“Who do you know that owns a delicatessen?”

The woman asked the question to no one in particular.

It was then that the bullet entered the house, entered the room, entered into his skull, entered into his brain. And that word, “delicatessen,” would be the last word he would hear in his life.

Such a strange word. “Delicatessen.” What language is that from? Images of cold cuts and Boar’s Head meats and cheeses, some in wheels, some blocks, some threaded with blue. Images of fresh rolls, poppy seed, sesame, long rolls, hard rolls, challah. Images of mustard and horseradish and cole slaw and potato salad, German potato salad, macaroni salad, olive salad.

Cream soda. It had to be cream soda. Brown cream, not red cream. Or ginger ale. Or raspberry soda – now that was a kick. Something cold, but not too cold, from the deli cooler, and fizzy, maybe in a strange New York brand. Sweet and tangy to wash down the pastrami on rye, the Rueben, the turkey club, the roast beef on hard roll, the tuna on sub, the artichoke salad, the Waldorf salad, the shrimp salad, the shrimp salad on pumpernickel.

Delicatessen. Such a strange word. What did it have to do with the rest of his life? Decades on this earth. Softball games. Teaching his daughter to ride a bike. Changing the oil. Buying a house. Making love to his wife. The studies and the term papers and the degrees. The office grind. Sitting in traffic. What did it have to do with any of that?

Lunch. It came down to lunch. Sometimes, when the urge struck. Or picking up a platter for a Friday night party. Or a pickle, the urge for a big dill pickle. Or spicy brown mustard. Or having a fresh sliced sandwich. Or the white butcher paper it was wrapped in, all put in a brown paper bag with the can of cream soda. Or maybe it was a bottle. Sometimes it was a bottle.

But what of the sunsets, the vivid red on orange sunsets out over the darkening prairie? And the sunrises, much rarer, sometimes grey and just gradually growing light, over the ocean, the haze lifting with the light. Sometimes red breaking over the treetops from the top of the dormitory where he had gone after pulling an all-nighter. What of those? Or sweating out in the yard. Cutting the grass and the seeds and the chafe and the dry dust clinging to his bare, sweating torso. Didn’t those experiences count for anything?

Where was the music, the jazz, the blues, the Rolling Stones, the Charlie Mingus and the Muddy Waters, the Pretenders and oh, yes, Chrissie Hynde, and Tina Arena, and the Musica Popular Brasileira, and the horns, and the guitars, and the lilting voices? Was there no space for any of that?

Or the art, the museums, the architecture, the dinosaurs, the Indian mounds, the castles, and moats, and Franciscan monasteries, the cliff dwellings, set in the late desert afternoon shadows, or the skyscrapers in the mid-day sun, the cottages in the North Woods, or the rest areas on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Where were all those things?

No, it was just the glass counter, the shiny scales on which piles of sliced meats were laid out on the white wrapping paper, a piece added to make half a pound, a sliver removed to get it down to a quarter pound.

“Will that be all for today? I’ve got some nice brisket if you like. Want to taste a slice?” Said with a slight accent.

So that is what it all came down to. A single word. Life’s summation, all in one last strange word.

Delicatessen.