The Stakeout

"Is this your first time?" he asked.  He was already a round man but the tan down coat made entirely of goose feather pillows gave him the exact shape of a giant cream puff with a tiny black cherry on top that was his head.  He was trying to load minutes on his little Nokia cell phone with a prepaid card but his fingers were almost too podgy to push the buttons.

I thought about it... it couldn't be.  I majored in peace studies.  I am a connoisseur of all quasi-homeless activities--The Houseless Challenge of 2008 (wherein middle class college kids attempt to delve in to the plight of poverty by swearing a vow of possession-lessness for one week), dumpster diving, fasting for ceasefires, fasting of Africa, backyard camping, hitchhiking, etc. etc. 

"I guess it is, technically," I said.  "You?"

He laughed and the cream puff part of him bounced along with his chuckles.  He was Number One.  He had been there since 2:00 A.M. and it was 5:00 P.M.  Later I realized why my question struck him as funny.  Apparently there is not an insignificant population of Americans that do this sort of thing on a regular basis--food stakeouts, that is.  There is an entire community, an entire movement.  They know each other.  There are heroes and legends among them.

"There's this family of four," says one of The Cousins, "they got pop-up tents and space heaters.  I saw 'em at the Chic-Fil-A grand opening in Modesto last month."  The Cousins are in their late thirties, in between jobs, knowers of all card games.  This is only their second stakeout but they've made it clear they have been around the block (literal and proverbial) before.  They are scheming ways to get power from an extra-long extension chord and working to unite the group to share resources.  They warn us novices to strategize night watch shifts so that people can run to get food and use the bathroom around the corner.  We should exchange numbers, they say, so that we can call each other immediately in case of The Roll Call.

The Roll Call is the attendance check performed at intentionally sporadic intervals by The Keeper, the omnipotent ruler of the temporary universe we reside.  She is the employee in charge of this gig and, as any god, She is both respected and feared.  We want to win her favor and yet we burn to rebel against her the moment she turns her back.  She is The Keeper of The List, the list of The Chosen Ones (i.e. the first 25 people in line for the opening of this restaurant and thus the recipients of a year's worth of burritos).  It is The Keeper's duty to ensure that the people who get in line early actually stay the entire time because everyone knows that the whole point of a stakeout is the agony and desperation of anticipation.  If anyone could write their name down and go sleep in their beds and show up the next morning to claim their prize, it would defeat the entire purpose.  This is unquestioned.  Comfort, expedience, productivity and efficiency are not concerns here. 

Thus The Keeper, just and noble and wrathful as She is, randomly marches into our "camp", clipboard and striking pen in hand--a general inspecting the barracks--and starts shouting names. Should any name not be echoed by a voice declaring the presence of its owner, there is a fatal slash of her hand and the unworthy soul is off the list, cast from the garden. The Cousins try to coax information out of her but her ways are indeed mysterious.  "So you'll wake us up, right?" they say, "In case we're sleeping when you come… around 4:00?"  She doesn't bite the bait.  "How many spots are left?"  She clutches the clipboard to her chest and shakes her head.

She appears to call roll again and when she disappears a crowd forms around The Freshmen.  They are Stanford physics majors (one is still undeclared but his inner physics major is apparent).  One is a curly vanilla wafer the other is small-faced and brown, both are bundled and boyish.  Their labrador puppy grins never droop from their cheeks once the entire night, despite the fact they packed a box of chocolate chip biscotti instead of a tent for a drizzly 30-degree night on the streets.  The people gather around them because they used an iPhone to secretly record the audio of The Roll Call like CIA agents recording an incriminating confession.  We are counting the number of names as we listen.  The camp is fairly condensed but people keep milling around and going in and out so it is difficult to tell how many are still officially on the list. 

"That's 26!"

"I only counted 24."

"There are two Alexes."

"No, she just said his name twice."

It was 7:00 P.M.  Fifteen hours until opening.  Stragglers were still showing up, hopeful and then dismayed to see such an impressive group already gathered.  They pulled up in their cars and on their bikes and scooters, asking us how long and how often and where was this List and the Keeper and did they have a chance?  We commiserated with them like American Idol contestants hugging the one that just got voted off.  "We support you and your future endeavors!  But we are on opposite sides of the curtain now."

And for that space in time, there was a line drawn in the sand.  It was a circle and it separated all of humanity into two groups--those inside and those outside.  Those who shall eat free burritos, and those who shall not.  And for that space in time the other speckled details of our lives faded out of focus.  Our names and jobs and ages and families did not matter.  Number One was making calls on his $10 cell phone (how he dialed the number I have no idea).  The Cousins were making jokes about "funemployment."  The gaged-ear gang of high school punks had a husky puppy on a leash and the grad school couple in the REI gear had a tired golden retriever.  The old man in the Bill Cosby sweater had devious smile poking out between his up-curled mustache and his wiry beard that looked like it could scrub steel pots to a shine.  The cool teens from Sacramento (this was their seventh stakeout) seemed older than all of us, effortlessly dopping into conversations with anyone about almost anything. 

It's hard to imagine any other circumstances that might have brought this group together, huddled around a table outside at 1:00 in the morning playing Settlers of Catan. 

This was my first official stakeout but certainly not the first time I've gone to extremes to get free food.  There were the college days of attending lectures on U.S. foreign policy in Uruguay just to get the luncheon afterwards.  Then there were the potlucks hosted for the sake of the leftovers and the triathlons and 5ks run for the sake of the breakfast buffets.  There was the six months masquerading as a food journalist for the free meals at new restaurants.  I once ate a funnel cake off of the top of a trashcan at an amusement park (it was a dare but, let's face it, I wanted to).  This is insanity for many people and I have no defense.  I am not destitute by any stretch of the imagination, it's not about the money.

When the doors finally and gloriously opened at 10:00 A.M. it smelled like elation with a hint of cilantro and lime.  We were punch drunk and dizzy with cold and hunger and excitement.  The staff must have had three weeks of intensive enthusiasm training in preparation for the event.  Everyone was wooping and high-fiveing and hugging like we'd just won the World Series.  The Keeper shook each of our hands and gave us each our Rewards Card--I felt prouder than I did on graduation day--and then we all got a free burrito.   I took it to work for lunch but I didn't finish it (it's a three pound burrito) so I offered it to my coworker who politely declined.  I, naturally, put it in a tupperware and in my backpack. 

"You just won a year's worth of free burritos and you're going to the trouble of saving less than half of one for later?"

Yes, yes I am.