Relish

"Relish"
Oliver D. Anderson

Faded blue jeans hung below the giant foam hot-dog outfit, concealing my torso. It covered most everything from my knees up. The buns surrounded both sides of me and my head protruded from a hole in the wiener. There was a wavy yellow line that ran the length of the dog to, I can only imagine, symbolize mustard. I clutched a stack of hot pink "Hot-Dog Hut" flyers in my left hand and handed them to snobby uninterested passers-by with my right. My face must have bore the look of a defeated man because few would come close to meeting my eyes. They would just stare at the ground and keep walking, holding their hands at their side to drive the point home that the last thing they wanted was a flyer from a giant hot-dog. Those were the good ones anyway. Others would stare right at me with sad eyes as if to say; "I'm so sorry". They were the worst. I know what I have to do and I don't need their sad eyes to remind me. They always took a flyer too. They would grab it without looking at it and flash me a smile forced from some place deep inside of them as if trying to say, "thank-you so much" but I know what they're really thinking: "you poor son-of-a-bitch".

My shame-filled eyes would dart from person to person in the unwilling traffic of people. They would laugh at me and mutter things under their breath or even full out attack me. One young man, around fifteen I would guess, tried to push me down to the delight of his mindless, chuckling friends. I wanted to push him back, to rip off the ridiculous costume that enslaved me and to beat that kid until blood streamed from his smug, pudgy little face. I wanted to see the look on the faces of his stupid little friends as I beat their leader 'til his mangled face was no longer recognizable behind his bloodied and broken nose, but I knew I couldn't. So I just smiled and let them pass, as if nothing had happened. I saw the same boy a day later, except with a couple of girls. Not surprisingly, he decided to ignore my presence.

Another day I was surprised to feel something strike me on the back of my head. I turned around in time to see a car driving away. Searching the ground, I found the culprit: several packets of relish. I was standing next to a garbage bin at the time and at first I thought it may have been just an accident. My denial began to give to anger, however, as I mentally calculated the odds of a handful of relish packets missing a garbage can and proceeding to pelt a giant relish-less hot-dog in the back of the head. The humor was lost on me, as I could not tear my mind from revenge.

---

I've been thinking about the layout of my costume, and I believe I am an east-coast wiener. I have heard somewhere that people on the east-coast tend to prefer only mustard on their dogs, while west-coasters prefer ketchup, or a combination of the two. Since I have only a stripe of mustard down my dog, I can only assume I am an east-coast wiener.

Standing in the hot sun all day in a foam suit gives me the chance to think about stuff. I also have the opportunity to analyze the people who walk past me. I have become quite adept at judging people's character just by looking at them. I can tell if they will take a flyer or not half a block away, I can tell if they are happy to be where they are, or even if they're a Democrat or Republican, and although I have no way of confirming this I feel confident in my judgments. At first I was unsure if it was right to silently judge people, but I figured they had to be doing the same to me, so why shouldn't I?

Standing in the middle of a constant flow of people also allows me the unique opportunity to listen in on brief pieces of conversation. I can hear a small part of someone's life. I have to say it has not assured my faith in mankind. I overheard one woman arguing with someone I assumed to be her ex-husband about who had to have "the kid" tonight. I was more disturbed by the small girl staring at the ground as her mother dragged her behind.

I hear people talking about the most unholy things without any regard for those around them. I hear drug deals going down, people discussing in great detail the gruesome things they would like to do to their boss, and people planning out their sexual escapades, involving things I cannot imagine are legal in this country.

---

Sweat rolled off my head and cascaded down the grooves of the foam suit. The summer sun beat down on the pavement unrelentingly. I no longer had the energy to even lift my arms and hand out flyers. Instead, I would just stand there and avoid eye contact with anyone who dared walk past me.

I was half-way through my shift when I was struck in the back of the head with a "Big Gulp". I didn't have the energy to turn and face the culprit, but instead just stood unmoving, letting the soda drip from my hair and run down my back. It was caramel colored and from the little bit that trickled into my mouth I hypothesized that it must have been root beer. The force of the blow knocked the flyers out of my hand and scattered them over the sidewalk. People walked on or over them, spreading them around and leaving me in a sea of hot-pink flyers. An ice-cube slid down my back, making me shudder. The cold soda brought me relief from the sun's rays and I stood there letting root-beer flow down my back. I relished in the momentary pleasure it gave me; letting my arms lay limp at my sides and throwing back my head to the heavens. Looking up at the bright blue summer sky, I felt I must be the last hot-dog left.