Have you ever stepped into a place left untouched since you were last there? Some people have childhood bedrooms they can visit, but still, it’s not the same. Maybe your dad keeps a Peloton in there now, or there’s a bunch of your sibling’s stuff in the closet.
I hadn’t considered just how unchanged a place could be, until I walked into somewhere I hadn’t been since 2015: my first NYC deli. Located in Brooklyn, it was steps away from my first New York City apartment which I moved into at the end of 2011. I’m still outgrowing shades of the person I was then, but the deli itself hasn’t developed in seemingly any way. There are probably forgotten snacks on the lower shelves that have been chillin’ out longer than 2015 (lookin’ at you, danish).
Walking up to it, I tried to picture the guy’s face behind the counter. Blank. Nothing came to mind. As I stepped inside, he was barely visible behind the scratch tickets, on the phone. When he turned towards me his face was instantly familiar, like I saw him the other day, like he’s an extended family member I almost forgot about. It added to the overall odd mix of nervous/excited/anxious that was balling up in my stomach, as I scanned the place from top (rows of paper products) to bottom (crappy floor tiles). I was there to buy a water, but I did a full loop (not hard, since it’s tiny). It even smelled exactly the same.
“If I had heard a skateboard go by at that second, I would’ve freaked out!” I told a friend soon after. I got a spooky feeling standing there unnoticed. For a few seconds, I was convinced that the merry band of idiots skaters I left in 2014(ish) was about to roll up, looking for a few bucks for their tall cans. The past felt all too accessible.
Despite the sensory heavy experience, my first deli still holds my most treasured memories, namely showing up there, late into their after hours, to knock-knock-knock on the bulletproof window. We’d ask for (at least) four cans of Crazy Stallion (the bummiest of malt liqs!) and a few cigarettes, and I’d watch through scratched plexiglass as the deli guy walked to the back to retrieve our $1 cans. We’d pool together our dollars and place them, scrunched up, inside the revolving window box, the guy would take it, and revolve our black, plastic bag of malt liquor and loosies back to us.
I’m told some people age out of the deli experience around the time they stop eating dollar (now $1.50) slices. Maybe I look forward to stepping into my Queens deli—full-sized, full counter, fully open 24/7—because I’m otherwise on my own all the time. The guy there knows me, always asks how my face is. We’re bonded, ever since I had a bad, adult acne flare up, and out of concern, he told me a home remedy to heal it. When I broke my foot last year, one of my earliest thoughts was that the deli guy was gonna wonder if I’m okay.
My deli guys have always been cast as characters who provide a hint of my conscience poking through. They’ve side-eyed me (judging but not judging me) as I rolled in helllla late with skaters idiots, they’ve invited me to Egypt with them, they’ve offered me unsolicited advice, they’ve seen me stoned out of my mind, they’ve heard me drunk cackling through their aisles at weird hours, they’ve never been disgusted at the sugary snacks I was buying, they’ve seen me with bloodshot eyes looking a wreck when night changes over to early dawn.
I’ve always needed, depended on even, the dynamic of being witnessed through someone else’s eyes during the highs and lows of my life. I thank all my deli guys past, present, and future, for witnessing snippets of my life, so I could reevaluate myself as I get better every year at cleaning up my past.