cents a pop.
“Couldn’t people just tell you they found it heads‑up?” I asked. “How can you tell the difference?” He told me about the pennies the same day he hired me, the same day he showed me an Erector Set that would make your hair fall out, and a toothbrush that sneezed when you put toothpaste on it.
“Can’t you tell?” he replied. He seemed genuinely curious.
I slept in the apartment above the shop. When it rained, I had to put out buckets, but it didn’t rain that often. Nights I read or drank a little, or smoked the dope Magda sold me and stared at my hand until it made sense again.
Magda was the other employee in the shop. Wachsmann said she was a witch in training. She dressed in all black, every day. Fish-netted and made‑up like the first of November. A wart tipped her nose, which she explained away as a hazard of her chosen profession.
Eventually, he had me working every day of the week. I didn’t mind, I had nothing else to do. Working, they told me, would take my mind off of how things went over there. Working would keep me distracted, keep me from thinking about my service too much.
Most of our customers were repeat purchasers. It turns out that the same people who wanted irremovable face paint also wanted biting garden gnomes. We also got the odd window shopper, the lost tourist, and people who read the word “Magical” on the storefront and got the wrong idea.
When people came in and asked for love potions, Wachsmann would shout at them, “Do I look like some kind of apothecary?”
“Yes,” said a man in a suit. He had on a watch worth more than I’ll make in my life. “That’s precisely the word I’d use.”
At first, Wachsmann stuttered through his rage. “Get out,” he said, “we don’t sell crap like that here.” He then threw a music box that played insults at the suit.
The music box hit the wall and the lid snapped off. It started playing, and the little mechanical ballerina spun in her pirouette.
“Stupid, stupid, stupid,” the music box sang.
“Are you nuts?” the suit asked. He took a step forward.
“Him,” Wachsmann said, pointing at me, “he was a soldier over there. Until they sent him home, you get my meaning?”
I didn’t know what to say so I waved and said, “Hi.”
The suit shook his head in disgust and stepped out.
“Get Magda from the basement,” he told me. “I have to go out.” He grabbed a handful of pennies from the bin and left.
She was listening to The Cure and stirring something in a bucket. For her homework, she explained. She kept beers in a fridge down there, and grabbed two before we went up to wait for customers.
The ballerina was still spinning, “Crap, crap, crap,” it sang.
“Could you actually make a love potion?” I asked.
“I could make a potion that would make you think you were in love. You’d have an epiphany, that you suddenly loved them. But you’d wonder why you never noticed it before, you’d become suspicious of it. And for shy people, nothing else happens. The potion wouldn’t make you bring flowers, if you aren’t the type of guy to bring flowers.”
“I can do flowers,” I said.
She scowled at me. “Most people just go out of their minds, trying to figure out why they love the person. That’s usually what happens. None of the love or hate potions do what they advertise.”
The ballerina sang, “Shit,” and then died.
The night they signed the armistice someone broke into the shop. What woke me up was the radio shouting, “Needles.”
I came downstairs with a frying pan, shifting all my weight to my back foot before taking another step, just like they taught me. Three robbers, all wearing ski masks. They didn’t look bigger than high school kids.
When I hit the first one, he stumbled into a shelf. It collapsed on top of him, and the Teddy Ruxpin that spoke in tongues, and the Tamagotchi you actually had to feed, and the gender-swapping mirror, and the rest of the junk came crashing down, burying him.
“What the – ” the second robber began, but I got him before he could finish. His head went through the counter. His body spasmed once and then was still.
The third ran. I almost chased him.
“Needles,” the radio said. In 1955 it must’ve been something. In 1957, well, we’re all best for our proper time and place.
“Curios” is Simon Kamerow’s first published story in a national literary magazine.