Sometimes you just have to throw your sandwich
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Perhaps things would have ended there if he hadn't been armed. With a sandwich. A footlong sandwich from Subway. Not all heroes wear capes. Some come on freshly baked Italian bread. Maybe toasted? We'll never know.
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The entire time the man in the pink shirt was yelling, he held in his left hand a floppy parcel wrapped in paper. Call it Chekhov's bun. Suddenly, with the control and speed of a Pedro Martinez in the rough, he pivoted, transferred that sandwich to his right hand, and pitched it directly into the well-padded chest of the agent before him. Then he ran, officers in hot pursuit. They eventually caught up to him: 'FBI and Border Patrol officers arrest a man along the U Street corridor during a federal law enforcement deployment to the nation's capital,' reads the caption on a Getty Images photo that shows the baguette bandit surrounded by eight armed individuals and one threatening blue recycling bin. Federal dollars well spent. D.C. was safe again. Safe from sandwiches.
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But not from the spirit that throws them.
Because here was a man hungry enough to eat a Subway footlong, yet so moved by moral indignation he would throw it away. 'This machine kills fascists,' as the memers memed when footage hit the Internet Monday, referencing Woody Guthrie's guitar. Was it a steak bomb? A meatball sub? For sure not an Elite Chicken & Bacon Ranch. A revolutionary would never order something so upper-crust. Whatever it was, it was just dinner, until it became something more.
FBI and Border Patrol arrest a man on U Street corridor last night. Federal police are patrolling this area after
— Andrew Leyden (@PenguinSix)
As a symbol of protest, food is potent. From tomatoes to rotten eggs to pies, it has been hurled at politicians and public figures as an expression of anger and discontent. Climate activists throw soup on Van Goghs and mashed potatoes on Monets. In 2019, there was an outbreak of 'milkshaking' in the UK, with frosty frappes tossed at far-right leaders and Brexiteers. Beverages count, too. Just ask Boston, where we invented spilling the tea. (Taxes! Trade! China! Glad to see so much has changed.)
It can also be withheld, whether by a bakery refusing to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple or a restaurant owner asking a member of a political administration to leave. Last week, a
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As symbols go, a sandwich is solid. If the deli dissenter's actions were as spontaneous as they appeared, he could hardly have chosen better. It is the ultimate everyperson's meal, accessible, ubiquitous, quickly consumed so that workers might get back to working. And this was no bougie sandwich on artisanal sourdough with heirloom tomatoes. It was from Subway, where a value meal gets you a sandwich, drink, and chips for under $10. When the man in the pink shirt went ham on those agents, he did so relatably.
Social media, where no one can agree on anything, united on this: Protect sandwich bro at all costs. Fleet of foot, perhaps slightly inebriated, prepared to bend the arc of the moral universe by hurling hoagies: This week, he was the hero the Internet needed.
Devra First can be reached at
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