alija, the hot dog guy. (1)

Frozen, packaged beef. It is the most hideous of things, yes? When you take the beef out of the plastic and inspect it, it looks so disgusting, really. A flesh container of the least wanted parts of the animal. In old country, people there, they think of the tube steak, the hot dog, the hrenovka as a delicacy. You get so used to light, watery dish in the old country, that anything with substance is a rare thing.

 

You come to America. You’re one of the lucky, the free, the alive. And you hope for something beyond farming goats and eating cabbage soup all day. You possess a sharp mind, but you stand out, with your gruff, thick accent. Your inability to trust.

So instead of hope, you shill for next to nothing. Because here, this tube steak? It’s shit.

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“Fucking shit, ova zemlja!”

The police officer standing next to my push cart is too engrossed in his little notepad to hear my curses of the way this country works. I had pushed the boundaries of my puny business too far, just as the Serbs once had back home. The officer looked back at me, clutching my ID with a curious glint in his eye.

“Alija Tudman, you do realize that you’ve been warned about trespassing here once before, correct, sir?”

I gesticulated my hands towards the McDonald’s near the Square furiously. “Why do these people worry so much about my hot dogs? McDonald’s doesn’t even carry these shit sticks, who are they to care about a hot dog vendor? Huh? You tell me, officer!”

The officer scribbled something in his pad, then handed me back my ID with a dismissive look and a stilted sigh.

“Look. I know you think you can push that thing wherever there may be people, but there are rules and regulations in the city permitting you to sell in certain areas. I know the side streets may not be ideal, but it’s what you’re going to have to do. I don’t think you can afford the citations we can levy against you if you keep mucking around up here.”

I threw my hands in the air and tapped my cross around my neck. “Those fuckers on 2nd Street, where your city commission wants me to stay, they steal my signs. They steal my dogs. I’ve been spit on. Robbed. Why the fuck would I want to-”

“Sir, sir. Please. You’ve reported everything that’s happened in the past. But rules are rules. Go back there and you can continue selling your food. Don’t, and I’m going to have to shut you down. Got it?”

I sputtered, letting out a huge burst of air with my hands on my hips, clutching my greasy apron tightly. “Sure, sure. Whatever. I cannot win.”

I picked up the side bar of the cart and began walking back towards South Bronx, but not before bellowing out one last, thickly accented, “BIG AL’S HOT DOGS, BEST IN ALL NEW YORK” with the York coming out “yaawrk” and the dog turning into this wonderful mess between “dewaug” and “dawugh”.

Back to the slums for the slummy, I guess.

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By the time I reached the familiar spot where I hawked my wares, the mime had already begun working its magic on the tourists. Where I come from, when I was in my young, formative years, we had no fun. We had radio reports. Death tolls. The only escape was the literal form. So anything that brings whimsy and joy to the people, that, that is a beautiful thing, my friend. I’ve always enjoyed the mime and his stylings with the people. When he first started working around here, I would subtly direct customers from my lines over to him, with a line about “…enjoying a show with your gourmet meal, please and thank you!”

I even walked over and tipped him a few times, in the beginning. Never anything much, because a Bosnian man tipping anything more than a buck or two is going to call attention to you around here, but I wanted to show him thanks. He never really acknowledged me. In fact, as the months turned to years and the mime’s talents grew, he seemed disgusted with my presence.

“HAVE YOU HAD YOURSELF A HOT DOG TODAY, PEOPLE, C’MON! EAT SOME SWEET MEAT, IT’S A TREAT!”

I can’t help but slap on the old “sweaty foreign man” charm that people here think is so charming and stereotypically hilarious. It brings in the steady $5.75 (cost of a dog dressed and a soda, with the .25 left out for a hopeful tip) of most people, and it doesn’t offend a soul. It seems these people in New York, they have been galvanized by the world, both for good and bad. I respect that. I understand it, I do.

The mime glares. Not a mime glare, mind you, where it’s part of his act to play up his disdain for the boorish oaf, but an awkward, cutaway glance towards me. I have always wanted to walk over and buy the guy a cup of coffee, find out about him. The street performer is always a man of such character and bravery, and one that cannot speak? The joys and sorrows he must have endured. But, it looks as though he simply wants to be left alone today, which works, because a flood of hungry, distracted college students from NYU have began to descend upon my cart, hoping for organic meats and getting stuck with chicken bone matter.