I stay the hell away from guys who perform at the comedy night where I do stand-up each week. And pretty much any local comedian. Don’t get me wrong – If I ever ran into Seth Rogen, I’d be all over him.
‘Customers’ is just guys from the deli where I make sandwiches. Nobody’s ever asked me out after my stand-up routine, but if a guy did I might think about it. Hell, I thank God every week for the 20-or-so people who show up, especially the fresh faces. I wish they would let me pass out fliers at the deli.
My theory about the sandwich shop is that half the customers come for the pastrami – the owners make it themselves by hand, and it’s fucking great. New Yorkers have told me it’s the best they’ve ever had. The other half come to stare at my tits when they think I’m not looking. My double D’s may not be as legendary as the meat, but they’re about as good as the tech geeks in downtown Portland are going to see from the time they punch in to the time they get home to their Internet porn.
The twins make for some easy jokes. Good tips, too, when I wear a low-cut shirt under the apron.
It’s also the biggest problem with my stand-up. Guy who runs the comedy night at the bar by my apartment once introduced me as “Oregon’s reigning queen of tit jokes.” Blonde with big boobs jokes about being a blonde with big boobs, laughter ensues. Blonde with big boobs jokes about anything else, crickets.
Wednesdays are comedy nights, so I got a little distracted after yesterday’s lunch rush, going over some jokes in my head as I wiped down slicer station. When I looked back over the counter, I saw the inspiration for my new material.
Roy. Roy the regular. Roy who doesn’t like rye.
Wasn’t sure if he was a pastrami guy or a tit guy, but I was leaning pastrami. Big guy, I’d say about 30 years old, with a little bit of a white-guy afro, a beard and glasses. Comes in for a late lunch once or twice a week, sits at a table by himself and talks on his iPhone headset. Looks like he’s talking to himself, but I think he calls his mom.
“Hey Roy,” I said. “Pastrami Swiss on wheat, mac salad?”
“Oh my God, you have that here? Because that is like my favorite.” Big, hammy Roy. Always good for a smile.
He was wearing a green T-shirt with turtles on it under a faded black zip-up hoodie. Brown cargo shorts and hiking boots, kind of the relaxed version of the standard-issue boutique tech company uniform.
I dress nicer than most of the tech guys downtown, and I wear an apron with grease on it. For all I know, Roy could be the CEO of Facebook.
I wrapped up the sandwich, put a scoop of macaroni salad in a Styrofoam cup and went to ring Roy up since the cashier was on break.
He handed me his card before I had his total. “That’s all?” I asked.
“And a regular Pepsi.” He dropped a dollar bill in the tip jar. I only ring him up some of the time, but he always tips a buck in cash, even when he pays with a card.
After he slid his worn-out wallet back into his pocket, he hesitated to grab his lunch. He was suddenly quiet, rocking back on his heels when most of the time he’d be joking around with me.
“Not hungry, big guy?”
He slid his hand into his back pocket and pulled out a purplish CD with a Post-It on the back. He set it on the counter and grabbed his bag.
“That’s for you,” he said. “There’s a, um, good song on there. I thought you should check it out.”
My new comedy bit crept up in my mind. In downtown Portland, you can tell a tech guy’s seniority by the stains on his T-shirt.
I’ve been making sandwiches for two sad years, long enough to know when a customer is about to ask me out. And I have the aforementioned rule: I don’t date customers. But I couldn’t just burn the poor bastard. I panicked. Maybe it was out of guilt.
“If you want to hang out later, I’m doing stand-up at Shakey’s tonight. Show starts at nine. Bring a bunch of friends and order a lot of drinks.”
He scratched his beard with his free hand. “I didn’t know you did stand-up. That’s awesome. I’ll really try to make it.”
I always figured Roy came for the pastrami as opposed to the boobs, but on my counter next to the horseradish sat a shrink-wrapped love note from a big, geeky admirer. Flowery letters on the album cover said Mike Doughty, Haughty Melodic.
I turned it over and looked at the yellow Post-It. Track 9 – Roy. I peeled it off and scanned the track list. The song was called Sunken-Eyed Girl.
I never heard of this guy, and my eyes are not fucking sunken.
I usually have bad sets on nights when it rains. Last night started as your standard drizzle, but it was windy enough that my hair went insane.
Dusty, the bar manager who emceed the show, told me he expected a good crowd because the bar had just launched a rainy-day drink special. Sure enough, almost 40 people came in out of the rain to get cheap High Life pitchers.
And almost 40 people laughed at the bit about the stains. No stains: College intern. Don’t worry – he’ll spill bong water on his shirt before the day is over. I even got some chuckles as I ran down my list of wardrobe tips for doing business in Portland. Important client meeting: North Face Fleece.
I finished big with some big-tit classics and stepped off the stage to the loudest applause of my life. In the back of the bar, I saw a skinny guy in a red Adidas jacket run his hands through his thinning buzz cut as he hunched over one of the high-top tables. Kevin, the first guy who told me I was funny. The reason I don’t fucking date comedians.
I didn’t even stick around long enough to bitch Dusty out for letting that bastard into the bar. Kevin, who once opened for Harlan Williams in Seattle. Most likely, he was too drunk to drive back to Beaverton or wherever the fuck he lives now, looking to crash at my apartment and get laid if I’d let him.
I grabbed my bag from behind the bar and bolted. Fuck the rain, I thought, and fuck Kevin for ruining such a great night.
My jacket was almost useless on the walk, and I was dripping wet by the time I got back to the apartment. I knew that any minute Kevin would be calling, texting, banging on the door. But I wasn’t going to be the dumb bitch who lets him in.
After I stripped off the wet clothes and dried off a little, I checked my phone. Amazing it still worked after all that rain.
One text from Kevin: New stuff not bad.
I didn’t hear from him again.
That brings me to today. Lunch rush is over at the deli, and I’m leaning on the counter, exhausted and wishing it weren’t so goddamn sunny outside when the bells on the door jingle and in walks Roy. If he had cut his hair or shaved, I might not recognize him in this black three-piece suit.
Roy the regular, looking like some kind of mafia enforcer in his badass threads. And then I realize he must have seen the show last night.
“You know,” he says, “when you throw a guy under the bus for a laugh, the least you can do is buy him a beer after.”
“I was describing like 90 percent of everyone who comes in here.”
He scratches his beard again. “Come on. Turtle shirts?”
I don’t know what to say. “I’m sorry, Roy. I should have looked for you. I kind of freaked out after the set and had to leave.”
“Did you at least listen to the song?”
Fuck. I didn’t, and now he can tell I didn’t because I’m standing here frozen. “I don’t know why you think my eyes look bad. Who’s Mike Dowdy anyway?”
He shakes his head. “Doughty. Do you remember Soul Coughing?”
Crickets. I turn around and make him his pastrami Swiss on wheat with macaroni salad. Like always, I put it in a white paper sack and hand it to the cashier. Roy’s not moving to the register.
“Look, Roy, I’m not going to go out with you just because of some magical song.”
“I know,” Roy says, looking away and rocking back on his feet again. Then he stops, looks me in the eye and says, “But I’m glad I gave you the CD. Because I still had a pretty good time last night. And even though I get reamed in your act, at least you’re thinking about me.”
I can feel myself blushing as he walks to the cashier. He pays, he tips, and I’m thinking I have to listen to Sunken-Eyed Girl. He’s coming back. Without the beard, he’d look a lot like Seth Rogen circa 40-Year-Old Virgin.
“You’re really funny, Jenny,” he says as he looks at me through those too-small glasses. “But if I get stains on this suit, I’m gonna blame you for building a sloppy sandwich.”
Girl in the Sandwich Shop by Tim Agne is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.
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