Pastrami

I want a sandwich. I want the bread to be white and crunchy, and I want a lot of pastrami. I also want greens and tomatoes.

I enter a deli. There are tiles on the the floor, red and white diamonds. Or, I guess they are squares, if you look from a different angle. They chase one another all the way to the wall, but people’s shoes and pants are in the way, which is to say people are standing in the line and blocking the view of the place where the floor meets the wall. I think this would make for a good story, except it would not.

I stand in line behind everybody and I imagine what it would be like to be a dope fiend like the Beat Generation, and crave a sandwich after some drug related situation. I guess they never get hungry when they do drugs, right? It’s not like marijuana.

”No, it’s not,” says Stacy. I realized I must’ve been saying some things aloud. Am I on drugs? Or am I just weird. Or is it a mental illness. “You’re fine,” she says, “Get over it.”

Stacy is my anchor, she makes me a real person.

”Can you stop?”

Maybe I am not really saying anything, Stacy. Ever cross your mind? Maybe you are hearing my thoughts. Or maybe you are just imagining these words.

”Lucas, please,” she says, “People can hear you.”

Except they can’t. Everybody only reacts to her words, never to mine. Here, let me prove it.

One man in the line is especially ugly. The type of guy who looks very self confident, but he has a repulsive body and an ugly face. The type of guy who makes women feel really uncomfortable, and complains about everyone being offended too easily. And besides, he treats women like they’re not people.

See? Nobody looked around to see if I was talking about them. What do you make of that, Stacy?

Fine, Stacy thinks (instead of saying), so that people don’t think she’s a crazy person, You win. You are not saying it out loud. You are my imaginary boyfriend. There, does that make you happy?

That does not make me happy. It sounds pathetic and I feel sorry for Stacy. I wish I was with Sandra instead. She is hotter. Thinner. She is also much more grounded. Sandra makes me a real person.

You literally just said that about me.

Did I? I had no idea. Reasons I am a good boyfriend:

• good looking
• artistic soul
• great in bed
• thinks only about himself
• going places
• interesting to be with

Wait, did you just mess with my list?

Maybe. Or maybe you messed with it yourself.

Curiouser and curiouser. Anyway, we’re next. Get me a big sandwich and fries. Just don’t eat the sandwich. You can only have a few fries.

They don’t do fries here.

They don’t?

No, it’s a deli.

That’s not a rule. Or is it?

Anyway. We get the sandwich, walk back to the apartment and eat it alone.

Posted by: Paweł Kowaluk