19/2/93

A Sign

Fads come and go. Some prospectors make a killing and others make a living. Yossi always misses the boat.

    Just beyond the corner of Herzl and Ben-Gurion, before you get to Jabotinsky on the left side where the makolet leaves its empty boxes (behind the blue Toto booth blocking the sidewalk) is an Egged bus stop. Next to that is Yossi's.
    It's called, simply, "Yossi's." It has a grimy plate-glass window, a sign that reads "Yossi's    " and inside, standing behind an empty cash register, Yossi. That's it. No merchandise, no customers, no hope. Oh, yeah. There's also a Hebrew tabloid right where the Marlboro change-tray should be. The paper is open to a sports page. "Hapoel beats Hapoel 1-0," says the lurid neon-red headline. Cohen got the goal.
    A person enters. Man or woman, it's immaterial to the story. Let's just say it's me, to make things easier. So I enter. I look around as if deciding what to buy, so the shopkeeper shouldn't think I entered just to use his phone. I peer up and down a shelf, cock my head as if to read a price label, suddenly check my watch like I just remembered, say "tsk," and hurry over to the counter. "Excuse me, could I use your phone?"
    He sharply clicks his tongue at me, in that cutely rude way a local says "uh-uh." Now I notice there is no telephone in the place. I ask if he could help me: where is the nearest sushi bar? I think, am I crazy, what's this guy gonna know from sushi bars?
    "You're standing in it," says Yossi.
    "Then where's all the pieces of raw fish?"
    "Any minute. It's on the way, the truck's stuck in traffic probably. You want it in a pita? The pita truck is coming too."
    "Listen, Mr. - ah, Yossi, I wonder if maybe you don't really know what sushi is."
    Yossi sighed decidedly. "No, but you only have to tell me once. Wait here, I'll get you a piece of fish just like you like it."
    I ask him what his business was before this very moment becoming a sushi bar.
    "Video library."
    "Boy, not much need for that anymore, now that everyone has cable TV," I said. I had hit the nail on the head. Yossi's head. 

THE POOR fellow shook his head morosely. "Everybody was making a fortune from videocassette rental libraries, so I figured this is it, I invested everything and filled the shelves and put up a sign, in English, so it should look like a fancy American establishment, ג€˜Vidioe Casets Yosy.' I hired two - two - cashiers, and the next thing you know everyone in town has cable.
    "It was just like with the baguettes. Everybody was doing baguettes, selling, buying, investing. It's the big thing, I was told, so I order the equipment from France, and I put up a sign 'Le Best Bagget Chez Jozy,' and I open the doors and I go right out of business because nobody wants baguettes anymore because New York deli becomes the craze. A one-day craze. A day too late I open a deli shop and I close the deli shop when everyone suddenly has a VCR so they want to stay home and eat home-delivered pizza, and that's when I took the loss and opened and then closed the video library."
    I tsked in sympathy. "In a town like this, these fads come and go, don't they? And if you're there in time you make a killing, and if you're a little late, phht."
    "Huh. It's the story of my life. Right from the beginning. 'Yossi,' they said, 'go sell onions in the shuk. They're making a fortune.' There's a dozen onion sellers there already, I said, and they can't all make a fortune. So now there's a dozen onion sellers driving Volvos and living in villas. You can't blame me, I figured by now everyone has had onions up to here, they're going to want something new and different. Felafel! It was a hot fad. I was the first on the block to open a felafel stand, 'Palafl Ysosi,' and pretty soon there were enough felafel stands in the neighborhood for a country of a hundred million and maybe my tehina wasn't the best but I was the first one on the block to go out of business.
    "Then I went for a killing with a photo shop, because cameras were the new thing and everybody else was opening camera shops and pretty soon every store is selling film and the last thing the world needs is Foto Fuji Iosie. So I close, and then open a hamburger joint when everybody wants hamburgers."
    "Hamburgers! They never go out of style."
    "Yeah, and to make sure I put up a sign, 'Yossi's Reel Anericen Hambugger.'
    "Nu?"
    "So word gets out that Yossi is making a modest living selling hamburgers, and within the hour Mc-you-know-who opens up on the same block. And they don't water the ketchup."
    "And then?"
    "Jeans. American, of course. Since the year dot, the world wants American jeans, until the day up goes my sign 'Levy's Levis' - I got a new signmaker - and because this is Yossi, the fashion suddenly becomes 'Soviet' jeans, so I get rid of my stock and I become the first in town with the Soviet label, and my store is mobbed and everyone is a Russian immigrant looking for American jeans. Down goes the sign. Up goes another one, 'Yossi's Cookies.' Remember those chocolate-chip cookie shops on every street corner? Where are they now? Same place as me."
    Yossi fingered his worry beads. "Do you think this sushi fish'll sell?"
    I assured him it was the coming thing.
    "I need a sign," he said.
    "How about, 'Tokyo Joe's Oriental Gefilte Fish'?" I suggested.
    "No, I mean I need a sign from God. If he doesn't think this town should have a sushi bar, who am I to decide for Him?" I wondered if The Holy One Blessed Be He had given him the okay to water down the ketchup. "Anyway," he says, "what makes you so sure everybody's going to come running to Yossi for fish?"
    I told him about my vision for the future of this country: the Southern California Jews fleeing persecution and the millions of Japanese tourists about to be let loose on this town, seeking authentic ethnic sleaze to photograph.
    "Can't you see it?" I said, my voice cracking from emotion. "It's the craze you can start. One day they'll be saying, 'Jeez, who's the genius who first thought of putting a sushi bar in a depressed desert development town? He must be a millionaire by now.' Your grandchildren, Yossi, they'll be Knesset members and telling reporters their success stories started with Saba Yossi, a true visionary who brought raw fish to the desert. You'll be a culinary Ben-Gurion! A historical figure, Yossi, you, famous!"
    "Fish."
    "Yes, Yossi, fish."
    "Rich. And famous."
    "A success!"
    "God willing."
    "No, Yossi, you can do this on your own!"
    "I'll ask my wife."
    "Be a man!"
    "I need a sign first."
    "You have a sign: God isn't sending anyone here to buy anything from you!"
    "No, I mean a new sign over the door. It'll take weeks. The town's signmakers are always so busy."
    Of course! That was the secret to his failure. That was why he was always slow on the uptake of a lucrative craze. That was the sign!
    "A signmaker, Yossi! Forget fish. Make signs! No craze can start without you! No matter what's in, you make like a bandit. Let everyone else go craze-crazy, the signmaker always comes out the biggest winner!"
    "Brilliant! I'll do it! I'll start immediately. Just as soon as I can get a sign."

THE NEXT day he ordered the sign and some weeks later I got an invitation to the gala opening. I couldn't make it, but the next time I was in Yossi's depressed desert development town, I eagerly drove over to his shop.
    It was empty. No customers, no merchandise, no hope. Yossi sat glumly at the empty cash register. His newspaper was open to the sports page. "Maccabi beats Maccabi 1-0." I wondered who scored. And I wondered what became of Yossi's foolproof venture.
    Over the store there was a sign. I understood.
    "Yossi Sings"