The Bigot

Enid, round and close to the earth, creaking bones and grey wrinkled skin throws her legs over the bed, a slight grunt escapes her mouth. The bitterness sets in immediately and a hard, dry, scorched anger that has become something else. Something like hate. A shabby bedroom in a shabby house in a shabby neighbourhood, she ambles to the bathroom to begin her morning ritual of rumbles and then coffee. She takes it black with no sweetness. Sipping the morning brew she sense the hate settle in her day and she feels as though a friend has entered the room and she’s not so alone anymore. She has her hate to see her through.

It’ll be seventeen years in February at the same job, with the same company and it makes her feel something resembling satisfaction.

Enid starts her old Chevy and lets it run for several minutes, the engine is cold; she stares ahead not looking to either side and all her thoughts are frozen. Enid begins a familiar route and there’s Mr. Prakish backing out of his driveway, the hate flares like a hot fire. Enid thinks in a flash, with the rage so consuming and comforting, “These people. My John, rest his soul, could do the job that Indian has at the Ford Company. An engineer; while I toil at the A&P and John gets the Cancer. It’s a disgrace how this country is being taken over by them.” She comes to the stop sign, gives Mr. Prakish a look filled with all the contempt of her 59 years and makes a right, driving the ten blocks to the Customer Service counter. She misses John. The end was unnecessary.

Mr. Prakish watches her drive away and thinks to himself, “Inglesi bitch”. He gets in his company car, a shabby sedan, which starts up right away and he’s immediately preoccupied by the meeting he has this morning with a German parts supplier.

Enid pulls into the vast, empty parking lot at the local A&P and parks in her usual spot; the car rumbles when she pulls the key out of the ignition. The rumbling. With her smock and name tag, she slips behind the counter and calls the next person in line, ‘Another paki. Great. Probably grabbed the pork sausages by mistake again.” She purses her lips and places a sour expression on her face and says ‘how can I help you’.

The woman feels embarrassed to be returning the meat but, money is so tight and it would be a sin to throw food out during Ramadan. Back home in Ethiopia she could buy whatever meat the butcher was selling, comfortable that she was safe from accidentally picking the cursed pork. The thought of eating the filthy swine made her shudder. The woman looked at Enid and saw the veneer of the Canadian staring back at her, that look that went through her and made her feel small and ashamed. The woman sighed and explained to Enid, that the sausage was an accidental purchase.

Enid grew still and rigid and she took the meat roughly from the woman’s outstretched hand, banging away at the cash register, returning the meat that will now spoil. What a waste, she thought. Enid dumped the $2.87 in coins on the counter and shoved the receipt and pen in front of the woman and demanded, ‘Sign here’. The woman signed with an X. She gathered her money, put it in her oversized purse and moved away from the Customer Service counter. Enid looked at the X with disgust and thought to herself, ‘Learn the fucking language, they can learn to fly planes into buildings but they can’t learn to sign their own fucking name.” She dragged the receipt across the counter and shoved it into the days pile and threw the pork sausages in their assigned spot where they proceeded to spoil.

Rola Phoenicia is a freelance writer based in Cambridge, Ontario; she began her writing career a short few months ago and Ascent is her first literary publication. After spending years working in journalism, Rola found the truth in fiction.

Rola Pheonicia

Email: Rola Phoenicia

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