"Bread Basking"

            So there I stand, shaking my head at the paltry assortment of comestible sadness scantily cladding my cupboards.  Two tins of tomato paste (Hunt’s, not even Contadina), a half-jar of banana peppers, a can and a half of coffee, a bag of dried beans, and two lukewarm cans of Pabst still hooked at the ring.  There’s flour in the counter bin, maybe some sugar.  The fridge might have some mustard and a bottle of pomegranate juice, and most definitely a half-case of Steel Reserve.  I’ve got nothing.  Nothing but coffee and malted beverage, and a stomach that’s beginning to grumble.

            I rummage out a pad from the junk drawer.  From the Mind of Hoff, lovingly printed at the header.  I pull a pen from my pocket and start scrawling like, outpouring a deluge of thoughts and staples and whimsy.  Onions, big meaty yellow sweet and sharp Vidalias, a half dozen at least.  And eggs!  An eighteen pack of AA super-grade eggiweggs, sizzled up in butter with bacon on the side.  Shredded cheddar, sour cream, two-percent milk- scratch that, whole milk, goddamned buttermilk!  Orange juice, Texas Toast, vanilla extract, fakey never-go-bad syrup… and that’s just breakfast!

            I’m having to pull up another sheet:  vine-ripened tomatoes, twenty pounds of spaghetti, butcher-fresh sagey sausage, non-virgin olive oil, machine-rolled Totino snackems, split peas, ham hocks, Progresso soups, chicken wings, Sweet Baby Ray’s, a goddamn ribeye… I’m chuckling to myself, the thought of all this food is making me so happy.  In reality once I get to the store I know what it’ll be; a case of Ramen and another can of coffee, but a man can dare to dream.

            I know there’s a Safeway across the river by the Binks’ but I’m hoping for something closer by, something I need only heft a few blocks for the haul.  I can think of a few bars and like, but I honestly can’t say I’ve ever looked about for grocery stores.  I pull up the Google Earth on the desktop and begin searching.  What luck!  Shopping cart icons everywhere, it seems.  And a Safeway only three or four blocks southeast of me.  With a jump and a skip I’ve got my wallet and my list and I’m headed out the door, wondering as I go whether I should nip off a Steel into a Nalgene for the walk.  Naw, I’m telling myself after a bit of thought.  It doesn’t do to drink when there’s food afoot.  A couple sips and a body loses the hunger, that drive that makes us all human.

            So I’m out the door and into the aggressive hello of the sun’s rays.  It is a bright, obnoxiously beautiful day, balmy and just a bit breezy.  To my liking, so far as sunny days go.  I’m walking east through the neighborhood, a downright bounce in my step as I go.  Thinking about food - Food! - real food, with the heat and grime of real cooking.  Real chopping, real mincing, real preheating and temping and scouring.  Reality, sustenance for the life and mind like.  Only a stone’s throw from growing it all yourself, but I’m not sure yet how to apply for a community plot.  Not quite sure how I’d fit in with the garden set, either.  Trés gentrifique, them.

            But the neighborhood’s pleasantly quiet the day, just another Sunday in Godless Portland.  A time to rest and reflect, to revel in goodliness and peace and such.  A time to grocery shop.  I reach my street and start heading down, noticing an easy chair on the pavement that might do nicely in the apartment.  High backed and cultured, a beigey ‘sitting room’ sort of affair.  First things first, though, and after a few more blocks than I’d expected I’m at the crossroads, mildly perplexed at the rubbled lot before me.  I’m looking to the street signs and yes, this is indeed the proper spot.

            Proper spot too late, apparently.  Safeway gone and relegated to a lot, paving the way for a new strip outlet sometime next spring.  Hum, I’m thinking to myself, wondering where next on my little adventure.  There’s nothing but cafes and shops to my right, so I continue eastward on Hawthorne towards nowhere in particular, sun hovering above me.  Real LBJ, the sun today.  The back of my neck is already starting to get sticky damp, my mouth dry to taste.  Perhaps a Nalgene would’ve been a good call, and I’m wondering if I really need any food at all.  A couple malts, maybe an impromptu soup with the beans and tomato paste…
            Treasonous thoughts, I’m telling myself as I see ahead a sign that reads MARKET across the street.  My hopes aren’t up though; it could just as easily be a sign that says LAUNDROMAT or MOTEL or any other number of shoddy inner-city semi-conveniences.  My guess is that they won’t even have a produce section or cold untinned meat, like the dozens of fucking Plaid Pantries masquerading as grocery stores.  Gas stations without the pumps, more like.

            I cross on over, fears turning to reasonable doubts turning to unlikely hopes to the contrary.  It’s no different than any number of liquor shops, and as I go in I see the chip aisle, the condom section, magazines, and three walls of cooler doors filled with beer and booze and energy drinks.

            “Hey!” the clerk greets me warmly with a pleasant, nondescript sort of accent.  “Wonderful day, no?”  I greet him back; it is, in fact, a wonderful day.  With a heavy tread I saunter the two aisles, looking for any mislaid eighteen-count cartons of eggs, or bacon, or even a bundle of asparagus.  Nothing except for Vienna Sausages and Doritos, and the cold case beckoning me thither with its soft iridescent blue glow.  And after talking to the clerk I suppose I’d feel bad not buying anything.  I peruse the walls, gravitating towards the singles.  With a sigh I grab a giant Fosters and a large Guinness, and a bag of wasabi peas that catches my eye towards the counter.

            “I.D. please?” clerky asks me as he rings my tawdry groceries through.  “These good?” he asks of the peas.

            “Oh yeah, I love’m,” I say.  “Would you happen to know of any grocery stores nearby?” I ask with vain hope.

            “Sorry man, I don’t know.  It’s my first day, you know?”

            “Not a worry, thanks.”  He hands me my bag and card and receipt and I’m back out the door into the soul-crushing sunshine.  It's deleriating, sweltering, demoralizing.
             I'm wondering where I should go from here, and as if to answer my thoughts some white-hatted shite riding shotgun in a passing pickup suddenly shouts out at me, "GO HOME, FAGGOT!!"  So with a shrug I head west.  Homeward bound and less the hungry than for the thirst.