The deli counter was in the back corner of Gristedes, a New York supermarket I had mistakenly pronounced as Gris-TEA-dees to my sister — and not Gris-TAY-dees. She had mocked me for that. “Ham and cheese sandwich please.”
The woman didn’t look up from her phone.” American, Swiss, Provolone, Cheddar, Swiss, Colby, Pepper Jack?”
“Cheddar, Medium, thanks.”
“Roll or hero?” She continued to scroll.
“Rye please.”
“Rye.” She turned off her phone and placed a block of cheese on the slicer.
“Thank you.” I looked around the great empty space, lit in the horrible bald light and thought about my childhood fears and trauma, being abandoned, alone, all of that amorphous stuff, fanged blobs out from between the walls, bursting out, and then saw the woman wrap the thick sandwich in wax paper. “Oh, I forgot to ask for lettuce and tomato.”
“Anything else? Pickles? Pepper, salt? Mayo?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you.”
She opened the sandwich to reveal a teetering stack of cheese, ten slices, more than that, atop the ham, and added watery slices of tomato and a tough ribbed section of lettuce.
“Maybe not the pickle.”
“No pickle?”
“No pickle,” I reiterated.
“What about the salt, pepper and mayo?”
“Yes.”
She wedged the sandwich back together and gave it to me.
“Thank you.” I opened the sandwich outside and counted the slices, 17 ion all along with three slices of ham. It had to be pulled apart to be eaten. I thought that was just how it was in the city, massive sandwiches that you couldn’t get in your mouth.
Even though I was wrong and came to learn that 2-4 slices of cheese was the standard, I still think of that woman as the gatekeeper of sandwiches. And that Gristedes as the gatekeeper of delis. Gris-TAY-des.
