*A parody of Franz Kafka's "The Bucket Rider."
Butternut squash all spent; compact discs all sold; rare punk
vinyl auctioned off on e-bay; the cutting board useless; the crisper empty; the gray sky is full of
cold and flu germs. I must have organic
vegetables; my employers offer no health benefits ; without organic vegetables, I will become
sick, miss work, lose my job, starve, become homeless, die. Behind me is the
pitiless crisper; before me is the pitiless Chicagoland skyline, so I need to
go out and seek a hook-up from the Whole Foods Green Grocer. But he will no longer listen when I ask him
to borrow me some zucchini; I must prove irrefutably to him that I don’t have a
single cherry tomato left, and that he means to me the healthy lifestyle I have
grown accustomed to. I must approach
like a Depression-era hobo, who, soiled pork pie hat in hand, begs in a
farmhouse doorway, and to whom the farmer’s wife accordingly ladles a can of
beans; so too must the Whole Foods Green Grocer, mellow harshed, but
remembering the deadhead maxim, “visualize whirled peas,” toss me some organic
vegetables into my National Public Radio Complimentary Totebag.
With the roads full of potholes, and the CTA being the CTA,
I ride off on the National Public Radio Complimentary Totebag. Seated on The National Public Radio
Complimentary Totebag, my hands on the handle, the descent is almost as
difficult as moving a couch down the three flights of this narrow staircase,
but once on the street, my National Public Radio Complimentary Totebag rises
pleasantly, pleasantly; entitled rich dummies with Hummers don’t rise above the
street with more joy as I in my National Public Radio Complimentary Totebag.
Over the salted roads we move with the pace of the traffic—floating between the
front door of each building and the top of the first story. At last, with a
final gust of polluted air, I am transported inside the Whole Foods
Supermarket, floating high above the Produce Section, next to speakers playing
Joni Mitchell, where I see below me the Whole Foods Green Grocer, an unwashed
17 year old with white boy dreadlocks, stocking green peppers with his
girlfriend, an unwashed 17 year old with white girl dreadlocks; they are
throwing away any green peppers that have lost their natural shine.
“Whole Foods Green Grocer!” I yell in a voice made flabby
from eating too many 25 cent Little Debbie Snack Cakes, “Please, Whole Foods
Green Grocer! Give me a few organic vegetables. My National Public Radio
Complimentary Totebag is so empty I can ride in it. Be cool. When I can, I’ll
get you back.”
The Whole Foods Green Grocer puts his hand to his
multi-pierced ear and says, “Hey man, did you hear a customer?”
“No,” says his girlfriend, smiling as she stocks hundreds of
beautiful green peppers. She stops stacking long enough to munch on some
broccoli, chased by a chugged bottle of Green Machine Naked Juice.
“I’m up here!” I wail. “It’s me, a loyal and regular Whole
Foods Customer, who has lately fallen victim to these recessionary times!”
“Earth Mama,” says the Whole Foods Green Grocer, “It must be
a customer. It would be hilariously funny here to say that I must be high and
hearing things, seeing how I’m a seventeen year old hippie who works as a Green
Grocer at Whole Foods, but no, really, only a regular customer could inspire me
to provide assistance, dig?”
“Dude, it’s funny because it’s true. You are baked, and you
are hearing things,” says the Green Grocer’s girlfriend, momentarily stopping
the stacking and holding the green peppers in her hands. “Nobody’s here, man. Who can afford it? We
could close Whole Foods for a week, and it wouldn’t matter.”
“But I’m up here, yo!” I cry, hunger pangs rumbling my empty
stomach. “Look up and you’ll see me.
Just a totebagful, please. And if you give me more organic produce, I will be so healthy and happy. All your
triathlete senior citizens, bike messenger echo boomers, and Gold Coast milfs
are provided for. Oh, if I could only
hear bountiful organic produce shaking inside my National Public Radio
Complimentary Totebag.
“Hang on,” says the Whole Foods Green Grocer, and his
hennaed hands set down the green peppers back in the produce box. But his girlfriend is already beside him, and
grabs him by the collar of his Leftover Salmon tie-dyed t-shirt and says, “Don’t sweat it, bro. Since you think you’re really
hearing something, I’ll find out. Think of the last time you heard things in
the store. You ended up on the floor in the “Personal Growth” aisle of
Transitions bookstore, a shaking, crying acid casualty. I’ll go.”
“Then tell him how much each organic vegetable weighs, per
pound. I’ll help you if you’re not sure about the weird produce, like kale.”
“Word,” says the girlfriend, stepping away from the green
peppers. Of course, she looks up and sees me at once.
“Earth Mama” I hail. “Positive
energy to you and yours. Just one
National Public Radio Complimentary Totebag’s worth of organic produce, and I’ll
be on my way. You can give me the pest-laden, rotting produce if you want, only
I can’t pay you today, I can’t pay you today.”
What a funereal noise “I can’t pay you today” has, and how
strangely it sounds like the freedom espoused from the unusual chords from Joni
Mitchell’s acoustic guitar.
“So what’s up?” the Whole Foods Green Grocer asks.
“Nothing,” his girlfriend says. “There’s nobody around. I don’t hear anything, except the store
manager announcing that the store will be closing in five minutes. The winter
is terrible, and tomorrow we will have a lot more stocking to do.
She doesn’t see nor hear me, but just the same, she lifts up
her gingham dress to waft me away. The hairy-legged creature succeeds,
tragically. My National Public Radio Complimentary Totebag has all the virtues
of one of those crotch rockets needle-dicked morons ride up and down Western
Avenue in the summertime, except it has no brakes. It is too light; a hippie’s
gingham dress can make it fly through the air.
“You terrible earth mama!” I yell, while she goes back to
stacking the remaining green peppers, shrugging her shoulders and saying “Whatever.”
“You horrible woman!
I begged you for the worst of your organic produce for my National Public Radio
Complimentary Totebag, and you would not give it to me!”
And with that, I float out
of the automatic front doors of Whole Foods, into the ruins of the
Cabrini-Green housing project, and am lost forever.
