A New Beginning for a Hot Dog Stand

It was morning on a Sunday in February, and Arthur was going for his walk. Over his oatmeal he tried to plan out a new route. Of course, if it was really going to be new, the only thing he could plan was the direction; after that, he wouldn’t be able to know the exact route he would take. Besides this, just realizing that there were so many new routes available to him this Sunday made him so excited he couldn’t concentrate on planning out a route. As it was, it took him twenty minutes to finish his oatmeal.

He was glad that he moved to this new apartment. Things were busier around here. If you liked food and culture, there was a Jewish bakery one way, and a Korean grocery store the other. A little way down the same road as the grocery store was a park where preschoolers would swing if it was during school hours, or older kids could play basketball after school, or if you were a parent, or in Arthur’s case just someone who had been walking awhile and needed a rest, there were park benches, where you could sit and you didn’t have to do anything. Arthur had gone to the park the previous week, but he wouldn’t go again for awhile. February was too cold for just sitting, even if there was no snow on the benches; and it always seemed like the parents kept eyeing him suspiciously when he watched the children play.

Arthur finished his oatmeal, brushed his teeth and headed out. He didn’t need directions; things were more interesting that way. He realized when he stepped outside that it was a little colder than he expected. When he woke up that morning, the first thing he did was look out the window, and he saw the sun shining through a blue sky and, more importantly, the pavement was dry outside. There is a way we associate coldness with wetness. Also the angle of his window in the morning set the sun right over his bed, and inside it felt warm. But outside was another story.

He took a right when he got to the street. Usually he took a left, because the road was somewhat busy and he didn’t feel like crossing. Not only that, when you head in this direction, you head toward the shops and the cafes, which Arthur rarely went into, but this morning he felt somewhat adventurous.

After walking a while down this road he turned the corner, and faced the first part of his new route. He looked at the names on the storefronts, the cars parked on the side of the road, the sky, the pavement, the trash there. It was all new to him, and he took in the views gratefully.

Arthur then stopped in front of a liquor store and decided to go in. He didn’t generally drink alcohol, but there was a rhythm to the arrangement of the wine bottles on their racks, and the liquor bottles on the shelves. This rhythm matched the colors of the liquid in the bottles which was most often an earthy color: brownish, a dark red or amber. It all just looked so comforting. And sometimes there was some rare bottle of something he couldn’t understand, a reddish beer in a wine bottle from Belgium; or sapphire gin—what was that all about?

The door was locked. He looked through the door with his hands cupped around his eyes and then he tried to open it again. As if to justify what should have seemed a stupid insistence about the door, he looked to the right of the steps and saw a broom leaning against the wall and said quietly, "Well if it’s closed, why would they leave the broom outside? Why is it closed anyway, these are normal hours." But then he remembered what day it was and he backed down the steps.

As I have already mentioned it was a dry day out. The road wasn’t wet, nor were there any patches of snow here or there from old precipitation. There was, however, some sand on the sidewalk and on the road still indicating winter. As Arthur was about to pass on down the road and perhaps find some other store or café in which he could loiter, he stopped. His eyes had been fixed on the broom since he remembered what day it was, and now he picked it up and began sweeping the sand off the sidewalk. He swept it off the sidewalk onto the driveway next to the building. It was at this point that he noticed how dirty the whole place was. There were bits of gum wrappers and cigarette butts all over. There was a dirty napkin and a paper cup from a fast food restaurant. Seeing how much larger his job had suddenly become, he looked around to see if there was a nearby dumpster, then if there was something he could sweep the garbage into so he wouldn’t have to use his hands. He didn’t see anything of that sort, but there was something very shiny up high that caught the sun and threw it into his face. Maybe it was a plane, or somebody far away playing a joke with a mirror. He flinched and took a step back suddenly. As he did so, he heard a lady behind him say, "Whoa!" Thinking he was about to bump into someone, he turned around, but saw that this lady was in the road, not on the sidewalk.

"What is that?" the lady asked.

"It’s a broom," Arthur answered, though the lady wasn’t looking at him or the broom. She was gazing toward the top of the next building.

"They pay you to sweep the road?" she asked.

"No," said Arthur. "I’m doing this because I want to. You see, sweeping, is like meditating. It helps keep me calm. It, uh, takes the worries off my mind." By this time the lady turned to face him. She had sort of a hooked nose and a pointed jaw. She wasn’t especially attractive, but Arthur found her attractive enough to talk to. He continued. "You see, I find that a nice, long walk once a week de-stresses me, and besides, it gives me a chance to learn about the neighborhood.

The lady was once again staring upward.

"You see, I have just moved here," he said.

"Oh, good lord," the Lady started up. "I wonder if this is what Paul was talking about." Arthur shrugged his shoulders and he didn’t know how to respond to that. The lady glanced at him. "You know what he said to me? He said that on Somers Street there was a hot dog cart, and he knew the man who sold the hot dogs, and he asked me to give that man a check for money he owed him."

"It’s February," Arthur said "I don’t think there are any hot dog stands around."

She looked at him then, either as if she were thinking about it being too cold for a hot dog stand, or as if she had just noticed that Arthur was there.

"This is Somers Street, right?"

Arthur shrugged again, didn’t say anything but was waiting for a moment to make an introduction. The few weeks he had lived in this town, he hadn’t really introduced himself to anyone.

"God," she said, "Never trust an ex-boyfriend. I don’t think that loon ever knew what the hell he was talking about."

Arthur smiled at that intently and said, "Hello, my name is Arthur." She looked at him the same way as she had the previous time.

"His exact words were, ‘Tilly, I owe him this money. Take the check next Sunday and he’ll be there.’"

Arthur, not sure if she had heard him, passed the broom a couple more times across the pavement.

"You really like sweeping, huh?"

"Actually, I kind of like watching the dust fly up when I push the broom. It doesn’t just go up and out in the direction of the broom, but it curls up and falls back on itself. It reminds me of the waves. I used to live fifteen minutes from the shore, and I used to do my walking there. But I’d have to drive there, and actually, it was kind of boring. Here, if I get tired, I can go into a store and look around, go into a restaurant and just sit. Or I can find someone to talk to."

Tilly, with her hands on her hips was then looking around her as if the hot dog stand might be hiding. "I don’t know if I should wait, or what. I wonder what time it is."

Arthur looked at his watch. "Eleven-seventeen," but he wasn’t sure she heard him. She was facing the other direction, and she seemed to be focused on something besides the conversation. Somewhat nervously, with one side of the broom brush, he forked a paper cup out of the corner formed between the stairs and the wall of the liquor store. Behind it was something like an orange, and he idly decided to fork it out, too. Then from behind, Tilly asked him, "What is that thing?"

"I don’t know," admitted Arthur, bending down to pick it up. It was the head of some child’s doll, broken off. It was hollow. "It’s Ernie!" he exclaimed, turning to the Lady. She was looking at Ernie’s head and smiling, so Arthur asked, "Do you remember Ernie?"

"Yeah. Sesame Street," she answered. Arthur laughed at this lightly.

"Wow." He placed the head on the end of the broomstick and went on sweeping. "Now Ernie’s sweeping."

With folded arms she stood, watching Arthur sweep, watching the ridiculous Ernie-head smiling like a naïve genetic experiment. Then the head, since it was loose on the broomstick, turned over so Ernie was facing the ground. But Ernie’s expression didn’t change. It still showed its exaggerated smile as it rotated toward her, still smiling, then toward the ground, still smiling. Evidently, she thought this was hilarious, because she couldn’t control her laughter at it, and she covered her mouth as she laughed. Arthur stopped sweeping and looked at her, glad that she seemed so happy. He took Ernie’s head off the stick, and when the laughter died down, he presented it to her and told her she could take it. She did take it, but almost unsure if she should. Washed from her face was the expression of anxious indifference toward him. She looked at him as if she were unsure what the presentation could possibly mean. It appeared to be a serious gesture. But then she said, "Hmm," looking at it and turning it around in her hand, and with one last look at Arthur before she quickly turned, she walked away, for it seemed that the man who sold hot dogs really wouldn’t show up.