Davis Washington

I walked into a sandwich shop called Jersey Mike's. Behind the glass stood a seventeen-year-old boy with a knife the length of a short sword. He sliced a loaf of bread in half, pointed the blade at me, and asked a question that demanded my entire philosophy of life. "You want that Mike's Way?" I looked around the room. There was no Mike. There was only the boy, a cooler of soda, and a woman wiping tables. Yet this young man spoke of Mike's Way the way a swordsman in Edo spoke of the founding master's school. In my country, you do not enter another man's dojo and demand your own style. "I have never met Master Mike," I told the boy. "But I am standing under his roof. I will walk Mike's Way." The boy nodded once, reached beneath the counter, and drew two glass bottles like twin pistols. Olive oil. Red wine vinegar. He did not drizzle. He baptized the bread. "That's The Juice," the boy said calmly, shaking both bottles with the rhythm of a temple drummer. The Juice. Not dressing. Not oil. They call it The Juice, as though the olives surrendered their life force willingly. Oregano fell from two feet in the air. Lettuce shredded thinner than ceremonial paper. Tomatoes sliced so fast the blade blurred. By the time he wrapped it in white paper, my sandwich weighed as much as a healthy infant and the bottom corner was already glowing with vinegar. Behind me in line stood an eighty-eight-year-old man wearing a faded Korean War Veteran cap. When the old man reached the register, his hands were trembling slightly. He searched his jacket pockets twice and looked down in embarrassment. "I'm sorry, son," the old veteran whispered. "I left my wallet in my other coat. Just put the sandwich back." The seventeen-year-old boy did not hesitate for half a second. He tapped the screen once, slid the heavy white-paper sandwich across the counter into the old man's hands, and stood up straight. "You're good, sir," the boy said clearly. "Mike's rule is Korean War vets eat free on Wednesdays." The old man's eyes went wide. He thanked the boy three times, saluted him at the door, and walked out with his lunch held tight against his chest. I looked at the calendar on the wall beside the drink machine. It was Tuesday. I did not say a word. I just put a ten-dollar bill into the tip jar on the counter. I still do not know who Mike is. I know that his Way is in very good hands.

Before I visited Pennsylvania, everyone warned me that Philadelphia people are the toughest, most impatient people in America. I believed them until I walked toward the front door of a Wawa gas station. I was still forty feet away in the parking lot, walking between rows of cars. A massive construction worker in steel-toe boots, carrying a twenty-four-ounce coffee in one hand and a paper-wrapped hoagie in the other, pushed open the glass door to leave. Then he saw me. He stopped. He planted his boot against the bottom of the door. And he waited. Forty feet is a very long distance when a grown man is holding a door for you in the wind. In Japan, to make a stranger wait carries great shame. So I broke into that awkward half-jog every man performs when he wishes to show gratitude without looking like he is fleeing a crime. "Go ahead, boss," he said as I passed. Ten minutes later, as I walked out with my own sandwich, I saw an elderly woman locking her car thirty feet away. I planted my foot against the glass. I held the door. Another man behind me held the inner door. Within seconds we had formed an impromptu honor guard of grumpy men holding glass doors in complete silence. Philadelphia may boo Santa Claus. But inside the three-foot radius of a Wawa doorway, they have the manners of the imperial court.