The Loneliest Sandwich
Ladies and gentlemen, I have a confession to make.
I’ve been seeing a sandwich.
It all started about five months ago, while Kate was still at field camp. On my daily walk through Berkeley I noticed a fine little sub sandwich, with all sorts of meat and bread and lettuce goodness, hanging out in a phone booth. Well, “phone booth” isn’t entirely accurate, as it was resting in one of those old “phone from car” cabinets. The pay phone itself had long been ripped from its tender bosom, replaced by an impressive strata that represented years of graffiti.
Someone had left their sandwich in the phone booth.
And little did I know this would be the start of a long and rewarding relationship.
I walked by the sandwich every day on my commute to work, keeping tabs on it. The lettuce was the first bit to go, and the meat went all crinkly shortly thereafter. The bread remained disturbingly intact.
Days went by. Then weeks. Every single day, I looked at the sandwich. The meat changed colors with the seasons. The bread, respectfully, did not change.
Kate came home in August. I told her about the sandwich. She took the news well.
One day, someone took a bite out of the sandwich. I ran home to tell Kate, so excited I could hardly get the words out. “Someone took a bite out of the sandwich! Someone took a bite out of the sandwich!” Apparently I have this unique way of saying sandwich, especially when I am referring to this, this particular sandwich. It is different than the way I pronounce all other sandwiches.
Later, tragedy struck. Someone vandalized the sandwich! I came home distraught, only able to tell the story between wrenching sobs. It looked like someone had grabbed the sandwich (which already had a bite taken out of it) and had thrown it against the back of the phone booth. It’s a tough sandwich, battle-hardened on the streets of Berkeley, so it could take it, but I was nervous that someone had it out for my sandwich.
Soon it was September. Then October. The space around the sandwich was getting crowded, as people left behind napkins and wadded-up paper towels. These strange artifacts left me with the impression that someone may have actually been eating the sandwich, and wiping their mouth all proper-like. The meat, by this point, looked like a fungus.
The bread?
The bread was unfazed.
As the napkins continued to collect around the sandwich, I began to dismiss it and its newfound popularity. “I was way into the sandwich before it got big,” I would tell Kate. “I liked the sandwich before it sold out and went all mainstream.”
Sandwich just wasn’t the same.
Then, Sandwich was joined by an orange peel. And a few weeks ago, Sandwich was joined by more orange peels. In his new company I began to see Sandwich in a new light, and started paying attention to him again. I began noticing the more subtle things, like how every single day, the napkins tend to get rearranged just a little bit. About a week ago, someone yanked all the wires out of the phone booth, and they dangled around Sandwich.
I’ve been in San Diego much of this week. This evening Kate and I were walking towards downtown, and she asked me how my sandwich was doing. I paused for a moment, realizing I hadn’t checked in on my friend. I could see the phone booth from where we were walking, but I couldn’t see the sandwich.
I grew nervous. In all seriousness I was worried that perhaps, perhaps, my friend Sandwich would be gone. That Kate would no longer be able to ask me, “How’s your sandwich?” and I would no longer be able to reply, “My sandwich!” Using that particular tone I take, of course, only when I speak of this particular sandwich.
We approached the phone booth. I saw that the wires, which had so recently swayed in the gentle breezes of Berkeley, had been torn from their place and thrown carelessly to the sidewalk. My eyes went wide and I took a sharp inhale of breath.
We reached the booth and I looked inside. Kate, meanwhile, averted her eyes. Kate cannot even look at the sandwich, because it makes her want to throw up. Kate’s stomach actually gets a teensy bit unsettled just thinking about the sandwich. Everything she knows about the sandwich, she knows through me.
The sandwich was still there, its grey meat wilting in the night air. Its bread? Despite the bite marks, it remained unscathed.
The napkins, the orange peels, they all still accompanied my sandwich.
But. These winter nights are long and strange, and tomorrow brings another day. Again I will go into work, and peek at the sandwich.
And then, on my way home, I will see the sandwich once more.
