Sandwich Guy
by
Rebecca Milton
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Izzy moved on.
Nothing worked towards the end of the relationship with Clavin. Nothing, it seemed, to her. She didn’t rinse the glasses correctly. She didn’t clean the sink in the bathroom correctly. She left stubble from her legs in the shower...incorrect. Nothing, not even sleeping, was right. She put her cold feet on his legs.
“You are my heater, my foot warmer,” she had told him, thinking it cute, thinking it adorable, thinking it expressed her gratitude and love for the man. She thought wrong.
It had happened gradually. They met, they dated, they loved, and they occupied an apartment together. His apartment, his territory. She moved in her few items. She had been living with two other women in a spacious three-bedroom, and he had his own place. A large place with two bedrooms, one for the sleeping and the sex, and one that he used as his office. Which he promised he would rearrange to accommodate her office needs. He did. After she had hounded him for a month. After he had complained that the kitchen table was covered with junk, and looked messy, and felt stifling. He gave in and rearranged the office.
She got her desk from storage, finally, set up her computer, her pens and blank books. She wrote all day and, in the evening, when he came home, she vacated the office, gave it over fully to him. That was fine, it seemed to be fine. Until the first Sunday when she sat at her desk early morning, cup of tea, reading pages, editing the work, and he walked in. He stood at the door for a moment, she looking up at him and smiling. He was rumpled, just from bed, his hair going in several different directions, his upper body bare, his lower body clad in pajama bottoms. She liked the way he looked, like a well-slept-in bed.
On impulse, she got up and threw her arms around him, hugged him, buried her face in his skin. Oh, she loved him, she did. He put his hands on her shoulders and pushed her arm’s length away. He gave her an odd look, like he wasn’t sure who she was or why she was. He surveyed the room and it slowly dawned on him. Yes, yes, he had agreed, yes, yes, it was fine. No, no she didn’t have to leave the room. He needed coffee. So, he left. He made coffee and read the Times at the now-clear kitchen table. He went for a run. He came home, showered, changed and then, when all that was done, he once again stepped into the office. She was at her desk, across the room from his desk, munching a sandwich, working hard on the new book. He stared.
“You’re still here,” he said to her and she had no idea how to respond. What did he mean exactly? You’re still here in the room, at the desk or, you’re still here in my apartment... In my life? Neither question was optimal. Neither question encouraged her to respond. “I have emails to write, and cases to read over.” He said that to her and she nodded, went back to her words, her sandwich, her Sunday. He stood and waited. She was engrossed in her work, her sandwich, her Sunday feeling of ease and comfort. She did not notice that he was still in the doorway. That was wrong as well.
So much was wrong. So many little things that seemed to have piled up, been pushed to the back of the closet and then, one day, she felt, out of nowhere, the door was flung open and everything started to come out. At first, it was a flood. An explosion. He ranted about needing to be in the office alone, needing his time in there by himself. When she said he could have just asked, he got mad about that. Why should he have to ask in his apartment, to get into his office? She could see he was upset so, she didn’t bring up the fact that it was now their apartment, their office.
After the initial flooding, the dumping out of problems, they had talked and she approached it reasonably, rationally, and he seemed fine with it. Trouble was, the door to that jam-packed closet remained open, and things kept dropping out, falling out like leaves in a bag left untied on the front lawn. Little problems were always falling between them and they had to be dealt with. She did her best. He did not. The little things kept coming and coming and finally... the big thing.
“I don’t really love you,” he told her one Sunday morning as she sat at her desk in their office, with her tea, and he was there, in his pajamas, standing in the doorway, waiting to have the room to himself. “I love you in the sense that I have a level of care about you, and I enjoy your company but, I don’t love enough that I really want to share this office with you.” She said she could work in the kitchen or she could work in the coffee shop around the corner. “No,” he continued, “I don’t love you enough that I even want to share this apartment with you any longer. I don’t love you... Well, I don’t love you like that.”
“You don’t love me enough,” she repeated. “You don’t love me like that?” It seemed odd and unbelievable. Why was he saying this now, today? Last night, they had a wonderful evening of watching a movie, drinking wine, eating popcorn, having delicious sex. What had happened? She got up and pushed by him, walked down the hall to the bedroom, looked it over. Walked back to the office and looked him over. She was trying to see, figure it out. What had happened between sleeping and waking, between bedrooms, bathroom, office that was bringing him to the conclusion that he no longer loved her... like that. Whatever the hell that meant. She asked. Politely, calmly, could he possibly explain what he meant by, like that?
“Simply put,” he said, running his hands through his tussled hair, rubbing his bare belly, shuffling on his bare feet, “I don’t love you.” She waited for him to say, anymore. That would have been...something, if he had said, “I don’t love you anymore.” Then she could grieve the loss. He didn’t say that. He said, “I don’t love you.” The end of the sentence hung in the air between them like a thick, black, velvet curtain.
***
Now, she had moved on. Her new place was a large, studio apartment near the waterfront. It had hardwood floors, large windows, and a big kitchen. But, just the one room. The one room for bed and desk, chair and footstool. One room to live in. She was happy with that. She was moving on.
He left a message on her phone:
“Hey, um, just wondering when you’re going to come by and get your stuff. No rush, but, I figured you’d want things for your new place. I mean, I know you want your desk, you love that thing. Let me know. Thanks.”
The click, the silence.
She sat down. On the sidewalk. Like a child who wasn’t yet aware of society’s rules of where and when a person should sit. A child will just drop to the floor or the ground, anytime, anywhere, and they have to be corralled by an adult. Lifted by an arm, the rest of the body hanging like meat, neither resisting nor agreeing, simply being. Adults knew that was not acceptable and so, they saved their sitting, their emotional collapses, for more acceptable places - the home, the coffee shop, the bar... but, not on the sidewalk, middle of the day, on a bustling thoroughfare.
Yet, that’s exactly what Izzy did. The world passed by her, people moved on with their days, their errands, and their flood through life. Some giving her petulant glances, some ignoring her, none stopping, no one sitting down next to her, telling her she was fine, telling her they, too, had felt the need to just stop. The world kept moving. Life kept going. She stared at the phone.
“Look at this, perfectly good, un... um...not unwrapped, I was gonna say un-unwrapped but that seemed wordy, heavy, complex. No, not unwrapped, that’s the best way to describe it. Pristine, yes, that’s even better. Look, pristine.” Izzy was looking down at the phone in her hand, lost, and stung, after hea
ring Clavin’s voice. It had been only two days and yet, he had manage to extract all signs of their past from his voice. He was cold, distant, and businesslike. In two days the soft tones, the warm undercurrents of love, had been vanquished and he spoke to her like a stranger, like she was a clown head at the drive-thru and he was ordering lunch. She was swirling into the past, drifting away from the world, when the man’s voice snapped her into the present. She turned and saw the man holding out a sandwich toward her. It was fully-wrapped, unopened. He smiled at her and she tried to understand what was happening.
“Pristine,” he said again and his smile got wider, “found it, right there, sitting there, doing nothing, bothering no one, not causing any trouble just sitting and being...pristine.” Izzy stared at the man and then looked around for cameras. Was this some kind of web series, she wondered to herself. These days, every putz with a cell phone camera fancied themselves a filmmaker or TV show producer. Was she being punked, or some such nonsense? She was not in the mood.
“Oh, this is a find, a find I say, a rare find,” the man kept talking to her as if they were best friends. He smelled the wrapped sandwich and then, slowly began to tear the paper. With each little rip, he stopped and smelled. “Oh, that’s fresh, my God, that is fresh. Smell that, smell that bread, smell that freshness.” He held the sandwich out to her again and she just stared at him, unable to understand what was happening to her. He pulled the sandwich back and continued his slow, methodical unwrapping. “Sometimes, if you’re lucky, you’ll find a cheeseburger or you know, the remains of a cheeseburger, which is very different from the remains of the day, which was a pretty solid film, I must say. But, you’ll get one, part of one, rewrapped, and stuffed into a bag. Sometimes, when I find one of those, I take time to imagine the person who didn’t finish it. Who started to eat it and then, something made them stop. Something distracted them or... or... upset them to the point of not being able to eat the rest of the cheeseburger. I’m not fond of that idea, that notion that the eating, the enjoying of a delicious cheeseburger was curtailed by feelings of... of... of an upset, angry or sad nature... not a fan of that. If I ponder the burger for a while, before I eat it, which is what I usually do, I like to take time, feel the history, you know, well, if, in that moment, feeling the history, I get the sense that the burger of cheese consumption as interrupted due to ill feelings, you know what, you what...” He stopped and waited.
“What?” Izzy said.
“Thanks. Well, if I sense those feelings... I don’t eat it, I just don’t. Do you know why?” Again he stopped, again, Izzy answered.
“Why?”
“Thanks. I don’t eat it because, and perhaps this may sound far-fetched to you, or not, you seem open, level, honest, willing to hear and listen and think so, maybe I’m okay here. The thing is, I don’t eat it because I believe that I may consume, take into myself, my life... my very body,” with that he punched himself in the stomach, hard and it made a deep thud. “I may take in that sorrow or anger. I mean, something has to be pretty bad to make you... you ...stop, mid burger, right? I mean... a cheeseburger, that’s... I don’t know that’s... well, anyway, if I sense in its history a tone, an undercurrent, a hint of sorrow or anger, like with wine, you know, hints of plum, of chocolate... hints of rage or hurt, nope, won’t eat it. That plum comes from the soil who knows where that feeling comes from and, who knows what happens to me if it gets into my system, my... body.” Again, he punched himself.
“I guess that makes sense,” Izzy said.
He nodded and continued to unwrap the sandwich. When one end of the sandwich was free of its paper confinement, he went to take a bite and then, he stopped. He got a look on his face, one that Izzy could only describe as a look of realization. He looked around, looked at her, lowered the sandwich down to his lap, and closed his eyes. Izzy was fascinated by him and despite her foul mood, her shock at Clavin’s tone, the entire break-up, she sat and waited for what was going to happen next.
“I’m sorry,” he said and then, went silent again. Her instinct was to ask why he was sorry but, his demeanor, once frantic and flowing, had changed so drastically that she didn’t want to interrupt him, disturb this new mood. He nodded his head and then turned to her. “Look at where we are. I mean... okay, I got a little caught up in the...” he held up the sandwich, “I am sure you understand it is...”
“Pristine,” Izzy said, and he sighed. He moved an inch or so closer to her and she did not back away. There was nothing frightening about this man to her. Nothing that repulsed her or made her uncomfortable. She waited.
“Yes,” he said and smiled at her. His teeth were white and clean, “You get it, pristine, so, I am understandably distracted. But, that doesn’t mean I have any right to be rude and rude, my apologies, is exactly what I was being.” He held the sandwich out to her with both hands, presenting it like it was on a golden platter. “Would you, fair lady, please take the first bite?”
Izzy had not expected that at all. She sat up straight and looked at the sandwich. She noticed that the man’s hands were exceptionally clean as well. Then, she took him in, fully, for the first time. He was clean, wearing jeans, a black T-shirt and a sports coat. He didn’t look homeless. He didn’t look desperate. “Please,” he said, moving the proffered sandwich closer. She hesitated and then, in an instant, he changed. He stood up quickly, took several steps away from her, had a violent conversation with himself, engaging his entire body in gestures and gyrations. After a moment, he sat down next to her again.
“Wrong,” he said, “wrong, wrong, wrong, I am so...” He went silent, and in the silence he seemed to continue the argument in his head. When at last the argument was over, who knows who won, he looked at her, his eyes misty and sorrowful. “I am so very sorry,” he said, his voice soft and full of real remorse, “what kind of person... I cannot believe that I almost did that. To you. A perfectly nice, lovely person and I almost...” He stopped and hung his head. Instinctively she reached out and touched his shoulder.
“What did you almost do?” she asked. He couldn’t look at her, he kept his head down when he spoke.
“I almost...” he struggled to speak, obviously caught up in a deep shame. “What if the sandwich isn’t pristine? What if... The person who bought this, bought it for someone and that someone rejected it? The sandwich would be tainted with rejection. Or worse, loss... What if... what if the person who bought the sandwich... if they bought it for someone and that someone died before they could get the sandwich and that’s why it was abandoned... or hate... the person who bought the sandwich was trying to... mend, mend the whole thing between people, between lost and found, between right and wrong between why and please come back home, please. What if it failed because flowers or chocolates or promises of never again and I’ll do better were what was really called for but the sandwich stepped in and... all of that... all of that could be swarming all over this seemingly pristine sandwich but, in reality, you would have consumed such grief, such anger, such loss... how could I do that? What is wrong with me?”
He didn’t look at her, his head hung lower. She waited a moment and then she reached over and took the sandwich from his hands and bit into it. His head snapped up and he stared at her. He said, very softly but, with great intensity, “No.” She chewed the bite, it was fresh and very good. She swallowed and handed it back to him. He stared at her, his mouth hanging open.
“It’s pristine,” she assured him. He looked at her closely, like a scientist waiting for a chemical reaction in a petri dish, or beaker over flame. Nothing happened. He looked at the sandwich and then back to her. “It’s good,” she said, “really it’s... fine.”
“You’re not angry,” he started to question her, “upset, forlorn, disgusted, sad, empty...” he waited for her reply, and she shook her head. “How... how do you feel?” he asked and she thought about it, looked at her phone, then back at him and smiled.
“I feel very, very good,” she told him and he relaxed.
“Good, good... you have to be careful you know, you never know when something is going to sneak into your system. I mean, who knows, right, who really knows. You have to do your best not to pick up on someone else’s troubles, you cannot be a shelf for other people’s souvenirs from bad times. Not me and, not you either, not you, you have to be careful of that.” He bit into the sandwich, closed his eyes and chewed very slowly. He made sounds of happiness, of satisfaction and his pure joy made Izzy laugh. “Is it funny?” he asked and suddenly she feared he was offended.
“No,” Izzy stammered on. “I mean yes, it’s funny but in a very... you seem so happy, you love that sandwich and you’re not ashamed of expressing it... It’s funny in a joyful... sort of way.” She slowed the end of the sentence knowing she was not being clear.
“As opposed to funny in a hateful, painful sort of way,” he said and smiled, his whole face smiled, his mouth, his eyes, he became a smile, and Izzy burst out laughing.
“It’s a sidewalk, not a cafe, people,” a cop, standing over them said, breaking the magical laughing moment, “so let’s move it along.” They nodded, apologized, rose to their feet and the cop moved on. They stood for a moment facing each other, slightly awkward, and then Izzy shrugged and walked away. She had taken only a few steps when the man called out to her.
Sandwich Guy: A Romantic Short Story Page 1
