Tag Archives: food

224. Coffee Drink of the Day IV

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The coffee drink of the day is called the Prophet. To help launch the new Prophet drink, which has caramel in it, as best as we can tell, with milk and espresso, whipped cream, and a few other essential ingredients, a man—apparently “the prophet,” sent in from corporate, dressed in a polo shirt emblazoned with the logo from the coffee shop—gets up on a crate at the front of the long line and says, “My, God, what is she doing?” He’s pointing at a young woman reading a book at one of the round tables.

“Where is her power cord, her trackpad? Don’t you just want to swish her away? A book? Really? What next, her collection of compact discs? Huh? Am I right?”

A couple of those standing near the pastry case look up from their smart phones and say, “What is he talking about?”

“He’s talking about the truth,” some of the early converts around us are already saying. ”Obviously this drink is very forward-looking.”

“Look at her!” the prophet continues. “Just look at her!”

We look at her. She seems to be really into her book. She doesn’t even know that we’re talking about her. She’s a young woman, plain-looking, a ginger, with the tip of her nose burned red.

“Don’t you see?” the prophet says. “A book first and then what? A Walkman AM/FM cassette player? A cabinet radio the size of a piano?”

“Or one of those old school phones,” one of the customers yells out. “The kind where you have to spin the numbers!” The people cheer.

“Yes!” the prophet says. “A rotary phone, and then what?”

“Her grandma’s cinnamon rolls,” I yell out only half-jokingly, but they like that. They think I’m being serious. They cheer for me, too. And then I get to the front of the line and order a Prophet.

“Thank you, brother,” the prophet says, shaking my hand between both of his. “You won’t regret it.”

“What size do you want?” the barista says.

“Large. Make it a large Prophet. Without whip,” I say, and the barista says, “Do you want whip with that?” Again I say, “Without whip,” and she says, “Okay, so you don’t want whip with that. Is that correct?”

218. After a Near-Perfect Season

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The top organic tomato-growing farm in the county had a near-perfect season, the best in the last ten at least, when the green hornworms—monstrous caterpillars—started showing up and eating the tomatoes right off the vines. Shortly after, or concurrently with, the caterpillars, came a strand of fungus known for causing the Irish Potato Famine.

Some thought these unlucky, late-season nuisances were part of a larger conspiracy but that was stupid. Who would conspire against the farm just because it was voted “The Best Organic Tomato Farm” four years running by the citizens in the city thirty miles south, and was written up twice in the free city weekly (circulation approximately 200,000), and had experienced an increase in business over the last three years by sixty-five percent?

The season had two weeks to go, three weeks max, after weeks and weeks of tender care, and what does the farm manager do? Let’s call him Bob. What does Bob do? Bob buys pesticides is what he does, and not the organic kind, but the real horrible for all sorts of health reasons and for the adverse environment impact type of pesticides, mixes up these nasty chemicals in the farm’s industrial vats and goes out at night with his crew to spray down the vines.

Later, when brought the first tomato from the last September batch, his boss—let’s call him Tom—the farm owner, slices it with his pocketknife, puts a wedge of it into his mouth and says to Bob, the manager, “That’s the best organic tomato you have ever made.” Still later that year, at their county’s October festival, the farm wins first prize for their organic Beefmaster and Early Girl and Brandywine, the other varieties taking second or (more rarely) third.

The farm manager, Bob, it should be noted, is also the farm accountant. He quote unquote works the books in his favor on occasion but nothing that anybody would notice and only because his wife has late stage cancer, she’s hairless, the whole bit, real sad, one kid in elementary school, and the bills are outrageous.

“Wait! What?” I said when Bill got to this part in his story. He was dealing out the cards with an unlit cigar in his mouth. “This isn’t okay. It’s a major crime what Bob’s doing, a big deal.”

“But the pesticides and the press and the prizes are nothing, Tim?” he says to me. “Just everyday procedure, that’s what you’re saying?”

“No, of course not,” I say.

“Pay attention,” he says.

“But you’re confusing me.”

“What if I told you,” Bill said, “that I had certain insider information about the farm owner, this man we’re calling Tom?”

“Would it make any difference at this remove?”

“What if I told you it was the farm owner, in fact, who sent this farm manager, Bob, for the pesticides, to a farm co-op in the next county over?”

“Do we even know what we’re talking about anymore?” I motioned for another card.

“What if I told you as an extra precaution this farm owner instructed his manager to wear a meshed-back hat emblazoned with the insignia from the second most popular organic tomato farm in the county when he went in to sign for and pick up his order?”

“I still don’t get it.”

“What if I said that manager was me?”

“Okay, fine,” I said. “I would probably say, ‘That’s the best organic tomato you have ever made.’”

176. Gender Reassignment

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Even if a somewhat effeminate-looking man in front of you in line at the grocery store appears to have boobs, do not ask him as he sets his box of Kleenex and fudgesicles and Pecan-Caramel Crunch ice cream and chocolate wafers and chips, chips and chips on the conveyor belt, if he is going through gender reassignment. He may well in fact have a condition called Gynecomastia, which basically means that things are seriously messed up with his endocrine system. If you do, however, and for whatever reason, feel like this is an appropriate Saturday morning small talk inroad, prepare yourself to later comfort him in the parking lot—Tim, you will learn his name is; “Tits,” his friends have been calling him, and no longer even behind his back—as he tears into the box of  fudgesicles with an embarrassing, resilient, seemingly unpoppable snot bubble in one of his nostrils. 

171. Unspoken Word

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I will shout it out, this word, the good word, over the traffic on Maricopa Highway. I will call it guacamole. I will say taco and marry that with salad—hearing me, dawg? Word. If we start now, we just might make it there before close. I will point out the skin of a black bean wrapped on your tooth, and you will nod, smiling, your headphones bumping, high as high can be, cuz you know the word, the word that ain’t need to be spoken. You hearing me? Word. It’s the unspoken word. Word. It’s the truth and the truth be setting us free:

Christ died to save Mexican food.

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Christ died to save the burrito and the enchilada, with chips and salsa. Christ died to save the pork carnitas and the fish tacos with special sauce. Christ died for cilantro and fried rice and pico de whatever and sour cream. Christ died three times to save cheese. You hearing me? Word. Christ died to save the Corona with lime, and Christ died to save the salt-rimmed original margarita on ice. (Actually, that’s not true. Christ rose for those.) But there ain’t much that Christ didn’t die for, and wouldn’t die for still. I’m not hearing you. Word. That’s right, cuz his love is big like that, is big but concerned for the small. Just one pinto bean hits that floor, and the angels weep.

163. Sweetness

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With all this sweetness the ants are bound to find me.
I see the long string of them
marching for my nose.

They organize themselves around the gray matter.
They ply the eyes like dried apricots.
They touch the lips tenderly,
their antennae sticky with the juice,
and release the tongue from its cage in a final act of mercy.

If I could learn to see again with apple cores
in my sockets,
I’d watch them prying the heart from its limb,
more loving with its bruises than I have been.

And if I could learn to talk again
with this banana peel in my throat,
it would be with gratitude
for the seasons when I took for comfort only frozenness
and for the years when I had only one teacher—two,
if you count the moon—
and for working myself
into new skin, with diligence and hope.

132. Standing at the Highway Off-ramp with Your Sign

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But you already know how the story ends. How the lady with the saggy breasts will tell you what a great opportunity you’re giving up on, while shaking her face with the hairy upper lip and spraying your face with spittle (in Braille reads you little pompous prick!). And how some of your co-workers will be joking that they’ll soon be visiting you in the mental hospital or in detox. And how others will be concerned, genuinely concerned: “Why give up on such a sure thing; this job is perfect for you, and hardly stressful, with benefits!

But what can you say? You’ve already quit. You’re standing there with your box of things: your cough drops and office squeeze toys and photographs and miniature wrapped pouches of unopened GORP, which could always come in handy—they say—for the starving days ahead.

Yes, yes, ha, ha, but it isn’t so funny now, is it?

No, not so much; not when in the parking lot near your car a minute later, for example; not as your breath comes out in short jerky stabs so that you have to put the box down and, with your hands on your knees, assume the throw-up position.

Sure, you may have made the worst decision of your life, but it could be worse. Think of the people staggering through the morning mist, people searching for shelter under dripping awnings, people so badly in need of good dentists and meds standing at highway off-ramps with their signs. You could be them.

Think of what it takes—every day, and without vacation pay—getting out there under all sorts of weather, fighting for the prime locations, trying to find dry cardboard and a good pen.

Think of the pressure to keep the message always fresh and original. They served in a war; they have PTSD; they’re dirty, deranged; they’ve been abused, emotionally harangued, and for their whole lives; and to top it off, their kids need surgery, their kids have cancer, their kids have left for Dartmouth or for Yale.

Think how horrible it must be for them later sitting in their empty nests with glasses of Napa Valley Chardonnay, whimpering over brie and crab cakes, let’s just say, followed by a pork tenderloin in a honey-bourbon demi-glace and, for dessert, a flourless dark chocolate espresso cake served with one final snifter of cognac or port, although, honestly, Anything Helps. Thank You & God Bless.