My Korean Deli: Risking It All for a Convenience Store

by Ben Ryder Howe

  “It’s going great, George,” I blurt out. “People here seem … really excited to see us.”

  “Marvelous,” cries George. “May I ask how many subscriptions you’ve sold?”

  I try to avoid telling him, but he presses. “Twenty? Fifty? One hundred? Just give me a number.”

  “Really, George, I can’t say. I haven’t counted.”

  “Well, you don’t have to give an exact figure, but surely it’s more than twenty-five, is it not? This is Chicago, one of the greatest cities in the world, and you’ve been there all morning! There must be twenty-five people in Chicago who enjoy a good read.”

  “Yes, George, I’m sure you’re right. I don’t know how many subscriptions we’ve sold, but it must be more than twenty-five.” And then, to deepen the hole I’m in, I promise to bring home double that.

  Brigid’s eyes widen while she mouths the words “Are you crazy?!”

  “SPLENDID! That’s the attitude. I shall eagerly await your return. Bravo, bravo!”

  Click.

  When I hang up, Brigid practically has her head in her hands.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll take the blame,” I tell her. “When he blows up, you can tell him I lost the envelope with the subscriptions in it or something.”

  “It’s not that I’m worried about. He’ll be crushed, not angry. Lately he’s been depressed. He gets hung up on any little bit of bad news.”

  We go back to reading manuscripts and wait for the fair to end. What a farce, I think. As if coming all the way out here, not selling anything and being taunted by Dan Brown fans all day wasn’t ridiculous enough, now we have to justify our failure to George upon our return.

  It isn’t right. We’re here to please George. Why should we fear his response if the results aren’t what he hoped for? Suddenly I begin to feel frustrated and angry instead of dejected and miserable. The heavy-headedness I’ve been struggling with since we arrived is wearing off, and I have this compulsion to do something, if only to shake things up and not be so passive.

  So I decide to get up from my seat, get out of our booth and sell. After all, do I not stand at a counter every day at our deli selling things? So what if selling is embarrassing? My life is a series of bizarre and embarrassing interactions with strangers, and I’m going to make these people buy issues whether they report me to Homeland Security for suspicious Europhilic tendencies or not.

  “Excuse me!” I say to a passing woman, after stepping out of the booth. “Who’s your favorite author?” She looks surprised at first—I just wanted to use the Porta Potty! her expression says—but then she actually stands there. She says her favorite writer is Ian McEwan—bingo! McEwan was the lead interview in one of our recent issues, which I place in her hand.

  “Hmm,” she says. “I’d buy that.”

  “How about a one-year subscription,” I say, “and I’ll give you that issue for free?”

  “Deal!” she says. And just like that we’ve sold a subscription! It was easy. And she wasn’t even an editor for a literary magazine. (I know because I ask.)

  After that exchange I’m energized to sell some more, which takes some girding of the loins. Selling is practically hardwired into my brain as a no-no, because when you sell you show desire. It’s like being naked, standing there with your needs exposed (“Buy this—please!”). And unless you’re George Plimpton, it’s just not okay for a Wasp to be naked.

  “What’s the last thing you read that made you want to run out to the bookstore and get another book right away?” I start asking people, stepping right in front of them “Are you a reader? Did you use to be a reader? Do you wish you felt like reading more? Is the problem you, or is it the books you’re reading? What if I gave you something to read that had the power to make you forget everything else in the world, even your cell phone and your lousy children, and just curl up in some forgotten part of the house where no one can find you? Would you enjoy that? Well, then come over here and take a look at our table, because this story is going to blow your mind …”

  The thing about selling, of course, is that most people don’t need this much persuading. For instance, if they’ve come to a book fair, it’s a pretty good bet that they’re going to buy some books. You just need to give them a reason to overcome their inhibitions. So as surprising as it sounds, this lame shtick actually works. People stop, they visit our booth, they pick up actual copies of the magazine, and then out of pity for the poor fool standing there sweating and shouting like a lunatic, they buy subscriptions—some of them, anyway. Enough.

  “Free back issues with a one-year subscription—take your pick of a collector’s edition featuring Hemingway or Faulkner. I also have V. S. Naipaul, the Trinidadian Troublemaker, in his American debut.”

  “You sound like a carnival barker,” Brigid whispers. “But don’t stop, it’s working!”

  “Get your half-baked goo-covered cinnamon buns with any large serving of Toni Morrison,” I almost shout. “Don DeLillo comes with a side of bread sticks.” It occurs to me that for all my entrepreneurial adventures over the last half year, I haven’t really sold anything—not actively, at least. That’s because at a deli you don’t really try to sell people things; instead, you act as if you want to kill them, throw their shit in a bag and glare at them until they leave the store. But selling is the logical next step, and it’s also one of those unexpected intersections between George Plimpton and the store, like the amateur ethos. With things like book fairs, George is always trying to get the staff to embrace the job of selling rather than coast on the expectation that something intrinsically noble like “literature” will succeed on its own. He cajoles us to get out there and hustle, while showing by example that even the self-sell can be liberating, rather than a defilement of one’s modesty, because in order to do it you simply can’t take yourself too seriously.

  By the end of the day Brigid and I have sold well over fifty subscriptions, far more than we expected. Having barely broken even with our expenses, we’re hardly what you would call a raging success. But as the crowds dissipate and a giant black thunderhead builds behind the Sears Tower, we sit there for a little while and bask in the warmth of the late afternoon.

  “Let’s count the money,” Brigid says eagerly, taking out a fat, greasy wad of bills from an envelope she’s been carrying in her back pocket. Then we repack our boxes of back issues—which for once seem noticeably lighter than they had been on our way to the fair—and jump in a rental car before the clouds explode in an epic downpour.

  ABOUT TWO WEEKS later I go into the Review, where things seem to be falling apart. Given the normal dishevelment of the office it’s hard to tell, of course, but the stacks of unopened mail seem to have reached a new height, the sink seems fuller than ever of dirty dishes and I dare not check the answering machine for fear of the angry messages it contains. Our fall issue is even more behind than usual—the printer’s deadline is a few weeks away and we have no idea what the contents are going to be—and the office is completely empty while the staff is on summer vacation.

  Completely empty, that is, except for George, who is sequestered upstairs, starting on a new book, a memoir, le grand report. That is, if he can get started. Like all writers staring at a blank page, George would gladly sell one of his lesser organs for an excuse to do something else. Oh, he tries, as the desperate noises coming through the ceiling attest. Get up, get down, sink heavily into creaky wooden chair. Then get up a few minutes later and walk anxiously to window, then sit down again. Turn on SportsCenter. When the office phone rings, George lunges for it before I can even get a hand on the receiver.

  “Hullo?” he says. “Hullo? Hullo?” Disappointment—it’s only the friend of a staff member, not even an angry author demanding payment for a story published years ago.

  Ever since Chicago I’ve been fearing a moment like this. Sooner or later he’ll come down and—will we talk about the state of the magazine? Will I tell him about Brigid? Others, too, are leaving, I know.
Is it time for a frank discussion or should we go on skirting the issue? What will his reaction be if I tell him that the magazine seems to be falling apart? Will he be angry? Sad? Indifferent?

  At ten-fifteen George practically tackles the mailman on his way into the building. Then he drops into the office.

  “Don’t mind me,” he says with concentrated seriousness, holding under his arm a copy of the New York Post opened to Page Six. “Just looking for the, um, galleys I left here last night.” Shuffle, shuffle. George starts rummaging through the mounds of paperwork on Brigid’s desk, destroying whatever semblance of order it might have had.

  “Can’t find a damn thing in here. This office is a bloody mess! Where in tarnation is everyone? Why is this office always empty?”

  “You told everyone to go on vacation last week, George. Remember?”

  George looks briefly at a loss. “I did?” That was before George started the memoir, when he was still in a good mood. “Yes, of course,” he says, his voice immediately softening. “Well, good for them. All with their families, I hope.” As for George’s own family, they’re out in the Hamptons till the end of summer, along with nearly all of George’s friends.

  “Very well, then, carry on,” George says, lifting up his chin. But I don’t hear the door shut; instead I hear the tortured machinations of a man dying for companionship. More papers shuffle, magazine pages flip, and now and then comes a small, helpless sigh. Finally I sense a presence immediately behind me and catch a whiff of stale Scotch and last night’s veal piccata at Elaine’s.

  “George!” He’s leaning over my shoulder.

  “What are you working on? If I may ask.”

  “I’m trying to read,” I huff, wheeling around. “The fall issue is due in a couple weeks, and there’s almost nothing in it. Doesn’t that worry you?”

  “Of course it does. Of course. How long did you say, three weeks?”

  I nod.

  “That’s no time at all. Still, we can squeeze in a drink, don’t you think? Why don’t you come upstairs and I’ll fix us both something—”

  “George, it’s not even noon.”

  “—while you call up the girls.”

  “George!”

  “What, you don’t know any girls? Well, come upstairs anyway and have some lunch. We’ll order sandwiches from the deli.” He pats me on the shoulder. “Not your deli, of course.”

  Upstairs, the Plimpton apartment has been transformed. The de Koonings and Warhols are still in place, plus the mounted water buffalo and other trophy kills, but with George’s family out of town, an aging, dilatory frat boy appears to have moved in, leaving the townhouse covered in Chinese food cartons, half-empty cocktail glasses and dirty clothes. A late-night pool game is in evidence, an ashtray, a crumpled pack of Marlboro Reds.

  “So,” says George, his mood rapidly improving, “I have been thinking about the next issue, and who we should interview.”

  “Oh really? Who?” Last week there was an editorial meeting devoted to this very question. Interviews are always the centerpiece of an issue, and for the fiftieth anniversary it is vital that we come up with a heavy hitter. The names floating around include Solzhenitsyn, Eco and Murakami.

  “Niminam!” George shouts triumphantly.

  Niminam? Is that an African author? I am not a connoisseur of world literature like others on the staff, but neither is George, and I am a little surprised to hear him suggest a name I’ve never heard myself. Then I realize who he really means.

  “You mean Eminem?”

  “Yes, exactly, the freestyle vocalist. Can you call his people and set something up? I should think you might want to do the interview yourself.”

  “Yes, George.”

  “Incidentally, given the success of your foray into the Midwest, I’m thinking of sending you to another fair later this fall. How do you feel about Akron?”

  The phone rings, and George picks it up.

  “Hullo?” It’s George’s agent, evidently calling for a progress report on the memoir. “Yes, things are going swimmingly.” George winks at me. “The words are flying out so fast my fingers can barely keep up! You’ve disturbed me mid-sentence! Oh, and you might be interested to know that our next issue, the anniversary issue, is going to have an interview with the great rapper, Numnum! Ben is going to do it.”

  Feeling increasingly tense, I wander off into George’s living room. If Brigid is going to quit after the fall issue, then we’re running out of time. There might not be another opportunity to tell him the ship is going down. But what if in his current fragile health that pushes him over the edge?

  It all goes back to George’s vision. Brigid is right: ultimately it’s his magazine, and you have to respect what he’s built. But for the sake of the future, can’t it be just a bit more serious now and then? Why does he always have to resist being responsible? Is the fun-plus-youthfulness formula such a crucial element of the magazine’s identity, or is it merely an excuse for George to divert himself when he doesn’t feel like writing?

  “Ah, there you are,” says George, padding into the living room. “Our sandwiches have arrived.”

  We return to the kitchen and sit down at the table, where George begins regaling me with the kind of story he seems to draw no end of pleasure out of telling, no matter how many times he has told it before:

  “… and then I said, ‘My God, man, get us out of here,’ but the door to the cave was locked and it was so bloody hot that I had no choice but to take off my pants …”

  As he’s talking to me, I become preoccupied by George’s ever-fascinating bird’s nest of white hair, which occasionally attains Warholian dimensions of unruliness. Today, however, the style is more that of a foppish prep schooler, bangs hanging droopily over the corner of one eye, and as I look at it I can’t help thinking, Don’t we all have to grow up sometime? Even George?

  “… I’d never seen a pair so large. It was unspeakable. You couldn’t peel your eyes away even if you wanted to …”

  “George …”

  “Snakes everywhere, flicking their tongues and hissing, while the helicopter tried to drop the ladder just a few more inches …”

  “George …”

  “Yes, Ben, what is it?”

  George’s eyes are surrounded by folds as thin as parchment, and he can’t keep his jaw from hanging slack, or his chest from heaving when he gets this worked up. Don’t we all have to grow up sometime?

  Suddenly George gets a serious look on his face and shoots up from the table.

  “I’ve got something to show you. Will you wait here?”

  Two minutes later he returns carrying a cardboard box full of magazines, which he hands to me proudly.

  “What are they?”

  “Take a look.”

  I open the box and pull out an ancient copy of Sports Illustrated with George’s byline on the cover.

  “One of my first articles,” he says.

  I glance at the piece, about a foray of George’s into the world of sports as a “professional amateur,” the role that characterized so much of what he does, whether it’s writing, publishing or acting. The next magazine I pull out is an ancient edition of Harper’s, also with a story by George—the whole box is filled with George’s early writing. He’s been rereading his work as a young journalist, trying to jog old memories.

  “I hadn’t looked at these in forty years,” he says, leaning back. He’s hardly touched his sandwich and is now eyeballing the bar in the kitchen.

  “Why not?”

  “Because I dreaded the embarrassment. I was terrified that if I looked back I’d be forced to admit that I can’t write at all, that I’m a fraud.”

  “And were your fears … justified?” I can’t believe George has such fears. I’ve never seen him show any insecurity at all. “Were the pieces embarrassing?”

  “Some of them, yes. But others—” He stops short. I know what he wants to say, but self-praise doesn’t come easily to George. It goes
against his wiring. However, it’s important for him to talk about this, so I encourage him to muscle it out.

  “Some of them weren’t bad, if I say so myself,” he manages between gritted teeth.

  The lunch is becoming strangely emotional. George is turning me into some sort of stand-in psychologist. However, not only am I totally unqualified for this role (shouldn’t he call Charlie Rose instead?) but the fact that it’s George makes it all the more intimidating. George is the master interviewer: he’s conducted hundreds, if not thousands of interviews onstage and in print, and knows just which questions to ask (or, perhaps more important, not ask). With his encouragement I’ve done a few interviews myself for the magazine, but my style of interviewing couldn’t be more different. George is subtle and delicate. I give the maxim “there are no stupid questions” a backbreaking workout. And I’m not happy in the slightest about George witnessing this firsthand. Nevertheless, wiggling out is not an option. The task of summing up his life is obviously causing George distress, and he needs a sounding board.

  “Do you feel like a different person now than when you started writing?” I ask. George looks at me curiously and frowns. Too vague, I think. Who wouldn’t feel that they’d changed over fifty years? But then he surprises me by answering.

  “I am a different person,” he says sharply. “Being a writer didn’t come naturally. I had to coach myself, learn little by little.”

  “Did you have any mentors?” Better: a concrete question. George muses about the influence of Paul Gallico, a sportswriter and novelist who had been his model for the “professional amateur,” but the question obviously doesn’t engage him.

  “What about how to write sentences, that sort of thing? Did you imitate anyone?”

  Again George answers somewhat indifferently. I’m missing the mark. There’s something else he wants to talk about—his insecurities are elsewhere.

  “Well, what’s the hardest part of your job, George?” I ask, deciding to be as blunt as I can.