‘Put the knife down, mutherfucka!’
Rohan smelled the man’s sweat. He placed his knife on the bench and turned to the man pointing the gun at his head. He said,
‘I’m making a Reuben, man. Not cool.’
The man stared at him, the gun shook a little.
‘You like Reubens?’ said Rohan. ‘I’ve never met anyone who doesn’t like a good Reuben. You know why?’ He pointed at each ingredient on the bench as he spoke. ‘It’s got everything: meat, vegetables, sauce, bread, and not just any bread, but good rye bread. That’s healthy, yeah? Let’s start with that.’
He picked up a slice of freshly cut bread.
‘It’s gotta be rye. I tried it with seeded sourdough once, which was okay, I suppose, but not rye. Rye is the real thing. Rye encapsulates the sandwich.’
‘Shut the fuck up, mutherfucka!’
Rohan looked at the man. His eyes bulged. A bead of sweat trammeled his brow.
He said, ‘Let’s build this baby.’ He laid two slices of rye on the board in front of him and, on one of them, three pink slices of pastrami. He held up a fourth for the man to see. ‘This, my man, is the foundation of the Reuben. Look at it.’ He draped the film of beef across his fingers, as if showing the man a rare silk. ‘Beef brisket slow cooked for ten hours, and see that there, the crust of mustard and spices, perfect.’ He laid the slice on top of the other three.
‘Of course, a great debate is how much do you put on. One slice? Too stingy. Two? Maybe, if you’re on a diet. Three or four, now you’re entering the realm of personal predilection. Some people load it up with five or six. I like four, for the substance and flavour but not so much like you’re chewing through a cow.’
‘One more word, mutherfucka!’
Rohan turned to him, and regarded his taut features. Red lines ringed his eyes. His nostrils flared.
‘Oh come on, man, it’s a Reuben. You gotta let me finish the Reuben. Hmm?’
The two men stared at each other.
‘Lemme at least finish my thing and then you can do yours. Deal?’
The man blinked. One of those deliberate eye twitch type blinks, a nervous tic.
Rohan reached for a jar of pickles. ‘Oh, and some people use silverside too, which I realise is easier on the wallet. But for my mind, it has to be pastrami. If you’re going for the best, you’ve got to open the wallet.’
He extracted a glistening pickle from the jar and held it up for the man to see. ‘Beautiful, no?’
The man didn’t answer, but his breath was leaden in his nostrils.
‘Now, I’m going to just take my knife and slice this little fella lengthways, okay?’
He picked up the knife with slow deliberate movements, and, focusing carefully, cut it into thin strips. Then he put the knife down. ‘All good, yeah? I don’t want you getting jumpy. Least not til I’ve had my last supper.’
He could see the gun wavering. The man made a noise as if to say something, but nothing articulate flowed.
‘I know, right,’ said Rohan. ‘You’re getting the feel of it too.’ He grinned at the man and raised his eyebrows. ‘Cos it’s sauerkraut time.’
He picked up a jar of golden pickled cabbage, iridescent and moist in its glass container. ‘I made this myself,’ he said. ‘It’s not hard. The trick is to get the best apple cider vinegar into the mix. Well, that’s my trick anyway.’
He applied a mound of sauerkraut on to the layers of the sandwich. ‘I don’t use caraway seeds though. I find them too, well, German for my taste. Is that racist? I don’t know. I dated a German girl once, she liked sauerkraut and all sorts of fermented vegetables – beets, garlic, jalapenos, okra. She was healthy, and fit, but her skin, it reeked of something slightly rotting. It was a real irony.’
He reached for a jar of pinkish cream.
‘This is the sauce, the spicy little secret in the Reuben. The Russian dressing. I don’t actually know if it’s Russian. It sounds like it though. Two thirds mayo, one third sour cream, minced onion and pickle. That sounds Russian.’
As he lathered the sandwich with the pink sauce he said, ‘I dated a Russian girl too once, and she made heaps of shit with mayonnaise and sour cream and pickles and onion, right? That was after the fermented German girl. Plus it has paprika to spice it up. Sweet or smoked, it doesn’t really matter.’
He turned to the man. He was grimacing. Rohan continued.
‘I had one recipe which used sriracha. I thought, that’s not Russian, but you know what, it worked. The recipe said use two and half tablespoons and I thought wow, that’s heaps, and used half, but heck, it worked. That and the sweet paprika, that was a kick in the Reuben. Yessiree.’
Moving carefully he unwrapped a paper package. ‘And now, the final ingredient. Swiss cheese. Look at that.’ He proffered a golden square of cheese as he had done with the pastrami. ‘So smooth and creamy. And it mirrors the pastrami, thin, two sliced deli goods at either end of the meal. That’s symmetry. And of course, the same issue arises, how many slices do you add? And it’s the same answer: whatever you like. I like two. Enough to seal the meal but not compete with the meat, if you get my drift.’
He closed the sandwich with the second slice of rye bread. He picked it up and laid it on to the hot sandwich press. ‘You see? The Reuben has everything.’
He pressed the lid down. The sandwich sizzled.
The instant the man’s eyes dropped to look at it, Rohan’s knife was in his throat. Blood sprang from his jugular. He reeled. The gun roared over Rohan’s head. Rohan pulled it from the man’s flailing grasp and pumped three rounds into his chest. He slumped to the floor.
‘You see?’ Rohan shouted. ‘The man who makes a Reuben is a man who gets shit done. If you’re going to kill me, then just fucking kill me. Don’t sit round entranced by a Reuben sandwich! It’s just a fucking sandwich.’
He shook his head as he picked up the bloodied knife from the floor. He wiped it clean. When the sandwich was cooked he took it out. He sliced it in half with the freshly cleaned knife, and took a bite. He savoured the mix of hot flavours he had described to his would be assassin. ‘Well, maybe not just a sandwich.’
