That day, as the realization settled over him that his retirement would have to be pushed back ten or maybe even fifteen years, Henry had the same bewildered look he’d had the day that Faye disappeared. He had once again been betrayed by the very thing that was supposed to keep him safe.
Now he just seemed cynical and wary. The kind of person who no longer believed in anyone’s promises.
“The average American eats six frozen meals a month,” Henry said. “My job is to get that to seven. That’s what I’m tirelessly working for, sometimes even on weekends.”
“Doesn’t sound like your heart’s really in it.”
“The problem is that nobody in the office takes the long view. They’re all focused on the next quarterly statement, the next earnings report. They haven’t seen what I’ve seen.”
“Which is?”
“That whenever we identify some new market niche, all we do, in the long run, is dismantle it. This is like our guiding principle, our original philosophy. In the 1950s, Swanson saw that families ate meals together and wanted to get into that market. So they invented the TV dinner. Which made families realize they didn’t have to eat meals together. Selling the family dinner made the family dinner go extinct. And we’ve been pulverizing the market ever since.”
Samuel’s phone dinged again, another new text message.
“For Christ’s sake,” Henry said. “You young people and your phones. Just look at it.”
“Sorry,” Samuel said as he checked the message. It was from Pwnage. It said: OMG FOUND WOMAN IN PHOTO!!!!
“Sorry, one second,” Samuel said to his father while typing a reply.
what woman? what photo?
photo of ur mom from the 60s!! I found woman in that pic!!
for real??
come to jezebels right now I’ll tell u everything!!!
“It’s like I’m at work trying to have a conversation with one of our interns,” Henry said. “Your head’s in two places at once. Not paying quality attention to anything. I don’t care if that makes me sound old.”
“Sorry, Dad, I gotta run.”
“You can’t sit down for ten minutes without interruption. Always so busy.”
“Thanks for dinner. I’ll call you soon.”
And Samuel raced south to the suburb where Pwnage lived and parked under the purple lights of Jezebels and hurried inside, where he found his Elfscape buddy at the bar, watching TV, a popular food channel show about extreme eating.
“You found the woman in the photo?” Samuel said as he sat down.
“Yes. Her name is Alice, and she lives in Indiana, way out in the boonies.”
He gave Samuel a photograph—pulled from the internet and printed on copy paper: a woman at the beach on a sunny day, smiling at the camera, wearing hiking boots and cargo pants and a big green floppy hat and a T-shirt that said “Happy Camper.”
“This is really her?” Samuel said.
“Definitely. She was sitting behind your mom when that photo was taken at the protest in 1968. She told me herself.”
“Amazing,” Samuel said.
“Best part? She and your mom were neighbors. Like, in the dorm, at school.”
“And she’ll talk to me?”
“I already set it up. She’s expecting you tomorrow.”
Pwnage gave him the printout of a short e-mail correspondence, as well as Alice’s address and a map to her house.
“How did you find her?”
“I had some time on Patch Day. No big whoop.”
He looked again at the TV. “Oh, check it out! Do you really think he’ll be able to eat that whole thing? I vote yes.”
He was talking about the TV show’s host, a man known for his ability to eat ridiculous quantities of food without passing out or vomiting. His name was famously etched onto Hall of Fame plaques in dozens of American restaurants where he overcame some food object: a 72-ounce porterhouse steak, an XXL pizza burger, a burrito weighing more than most newborn babies. His face was puffy in the way of someone who, all over his body, had a quarter-inch of extra muchness.
Right now the host gave colorful commentary as a chef in what appeared to be a greasy-spoon diner prepared hash browns on a large discolored griddle—a potato mound he shaped into a square roughly the size of a chess board. On top of the hash browns the chef piled two handfuls of crumbled sausage, four handfuls of chopped bacon, ground beef, several diced onions, and what appeared to be shredded white cheddar or mozzarella or Monterey Jack cheese, so much cheese that the meats were now obscured totally under a white melty mess. In the upper right-hand corner of the screen it said: 9/11 Remembered.
“I owe you, man,” Samuel said. “Thank you so much. You need something? Just ask.”
“You’re very welcome.”
“Seriously. Is there anything I can do for you?”
“No. It’s okay.”
“Well, if there is, please tell me.”
The chef splatted six spatula-size balls of sour cream atop the white cheesy layer and spread them over the big brick of food. He rolled the entire apparatus into a log, the fried-potato side facing out, cut it in half, and lifted the two halves onto a white serving platter, where they stood vertically. They broke apart in places and oozed steam and thick creamy fatty liquid. The dish was called the Twin Towers Gut Buster. The host sat in the restaurant’s dining area surrounded by patrons excited to be on television. In front of him were the golden potato-meat logs. He asked for a moment of silence. Everyone bowed their heads. Close-up on the Gut Buster, leaking its white slime. Then the crowd, perhaps cued by someone off camera, started yelling “Eat! Eat! Eat! Eat!” as the host picked up a knife and fork and sliced into the Gut Buster’s outer fried crust and scooped up some of its inner drippy mash and guided it into his mouth. He chewed and looked into the camera plaintively and said, “That is heavy.” The crowd laughed. “Bro, I don’t think I’m gonna make it.” Cut to commercial.
“Actually?” Pwnage said. “Yes. There is one thing you could do for me.”
“Name it.”
“I have this book,” Pwnage said. “Well, more like a book idea. A mystery thriller novel?”
“The psychic detective story. I remember.”
“Yeah. I always intended to write that book, but I had to push back the writing because there were all these tasks that needed to be completed before I could begin—you know, my readers would expect me to understand how police operate and how the justice system actually works, and so I would need to shadow a real detective for a while, which means I would need to find a detective and explain how I’m a writer working on a novel about police work and I need a few nights on the job to get the flavor of real police lingo and procedure. That type of thing.”
“Sure.”
“You know, research.”
“Yes.”
“But then, okay, I worry that any detective I send my letter to probably won’t believe the ‘writer’ claim since I’ve never published anything ever, a fact that the detective would almost certainly deduce because detectives know how to find things. So before I can contact a detective I’ll have to publish a few short stories in a few literary journals and maybe win a few little awards to corroborate the ‘writer’ claim, after which the detective would be more apt to allow me on duty.”
“I suppose.”
“Not to mention all the books about ESP and other paranormal psychic phenomena that I’d need to read to achieve the proper verisimilitude. In fact, there are so many things I need to finish before the writing can even begin that I’m having trouble finding motivation.”
“Are you trying to ask me something specific?”
“If I had a publisher for my book already lined up, then the detective I contacted would automatically believe that I’m a writer, plus it would give me an incentive to actually start writing. Plus there’s the advance money, of course, which could fund renovations I plan to make to my kitchen.”
“So you want me to show your book to my publisher?”
“Yeah, if it’s not too much trouble.”
“No problem. Done.”
Pwnage smiled and slapped Samuel on the back and turned again to watch the guy on TV, who was now halfway through eating the Gut Buster, having completely devoured one of the twin logs, the other having lost its internal structural integrity and loosened into a cone of slimy potato rubble. The host looked wearily into the camera with the expression of a staggered and exhausted boxer trying to remain conscious. The chef said he’d created the Twin Towers Gut Buster a few years back in order to “never forget.” The host started in on the other log. His fork moved slowly. It visibly shook. A concerned onlooker offered him a glass of water, which he refused. He swallowed the next bite. He looked like he hated himself.
Samuel stared at the photograph of Alice. He wondered how the fierce-looking protestor of 1968 could become this person, who apparently wore cargo pants and ironic T-shirts and tromped along beaches looking perfectly happy and at ease. How could two people who seemed so different inhabit the same body?
“Did you talk to Alice?” Samuel said.
“Yep.”
“What did she seem like? What was your impression of her?”
“She seemed very interested in mustard.”
“Mustard?”
“Yep.”
“Is that slang?”
“No. I mean that literally,” Pwnage said. “She’s super interested in mustard.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Neither did I.”
The man on TV, meanwhile, was down to his last few bites. He was exhausted and miserable. His forehead rested on the table and his arms splayed out and if it weren’t for his heavy breathing and visible sweating it would seem like he was dead. The crowd was ecstatic that he’d almost consumed the entire dish. The chef said no one had ever been this close before. The crowd chanted “USA! USA!” as the host held the final bite, trembling, on his fork, aloft.