Free App Friday!
Fiction Friday
That night was supposed to be great. It was going to be the night when things would turn around and the healing would begin. Nikhil felt it in his bones the moment he sprang out of bed in the morning, beating the shrill ring of his alarm for the first time in months. He continued to feel it as he opened the bedroom window and stuck his head out and let the warm air kiss his face as he craned upwards, squinting into the sun. Sure, the weather reports he had been tracking religiously promised an idyllic summer day and night, but he had to see it for himself. Make sure it was real.
The dingy duvet seemed less flat and worn that morning, even though stray feathers flew from the cover as he pulled it up to the streak of grime on the wall where he and his wife, Karishma, would lay their heads. For once, the residual body oils and caked on dead skin didn’t act as reminders that, after years, he had yet to buy a headboard.
He and his family were in for the arduous kind of day that would have been daunting even before his hair was cobwebbed colored and his hands shook. But it was okay. That evening was going to be the first ever Free App Friday at the Spice Hut. He knew what needed to be done and was ready.
Everything was going to be okay again.
Even though it had been rough for him and his family since March, he always tried to keep things in perspective. COVID-19 had come in and turned the world on its head, changing the very fabric of people’s day to day lives. It was hard on everybody, not just him. However, that didn’t mean that he always succeeded in maintaining this outlook. Some days were more difficult than others.
Unfortunately, the last three months seemed to be filled with nothing but the difficult ones. During this time, normalcy had begun to return to the city. The Financial District’s streets were no longer the roaring currents that could sweep you up in their grey, black, and blue woolen riptide, but people were out. Masked and distanced they wandered about, free from the undertow — running errands before returning home for a video conference, biking before the morning meetings held from their couches, or walking to the retail jobs that they suddenly felt lucky to have. Restaurants had opened for outdoor dining and stores once again welcomed customers inside their doors, albeit in limited capacities. With pre-scheduled viewing times, you could even see priceless works of art at the MoMA. Theoretically, things should have been getting better each day.
But they weren’t.
All the logical explanations and justifications were gone. Of course, the nightly storms from the past week certainly hurt outdoor dining as a whole. Regardless, other restaurants were doing okay and staying afloat. Some were even thriving — taking advantage of their sidewalk real estate and soaring out of The Red that all businesses had been forced into at the start of the pandemic.
But The Spice Hut…
The Spice Hut was well on its way to becoming just any other failed business, and Nikhil, the captain of the ship, could feel himself sinking and drifting away. Alone. Watching the other ships disappear into the horizon.
That’s where Free App Friday came in to play. Who could resist a free appetizer of their choice with each entrée purchased? Patrons would flock to his corner at Broadway and John Street, and he would have to tell the masses hugging the edge of the curb that he was sorry for not having any space for more tables — other restaurants needed space too, ya know. But nobody would leave. They would stay there, huddled together, and fight for the next upcoming spot. A frenzy would ensue every time a diner reached for their wallet to pay the check.
Free App Friday.
It was a catchy name too. All thanks to his son. The same son who gave up the first weekend of his senior year at college to come home and help. He was going to need all hands on deck. Nikhil even had Karishma write it out in calligraphy on a standing chalkboard that he positioned by the door.
However, he was now hours into the extravaganza known as Free App Friday, and not one person had flocked. He stood there, by his little chalkboard display and watched the afterglow dissolve as night rolled over the city. He watched napkins, bottles, and paper cups skid along the concrete and nip at pedestrians’ heels, as they were carried by the steady breeze. Following them. Even the litter wanted to go to Flynn’s, the Irish pub next door to The Spice Hut.
Each time somebody walked by, he’d nod and smile. He’d step to his right to make sure they could read the sign! Free apps! From 6 to Closing! Sometimes these people would look at him and curl their lips in toothless smiles. Sometimes they would throw a single nod his way as they passed, before quickly turning away. Most of the time, though, they just stared at their feet. But eventually, they all seemed to end up at the high-top tables next door, sitting in front of baskets of shiny fries and soggy sticks of breaded animal meat. Laughing. Hugging. Guzzling pale yellow beers.
“How’s it going,” Karishma would ask, periodically popping out from the air conditioned dining room where she was waiting with her stacks of menus.
“Nothing yet,” he would respond. “Soon, though. I can tell. We just have to stay the course.”
He had no choice but to stand there and persist. Nikhil and his family had spent all day sweating over wooden pallets as they lugged food in and out of the kitchen — tossing out all the uneaten waste from the previous shipments and replacing them with the new ingredients. Aside from the discoloration and stench, he couldn’t tell the difference between the incoming and outgoing pallets. There were just as many of both and they were all completely full of ingredients that he had spent hours personally testing and selecting.
Yet, while his body remained steadfast, his eyes grew more forlorn by the minute. He hadn’t checked the time since dusk, but he felt the hours piling up behind him. He had been fumbling his phone around in his pocket, afraid of what numbers may flash on his home screen.
Then, from beneath the light of the neon ‘Open’ sign, he noticed a young couple holding hands across the street, waiting for the light to turn. They seemed to be headed right for him. Despite the darkness surrounding them, Nikhil could see the woman focusing in on his sullen face, and unlike all the others, when their gazes met, she didn’t look away. Even as they crossed the street, her stare never wavered.
When the young couple stopped when they reached his corner, he could see the young woman whisper something to her partner.
“Excuse me, sir,” the young man said.
Nikhil’s eyebrows shot up like albino caterpillars arching their backs. He stood a little taller and, for a moment, his fingers stopped trembling.
“Can we see a menu?”
“Of course you can,” Nikhil said, motioning with his arms for them to come closer. Once he was close enough, with both hands, he clasped the young man’s hand like a calloused, wrinkly clamshell. “Anything for you my friend! Karishma, two menus please!”
He didn’t even need to say anything. She was already beside him with two disposable, paper menus, and back inside before he knew it.
The young man took one of them and handed it to his girlfriend.
She glanced over it, flipped it over once to see if there was anything on the other side, then flipped it back. Nikhil could see her eyes darting in their sockets. But they soon stopped and turned up to look at him. In that fleeting moment, the three of them were suspended in the white noise of New York City silence, where all that could be heard was the usual sonic pollution of passing cars, horns, and floating conversations in the distance.
Her eyes suddenly looked as forlorn as his did.
“I’m sorry,” she handed the limp piece of paper back to him. “I don’t think we’re going to stay for dinner.”
She grabbed the young man’s arm and began to pull him towards Flynn’s, and as they left she apologized once more, thanking Nikhil for his time.
“Maybe another night,” she said.
Nikhil still didn’t know the time, but he knew that the manager of Flynn’s hadn’t stepped outside to announce last call. The other restaurants down the block still had waiting staffs bustling in and out of their kitchens with steaming plates, piled high with colorful accoutrements. People still sauntered up and down the streets, looking into storefronts, in search of pandemic approved entertainment.
But none of that mattered.
He stepped inside the restaurant and turned off the ‘Open’ sign, kicking out the gnarled wooden stopper that was wedged beneath the door. When it slammed shut, his son’s head shot up from the text book that it was buried in. His wife scuttled out from behind a corner with a dripping, soapy rag in hand and wide eyes.
“What happened,” she asked, looking at Nikhil, then at the unlit sign, then the closed door. “It’s only 9:30. We still have another hour until closing. What are you doing?”
“There’s no point. It’s over,” he replied.
“Over?”
“Done. Last year, when we decided to start the restaurant, I put most of our money into it. We had such high hopes for this place.” His voice began to crack, “but even before the virus, breaking even wasn’t a regular occurrence. Let alone doing well. This has been the biggest blunder of my life and it would probably be best to just cut my losses now, before it gets even worse. It’s my chance to make the right decision after a series of wrong ones.”
He sighed and nobody said anything. Nobody moved. Nikhil looked at his son, sitting there with various highlighted papers and books splayed out before him — their margins brimming with scrawled notes. His pen had stopped moving and was now resting in the crook of his languid hand. Stillness took over, until it was broken by a low grumble coming from the table.
“Rahul, let me get you something to eat,” Nikhil said to his son. “You must be hungry.”
Rahul hunched over, grabbing his moaning stomach in feigned anguish and proclaiming his starvation.
Nikhil made his way to the kitchen — where he should have been all night, once he ushered the first wave of customers to their seats. The refrigerator shelves were lined with untouched baking sheets of rolled dough and mixing bowls filled with spiced potatoes. Rows of chicken marinating in cellophane covered bins stretched from the front to back, like a metallic cornfield. There were sealed containers of yogurt. Overstuffed drawers of vegetables. Everything.
He removed only what he needed for one serving of samosas. Something quick and easy. By that point, all he wanted to do was get out of there and go home. There was no longer any reason to salvage as much as he could. It was all waste.
After he was finished cooking, notes of garam marsala, coriander, and chili danced in the air as he returned to the dining room with his son’s food. Rahul didn’t even allow the plate to settle on the table — he reached for one of the fried, potato stuffed pastries and shoveled it into his gullet. Billows of steam plumed from his mouth each time he chewed or gasped for cool air.
“Is it good?”
“Mmm…mmhmm,” Rahul grunted.
Nikhil pulled up a chair across from his son and watched him eat. He was already onto this next one. Then the next one. And the next one. The boy was a machine, only stopping to occasionally close his eyes and rub his belly in ecstasy.
“You know,” Rahul said, his cheeks stuffed with food, “tonight — and the whole restaurant in general — didn’t really work out. But this,” he pointed down towards the lone samosa on the plate, “was worth taking a train ride back for. There will be plenty of other weekends this year, but I can’t get this kind of food at school. There are no good Indian spots. None of the food reminds me of home.”
When his son was finished eating, Nikhil asked his family for help closing up. Even though the three of them hardly made eye contact with one another, he didn’t feel any sense of awkwardness. He felt at peace. In silence, they shuttled in the tables and chairs from outside, locked up the sidewalk cellar doors, turned off the AC, and shut off the lights.
Standing outside, after finishing up all their tasks, all that remained was for Nikhil to lock the doors. As he turned the key with a click, he could hear his son call out from behind him.
“So what are you going to do tomorrow?”
Nikhil looked up at the sign perched above the dirty green awning, illuminated by the city lights. The Spice Hut. He put his arm around his son and smiled.
“I’ll be back here,” he said. “There’s more food to be made.”
