Earlier today, a man walked into Diamond Sandwich Shop—the Rockville, Maryland institution—and ordered a “Horton Gorton.” The sandwich shop owner shot him dead. Here is what happened in between:
“A what?”
“A Horton Gorton, please.”
The owner of the shop yanked out a hearing aid and stuffed it back in. His mouth hung open. The customer repeated himself.
“Here, kid, point to something on the menu.” He plucked a laminated menu from the little wooden rack beside the register, the menu he’d perfected in 1998. “What do you want?”
The customer neither looked at nor pointed to the menu. He spoke a little louder, and his thin lips twisted upward a tad. “A Hor-ton Gor-ton.”
The owner blinked at his menu. His thin lips wiggled as he scanned it for something that a foreigner could misread as Horton Gorton. He looked on the back of the menu, where he knew there wasn’t anything printed at all. The owner of the shop looked up at the customer. He noticed the kid’s smart phone was out, the camera trained on his face.
“Listen, kid, get lost. Go bother somebody else. There’s other things I gotta do. Scram.” He dropped the menu back into its place.
The kid left. The owner scowled at the vacant store, vacant except for Ms Sanchez, who came every day and had come every day for nine years, ordered a Diet Coke, a bag of Cape Cod chips, and slept in the corner below the A/C unit. The owner opened up the cash drawer and turned his old paper ledger to last week.
A half hour later, the owner was confronting the new cashier, Gene. The owner had found reasons all week to avoid Gene but he really couldn’t do it anymore. Gene was a decent guy. A decent guy with a temper. He was big. He was also stealing from the shop.
As the owner started to confront Gene, that damn kid sauntered by outside. He walked across one massive glass pane to the next, to the next. The owner shoved past Gene and stomped out onto the sidewalk. “I told you to get lost,” he yelled at the kid, who was already getting lost around the next corner.
“Fucking kids, but look—Gene. I can’t have any more of this. Okay?” He felt sorry for Gene. He really did. But the register kept coming up short since Gene started. He was a high school dropout, divorced from his sweetheart, he had a kid to pay child support on even though she got remarried. But none of that was an excuse to steal. He said as much. “In fact, I think it’s best if you leave right now.”
“But—that’s it?”
“I gotta think about it.”
“Am I fired?”
“I said I gotta think about it.”
The owner didn’t like to fire guys. And Gene really was a good kid.
Diamond Sandwich shop closes at three on Sundays. At two fifty or so, the same kid came back into the store, camera on his little phone recording. “Excuse me, sir. Can I have a Horton Gorton?”
“Jesus kid, get lost. I’ve had a day. Film your pranks on someone else. Try Jason’s Deli.”
“One Horton Gorton—” the kid started but never finished. The big, tall window behind him exploded in shards. This part of Rockville wasn’t always so nice. There were still a few bullet holes in the sides of the old buildings, and traces of graffiti that told stories the owner of the Diamond Sandwich Shop never wanted told again. He still kept a handgun under the register as memento to those times. It was stupid; there was no need to.
After the glass exploded to smithereens, the owner heard the blast of shot that had preceded it. He saw, when he clamped his eyes as he dropped down behind the counter, Gene out on that wide sidewalk, sweating, with cords bulging in his neck. He was holding a gun.
Another shot. The kid screamed. Mirabel Sanchez’s eyes gawked open and she seized her side. The owner grabbed the gun and sprung with courageous stupidity up to his feet. Eyes clenched shut, he fired.
Read “Eggs” on Twenty-two Twenty-eight.
Last call for thank yous from me to you
What I’m Reading:
After the Flare by Deji Bryce Olukotun
Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay
“The Militia and the Mole” by Joshua Kaplan for ProPublica
You missed the Moon occulting Mars
Is that a Horton Gorton I see in the picture? Hmmmm….