The Food

When I was 24, I found a job a few blocks down the street at Omar’s Oasis. The place was your classic pan-arabic cuisine, mid-range restaurant with the exception that the owner was an Armenian, orginally from Lebanon, yes. But he hadn’t been back since the wars in the 80s. Everyone called him Arnie, but I think his real name was more Armenian name like Armen or Ashot or something.

I probably only got the job because I went in often enough for coffee. The place didn’t have a particularly good ambiance or anything. Even the cardamom-mud coffee wasn’t anything exceptional (when I worked there I found out they ground the beans once a week and kept them in the fridge). But the price was right. It was a dollar a cup and you could get it at this bar in the front of the restaurant mainly used for a takeout area. When you sat at the bar, you didn’t have to give anyone a tip because the servers didn’t pay any attention to you. It was usually one of the busboys who’d come over and make the coffee. If I left a buck, it seemed like it would get lost or go to a server who hadn’t done anything.

I used to go to Omar’s after work a lot to read. That’s how I met Arnie. He hung out at the bar, too. Probably because he didn’t want to take up a table in his own restaurant. After he’d seen me there enough drinking his coffee, he started talking to me.

Over the few months I’d lived in Potero, I gotten to know a lot of people in the neighborhood like Arnie because I shared a studio with this guy Brian who never left and never stopped trying to tell you what you should be doing. He sat at home and played video games most of the time, but because he’d been doing it for about 20 years, he considered himself an expert in everything. He’d tell you to do all kinds of stuff you knew he’d never be able to get started with, let alone finish. Something he was found of saying was “You gotta’ make connections.” It was hard to imagine what connections he was making from his beat up desk chair and his desk with the ramen forks stuck to it.

But the rent was cheap and Brian was usually asleep by midnight, so I stayed on and spent all of my time when I wasn’t at work wandering around. There weren’t that many places in Potero, so I had to keep a wide range to visit the scattered cafes, restaurants and corner stores. I had a routine set up. After work, I’d go to the Tres Leones Taqueria, get a burrito, then head over to Omar’s for coffee. Between the two places dinner and a coffee was only five bucks—at least back then; it’d probably cost about fifty now, even if Omar’s was still around, but it closed last year.

So one night I was over at Omar’s and Arnie came and sat down. He asked me how I was and I complained about my job and about my roommate and all the other things I used to complain about for conversation. He listened but in the way that guys who are older and smarter listen to a kid, like they’re trying to find some kind of value in their words, but they’re having a hard time locating it, so they’ve got to keep rubbing the bridge of their noise. That was Arnie. The guy was a habitual nose-bridge rubber. He didn’t even wear glasses, but he rubbed the thing enough to keep it red and polished-looking.

“You know, why don’t you come and work for me.” Arnie said after he got done listening to me and rubbing his nose-bridge. “You complain about your job. You’re a nice kid, a smart kid. You come here and work for me. I need a delivery driver.”

I didn’t really like driving and it seemed like being a waiter would be a much better job as far as tips. I imagined delivering middle eastern food would be like delivering pizza, but much sloppier. I also didn’t have a car. I told Arnie I wasn’t so sure.

“Look. You know in all these years, you’re the only one who’s ever asked me why I called the place Omar’s. You know people just assume it’s my grandfather’s name or something. They have no idea that Armenians aren’t named Omar or that they’re not muslim. No one else cares about these things. When you asked me why I named it Omar’s, I knew you were different. Besides, I’ve got a car you can use”

“You never gave me an answer,” I reminded Arnie, ignoring the primary question. “Why did you name the place Omar’s?”

“You come and work for me.” He said, getting up and bringing his fingers back to his nose-bridge. I’ll pay you 12 bucks an hour plus tips.”

I told him I’d think about it and I meant to, but after I left, I passed my job at the donut shop. My boss was in there working the third shift alone. I went in for a free cup of coffee and ended up putting in my two weeks’. I don’t really remember the conversation. I think I told him I could still come in to help sometimes.

The first day of work at Omar’s was rough. Arnie was as bad as my roommate. He hung around the kitchen telling the cooks what to do and he hung around the front of house telling the waiters what to do, but other than provide direction, he didn’t seem to do anything himself. It was the worst for me because there weren’t any other delivery drivers, in fact, they’d only just started doing deliveries, so no one knew about it yet. I tried to stay busy, but I kept getting in everyone’s way. Arnie eventually found me a place grinding chickpeas with a sausage grinder. He said it made the best falafel that way. I told him I should’ve stayed at the donut shop. He muttered something in Armenian and walked off to tell someone else what to do.

The first delivery came after I’d been grinding chickpeas for about an hour. I knew because there was this digital clock in front of me that did this annoying thing where the numbers flashed every time it changed. I tried not to focus on it, but there was nothing else to focus on. It blinked every passing minute at me and after an hour, with this mound of chickpeas and this flashing clock, I was about to quit.

Arnie handed my a new insulated pizza delivery bag and a carbon copy of a sheet of paper with the restaurant’s letter head: 2 Lamb kebab and rice: 22.57. I carried it by the handle and Arnie yelled at me to hold the bag by the bottom. I set the bag in the back of the Toyota thing Arnie had bought as an official restaurant vehicle, that he’d now converted into the delivery truck. The only CDs in the front were Armenian duduk players with beatific expressions, vests and mountains behind them. I put on NPR and drove off.

By the end of the night, I’d done 5 deliveries (two had been packed up together) and made 27.00 in tips. It was a better deal than I had thought. The food was expensive enough, people still felt they had to tip at least a few bucks, plus it was San Francisco and everyone ordering Omar’s on a Thursday knew they had it too damn good and guiltily gave a little to me as the general representative of the less-fortunate masses.

The restaurant had closed and the kitchen was closing up when Arnie called me over.

“Good job tonight. I told you you’d be good at this. I’ve got another order, but it’s small and it’s only a few blocks away. It shouldn’t take more than 10 minutes, but you punch out on your way out and I’ll add half an hour’s pay for it in cash.” He held out six bucks. I hadn’t worked more than five hours and I had 33 bucks in my pocket without even getting my pay check, plus I was getting paid to do what I did most of the time anyway, except I was in a car rather than on foot, but it didn’t make much difference.

The last order was waiting for me by the door, it was just a plastic bag with a side of pita (Arnie bought it at the Cash n Carry and cut it up into smaller pieces) and a 12 oz side of baba ganoush (You could tell it apart from the hummus because it had cumin rather than paprika sprinkled on it.) As I took the bag, I had one of those thoughts were you imagine doing something stupid just to see what it’d be like. I imagined taking the bag home and giving it to my roommate. I had no intention of doing something so counterproductive but I thought about it just to send this chill of false guilt down my legs, but I don’t know what I got out of that. It was just a weird feeling, like prodding at a loose tooth.

The address was just down Mariposa and on my way back home, one of those nice places with the garage at the bottom and all the house above where it would have a view over downtown. It had vivid purple flowers growing all over the front their color could be seen even in the dark. I wondered about my tip. The order was small, but a couple of bucks would bring me up to 35 for the night. As I rang the bell I told myself whatever they gave me, I was going to spend on the way home. After all, this order was added on. I might as well treat myself to a beer for the walk home.

I heard shuffling from the top of the stairs and after a while, a woman opened the door. I can’t call her old, but she wasn’t young anyone and she had a very tired-looking face with deep-set, large gray eyes and a wan complexion. She would’ve gotten along great with Arnie, she looked like a habitual nose-bridge rubber, too. She gave me a tired smile, held out her hands for the bag, quietly said thanks and closed the door. For the first time that night, I hadn’t gotten anything. I walked away feeling a little cheated, but when I put my hand in my pocket and felt all the money that had accumulated, I decided to buy myself a beer for the walk home anyway and not let it bother me.

The next day, I went in a little earlier and things went even better, I had hardly ground any chickpeas and Arnie gave me three orders to take out that were all in different parts of town, so I’d got to drive around a little, too. Driving in the late afternoon relaxed me. As long as I didn’t go anywhere near the Bridge there was very little traffic and it felt good to move so quickly between places. It was easier to deal with the wind. You could let a little in from the window at a time and roll it up and turn on the heater if you got cold.

I drove almost all the way out to the ocean to a party for a kid had been invited to attend a certain high school. The place was full of eager parents and studious twelve year-olds who acted suspiciously indifferent toward the large cake on the counter. Dropping off the order, I made a note to never have kids, at least not until I moved to the woods away from such unyielding parenting structures and the adult-like kids they produced.

The next place was way down in a park at the bottom of the Sunset. I had to look for a gazebo with a green sign. My driver’s notes only said green sign; I had no idea what the sign was supposed to have on it. I drove through the 5 mph park roads with my head out the window, looking purposely confused until a big guy with a mustache came running up to the Toyota, waving his hands.

“Hey, you’re the food, right? I mean from Omar’s?” It was the first time someone had called me by the product I delivered and it seemed almost novel to me. Like people on TV saying ‘I don’t know nothing.’ I’d met all kids of people, but I’d never heard anyone say “I don’t know nothing.’ I’d also never had anyone call anyone ‘the food’. But the guy’s mustache was big enough to let anything out from under it. I tried to get him to ride up front, but he insisted on walking while I followed at a crawl behind him, headlights shining mercilessly on his sweaty back. He wasn’t the kind of guy who looked like he ran much, be maybe when he did it was usually after food delivery drivers in parks.

When we got to the gazebo, the guy waved me into a parking spot like an air traffic controller. I got out their order: a bunch of party platters with falafel, hummus, kofte and pita all displayed on these precariously floppy plastic trays. I set the stuff on the table and turned back to the sweaty man to make sure he didn’t have any questions.

“Well, ain’t cha’ gonna’ open ‘em?” He asked, dumbfounded, squinting at his receipt copy. I had to resist asking the guy what part of Chicago he was from. He tipped me three dollars for 175.00 worth of food. He counted it from a wad of money—that looked suspiciously to be made up of ones—licking his thumb much more than was necessary for three bills. I stood there for a second, convinced he was going to tell me not to spend it all in one place, but he went off to call everyone to the table. Where ‘everyone’ was, I never saw and soon even the Midwestern apparition had disappeared into the thin dusk.

On my way back, Arnie called me and asked where the hell I was. I started to tell him about the guy in the park making me walk behind him but he cut me off and told me I was going to have to be faster at finding places. He’d had to run a delivery out himself. But there were two more waiting for me. Should be easier. He told me. They were both downtown. When I pulled up, he was standing on the sidewalk with two insulated pizza bags.

“This one is going to the Deutsche Bank, take it first.” He said, brushing past my open arms, opening the Toyota’s hatch and gently setting the bag down on the rubber mat. “This one is going to the Embarcadero.” For whatever reason, that one, he handed to me, as if he wanted to show the bags preference.

Because it was later, downtown was relatively peaceful. The parking places were all taken up, but there wasn’t any traffic. I parked a few blocks away from the building with the bank and walked everything over. The door guy checked me in, taking my ID and giving me a pass I clipped onto my shirt, a big yellow ‘GUEST’.

The delivery was on the 27^th floor. When the elevator doors opened at the top, I could see the western span of the Bay Bridge like Christmas lights strung over the massive window. The lights of the cars passing on the lower deck flashed on and off as they went behind the beams. When I buzzed at the door to be let in, I heard someone say, “The food’s here.” And I began to see this was going to be part of the job, being ‘the food’.

“Yup. The food’s here.” I echoed it to see how it sounded coming from me. No one at the meeting paid me any attention, but they watched me set everything down. It made me uncomfortable to be so closely watched, but then I realized they weren’t watching me; they were watching the aluminum pans. These people didn’t even know what kind of food I was bringing. On the way down the elevator, I took off my ‘GUEST’ pass and wondered what it would be like to be sitting at a 7 pm meeting after being at work all day and not knowing what your company had bought you for dinner. Thinking about someone else deciding what I was going to have for dinner made me shudder and I gratefully handed the pass over, got my ID back and trotted back to the Toyota so I wouldn’t get a ticket.

These experiences represented the dichotomy in deliveries. They were either personal things in someone’s garage where everyone looked me up and down, or impersonal meetings where everyone tried too hard to ignore me. Either way, I was almost always called ‘the food’.

By the end of the night, I had 68 dollars in tips and I’d been wandering all over town, peeking into all these different lives. Even if I got called ‘the food’ everywhere, it looked like it was going to be a decent job. I was putting the insulated bags away when Arnie told me to punch out and take the order sitting on the counter by the door on my way home. I asked him where it was going.

“Same place as last night.” He looked at me like he couldn’t believe how dumb I could be and went back to what he’d been doing. I noticed he didn’t offer me the six bucks again.

Despite the good night, I was a little annoyed at having to go back to the place on Mariposa with another container of baba ganoush for no tip. The lay who’d answered the door was old, but she wasn’t that old. She looked mobile enough to make her way four blocks up the street to pick up her own baba ganoush. But, like the night before, I realized how unreasonable I was being when I had 70 tax free dollars in my pocket already. If things kept up like this, I might be able to move out. I started imagining having my own studio as I walked, way out by the ocean. One of those foggy bungalows across the highway from Ocean Beach where I could sit by the window and hear the ships’ foghorns and the waves on quiet nights.

I had my head so full of this picture, I hardly noticed when the lady answered the door. I could tell from her face she’d softened a bit toward me. She almost looked relieved to see me. I handed over the bag; she thanked me and closed the door a little more gently than the night before.

On the way home, I bought a tall can of PBR, gulped down about half of it and poured a can of spicy V8 into it; it was the most luxurious thing I could think to do with my 70 bucks. I was 24 and didn’t have much of an imagination for luxury.

It continued much in the same way for a while. Every evening, I had deliveries all over the city which I could never do fast enough for Arnie and at the end of the night, the bag with the pita and baba ganoush was always waiting on the counter. Arnie never mentioned it, it was just there, probably because he knew he was ripping me off a little, making me do something off the clock every night like that. But I did well enough with the tips, it seemed ungrateful to complain.

I got to know all the cooks and sometimes when things were slow we’d joke a little. There was the guy with the mustache who always answered ‘la misma chingadera’ when I asked him how it was going. Almost opposite this sour but decent guy, was the other cook who’d been there since the place opened who everyone called ‘El Tio Gordo’. El Tio chuckled after most of what he’d said and made corny jokes that even someone who didn’t speak much Spanish would be able to understand, like punning ‘ola’ and ‘hola’. He was like a character from ‘El Chavo del Ocho’.

Omar’s Oasis was the kind of job that, deep down, everyone liked, but they all felt like they had to complain about it. And, in turn, Arnie would complain about all the workers, even though it was obvious he liked ‘em all and thought they did a good job. Sometimes, I tried to talk to the guys that worked the front of the house, but they were always in a hurry when they came into the kitchen and they messed with the vibe because they were too focused on the customers and not on working on a team like everyone in the kitchen who didn’t pay attention to tips.

After I’d been working at Omar’s for three months, I saved enough to move out of Brain’s place and got a studio in the Tenderloin. It wasn’t by the ocean, but it was 750.00 a month and it was great getting to unpack all the stuff I’d been keeping under my futon since I’d moved into Brian’s. Arnie even let me use the Toyota on my day off to move my stuff over.

A few days later, between deliveries, I was grinding the chickpeas when Arnie came in. He was in a jovial mood and told me to get a ‘tan’ out of the fridge if I wanted one. ‘Tan’ was like a carbonated buttermilk they apparently had the stomach to drank in Armenia that Arnie was always trying to get people to drink. He ordered it by the case from some Middle Eastern food distributor in Glendale, but no one but other Armenians ever ordered the stuff. He knew everyone in the kitchen was afraid of it and liked to offer it as a goodwill gesture, knowing no one wanted it. I was about to tell him I didn’t want one when he slapped a demitasse cup and saucer in front of me, poured out two muddy coffees from a hammered brass cezve and said, “sometimes I think about selling the place and moving back.” This was an Arnie-ism everyone in the kitchen was used to. He used to say it in Spanish, too. ‘A veces pienso en vender mi resturante’--when he talked about Omar’s in Spanish he always called it ‘mi resturante’ but, in English it was ‘the place’. The funny thing was that when Arnie talked about moving back, no one, and I think even him, had any idea where he was talking about. He’d said himself, on a number of occasions that he’d never go back to Beirut. “It’s not the same,” he’d say scowling. “You don’t understand. I’m a Christian. Not all people from Lebanon are Muslim you know.” He’d add, forgetting the fact that I knew this very well. “No, no,” he’d conclude. “I could never go back there.” So where he meant when he said, ‘go back’ was a mystery to everyone.

Maybe it’s because it was almost the end of the night and I was thinking about it or maybe it’s because I could smell the eggplant roasting in the kitchen, I changed the subject and asked Arnie about the lady who ordered got the baba ganoush every night.

“What do you mean ‘what’s up with her’?” Arnie asked my question back to me finishing his coffee and turning his cup upside down so that the muddy grounds ran all over the saucer.

“I mean why does she get it every night? Do you know her? Is she some kind of baba ganoush fiend?”

“First of all, don’t say such things and second of all she’s a good customer. Don’t go poking into the affairs of customers. If they eat and pay, they’re good customers. If they eat, enjoy the food and pay they’re great customers. If they love the food, they’re friends.”

“Wait.” I said trying to parse out his riddle. “You mean she doesn’t have to pay for her order?” Arnie shook his head. “Ever?” He kept shaking.

“Some things you just do to keep from forgetting who you are. That’s something no one here seems to know anything about.. The people here don’t do these little things to make their work something to respect. They keep it at arm’s length, avoid making it personal.” he rubbed his stubble. I could hear it rasp under his calloused fingers. “Some things you just do,” he said getting up. “Now go take her the baba ganoush. Come at 3:00 tomorrow. We’ve got a lot of orders.”

Delivering the baba ganoush that night, I was distracted with curiosity. Arnie diatribe about American work habits was nothing new, but I couldn’t figure out why he didn’t make these people pay, though they clearly had the means. All the times I’d been over there, probably amounted to a couple of hundred bucks in orders. What made them special? I started swinging the bag in tune to my thoughts. Usually, I cradled my orders, but this one had become so commonplace to me, I hardly noticed it. The seam on the bag split and I watched the container of baba ganoush fly half-way down the block. The bag of pita, curiously, dropped to my feet, undamaged.

I picked up the pita, went to the explosion of baba ganoush, picked the shards of plastic container up and scraped the remainder into the gutter. I walked back to the restaurant and found the back door locked. The lights were all off.

“Shit.” I said in case anyone was listening, but, really, I wasn’t that worried. These people had been getting free baba ganoush every night for who knew how long. Did they even notice it anymore? I was about to just head home and not tell anyone, but I had to walk right past the place.

“I’ll just tell ‘em it broke and the restaurant’s closed. They’ll understand.” I told myself. Listening to the words to try to get a better understanding of how the idea sounded from another perspective. They sounded fine. I was sure the lady would be understanding after all the successful deliveries I’d made and I’d offer to bring her twice as much tomorrow.

The door creaked open. The woman, who’d never asked me my name or offered hers, though I saw her every night, smiled when she saw me, but it was the same fragile smile as always, looking like something that could break and it did break when she noticed my hands holding only the bag of pita.

“Where’s the baba ganoush?” She asked, anxiously and I knew I had underestimated the situation somehow.

“Well,” I said, unsure where to start. “On my way over here the bag ripped and the container broke open on the sidewalk. I’m sorry. The restaurant is closed and I don’t have any way to get in. I brought the pita and tomorrow I could bring—“

The woman whose expression was growing more consternated with each word raised her hands and pushed her palms toward me for silence.

“I need to call Arnie.” She said. She seemed to be taking long gulps of air in through her nose like she was trying unsuccessfully to calm herself. My mouth must’ve dropped. She was clearly heartless. I’d delivered her free baba ganoush for months every night and one night she wasn’t going to get it she was going to freak out and call the boss. I started to feel defensive.

“I guess I could go over and buy you some,”I offered with a heavy breath of derision. “I mean, I don’t want to bother Arnie. I could go over to the Safeway and see if they’ve got some and come back.” I said all this hoping she’d see how demanding she was being.

“No.” She shook her head. “She won’t eat any other kind.” She softened, as if shaking her head at the idea had cooled it slightly. “Don’t worry. It’s not your fault. You didn’t know. I’ll call Arnie. Don’t worry. You’re not in trouble. I’ll tell him it wasn’t your fault.” Then she started to shut the door. I stepped back. Not knowing what else to do I said I was sorry. She nodded and smiled that smile, but in a way that made it too clear that she was pained to do it. The door closed and I stepped back from the house and looked up at it, trying to understand the secret it hid. There was only one light on. The houses on either side of it were dark. I thought about hanging around until Arnie showed up, to try to explain to him what happened. Somehow I couldn’t imagine the woman saying anything favorable about me. But I knew that I’d be making things even more complicated by hanging around. I wanted to give the situation the concern it required, but I couldn’t make make myself believe there was anything worthwhile in this woman’s tantrum. I went home, but I walked reluctantly most of the way.

When I came in for work the next day, Arnie didn’t mention the incident and I wondered if the woman had even called him or if she was just trying to psyche me out so I wouldn’t do it again. Arnie gave me three deliveries to do right when I came in and as I drove the first out to the Presidio, I convinced myself that the woman was nuts and that I’d done nothing wrong.

In the later afternoon the sunlight in the west was falling through a eucalyptus forest. The fragile trunks and branches looking like ink that had been blown across a page, starting in a drop and terminating in branches and twigs, smeary with tear-shaped leaves, matte green. The smell of the sun on the waxys leaves and trunks was cool and vaguely medicinal. I dropped my speed to appreciate it. The guy behind me came up on my bumper but I was convinced he needed to enjoy it, too and kept my speed where it was. Everyone just needed to slow down a little, especially when passing through a eucalyptus grove with the sun setting behind it.

I got the deliveries done on time, but when I pulled up Arnie was already outside with more. He loaded them into the truck and handed me the delivery slips without saying anything. I drove back off into the night that seemed to be coming up like a breeze off the ocean.

It was a busy night and I was getting lousy tips, but I didn’t care. I kept going back over to the western neighborhoods where everyone seemed to be at home, inside with the lights on. My headlights shone suddenly on a group of raccoons crossing Fulton, as if sensing that the neighborhood was unguarded. I got out of the car around 20^th Ave. and Cabrillo and wondered how a city could be so quiet. The glowing edges of the windows, where the light from inside came under the curtains, were the only indication anyone was around. When someone came to the door, I had the urge to whisper. It was easy to imagine all kinds of babies had just gone to sleep around here. The quiet had that sense of enforcement to it.

Driving back at the end of the night, feeling relaxed by the quiet western neighborhoods, I resolved to ask Arnie about the baba ganoush lady. It started to feel like something elicit or at least a big favor I got no thanks for. When I came back, wiped the insulate bags down and saw the plastic bag on the counter for me to take, I went olling for Arnie and found him stocking frozen lamp in the freezer. He had a coat on, but I stood there defiantly rubbing my arms.

“So, I guess you heard I dropped the baba last night.” I said, looking around like I wasn’t sure who’d left the door open and let all this cold in.

“It’s ok,” he shouted over the fan, shoving a waxed box to the back to a shelf. “I wasn’t that far away. I just came back in and brought it over to her. Don’t worry about it.”

“I didn’t realize it was such a big deal, I guess. I offered to get her some from somewhere else.”

I’d hoped this chivalry on my part would dislodge something from Arnie but he was always reticent at the end of the night and my statement had no effect on him. He nodded to show he’d heard me, moved another box, came down from his step ladder and brushed past me at the door, saying nothing more.

I wiped down all the insulated bags, punched out and went to pick up the plastic bag from the counter. As I was reaching for the door, Arnie pulled it open from the outside.

When he saw me there with the bag he nodded. “You know that’s my tatik’s recipe. My grandmother made our baba ganoush the same way. You realize that? She escaped Anatolia where no one made baba ganoush, but in Lebanon she picked up the recipe and improved on it. She made it her own. That’s why it’s so good.”

I nodded but before I could ask him anything he brought his hand furiously up to his nose-bridge and rubbed as if to ward off further questions. He walked back inside. I wanted to follow him and explain I hadn’t dropped the bag on purpose or anything, but then I wondered if maybe I had just to see what would happen if I hadn’t delivered the nightly snack. I thought about it on my way over. Some sort of flower was in bloom that smelled like lilac but heavier and it turned the quiet streets of Potrero into a moon-lit garden.

I rang the door bell and stepped back for the heavy wooden door which opened out. The woman always pushed it open about a quarter of the way and held her arms out in expectation: another thing that bothered me. I could see if she was Arnie’s mom or something, but, as far as I could tell, she was just some lady who’d found a way to score some free food every night. I stepped back and was ready to hand the food over without a word when the woman asked me to come in. It was the first time she’d spoken to me outside the necessary pleasantries of our exchange.

The front door was at the end of a hallway with ornate floral-patterned wallpaper, lilies bashful and trumpeting stretched over a green field in a predictable way, creating a pattern. On the right wall, several photos were hung. Each one showed the same little girl with the same mirthful expression—the kind of kid who only had one smile, who only needed one smile because it worked.

The woman stopped and pointed to one. “My daughter,’ she explained. She held her hand out for a moment for emphasis and then turned and continued down the hall.

We came out into a warm kitchen with dimmed lights and brass cookware hanging in a bundle under the flue of a large stove. The woman stopped at a high table and reached for another photo, this one sitting on the counter. No frrame. She held it up to me. Another of the girl, but this one sick, in a hospital bed with a tube in her nose, her eyes half-closed as if so sedated she couldn’t keep them completely open or closed. She had another tube in her throat. One of her arms had slipped from the covering. It was the kind of arm you see in newspapers of people fleeing starvation. The elbow was chunky. The rest of the arm was smooth. A skeleton under a veneer of skin. “My daughter last year” The woman said. She took the picture from my hand and placed it slowly back on the counter.

“When she still eating,” The woman said, looking up as if she’d just remembered me. “We used to go up the street to Omar’s on Saturdays and have a snack while we sat at the sidewalk table and watched everyone go by. It was our ritual. When my daughter got sick, I couldn’t get her to eat anything. She didn’t want any of her favorite foods. She spent a few months going in and out of the hospital to be tube fed. It was an awful time. Then one day, it was a Saturday actually and she was home, I asked her if she might want to go back to Omar’s ever again. I said she didn’t have to eat, but that maybe we could just go and sit like we used to. I didn’t expect her to agree. She wasn’t going out at all then, but she surprised me by actually seeming interested. I took it as a good sign and we went. Arnie was there. I didn’t expect him to remember us, but he seated us at the sidewalk table lie he remembered us.

“I was planning on ordering tea, maybe trying to get a shake so that Laura—that’s my daughter—would take a few sips, but it was a nice day and it didn’t feel right to try to leave something out, so I ordered the mezze. By this time, I’d given up trying to get Laura to eat, so when it came out and I saw what a big one Arnie had made up, I was worried about having to waste so much. He’d brought enough for two, assuming of course that we were both going to eat. And then, miraculously, Laura did eat. I actually choked a little. I hadn’t seen her voluntarily let anything pass her lips in over a year by then. It wasn’t much you know, just a few nibbles of pita and a little baba ganoush. She even looked up and said ‘this is good!’ Can you imagine? My little girl who wouldn’t eat anything telling me something was good?

“I tried to act casual, but I had to cry a little, to give thanks. I told Laura that I was just glad she was enjoying herself and we sat there for a little while and Arnie brought out some coffee, taking away the platter when he saw we were done with it. The whole thing was perfect.”

“For months, we went every Saturday and every time Laura would eat a little something. I started going up to the restaurant to order mezze to go. I don’t know how long ago, she told me she only wanted the baba ganoush. I ordered it so much that Arnie started giving it to us for free. I’ve tried to pay him several times, but he refuses and he’s very emphatic about it and since you started as the delivery boy, he’s even been having you bring it to me. I’m telling you this because I felt I should explain myself after last night. I didn’t mean to be frantic, but the only time I can get her to eat anything is late at night and if it’s not from Omar’s, she doesn’t want it.”

I had been listening so long when she stopped, I stood there, still nodding, although there was nothing to nod at. I was about to apologize as well when she stopped me.

“I just wanted you to know. I don’t know what Arnie knows and I don’t know what he’s told you, but I wanted you to know what a beautiful thing you’re doing for us. I also realized last night that I’ve never offered you a tip. I’m sorry for that. I, because it was free, well, I wasn’t sure...” She picked up a hundred dollar bill on the counter and pushed it toward me. “This is for all the times you’ve come over and to let you know how much we appreciate it.”

“No-no-no,” I said, taking perhaps too dramatic a step back. “I couldn’t take that. I don’t need it. It’s no trouble.” I stammered. “I’m happy to do it. You’re on my way home anyway and I like walking.”

The woman tried to insist, but I backed up each time until we were back at the door. I reached for the handle still thanking her and refusing the money in one breath. It was awkward, but I managed to open it and step out backward, nodding at each thing the woman said that I was no longer listening to. We thanked each other a few more times on the doorstep and I stood there as long as I had to before I was able to back away with a ‘see you tomorrow’ to end the conversation.

Once I was about a block away, I broke into a sprint to try to clear my head. The walking was too slow and I was stuck under my thoughts. I ran for a few blocks until my breath was coming out in gasps. As I ran, I said in panting breaths. ‘I didn’t need that.’ I was ashamed that this woman had felt the need to tell me her story. I was pretty sure, she hadn’t needed to tell Arnie. Deep down, they were probably all thinking I was a pissed off little kid who needed to learn the ‘why’ of everything, someone who might not come through if I wasn’t being paid. Maybe that’s what I was.

I spent a few days thinking about whether dropping the baba ganoush that night had been intentional and whether it was indicative of some greater character flaw, but I was young and though it was small, I had an active social circle. There was enough happening to keep me from picking over my thoughts until the action became corrosive. But each night, after work, taking the bag from the counter, I was reminded and I cradled the food and walked carefully with my burden. I took on the mantle of responsibility and, after the delivery, cast it off. My part was not great, but it was necessary. Arnie could’ve dropped it off when he went home, but I was the delivery boy. It was never as apparent as on that last delivery of the day because I was also myself, doing something I knew needed to be done.

Some nights, the woman looked a little more frail, others, she seemed wistful. But she was never entirely there or whole. She came to the door, said ‘thank you’ or ‘good night’ but nothing more. I never learned her name, but I came to think her being named Laura, too. The girl who was at the center of all this, I never met.

With the rise of ordering apps, Omar’s had to expand its delivery force. Arnie opened up a catering kitchen and the drivers stopped working out of the restaurant at Potrero. Once we made the move, I stopped making my nightly delivery. I assumed someone from the restaurant had taken on the responsibility and eventually, caught up in being in my twenties, I forgot about it. Until one evening when I had to drop an order off the at the restaurant for pick up because the kitchen had closed. I hadn’t been there in months and the place was already dimmed with nostalgia for me. After I dropped the food off, I stood around talking to El Tio Gordo as he finished up in the kitchen. I don’t know what made me remember, I was probably just trying to reminisce. I asked him who was taking the nightly baba ganoush now that I was gone. When he remembered what I was talking about he told me that no one did it now or at least, he hadn’t seen anyone do it since I’d left and then he told me the joke about the fish that asks the other fish what his dad does. “Nada!” He shouted the punchline and laughed with both hands in the air.

On the way back to the catering kitchen, I drove down Mariposa. It took me a while to find the house because the upstairs light that had always been on when I’d made my delivery was off. It didn’t look like anyone was home. I thought about asking Arnie about it, but in the end, I decided I didn’t need to know everything.

I moved away after a few years to go back to school. I never heard anything else about the baba ganoush lady. Omar’s is still there, but it got bought out and franchised. There’s like eight of them in the Bay Area now. I guess Arnie eventually moved to Armenia. I have no idea. The one time I went back to the restaurant in Potrero to visit no one could tell me anything. One of the servers remembered me and offered me a coffee, but I couldn’t see any reason to hang around.