Foods

"Pour vivre heureux, vivons caches..."

Shit, even I could tell the guy was a killer foreign romantic, what chance did I really have?

"To live happily, let us wear masks," was his answer to her when she asked why he wasn't more open and opinionated from across the table in the dining hall.

I glared at his cheesy French ass from behind my college meal of fake fish & chips. of course a girl like Simone would fall for that crap; I mean she was damn smart as a whip, but she loved French; it was her major, after all. She sat for a second after he answered, then her mouth fell, and the tiniest crease of a smile appeared for the briefest second over her frail, high jawline.

I knew that smile. I saw it last week when we woke up in each others arms on a Sunday. we were all about each other then...I don't know what happened.

She turned to me, "Did you get that?"

"Hm?" I looked up from my fish, "Oh la merde? Yeah, I got it. You?"

"What?" she said, not quite catching my intent and weak aggression. 

"Hm? Yeah, that French bit, I understood."

She reached into her bag and pulled out a banana. I gulped and choked a little together, but she didn't notice.He got up and shifted his pants to the left, then, sweeping his hair back;

"Euh, pardon-moi une minute, I... would like to get some fruit."

"Sure," I hear her reply, smiling her tiny smile.

I looked up and laughed inside a bit. Fuck am I old news, I thought to myself. He came back with a bowl of strawberries.

"Hmm, des fraises, bon!" He lifted one to his lips, she peeled the banana, and took a petite bite, I rolled my eyes and ate my fish and chips. Bon, of course 'bon'! Shit! My inner dialogue wretched in pathetic innuendos.

I started a habit I usually fall into when I feel like a third wheel, singing to myself to see if anyone noticed; well, to see if she noticed.

"Oh, you've got green eyes. 

Oh, you've got blue eyes. 

Oh, you've got gray eyes . . . 

And I've never seen anyone quite like you before; 

no I've never met anyone quite like you before."

I probably could've kept going. they didn't notice, and the next verse was essentially how I had felt about us last week. We were both happy, and I cherished the few silent walks from her dormitory each morning in the Boston autumn back to mine.

Ah well, why stay attached to dreams and such?

I got up and pushed my chair in.

"Au revoir, Simone. . . guy, later."

"Benoit," he corrected me.

"Right," I conceded, "tchao."

What the hell, I kept singing; this time, perhaps a little too loud for the university dining hall.

"Oh, up, down, turn around; 

Please don't let me hit the ground! 

Tonight I think I'll walk alone, 

I'll find my soul as I go home!"

Boy am I an enthusiastic cynic.

The Underdog

Reggie was a good kid. I knew this because we had been friends since forever. But when he told me of this “master plan,” I didn’t quite catch his drift. I know of no one quite like Reggie. He was the kind of kid who volunteered at school carwashes and organized charity-walks; he thrived on volunteering and community service. And yet here he was pitching his “master plan” to me as we walked. This plan of his – beating some kid up – just wasn’t him, and I knew that.
We walked because my car battery was dead. The gray sky, uniform like parchment, carpeted the horizon, and the bold leaves— acrylic paints of the trees— kissed the sky canvas, a masterpiece Pollock-esque scene that only natural New England herself could render. 
Our feet trailed the bare road as we walked toward town, on our way to put to action his “master plan,” although I was still unconvinced as to why he wanted this. He interrupted me mid sentence as I tried to pry it out of him.
“Hold on . . .” he fished his cell phone, a silver, beaten thing, out of his equally worn corduroy pocket. The caller I.D. read: “Don’t pick up, Anthony Sams.” He scoffed and distastefully remarked for me, “Ugh it’s Anthony . . .” He shrugged again into neutrality.
“I never liked that kid,” I injected, pulling my jacket closer, keeping me warm against the October wind and Reggie’s stubborn demeanor. It was one of those military jackets I had found at Goodwill, a peacoat with broad epaulets over the shoulders and pockets enough to hide whatever needed hiding. It wasn’t an officer’s jacket. No, it was a private’s coat, for dealing with the brunt of command: obeying. And what did I hide in its pockets? My ill thoughts about this damn “master plan” of his. 
He bit his lip and shrugged in agreement before answering. “Uh, Anthony? What’s up? No, I’m here with Andrew – yes I know you don’t like hi – he hates your guts as well.”
That was another thing about Reggie, his blunt honesty. Through gritted teeth I managed, “Why’d you say that?” His response was immediate: a mute mouthing of “I don’t know?” with a shrug and a confused stare. But his demeanor shifted, and he continued with Anthony.
“What? How’d you hear about my master plan? It was confidential; only I knew about it until I actually wrote it down! How’d you find out? No, wait, don’t answer that. It was a rhetorical question . . . What? You want in?”
My hand flew to his shoulder, hitting him hard but with a point.
“NO!” I may not have been too sure about his “master plan,” but I sure as hell wasn’t going to carry it out with the likes of Anthony Sams.
Reggie bit his lip, thoughts zipping behind his intense blue eyes, calculating. He was analyzing my posture. Something in those indigoes told me he was thinking deeper than I had ever known him to. He nodded slowly, a thin smile projecting from his lower lip. “I trust that decision.” He turned back to the phone, “That’s a negative,” and quickly shut it amidst an astonished shout from the receiving end. 
I must admit, I was surprised and relieved at the trust he had in me. That, even I didn’t know he had. “Thanks,” I managed, “I never liked that kid.”
“Same here,” he admitted, resuming our walk into town. “I don’t know how he found out about my plans, though . . . I don’t know, he could’ve been some much needed muscle for this operation.”
Myself, I was still unsure about this “operation” of his. He just wasn’t a violent kid. Something simply didn’t make sense to me. I took in another breath in an effort to probe the mechanics of his thinking. What would make him contemplate this? “So Reggie,” I began. Good start. “Let me get this straight. We’re going to beat this kid up. Why are we doing this again?”
He sighed, and with reason. This was a conversation that had been had before. “Because this kid is –” 
“Dennis?”
“Yes, Dennis – because Dennis is . . . a bad kid.” He looked to the sky and put his hands on his hips, raising one to pull at something irritating in his teeth, an itch. I wasn’t convinced. Should I have been? I drew my shoulders up and with hollow eyes let out my confusion in a long, suspended exhalation. I paused where the sidewalk began and a wire fence barred trespassers from a vacant lot. I was impatient to be persuaded. 
But something about Reggie’s demeanor spoke to me. He didn’t give up in his trying to convince me. He turned again to me and started with a second wind. “Listen, Andrew, he’s got no discipline. He’s completely out of line. You know what I’m talking about; he called in that bomb threat a month ago – did anything happen? No, but still . . . Then he sucker punched that janitor, Mr. Bangar, after the soccer game a week ago. Hell, he’s even roughed you and me up every now and then, you know that. But what’s even more significant is that he hasn’t been punished for it; not by the school, not by the fuzz, his parents, even the Janitor’s Union – nothing. He gets away with everything he does! And he needs to learn the consequences of his ways, man! The consequences of his cold malicious ways!” He had his arm over my shoulder, his blues staring into mine. They told me he couldn’t be dissuaded; there was a fire in them, but it wasn’t violent. I couldn’t put my thumb on it exactly, but it blazed with a passion.
I drew a breath. “There’s a Janitor’s Union . . . ?”
His expression turned from serious to hurt as he commanded a fist from his open hand. It shook in the wind, a flag under attack, before he threw it sternly into a wire fence, illustrating his irritation. It rattled in the cold wind, angry at me as well. “Damn it, Andrew,” he let out quietly, adding under his breath, “you just don’t get it, do you?”
I shuffled my foot on the gray cement, scratching my head. I felt immediately ashamed of my trivial heckling. 
“Yes there’s a Janitor’s Union,” Reggie began again. “I even checked it on Wikipedia . . . now will you please stop belittling me . . . and will you give me a lift?”
The fence he had hit separated a barren lot from the shops and offices on the outskirts of town. What could I do but give him a boost? I was compelled, now, to make it up to him. Cupping my hands, I hoisted him up. He wasn’t the most agile person; if anything, he was the most unfit of our tight knit group of friends, but after a minute he managed to awkwardly straddle the fence. He teetered on either side, slightly off-level, the simple wire digging into his pants. He stayed in that position for a stiff second before jumping off the other side, rolling, then crashing into the brush. His breath was shallow and his eyes seemed distant for a moment, as if he had over exerted himself. I jumped and clung on, overing it and landing with much more grace than he had managed. Now I just felt embarrassed as he stared at me, envy in his blues.
“When did you get to be so athletic?”
I shrugged, trying to mask my ability with modesty. “I’m not sure, myself . . .”
He failed to recognize my ploy, commenting, “That’s good, we can use that raw muscle. Here, look at these!”
He pulled out a small manilla folder, and I caught the words “Master Plan” written in permanent marker on its side. He unwound the string around its opening, and sifted out a small ream of papers, handing them to me. I didn’t quite know what to make of it. Before I could inquire their meaning, he began, unfolding one of the pieces.
“We can breach the gate to his house here – you can boost me like you just did – and then we can flank him at his vegetable garden while he’s out –”
“I, I don’t get it . . . what is this?” I cut in, clearly missing something.
“Maps!” he added enthusiastically. “Oh, and this is a schedule I made of where this kid usually is!”
He thrust them into my hands again, and I took them, quietly, turning them over to reveal a simple map and schedule written in different colored pens on lined papers. It was glamorously done, if not superfluous. I felt bad. He meant to see this all the way through, one hundred percent, and I was barely pulling my weight. I didn’t want to do this, but I felt bad, and hid my unfortunate regret by burying my nose in the schedule, titled “Dennis’s common haunts.” After a minute I looked up.
“You’ve made a schedule of where he usually . . . ‘haunts’? Reggie, are you seri-”
“Exactly!” He began walking fervently, leading me by my forearm. I followed, some kind of faithful spaniel to its passionate owner. “Don’t you see, man? I’ve done the leg work! Look at this – I usually see him leave school early around lunch. He fucks around with his friends, often times graffitiing some of the buildings around town! Look!”
He pointed at the Laundromat across the street. In uniform blue and platform red was an elaborately - albeit poorly - graffitied silhouette of a clenched fist. Under it, where the paint had dripped and clumped together, was written "Control's in your hand, slam your fists on the table and make your demands." Reggie shook his head slightly, raising his eye and repeating, as if agreeing, "Control's in your hand."
I didn't get him, but he continued from his reverie.
“At maybe 3 o’clock he heads out to hit on the cheerleading girls at Grover Cleveland High School across town, and, sometimes, after that I’ve seen him blazing at his house; man, it’s all here! All I have to do is teach this kid how foolish he is, and that he won’t get away with it all!”
He let out a shriek of excitement, but I stopped walking and shuffled the sidewalk – again. 
“You don’t believe in me, do you?”
“Reggie, it’s not that it’s just – ”
“You don’t see that what I’m doing isn’t just for me, man! It’s for our town – society! It needs this kind of purging every now and then!”
I held back a chuckle, then bit my lip to keep from laughing. Could I help it? I resumed walking, but turned back after a few paces to find him glaring at me, shaking his head quietly.
“You’re disgustingly mean sometimes. Did you know that?”
He stepped heavily off, passing me; I was rigid with no response, but I caught myself in my cruelty.
“Reggie . . . Reggie, come on, wait! I trust you, it’s just . . . don’t you think you’re a bit too . . . gung-ho on this?”
He stared at me with those blues. They were now quieted, muffled, deflated. It looked like they harbored a tear but he wiped it away before I could tell.
“It’s crossed my mind that you might think I am, yes.”
We sighed and stood there, both helpless to look up to one another. I walked around the area in that “I wish I could help you” manner, before sitting on a bench beside us. I still wasn’t convinced yet, not even close.
He sat next to me, just far enough from me to make us both feel alienated from each other. Then, he began. “Listen. I understand you might be weirded out by this idea of beating someone up for the right cause, but . . . think of me for a second. When has anyone ever thought ‘when’s it going to be Reggie’s turn?’ I volunteer. That’s what I do, and I’ve asked nothing in return. But, for me, man . . . it’s got to be done. It’s just been on my mind for ages and it’s got to be done . . . it’s Reggie’s turn, now. This is the only thing I’m asking for in return.”
He stood up and took a few paces away from me, but turned back and put his hand on my shoulder. I looked up to his face.
“But I need my wing man on this! Are you with me?”
I realized at that moment that I had been neglecting the very foundation that was our friendship by not previously acknowledging him, while at the same time, I had been with him since the start.
“I’m in. For you, man, if it’s got to be done, I’m your wing man!”
He laughed and I felt the prior burdens of my pestering vanish from my shoulders.
“Yes!” he chuckled, grinning wide. “That’s what I’m talking about! Teamsmanship! Ho!” He gave me a brotherly slap across my back, and in the afternoon sun we made our way to our distant destiny. 

“Here we are; 4:20 PM and he’s out on his porch blazin’, just like we predicted. Are you ready, hombre?”
We lay hidden beneath the mountain laurel, on a ridge maybe twenty feet from Dennis’s backyard. With a clear view, we could see everything. Bottles of green and brown littered the yard, and the fumes of alcohol suffocated the nostrils. Aluminum cans stuck out of the ground like tombstones; shards of glass were non-recyclable zombies hidden in the barren dirt. Surveying it all from the porch sat Dennis with his water pipe, some kind of black horse king on his throne, a shoddy Adirondack chair. Reclining, he took a deep breath from the tainted hookah, and laughed; that stupid grin of his sculpted over his face. 
We were in the shit.
I turned to Reggie.
“Reg, has it ever occurred to you that this is illegal? I think that just occurred to me . . .”
“Andrew, are you serious?” He spat, as if I were breaking orders by talking out of line. “Come on, man! Get your game face on! Now, did you rehearse those lines I gave you?”
“What? What are you talking about? What lines?”
“The lines I gave you! You didn’t –?” Reggie cast an eye of disbelief on me, raising his shoulders out of frustration, but he was cut short.
From the porch, Dennis broke out of his reverie. “Who’s there? Who is that?” We froze as he charged into the house, the screen door slamming angrily, rattling like bones. Reggie and I exchanged glances. Mine was a little more worried where as his was frustrated. Is it not too late to just leave? Similar thoughts raced through my head, battling, until Dennis emerged, a grotesque gun in his hands. Again, the screen door hissed furiously, rattling its skeleton.
“Who’s out there?” he commanded, brandishing the menacing shotgun lazily over his head. 
Although it’s natural instinct to respond to such simple questions, I would have figured our situation would override that instinct to reply. But it came as no surprise to me that, on impulse, Reggie blurted out, “No one!” before hitting himself silently for his own stupidity.
“What?” Dennis hollered back, the irony never dawning on him.
Without thinking a second time, Reggie responded. “It’s no one, Dennis!” Then he bit his tongue and scrunched up his face as if to say: “I’m the greatest fuck up of them all!”
I eyed him after a moment. “Did you seriously just do that?” I demanded, stinging from under my breath.
“What? So I fucked up. I’m sorry, but it’s my plan! And I’ll be damned if –” He was cut short by the ratchet-like loading of a shotgun. Like an imperfect cricket, it was a sound I thought I’d never hear save for in cheap action flicks and poorly done zombie movies. Yet here we were, facing down that ratchet-cricket shotgun under Dennis’s drug-influenced arm. It stared us down, two barrels of mean steel, some kind of obtuse, overly large bastard of an elephant gun. Perhaps it was compensation for something less-than-phallic? A sign of pure machismo? What greater an emblem of dominance than two loads of buckshot staring you down? I think it might have been comic in any other scenario, in a film or play of sorts. 
But why was I thinking about Dennis’s gun? Why wasn’t I bolting through the backwoods, miles from here, pissing my pants trying to escape?
Well for starters, I hadn’t been to the bathroom since breakfast, but I wasn’t about to waltz into Dennis’s house and use his either. But I suppose the reason why I didn’t leave Reggie to his own devices was your basic “deer-in-the-headlights” response. Call it that, or mock-loyalty, or what-you-will, I didn’t run.
Dennis’s finger twitched on the gun.
“You can run, now. If you want.” I heard from my side.
“Can’t.” 
Reggie looked me in the eye, then we turned cautiously back to Dennis from our hidden ridge. We were some kind of stupid or courageous kids. The finger inched closer to the trigger. It clicked, and Dennis let out a high shriek, a cackle, a pathetic excuse for mimicking the sound of the cannon supposed to be killing us right now.
Reggie jumped in fear, while I lay camouflaged under the laurels witnessing the awkward stillness and confusion of the moment. After a minute of dying giddiness, Dennis broke the suspense.
“Reggie Winters?” he laughed stupidly, caught completely off his guard.
“What?” admitted Reggie, embarrassed, if not slightly astonished. I think he was surprised Dennis even knew his name.
“Huh?” Dennis whooped in return, as if he had actually been asked a question by this would-be ruffian. Reggie looked down at me, and I, through the laurels, up at him. I saw him give me a curt nod before pulling up a red bandanna over his nose. In the fashion of a cowboy? I thought to myself. No, he was a Zapatista, social change through revolutionary action, a visionary. I knew, then, why his master plan had to be finished, and what’s more, I knew why he wanted it. His plan wasn’t just hazing. I looked before me at Dennis and I saw trash, a cancer to this town as he spoiled its quality. I looked at Reggie and I saw a true civil worker; this was genius; this was revolutionary. It was societal purging, true, but this was Reggie’s idea of community service, taking out the trash. 
“Now?” I mouthed silently, patiently, waiting under his order. He stared at me, and he seemed to realize I was his. His chin dropped in the affirmative. 
He let out a great Whitmanian yawp, something purely improvised, but none-the-less with reason. A yawp of triumph, of glory, a cry for the underdog. He yawped for all things right, for all things worthy, and for all things revolutionary. With stunning, alien, athleticism he charged, bounding through the brambles with ability that I hadn’t thought possible for him. I jumped up, intending to join him in his near-righteous actions, but fell just as quickly; tangled in the mountain laurel. God damned state flower. I looked up just in time to glimpse him vaulting over the fence, locking into a fight with the Trash. Both arms welded to the empty shotgun between them, they struggled to better one another, swaying slightly after each burst of adrenaline. Bottles broke in the grass as persistent feet leveled them flat. Grunts and sweat poured out of them in a show of raw machismo, both fighters locked between the gun. 
I freed my ankles from the laurel and prepared to join my friend in arms, but paused. Something touched my ears, not the groaning and weighted breathing of these two combatants, something else. Something not natural, not New England, something The Man.
It was the something of tires on back roads, the snapping of twigs, the moving of dirt, of rubber on cement. It was the something of a standard police cruiser. I directed my ears in time to see it pull into the gravel drive way, the distinct shuffle of pebbles under tires coming to a slight stop. I panicked and dropped once more to the laurels, my friend and the Trash still thick in battle.
“So this is it, right? This is the address that Anthony kid gave us?” One of the officers said, exiting the cruiser, a bald, beefy man with an overly starched collar that backed up into his neck.
“Uh, 142 Pine Way . . . yup,” another responded from behind a thick mustache and solid aviator glasses, like something out of a terrible 80s cop flick. 
I burst from the vines a second time. If I was going to do anything, it was going to be done now. “Reggie the cops are here!” I hollered, just as they came into sight of the two in their Yin and Yang struggle. The Man doesn’t care if you’re Yin or Yang; you’ll be put down either way. Silence fell on the five of us. Reggie and Dennis ceased their struggle and turned to the two fuzz, who paused out of amazement at the situation before them. 
Here were two kids fighting over a presumably loaded shotgun, broken liquor and beer bottles carpeted the yard around them, and to top it off, a water pipe sat precariously next to the beaten up Adirondack chair. The scenario reeked of promotion to them, and they seemed to drool at the prospect. 80s cop slowly drew his aviators off to further dramatize the moment.
It couldn’t have been staged better. As if on cue, my friend and the Trash bolted, rocketing around the house followed by the two officers, Starchy and Gangly 80s cop. I don’t know how, but they managed not to see me as I took off after them, following my friend into town. I couldn’t leave my wing man hanging. 
Cement beat heavy under my feet as I raced along an adjacent road to that of Reggie and Dennis, Reggie keeping up with the Trash who seemed to be leading the chase. As I glanced at Reggie, I couldn’t help but notice his persistence and the rage that seemed to boil in him. He wasn’t thinking like himself. I knew Reggie well, and if he were sticking to any plan, his or not, he would know when to quit, when to call it off for another day. But no, as he ran I couldn’t help but think he pursued the Trash for ulterior motives. 
Dennis took a hard right, crossing the road that I was running on, leading down a slight pair of stairs onto Main Street. 
I never knew why there were stairs there. They were strange things, only four or five crumbling concrete steps down a thin alley between two older brick buildings. Dennis padded down the steps, each drug-addled pace echoing. But as Reggie approached, he leapt and cleared all of them. As if with some god-given grace, Reggie soared over those cement stairs, time suspended at his whim as he almost flew. It was something I could never imagine; my friend, who was never athletic, was now commanding glory as he vaulted into the air. With a pristine roll he landed on the pavement that the alley exited out to. The few passers-by turned and gasped: never had they seen such a perfect landing from such a sudden jump. It was better than Hollywood. 
But it wasn’t real. 
A horn scored the silence and brakes screeched as my friend turned just in time to stare at an oncoming bumper and say a gentle hello to it as well. 
It wasn’t fatal, but neither was it kind. The car had stopped but just before meeting him square in the chest, shuffling him back a foot with a heavy “Ooof!” It might’ve been funny had it been in a movie, but as my friend lay sprawled on the road, Dennis making his get-away, I saw nothing humorous. I ran to his side.
“What are you doing? Run! Get out of here! The fuzz – !” he accused me as I came to his side.
“What? No, Reggie . . . I’m your wing man!” I protested.
“And I’m telling you to get the fuck out while you still can! Come on, Andrew! Follow orders! Stick to the Emergency Plan and go to the coffee house on 5th street!”
“What Emergency Plan . . .?”
“Just get!” he shouted, further annoyed. I glanced around. The cops were nowhere to be seen, but other people were gathering around Reggie and me, some kind of reality TV show for free. I got to my feet ready to follow orders, but I crouched back down to him.
“Why’d you do this? I know why we did this, but why’d you do this?” There was a pause after I asked that question. 
With a childish glint in his eye, he began. “I guess I was just jealous that Dennis could get away with those kinds of things and I couldn’t . . .” It seemed like wishful thinking to me, but he chuckled. “Control’s in your hand.”
“What?”
“The graffiti . . . over there by the Laundromat . . . I did that. I planted it to look like it was something he would do. But now that I look at it . . .” He pointed to the Laundromat and the clenched fist graffiti tagged on it. “What am I saying? Get out of here!”
I ran. Pushing through the small crowd before us, I shouted back, “I’m still your wing man!” I couldn’t hear if he responded, but I heard a muffled “And I’m fucking innocent!” As if he said it to himself. His words fell on the deaf ears of the crowd as they surrounded him. How many of them were a cancer to society? How many of them were trash? How many of them were small time doctors or garbage men?

“What happened, Hank? Did you get yours?” 80s cop guffawed to Starchy from outside the cruiser, leading Reggie with his hands cuffed. I saw this through the crowd.
“No, I lost mine. He got away,” Starchy replied, leaning on the hood of the vehicle with his weight.
“Shit, well, I got this one. Let’s bring him down to headquarters.” 80s cop opened the passenger door and Reggie bowed down, taking one last look out of the window. I caught his eye from behind the semi-tinted glass, and he mine. I chased after the cruiser for a few blocks before it sped off down Main Street, but I swear I saw him put his fist up to the window and shout the muffled words “We are the Underdogs!” 

The End.