Feast! Pure Slush Vol. 9

by Susan Tepper

“Just water,” say Adam and Jen quickly, loudly, in unison.

  11.00am

  Berlin, Germany

  11.00am Feed

  by Claudia Bierschenk

  While he drinks me empty, I empty glass after glass of water and think about food. Since he was born I have become a frequent visitor to most cafés in Berlin-Pankow and eaten: hazelnut-almond cake, peanut butter-chocolate cake, pear-chocolate tart, apple crumble, rhubarb crumble, brownies (walnut, chocolate, spelt, wholemeal), New York Cheesecake, Blueberry cheesecake, honey-and-nut cake, apple-cinnamon cake, poppyseed-muesli cake, coconut macaroons, rice-pudding cake, plum tart, goats cheese and apple sandwiches, gouda and pesto sandwiches with Hungarian salami, rye bagels with creamed goats cheese and fig mustard, sweet potato and chorizo quiche, sauerkraut and blood sausage quiche, countless ham and cheese omelettes. I have eaten avocados wrapped in thick slices of ham over the sink at four in the morning after a night feed. I allow myself one café latte a day, the ultimate indulgence. Any more caffeine and he’d never go to sleep. I stay away from onions and garlic because it would give him colic. And in weak moments I try to conjure up the warm, burning sensation of whisky trickling down my throat.

  5.30am

  New Haven, Connecticut, USA

  Breakfast with Mandy

  by Paul Beckman

  Martin, up before his alarm rang, walked directly to his kitchen. He opened his refrigerator and took out two eggs, two slices of cheese, a green pepper, ketchup, butter and hot sauce. Today was his thirty-fifth birthday. He loved when his birthday came on a Friday because he took the day off and celebrated with a three day weekend.

  He sliced open the two poppy seed rolls he’d purchased from the bakery while the skillet on his stove was melting the butter slowly. He cut off two sheets of aluminum foil and laid them out on the counter. With practiced hands he swirled the butter in the skillet and one-handed cracked the eggs, keeping the yolks intact. He buttered the rolls, placed them in a second skillet to crisp up and cut two slices of pepper. Martin took the rolls, lay them open on the foil and then he flipped over the eggs and dropped a slice of cheese on each and ketchup and hot sauced the rolls all the while keeping an eye on the eggs. He liked his eggs soft so the yolks would mix with the ketchup, hot sauce and cheese and coat the roll and then his mouth. He liked the feel of the squish of the yolk. Just as the cheese began to melt he turned off the burner and lifted each egg carefully onto the rolls and wrapped them.

  He put them in his straw picnic basket along with a small milk carton and a juice box and then checked the window thermometer to see what the temperature was this fine spring Friday. It was mid-thirties, as he expected.

  Martin took a quick shower, brushed his teeth, combed his hair and dressed with a sweater and flannel shirt. He checked the time, donned his parka, grabbed the picnic basket and walked out into the early morning dark to his car. He sat listening to his Barry Manilow CD as the car warmed, the windows defrosted and Mandy began playing. He turned the stereo to repeat and drove off.

  He drove around the corner and up the hill and parked his car, looking down at the apartments below, and as the morning light was breaking he opened his picnic basket, took out his sandwiches and binoculars and waited for the light to come on in Mandy Blanchard’s bedroom.

  He was halfway through his first egg sandwich, congratulating himself on how perfect the eggs were and how smart he was to add the crunch of green pepper, when Mandy’s light turned on. He upped the volume and picked up his binoculars as the yolk ran down his chin.

  Martin knew her routine and held the glasses with one hand and the rest of his sandwich with the other. He stuffed the last bite into his mouth and wiped yolk from his lips without taking his eyes from her opening the curtains wearing only a T-shirt. She looked up at the sky beyond him, stretched and yawned, her breasts tight against her shirt, nipples poking up towards the sky, and Martin had to hold the glasses with both hands as she then lifted her shirt off over her head and appeared to be staring right at him teasing him with her body. Wow! Mandy’s never taken off her top before, he thought. What a birthday present!

  Martin held on tight with his left hand, grabbed the next egg sandwich and chewed off a chunk in the middle. The yolk shot straight out onto the car window and as Mandy walked out of his sight towards the bathroom Martin tilted his seat to recline.

  12.00noon

  Bratislava, Slovakia

  Bryndzové Halušky

  by Andrew Stancek

  “So she’s been teaching me to cook, can you imagine? I’m not washing dishes or breaking plates, I’m making sauces and thinking I’ll go to chef school and she’s so – Are you listening to me at all? Are you here?” Ferko shoves him and David squints against the rain. Main Square, normally bustling with pedestrians, is deserted as they walk toward Michael’s Gate.

  “Yeah, yeah, I’m happy for you. You’re living the happily ever after. I don’t have a clue where Taia is. Three weeks. She said don’t get in touch, never want to see you, go away. She has a new cell and at her parents’ place, her father sicced the dog on me. He said he’ll have me arrested for harassment and that he always knew I was a turd and it’s my fuckin’ fault they don’t know where their baby is and maybe he isn’t even lying. Yeah, I am happy you and Yolanda are together again, but …”

  Ferko looks over at David’s scrunched face and sunken eyes. “Rough, I know. I’ve been on the streets, with her, without her. Doesn’t help you, still, I know. We only have an hour before more invoices and stock-taking. Can’t afford to be without the paycheck, as shitty as the job is. I’ll buy you lunch this time. This place here, down this alley, their bryndzové halušky won’t poison us.”

  “I can’t eat. Can’t. My insides churn, even when I force something down, I throw it up. I think of something I’ve always liked, like a sausage, or a kremez and by the time I start eating it … It’s in my head now, Ferko; I think I’ve had it.”

  Ferko holds onto the railing down the steps into the restaurant, inhales the sharp smell of bacon. “Right here, this place. They use real bryndza, not the pretend stuff, and yes, it’s not May yet, so it’s not the very best, but they know what they’re doing. I’ve been making my own, with Yolanda supervising. Easy once you master it.” Ferko pushes David along to a small table in the corner, signals the waiter for two portions. David stares at an embroidered linen hanging on the wall.

  “I’m going to kill myself.” He points at the Janosik figure in the embroidery. “He was hanged by the rib. Every Slovak school child knows that. But nobody else was hanged that way, ever. He was probably hanging forever, maybe ravens flew by and ripped off pieces of flesh. Look. Every folk artist for hundreds of years has portrayed Janosik standing full-face with his valaska axe, or sometimes robbing a carriage. But here, the hanging, and that bird, behind him, all colorful, is it a peacock or a phoenix? It’s a sign for me, Ferko, a sign.”

  The waiter throws two plates in front of them, heaving with dumplings, cheese, bacon and grease on the sides. Ferko stares into the plate. “Eighty-seven kinds of bacon. Five basic ways of cubing it. Different species of halusky. Purists only use raw potato but some chefs use boiled and a few don’t even use potato. Many cheat with inferior bryndza.” He looks over at his friend. “You don’t give a flying fuck, do you? I used to just eat but I now think about the how. With my grandma’s cooking and my aunt’s I always gobbled down seconds, thirds, fourths, more, more, more. And now with The Woman teaching me, food is not the same.”

  Ferko digs in, makes a face when he burns his lips but continues talking and chewing. “David, she’s not the only one. Snap out.” From the table next to them, the linen napkin begins to rise. It flaps, grows a beak, red eyes that stare, sprouts feathers and a squat body with hooked claws. The beak smoothes the feathers while the beast spreads its tail fan and watches. It hops onto the table in front of David. Its squawk is guttural. It shakes its head, spreads its wings and flies low above the stairs and out.
David watches the soaring wings. Ferko digs his fork into the dumplings.

  5.30am

  Fort Worth, Texas, USA

  A Dash of Pepper

  by Tom Fegan

  A dash of pepper removed the flatness of the egg white omelet I had prepared for my early morning breakfast. Dry wheat toast and black coffee accompanied my efforts at a low fat and no fun diet. This along with cholesterol medicine changed my lifestyle as a divorced police detective grabbing junk food as sustenance.

  I deliberated on my report to the District Attorney’s office, regarding a two-year cold case in which a teenage tomboy named Gerry Day had been murdered and dumped in the trunk of her Chevrolet; stabbed to death but not sexually violated. Her billfold had been fleeced.

  Evidence of defensive wounds, broken fingernails, bruised fists and torn clothing showed she fought with the assailant who had probably been waiting in the backseat for her. The vehicle had been found at a mall in Fort Worth. No one had seen anything. I cleaned my plate and sighed. This was my time to drink coffee and meditate.

  There was blood along with a cigarette butt left in her vehicle. Gerry Day left her mother and father in mourning. She was admired for shunning girlie activities, but liked the boys. Her previous boyfriend had been interviewed but he too cried about her. “No one deserves that,” he sobbed. I agreed. I had yet to see any homicide be justified.

  Ben Tomlinson, a neighbor, had been arrested for a violent rampage the day following the discovery of Gerry Day. The twenty-year-old heisted a bicycle from a child at gunpoint, carjacked a vehicle while on the bike and robbed a convenience store. The manager shot Tomlinson in the leg as he escaped. While blood dripped from his leg he managed to floorboard the stolen vehicle and run down a pedestrian. The victim became wheelchair bound. Tomlinson had a history of mixing meth, pot and booze. His violence matched the murder. He was convicted and imprisoned for his actions but was never connected with the murder of Gerry Day.

  The night she went missing her plans were to go to a friend’s home, watch a movie and eat pizza. It could only be surmised the attacker moved when they were a few blocks away and forced her to drive somewhere private where the incident occurred. I set my coffee cup down and glanced at my wall calendar: April 24, Friday, and my tax filing had been done weeks earlier; the return cashed. I glanced at my watch; it was time to brush my teeth and head out of my apartment to find out where my investigation was with the D.A.

  “This is your life Marcus Jonson,” I sighed to myself as I drove on the freeway. “No donuts on the way to work.” I settled for a bottle of orange juice. My sweet tooth kicks in when I am under pressure and this case had done that.

  6.55am

  Oakville, Ontario, Canada

  Neon Pink Sign

  by Cindy Matthews

  Strings of muddy, pink flesh litter the damp walkway leading to the hospital. Rosy and wet, they remind me of shards of half-cooked roast beef. I completed my final culinary exam of the college semester a week ago and have been sidestepping horny worms ever since. I can’t recall a rainier April.

  A male teen walks ahead of me. He wears khaki shorts, the sort with the oversize pockets with Velcro fasteners. The kid is on the short side and the too-long hem kisses his knees. He rolls the waist band down to reveal plaid undershorts. He strides with care to avoid sidewalk cracks before he pulverizes a six-inch worm with the sole of his boot.

  “Take that, you son-of-a-bitch,” the boy says to no one in particular.

  Today is my first day as a summer orderly. Training took place last Friday. We focused on WHMIS and what to do when we find an otherwise healthy patient unconscious or if someone tries to choke us. I’d rather work in the kitchen or alongside a dietician. Because I bombed the food poisoning question at the interview, I face a summer emptying bedpans and slipping dentures into old biddies’ mouths.

  I study the wiggle of the hips now ahead of me as I approach the entrance of the hospital. Round, plump, supported on legs boasting a 32-inch inseam. She has the legs I like to imagine when I’m alone in the shower which is most of the time. The woman with the hips stops just shy of the automatic doors and turns to light a cigarette.

  “What’s got you so happy?” she asks me.

  I don’t let on that the swoop of her hips turns me on. I recognize the woman from somewhere but I’m not certain where. Maybe my mom’s soap. I watch the woman suck the filtered end of the cigarette. Her chest lingers long enough to fill with smoke before it sinks a half-foot on exhale. I make an appreciative sound someone else might call a grunt. I think about when Mom found Dad’s Playboy squirrelled under my mattress.

  “Happy – your bre – my parents,” I stammer. I take a deep breath. “My parents make me happy.” My face flushes and I touch my chin to conceal an angry patch of pimples.

  The woman laughs but what passes between us is a look that says she’d rather have her eyes removed without anesthetic than waste another minute with the likes of me. Now I see she's standing next to a geezer strapped into a wheelchair, his IV pole saluting from the rear. He clutches a cigarette between his ring and baby fingers. I’m tempted to ask what happened to his other fingers but I’m way too polite.

  I smooth the fabric of my turquoise smock and step into the bustle of the hospital’s main foyer. The elevator going up is full of people so I climb the stairs. I find my supervisor, Chad, sitting with his Doc Martens sprawled across his desk. He reviews his expectations for the day.

  “Walk around, smile a lot, offer water, ice chips, things like that.”

  No mention of bedpans. I breathe out in relief.

  “Sometimes all the patient wants is someone to hold their hand,” Chad says. “And, remember, never get in the way of the nurses. If you know what’s good for you, drop off a box of doughnuts for their break.”

  I want to ask Chad what kind of cologne he’s wearing but worry he’ll think I’m creepy.

  Better keep myself busy and out of the way of the nurses for the next two and a half hours. Easy, I think.

  I scrub my hands with antiseptic soap and warm water, then head down the corridor. I sneak a peek into each room I pass and randomly select 413. A rubber stopper beneath the door keeps it open. There are two beds. I stare at the one by the window. It’s empty. Freshly made in fact.

  “She died,” says a voice from the first bed. A tiny finger points at the bed near the window. “Last night.” Saucer eyes peer from a bald head engulfed in pillows. I can’t figure out if the eyes belong to a boy or girl. I decide to stay a while. I sit on a hard-backed chair between the two beds. I fist my hands and set them on my lap. My hands are clammy.

  “I’m Bryan,” I say. “And you’re?”

  “Lana.” When she pulls herself up, a groan erupts, like that sound grizzly bears make on those National Geographic specials. Lana glances over at me like I’m supposed to know what to do next. I’m drowning but I try not to let on.

  “Kid died of cancer. Like me,” says Lana. “She had kidney. Mine’s in my bowel.”

  I gulp. My back stiffens.

  “Your family around?” I say, changing the subject.

  “Na. Dad’s overseas on business and Mom can’t handle that I’m dying.”

  I can’t handle much more of it, either. I shuffle my feet back and forth and swallow.

  “We can pretend you’re my family,” she says.

  I don’t even have a kid sister. Phlegm sticks in my throat.

  Lana slides herself back up the mattress and collapses in the nest of pillows. From where I sit, it’s like she’s wearing a halo. She leans her head a little toward me. “Can you do me a favour?” she asks. Her eyes scrutinize my face as if she’s counting my zits. She has blue eyes with tiny flecks of yellow. They are blood-shot and sit deep in her skull. She holds my gaze too long and I fidget in discomfort.

  Lana lifts a hand and beckons me with a crooked finger. I lean closer. She whispers, “I’m starving. Think you could score me a pudding cup?” Her warm b
reath leaves my ear sticky moist.

  “Sure, for you, anything,” I say.

  How unjust of the hospital to forget that little kid’s breakfast tray, I think. I’ll have to remember to talk to Chad about it later during debriefing. I salute Lana from the doorway and back out of the room. I head down the corridor to fulfill the mission. Near the linen closet past the nurses’ station, I come upon an abandoned food trolley. I check over my shoulder before turning my fingers into secret agents seeking something for Lana. I find curled fruit-cup lids, grimy napkins, and crusty cereal bowls. Finally I detect something under an overturned styrofoam cup. An intact piece of toast with the crusts sliced off. I lift it with a tissue and carry it with robin-egg care into Lana’s room. Until a talon grips my shoulder.

  “I should fire your sorry ass right now. What are you thinking?” my supervisor hisses. Chad’s cologne smells of roses and sweat and I remember how I detest the scent of flowers on a man.

  Chad’s jaw chomps up and down. “Christ, Bryan. We talked about this at training. The critical nature of the neon pink signs,” he says.

  “How do you expect me to remember everything?” I say. “I just started.”

  “Three god-damned letters. I don’t expect you to remember everything. Just the three most important fucking letters in the entire hospital. N-P-O.”

  As Chad speaks, I notice his teeth are razor-sharp, like mini-sickles. My palms turn to mush and a wooziness akin to hangover causes me to sway.

  “You honestly never saw the sign?” Chad asks. “Come on.” He drags me like a naughty puppy to Lana’s room. Chad points at tape residue on the outside of her door.