Read Online My Korean Deli: Risking It All for a Convenience Store by Ben Ryder Howe - Free Book Online Page B

cot and eating of fa Styrofoam plate
.
    “You new or something?” the man asks.
    “Huh?” I’ve been turning the loaf of Wonder bread over and over in my hands, absently looking for a price tag. Now I discover, with some help from Kay, that it’s printed right on the plastic wrapper.
    “Sorry,” I say.
    The man smiles benevolently. “Don’t worry about it. Everybody here is new at some point. That’s what makes New York so great. What country are you from?”
    If only
, I think.
Then I’d have a decent excuse
. I glance at Kay, who is appraising me skeptically over folded arms. I’ve never been a great worker, but not because I don’t work hard. I just tend to focus on the wrong things, like how people look, what they’re wearing and whether they use words like “fortuitous” properly. Gab once called me a “big-picture person,” which can be read two ways: either as a straightforward compliment or as a euphemism for having one’s head up one’s ass. I think she might have meant both.
    The thing of it is, I’d like to be a good cashier. To be inept with cash, such an elemental part of everyday life, would seem to bespeak a shameful and fundamental deficiency, like not being able to drive because you’ve always had a chauffeur, or not being able to cook because you’ve always had your meals prepared. Kay says there are workers who “you teach right hand what to do, but left hand not learn,” and I don’t want to be one of them.
    There’s even something sort of appealing about cashier work—the enviable hand-eye coordination, the mental stamina, the unflappable cool during a rush. So for the next half hour I attempt to prove to Kay that I can work the register as fast as anyone, resulting in a succession of over-rings, nineteen dollars in extra change for a grateful customer buying cigarettes, a decaf coffee served light and sweet instead of regular and black, as requested, and a turkey sandwich that never even gets made (the customer eventually walks out, cursing).
    Finally, Kay nudges me aside.
    “You go stock,” she says.
    “Again?”
    She nods.
    Disappointed, I trudge to the back of the store. I can’t blame her for banishing me. If you can’t be useful behind the register, it’s best to stay clear of those who can. In a space this small, you’re either a help or a hindrance, and besides, the way my mother-in-law works, you’re in danger of losing an eyebrow in the slicer or getting accidentally doused in fresh coffee.
    Sometimes I wonder what Kay thinks of me. I think she respects what I do as an editor, though when she worked at a 7-Eleven she always used to ask why the
Paris Review
wasn’t on the magazine rack next to
Pro Wrestling Illustrated
and
People
. I think she thinks that like a lot of men, I’m sort of hopeless when it comes to such chores as taking out the garbage or keeping the car filled with gas.Her biggest concern, though, I think, is that like many Americans, I’ve forgotten what it’s like to suffer. (“American people, you cut off they finger, they gonna cry,” Kay once said to me. “Me, you can cut off my whole hand and I not even care.”) Forgetting what it’s like to suffer can be a good thing, since suffering can make people too cutthroat for society’s good. But suffering also breeds certain capacities that are easily lost, such as the ability to focus and a willingness to engage with conflict. These are things that I believe Kay thinks I’m incapable of.
    Which doesn’t make me completely useless. With my repertoire of professional communication skills honed as a member of the media, I can serve as a cultural interlocutor of sorts, educating my mother-in-law about the subtler aspects of American culture. For instance, recently I taught her the meaning of the words
skanky
and
Eurotrash
, and explained to her what a platypus is. I also had the occasion, on a recent foray to an International House of Pancakes, to explain to her the maple syrup-making