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A not-so-run-of-the-mill hero

J.B. Polk

    At 7 p.m. on the dot, Herbert Brown, age thirty-eight, a surveillance officer at NoIntrusion Inc., opens the door to the control room and settles down for the night shift.
    Although the title sounds imposing, Hebert will only press buttons, watch fifty monitors, and try to stay awake for the next twelve hours. Because, frankly, the job is mind-numbing.
    Since he started three months ago, no would-be intruder has tripped off a single alarm in any of the Montecito, Santa Barbara mansions he is tasked with watching. The combination of spiked gates, no trespassing signs, solid Yale locks, and constant video surveillance is an obvious deterrent. And criminals, apparently not as dumb as television portrays them, know that any break-in would be doomed.
    He sighs heavily and resigns himself to a night-long monotony of staring at screens in black, white, and an assortment of grays. Screens devoid of action because the alarm systems are on only when the inhabitants are away. There might be an occasional pet, like a rabbit or a dog, but hardly ever larger than a chihuahua. And, like Herbert on Montecito’s poorer side, they are frequently utterly bored and, more often than not, asleep.
    The thought of having to sit here for the night brings an automatic yawn to his lips. Sadness overtakes him when he realizes how closely his personal and professional lives, both dreary, dark, and uneventful, mirror one another.
    Take his name, for example. Herbert Brown.
    “No one’s been named Herbert since President Hoover, for crying out loud!” he grumbles.
    “Mama, who’s from Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, could have chosen something snappy sounding like Garner. Or Kyle. But no, she named me Herbert. It isn’t bad on its own, but people shorten it to Herb, which brings visions of parsley, oregano, and chives to mind.”
    “Maybe that’s where my fixation with food comes from,” he muses as he taps a button on one of the displays, bringing up a picture of a large dining room decorated in the “less-is-more” style. In other words, plain white walls, a hefty rectangular table, eighteen uncomfortable-looking chairs with spindly legs, and a gigantic cast iron flowerpot with a phallic-shaped pincushion cactus.
    It never ceases to amaze him why people with such absurd amounts of money and resources, including access to award-winning interior decorators, live in such dismal surroundings. He’d decorate his house in rainbow colors if he had even a tenth of their fortune. Perhaps to contradict his surname!
    He’d hang extravagant Andy Warhol paintings and position fat ladies sculpted by Botero right by the gate, where everyone could see them. He’d put up chandeliers that a battalion of monkeys could swing from without shaking one crystal tear. He’d fill every room, including the five bathrooms, with philodendrons, ferns, and blooming African violets, all properly potted in ceramic flowerpots painted chartreuse, cornflower blue, and dark magenta. He’d put tapestries on the walls and hardwood floors and hang no curtains so that everyone who passed could see the riot of color. Nobody would even imagine that such a vibrant place belonged to someone drably named Herbert Brown. They’d think it was owned by an Amber Valletta or a Suella Pinkwater.
    As he presses another button, a humungous kitchen comes into view. It’s all stainless steel, chrome, or gray-veined marble. A drab, colorless kitchen for drab, colorless owners. It looks so squeaky clean that he’d bet a month’s salary that nobody ever cooks there. At most, a skinny female in a purple leotard might blend a super healthy, low-calorie banana-spinach-chia smoothie for an after-yoga snack. But no juicy steak has ever graced the countertops. No salmon has bled its fishy scent into the copper skillets. No eggs have been cracked to make a bubbling Gruyere-filled omelet. If he were teleported to the kitchen right now, all he could smell would be Mrs. Meyer’s Multi-Surface Lemon Verbena Everyday Cleaner, twenty bucks per one hundred milliliters.
    He rummages under the counter and pulls out a battered leather briefcase. He bought it in a thrift store a few years ago only because it was covered in colorful stickers from exotic locations the previous owners must have visited: Maui, the Canary Islands, Madagascar, and Kilimanjaro. Places he’d have sold his soul to see one day. He sighs, knowing damn well that he never will.
    “It’s so unfair,” he mutters.
    “Here I am, watching the bloody monitors while the owners trek around the globe without a care in the world. Probably eating crap instead of enjoying Kobe beef or freshly harvested oysters. I’ll never understand the stupid wellness craze...”
    Groaning again, he opens the briefcase and pulls out a square plastic box containing his dinner: ricotta pasta flavored with lemon and topped with sun-dried California tomatoes. His mother prepared it first thing in the morning, saving a nibble for later. But most of the dish sits in this box, ready to be devoured by Herbert.
    “It’s so weird that people who have access to hundreds of ingredients prefer to eat kale chips and cucumber slices dipped in hummus,” he thinks as he shovels a forkful of pasta into his mouth. It melts on his tongue and sends an orgasm-like shiver through his body.
    After he’s done, he dives into the briefcase again to take out a container with four mini cinnamon sugar pretzels. The smell wafting out is as satisfying as if he’d just shared one with Sofia Vergara, then licked the remaining sugar off her lips, chin, and neck.
    Herbert has always had a thing about food. As a child, he loved watching his Mama whip the batter for sponge cake, gut, and fillet fish or chop mint and lime for his Papa’s Sunday mojito. He’d have loved to help with her cooking endeavors, but she was a traditional woman who considered it her God-appointed duty to cook for the family. And she was and still is a damn good cook! She makes such delicious KFC breasts that Colonel Sanders would never know the difference!
    He is fortunate to have a Mama like her. And he’s lucky that no matter how much he eats (and he eats a lot), he’s never beefed up. On the contrary, some people call him scrawny. But he thinks of himself as a man whose flesh is distributed with great economy on his bones—no fat, just firm muscle. It sounds so much better than Jenna, his one-time girlfriend’s description of him: thin as a rake!
    He finishes off the pretzels and replaces both containers in the briefcase. It’s time to take a virtual walk around the monitors to check for movement. He’s pretty sure there will be none, but he’s paid to confirm, and being a diligent worker, he’ll make sure.
    After about three-quarters of an hour of surfing the monitors, he is certain there’s nothing unusual happening in any of the mansions. He can return to his musings for the remainder of the shift. Sandor, a Hungarian immigrant with a head as bold as an ostrich egg, will relieve him just before 7 a.m.
    Yes, he must sadly confess that both his professional and personal lives are downright unremarkable. But his inner self is in full bloom, and as soon as he squeezes his eyes shut, he can imagine himself becoming whoever he wants to be.
    Tonight, he’d like to become a superhero. Not like the modern ones - Batman or the Hulk - because he lacks height and body mass. He’d rather be someone from the past who had to rely on his wits and courage to achieve his feats. For example, that English outlaw from Sherwood Forest who stole from the rich and gave to the poor.
    “Yes, that’s who I’d like to be. Only, I’d not steal money or jewels or anything like that, but food, which I would then take to all the food banks around the city,” Herbert decides.
    “Bags full of food for people who have nothing to eat. Boxes of mac and cheese. Corn dogs. Barbecue ribs. Jambalaya.”
    The mere thought of all this goodness makes him salivate like a Pavlovian dog to the sound of a metronome.
    “The thing is to choose the houses carefully. Places where I’m sure to find abundant, good-quality food,” he thinks.
    “Definitely avoid that Paltrow woman because all she eats is peanut butter protein bars and GoopGlow capsules in her water with high fructose syrup,” he scoffs.
    “Talk about skinny as a rake. And sallow as a turnip. At least I have some meat on my bones and a nice tan. A kinda California shine. So, no, Gwyneth’s out. All I could probably find in her fridge is bone broth and goat’s milk, both difficult to carry. And maybe some vitamin-packed IV pouches or lozenges for rectal oxygen therapy. Gross!”
    He should probably go for family homes. The loot would be more plentiful and hopefully yummy. Take, for example, the Sussexes, whose 15-million-dollar mansion he also monitors.
    He imagines them returning from a high-class awards ceremony in Los Angeles or London dressed to kill. She in a sheer lace custom-made Dolce and Gabbana gown (or Dolce and Banana, as Herbert’s Mama calls it), he in a soft grey woolen L’Estrange jacket, holding Archie’s chubby hand and discovering that someone has been to their house.
    “Blimey! Someone’s been at my porridge!” Harry would exclaim indignantly in his gruff British voice.
    “Holy mackerel! Someone’s been at my porridge, too.” Meghan would chip in in her best Suites tone.
    “Goodness gracious me! Someone’s been at my porridge and has eaten it all up!” Archie would shout in a teeny-weeny but already posh accent.
    The hilarious image in Herbert’s mind makes him chuckle.
    Yes, that is who he’d like to be. A selfless bandit who feeds people in need. He just needs a name. What was the Sherwood guy’s name? Robin...Robin Hood.
    And then a thought strikes him. He will be Robin, too. But Robin...Food!
A perfect name for someone who loves to eat and whose mission is to help others get their fill.
    Herbert is a firm believer in the power of names. Because a name is not just a cluster of sounds or a handful of letters. It embodies a man’s essence. Names can bring good or bad luck. Names can be a blessing or a curse. And parents sometimes make terrible mistakes while naming their children. He knows because his Bible-thumping Mama made the mistake that has haunted him all his life. Because frankly, his name is not simply Herbert Brown but Herbert Ebenezer Brown. Thank God she was not into astronomy, or she’d have named him Uranus!
    He swallows hard, still feeling the bitter taste of resentment. But he soon cheers up. What’s in the past is in the past. He can now be whoever he wants to be. Tonight, he will be Robin Food, the superhero who is living proof that one can have all the privileges and still live a humble and generous life. He’ll show everyone that incorruptibility is the most incredible superpower.
    A movement on one of the monitors calls him back to reality. He looks up at monitor thirty-four. There is a shadow slinking near the gate to the house. A burglar? He looks a little more closely. No. Just the wind rustling in some low-hanging branches.
    It is nearly 6.30 a.m. Half an hour more to go. The briefcase is packed. There have been no events worth reporting in the incident log, so he only has to wait for relief. And when it comes, he will stop being the fearless Robin Food and become Herb Brown again. That is, until tomorrow and the start of a new night shift. Because who knows who he will become when he’s alone in a room full of monitors? Mister Majestic? Or perhaps someone less esoteric and more flesh-and-blood, like the world-famous Pedro Pascal? It doesn’t matter. Because Herbert Ebenezer Brown can transform into any not-so-ordinary hero every night. All it takes is a little creativity. And a morsel of food.

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