The next Monday I begin a week of schooling and working the line under close Cosí College supervision at a different branch. I learn the four Cosí questions (Can I help you? Mayo, mustard, or vinaigrette? Would you care for a drink with this? For here or to go?) and the six reasons for discarding bread (undersized, cold, hard, burned, soggy, misshapen, or torn with holes). I am also given two shirts, a hat, a copy of the 27-page Cosí Sandwich Bar Crew Member Handbook, and the 22-page Cosí College Sandwich Maker Manual.
When I return to the Third Avenue restaurant the following Monday, everybody greets me talking exactly like my 13-year-old son: “Wassup?” instead of “Good morning.” “Wasshappening, homey? My bad. This ain’t the hood.”
Downstairs I am picking up something heavy when a baker shocks me by saying, “Careful there. Don’t want to croak you, Pops.” They all call me Pops or Popadopolis, but this seems friendly enough, if not entirely gratifying to the ego.
I've been told that men are predators and, if that’s so, we must have hunted in packs, because that’s how we eat. When one person comes into Cosí, he or she eyes the offerings like a single wolf looking at a healthy stag and then retreats without ordering.
But when it rains, it pours. It’s lunchtime now, and the line stretches out onto the sidewalk. Three or four people stand coyly near the mouth of the oven, trying to decide what they want or even if they want to eat at Cosí at all. Meanwhile, 20 others in a terrible hurry stack up behind them. I’d learned in Cosí College that nobody should go 15 seconds without being acknowledged.
“I like a challenge.” That’s what I tell myself, heart racing, sweat pooling in the fingers of my vinyl gloves. “If you’re ready to order, please step down!” I yell and grab a piece of bread.
The sound system is playing “My Blue Heaven.” I grab a piece of bread, which is so hot it burns my hand. While running a large bread knife through it to open the pocket, I begin to shout in the direction of the customers. But I’m also concentrating on the knife. It’s possible to cut the bread incorrectly. I have done so. Then you have to throw the piece away and the bakers hate you.
“Can I help the next person, please?”
I catch the eye of a middle-aged woman with short blond hair and thick glasses. I wave my bread at her and she comes out of the line of deliberators and up to the counter.
“Can I help you, Miss?”
She points at the tray of tomato, basil, and mozzarella.
“Would you like that?”
She nods.
“Is that all you want?”
She nods again.
Another two sandwichmakers have moved between me and the oven. I’m not moving fast enough. One of them is angry: “Don’t baby-sit the bread.”
I move down.
I give her three slices of tbm.
“For here or to go?”
“For here,” she says.
I’m turning to the back counter to wrap her sandwich when I hear her ask a question. “What kind of cheese do you have?” I turn back to face her.
“Swiss, Cheddar, and Brie.”
She points to the red chicken.
“That’s tandoori chicken. You want that?”
She nods.
I give her a large scoop. “Mayo, mustard, or vinaigrette?” I ask.
“Mustard.”
“Honey mustard or Dijon?”
“What’s that?” she asks and points.
“Spinach artichoke spread.”
“Give me some of that.” By now the two other sandwichmakers have passed me. I need to poke between them to get at the spread. Does she want lettuce?
During the rush it’s not uncommon to have nine people in an aisle about four and a half feet wide, all hollering and banging into each other. If the word pandemonium hadn’t been thought up yet, this would be a good time to do it.
She does want lettuce.
I turn to the stainless-steel counter behind the line and get her a piece of romaine lettuce.
“Vinaigrette on that?”
“No.”
I ask her to go down to the end of the counter: “I’ll bring you your sandwich.”
All of this takes much less than a minute, and I might have to keep working like this for a couple of hours.
I open the sandwich paper with a vigorous snap of my wrist. I insert the sandwich. I wrap it in aluminum foil, make out my Cosí slip, and streak to the end of the counter. There are three middle-aged women with short blond hair standing there. I have no idea who ordered this sandwich.
Un coup de feu is what Orwell called it when he was working as a plongeur at Hôtel X. Feverish activity forces intimacy. I enjoy running the New York City Marathon because when you come down off the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge at mile 16 and the crowd yells “You’re great!” you’re stupid enough to believe them. Prolonged exercise breaks down barriers. I love the people I run with. I assume they love me. Running that hard, you don’t have the energy for hate. Same with making sandwiches.
Ordinarily, I run five miles a day. Working at Cosí renders this unnecessary. After work I hobble over to Grand Central, swill down a Coke, and try to remember which end is up.
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