Milk, Milk, Lemonade
Or, Delirium at the Food Show, the Cheese Takes Over
Pus pervades otherwise innocent dreams. The alarm rings poisonously in the gut. Nightmares, suspended in cheesecloth, chase twilight back over the hills, shrieking to save their master from the solar system’s police chief.
I put some Chet Baker on Spotify and cook two eggs in a loose scramble. Like a short-order stock broker, I open the fridge and check the readout on the ketchup bottle: Enough for breakfast. Good morning, a deli bag of Cooper Sharp calls to me, softly, with tired and friendly eyes. Pour me a thimbleful of coffee, please? I’m feeling a little tall, Mr. Cooper explains. Take a layer off and throw it on those boring old eggs, K?
It’s too early to mount a defense. The eggs look as boring as IKEA instructions. And lonely. I turn the heat to low and crown the chicken’s children with a slice, letting it melt as Chet blows the California kicked-puppy blues from a wireless speaker shaped like a whaler’s oil lamp. Fucking defenseless. Shit, I haven’t even poured my coffee yet.
As I drive to the laundromat, little earthquakes teach my torso what San Francisco felt like in 1906. On the radio, Wu Tang tortures me with the C.R.E.A.M. unpoured in my bitter coffee. I toss it out the window at a red light and try not to let my mind make unsavory associations.
Sitting and reading random articles about the worst mudslides in United States history, I sweat out the laundry cycles. My socks and underwear rumble around the roaring dryer. Santa Claus catches eyes with me from a pair of Christmas boxers. I look to the glassed-in counter and the Vietnamese clerk lady frowns at me.
Later that evening, assignment takes me to some food show down at Convention Hall on Filbert Street. I walk around in a daze like a mall shopper on Black Friday, taking mental notes on giant prawns, chef tattoos, bartender cleavage. My photographer creeps around like he’s culinary paparazzi. He keeps me on point, away from It.
Nothing wise lasts in my life. At 9 pm me and photo bro take a sabbatical, outside. He sparks up something he twisted earlier. Claims its called Bootleg Filipino Candy. It tastes like Starburst and makes me dance to secret music.
I re-enter the food show and my vision centers right on It. Fuck, there It is. The Cheese Table. The table is circular and grand like the boardroom of Avalon. King Asiago and his Kerrygold Knights of the Round, solemn and sentinel-like, patrol the area. Little birds carrying glasses of Pinot Noir and Amarone in their beaks flit through the air without spilling a drop. Sir Laguiole of the Rind beckons to me. His face looks of the ancient sage. He regales me with tales of battle, and maidens locked away in crumbling towers. I bow to be knighted, and I am given shards of tangy Manchego, like Communion.
In a stupor I leave the food show. Outside, Grana Padano falls gently from the sky. My mind turns feverish, and I find myself fiending for a cookies and cream milkshake. Soon, I’m shaking it out, myself, seated on the El, headed for the doomed part of the city.
I stumble around the dark streets, seeking all night ice cream joints. Milkmaids and mongers hang out on corners, offering me 2 for $10 deals. I become weak for gelato.
Something snaps in me and my delirium breaks. Sweat curdles down the small of my back. I run like a wheel of cheddar rolling down hill. I must escape this farmer’s hellscape, lest I die as a slave. Chihuahua cheese consumed by the Venus Flytrap of the quesadilla.
Upon opening my front door, I shamble straight to my bed and pass out. I count sheep and wake up covered in runny ricotta. I recall torturous nightmares. In a different, aboriginal time, the sun, unanchored from its sky throne, chases me around like an angry God. Right on top of me, the sun is revealed to be a glowing, melting orb of cheddar. I scream sharply, and the dream returns to the shadows.
Later that afternoon, I sit on the couch, watching the Eagles embarrass themselves on national television. It is late in the day, and my stomach feels suspiciously yet welcomingly neutral. I have not eaten since the debacle at the food show. My soul craves nutrients.
I head for my kitchen and bang around in the cabinets, aimlessly. A long forgotten box of instant macaroni and cheese appears before me like the Glowing Grail of Christ. I recoil in abject horror, the memories from last night’s evil dreams still fermenting in my brain.
Two mice whisper down to me from the mazework of my drop ceiling. Hey, bud, you know that powder cheese shit won’t mess with your guts, right bud? It’s just artificial flavor, don’t worry.
They scurry away and leave me alone, trembling in fear and hunger. I remember a box of off-brand lactaid pills, hidden away on the shelf behind my bathroom mirror. I race to them on jaunty bones, fortified by calcium. As they melt their way down my esophagus, my thoughts return to the box of mac and cheese. I laugh with great conceit, my soul pasteurized.