Shwarma — by Elazar Aslan

By Elazar Aslan

There is a middle eastern food called shwarma. Actually it is called many things and it is made of many things. A revolving vertical spit made of lamb or beef or turkey or probably at times, mystery meat. It’s a kind of dish that when it’s bad, it’s okay and when it’s good it’s unbelievable. There’s a place in the heart of Greenwich Village in New York City that has the spit facing the street and usually a line wrapping around the corner.

I woke up this particular morning, knowing I was going to have lunch there; that wasn’t so unusual. What struck me as odd, though, was the fact that I stopped at an ATM and withdraw a few hundred dollars. It was rather odd since I always stop at the bank the same day of the week and withdraw my weekly cash allowance – and this wasn’t that day. I thought about it as I withdrew the money, but didn’t think much of it as I left the bank.

As I approached the shop, I noticed a homeless guy walking away from the window. He seemed a little different from other homeless people I had locked eyes with in the past; it seemed that the hardship hadn’t robbed him of his integrity. I approached him with caution, knowing that his pride may unfortunately be still in tact, and asked him if the food was good here. His eyes lit up! I asked if he would recommend anything and he walked me over to the window and gleamed at the Shwarma dripping droplets of flavor. Then I asked him if he would like one and you could see a smile that came from the heart. So we stood in line together, two middle-aged men with a bush full of facial hair, feeling like strangers, but feeling strangely connected as well. I asked him if he were Persian (I could always spot them, being one myself). He said yes and started to speak in Farsi (Persian), but more softly. He told me that his family was from Iraq and followed that up with a ‘secret’ that they were Jewish. It’s rare to be an Iranian, Iraqi, Jew in this world; it is even rarer to be one that isn’t related to me, as I am just that. As the line kept moving he kept talking. He let me know that his father was a pharmacist on a particular street corner in Teheran; it happened to be very close to the house I lived in as a child. In fact my mother would take me there to have some fruit or vegetable juice a few times a week. It was hard not to be lost in the philosophical query of what made his fate so different from mine. Was I closer to becoming a homeless man than I ever dared to believe? Nonetheless, at least I solved the problem of why I went to the bank on an off day and took out my week’s allowance – that money neatly folded in my back pocket was for him – there was nothing I needed to buy with that stack of twenties that he didn’t need even more.

We were getting close to ordering our sandwiches when he asked me if I had a cigarette. I said no and offered him a twenty to go buy his own pack. As an ex-smoker, I could deeply appreciate the prospect of a cigarette after savoring the last morsels of a divine taste. He took the money and trotted off to get his cigarettes. In that moment, I sensed something very subtle shift within me. He was gone and it was my turn to order. I hesitated to order two sandwiches because my intuition was that he wouldn’t come back. I asked the couple behind me, since they witnessed our conversation, and they felt certain that he would return. I ordered two sandwiches and waited for him. He never came back.

* * *

I was dismayed that this man chose to leave with $20 dollars when I had a whole stack of them earmarked for him. Actually, I couldn’t understand why he would give up the possibility of more so easily. Perhaps that was why the fork in our journeys became so disparate. I was also saddened that I would not break bread with this man, nor share a moment of pure and unadulterated delight with him.

The next day as I was passing through my usual semi-conscious journey of awakening I came to see, that he and I were quite alike in ways I did not want to know. After all, how many times in my life did I happily say yes to some crumbs, when I could’ve had a full meal? How many times did I accept something, secretly thinking that in this deprivation filled world, this is a lot – meanwhile, the universe was excited to shower me with abundance. How often did I say no, I don’t deserve that. How often did I not come back where a moment of pure and unadulterated delight was waiting for me – just because I couldn’t believe it could be so. No, not for me, maybe for other people, but not for me.