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There was a time in my life when I knocked over the sandwich boards outside of all the businesses in my neighborhood.
I had seen one go down on a windy day, and I was curious about it in the same way that people are curious about a wreck on a highway: I wanted to know who was foolish enough to leave a sandwich board outside in such bad weather. As I inspected the sandwich board, however, I realized the genius in letting it fall. I was now learning about the current sales and daily specials that I would have never learned about on any other day because this sandwich board, like all the rest, would have been a mere obstacle to my steady passage. So, understanding the value of a tipped board, I took it upon myself to help the other businesses get their messages across to the wandering masses. I wasn’t simply letting out pent-up, malicious anger, in other words.
Though, admittedly, it was during this time that I was having trouble with my actual job, which required that I meet with elderly clients over Zoom and chat with them one-on-one for an hour. I received positive feedback at work — I was “a good listener” and “a calming presence” — so I knew that I wasn’t at risk of being fired. But I was also told that I lacked self-confidence and sometimes came across as aloof. According to my boss, my biggest problem was that I laughed too much at what everyone said, making the conversations seem fake and unnatural. Instead, I needed to interject more, push back against conspiracy theories, rile the elderly up in fun-loving ways. The whole point of our business, after all, was to be friends with these people on the verge of death.
It all seemed simple in theory, but then I’d get on a call with, say, Ethel, and she’d make references to musicians and movies I’d never heard of, from some age that might as well have been made up, and I’d be too afraid to ask her about any of it, so I’d nod along as if I were pretending to know a foreign language. At the end, she’d say, “Thanks for letting me yammer on,” so I’d feel some validation, but I also knew that “yammer on” was old-people speak for, “You are a silent, little bitch.”
The sandwich boards, then, were what allowed me to break my silence, even if only temporarily. And while most businesses reverted them back to their original standing-up position, there was one place — a sushi restaurant on the ground floor of an office building — that left theirs lying down for well over a month. It was this restaurant, which I had never eaten at, that I grew more and more interested in, until finally one day I decided to go in on my lunch break.
The restaurant was tucked in a corner of the lobby. It had a handful of tables, and a row of full to-go bags lined the counter. A piano track was playing from a stereo in the back, and all of the tables were adorned with a vase filled with fresh tulips. Nobody was inside the dining room, besides me, or behind the counter. I took a seat at a table in the middle.
As I waited for a server to appear, I looked at the tulips on my table, at times examining them so closely that my eyes were practically in the petals. Four rose out of a cylindrical glass, and each was a different color: red, yellow, pink, and lavender. I had seen dozens growing in the neighborhood recently, and I had watched reports of the vast tulip fields blooming up north, but I felt differently about them now. The tulips weren’t mere decoration, but agents of a world whose sole purpose was disturbing the flow of my thoughts.
“Aren’t they beautiful?” someone asked. It took me a moment to realize that this person was a man standing behind the counter. He wore a brown apron and seemed no older than thirty.
I nodded. “It’s funny,” I said, “because I remember learning all about flowers in elementary school, and yet, years later, I thought that colorful plants could only exist in dreams.”
“What about now?” the man asked, grinning.
“Now I can’t tell you the difference between a pistil and a stamen, but I do know that these are real.” I touched a petal of the lavender tulip as if to confirm that this was true.
“They’re real, all right,” the man said, coming from behind the counter. He inspected the tulips at each of the tables. “I used to hand-select them from the farmers market down the road. I would spend hours there, staring at the flowers, smelling each of them. And only after returning to the stalls several times would I finally make up my mind on which to buy. My mom told me that when my dad had managed the restaurant, he would be in and out of the market within half an hour, at most, and then he would focus on prepping for the week. I disagreed with his methods, but ultimately, we decided that my mom would go to the market on her own instead.”
“Oh, so this is a family business?” I asked.
The man paused at a table near the back and looked at the tulips there for a while before he replied. During this time, I stood up, realizing that I had to return to work soon.
“Yes, my mom and I run the restaurant,” the man finally said. “I’ve taken over ever since my dad got sick. He’s retired now.”
“Sorry to hear that,” I said, glancing at the door. A few people dressed in sharp business attire were making their way to the counter.
“Excuse me one second,” the man said. He handed over two massive to-go orders, clearing off most of the counter except for a single bag.
“It’s actually a good thing,” the man said from behind the counter. “My dad had worked ever since he was a little boy. Now he can do whatever he wants — like sleep.” The man smiled, prompting me to laugh. Then, before I could say anything, he added, “You’re the sandwich-board guy, right? I’ve seen you around. In fact, I’ve been meaning to repay you for all the help you’ve been.”
“Me?” I asked, a bit surprised.
“No joke,” the man said. “Ever since you knocked our two boards down, business has gone up — way up.”
“Really?” I still couldn’t believe it.
“Yeah,” the man replied. “Haven’t you noticed that we left the boards down? To be honest, I hadn’t really paid much attention to what my mom wrote on them until I got annoyed that they were lying flat.”
“Well, I’m glad it worked out for you,” I said.
The man pointed at the remaining to-go bag. “Speaking of which, that’s the last order of the day. We’ve completely sold out.” As soon as he mentioned it, a woman came in and grabbed the bag. Once she left, the man turned off the open sign and locked the front door. “I can repay you now,” he said. “Do you have time?”
I had to return to work in ten minutes, but my only meeting of the afternoon — with Ethel, in fact — didn’t start for a few hours. Usually I’d surf the web or complete simple administrative tasks until then. So, to put it simply, I had plenty of time to spare.
“Are you going to make me a bento box?” I asked. The bento box was the lunch special.
The man shook his head. “No. We need to go to the garage. Can you come with me?” He gestured to the passage behind the counter, covered with cloth curtains.
“I’m not feeling too hungry,” I said, figuring that whatever he wanted to give me was something to eat.
The man didn’t reply. He only stared at me, smiling. I soon joined him behind the counter.
“I’m Jacob, by the way,” he said, reaching out his hand.
“Roy,” I replied, shaking it.
We walked through the kitchen, where an older woman who I assumed was Jacob’s mom was washing dishes, and then made our way down a long, L-shaped corridor, finally entering an elevator that took us to basement level 2 — the bottom of the building.
A couple of cars were parked near the elevator, but Jacob led me past them to a distant corner, where the only vehicle in the vicinity was a van painted with flowers.
“Are you going to give me some flowers?” I asked.
“No,” Jacob replied.
As we got closer, I noticed that the van was shaking and something was thumping on it from the inside.
“I have a tight budget right now,” I said. “So I don’t think I can adopt a dog.”
Jacob didn’t reply. The flowers on the van had wide-opened mouths and large, square teeth. Their stems were tangled together, creating thick knots.
Jacob slid the door open. Inside were a dozen or so elderly people tied at the hands and feet with plastic bags, whose mouths were also stuffed and tied with plastic bags. I recognized all of them, including Ethel. They whimpered and moaned at the sight of us, attempting to hurl themselves onto the pavement. Before I had a chance to think, Jacob pushed me inside and shut the door. The back then went dark, and the van started up.
I had no idea where we were going, or if we were going anywhere at all. All I knew was that Jacob drove quickly around sharp turns, flinging all of the elderly people and me from side to side. And each time I considered screaming for help, someone would bump into me and I’d feel their cheek on my cheek or their arm against my arm or their leg against my leg. It was like we were individual cells gradually morphing into a single organism, only to be ripped apart again and again.
At some point, I made it my mission to loosen the plastic bags covering Ethel’s mouth, to hear what she had to say about it all, but the bags were tied too tightly, and I could never get a good grip.
