Part 8 (1/2)
I'm not a celebrity chef. I like to think of myself as a giving, caring person who really does think about the modern world-someone who tries to improve the planet, even though it seems pretty much doomed. As a consequence, maybe I'm not fully qualified to pa.s.s judgment on the diet of most Americans. But as I stood there staring at the s.h.i.+t-coated guano logs and repulsive cans of room-temperature weasel p.i.s.s in the airport vending machines, I was appalled. ”Come on, America, you're living creatures, not science experiments.”
”Scary, isn't it, Ray.”
”How on f.u.c.king earth do Americans expect to ensure that weaker countries stay weak when all they eat are overpackaged chemical goatf.u.c.kings manufactured in the same factories that make d.i.l.d.os and pesticides?”
”Ray, I don't think there's anything in there we could actually put in our bodies.”
Still we scanned the grids of toxins wrapped in bright paper and the cans of sugary blight.
”Look!” Neal was pointing, with a heartbreaking note of hope in his voice. ”Look at that bar there-it's got peanuts in it. That's food.”
”Probably tastes like a pocket calculator garnished with dried herpes juice flakes.”
”That's quite a word picture, Ray.”
”I try.” I was reflective for a moment, ”Neal, back home in your Samsung telly cardboard box, what do you eat?”
”I like to think I eat very well-that I'm discriminating, actually. Always try to eat vegetables and the like. I find the women who work in the better cla.s.s of restaurant enjoy feeding me properly out the back door. They like to take me on as a personal project. I can't count the number of them I've s.h.a.gged, too, in the back alleys after closing time.”
The f.u.c.king hobo lives like a king. ”G.o.d, there have to be more options for breakfast in this place.”
”Let me look around the corner.”
Neal went scouting and returned a few minutes later. ”Ray, you have to come see this.”
He led me down a hallway and into what had been maybe a hip and trendy waiting lounge back in the days of Led Zeppelin's 1973 North American tour, but was now a putty-coloured, soul-crus.h.i.+ng dump with a groovy tattered orange stripe around the ceiling. Seated in the lounge's cracked leather chairs were twenty-four men and women who were ... who were ... awfully...
”Ray,” Neal whispered, ”that is one highly f.u.c.kable group of people.”
”f.u.c.kable. That is the word I was looking for.”
We scanned the crowd: cheerleader, MILF, yoga teacher, schoolgirl-every fetish category imaginable, a true buffet. And while I'm not gay, I could swear the guys had something going for them, too.
”This is no accident, Ray.”
”How do you mean?”
”To gather a group as f.u.c.kable as this one would take a trained professional weeks.” He took a few steps forward and asked a ”farm gal” who they were.
”We're this year's Survival contestants.”
”Ah! That's terrific. I'm Neal. I'm working on your show.”
I came over to ogle her chest. ”h.e.l.lo-h.e.l.lo.”
”Raymond here is a cameraman on the show and I'm his personal a.s.sistant.”
She smiled but didn't get up to take Neal's extended hand. ”Sorry. We're all p.o.o.ped. They're pre-starving us for the show, and we're actually not allowed to speak to crew. They said our meals would be here soon, but that was eight hours ago, and we can't leave the lounge to go find something to eat because our flight could be leaving at any moment. It's awful.”
”We're looking around for something to eat too,” said Neal. ”If we have any luck, we'll bring you back something.”
”G.o.d bless you.”
As we walked away, I was s.h.a.gging all twelve of the girls in my head. ”Holy Christ, Neal, two months with that lot? We'll be living like G.o.ds.”
Down a few corridors, we saw a thirteen-year-old driving a golf cart. In the back seat were twenty-four packaged meals. I flagged the boy down. ”I'm Raymond, and you are ... ?”
”Todd.”
”Todd, right. Stuart told me to bring the meals to the contestants, so if you'll get out of the driver's seat, I'll take over.”
”But I was supposed to-”
”Never mind that. I'm much older than you and I'm taking over. We don't want to have Stuart angry at us, do we?”
”No!”
”Okay, then, Todd, just f.u.c.k off now.”
Todd got out and Neal and I hopped in.
”Well, that was easy,” I said as we whirred away.
”Sure was.”
The contestants were to the right, but we turned left and, before a glorious panorama of Pearl Harbor, stopped to inspect the succulent contents of the contestants' clamsh.e.l.l containers.
”Excellent-looking chicken tikka masala, Ray. Want to try some?”
”We need forks. Where's the cutlery?”
Neal fished around in a bag, removed something and handed it to me. It was a forky thing, but with a round depression.
”What the f.u.c.k is this?”
”It's a spork.”
A spork, or a foon, is hybrid cutlery having a spoon-like scoop at one end with three or four fork tines. Spork-type utensils have been in use since the late nineteenth century. Patents for spork-like designs date back to 1874, when the word ”spork” was registered as a trademark in the U.S. Sporks are used by fast-food restaurants, schools, the military and prisons.
”A spork? Who the f.u.c.k would eat food with a thing called a spork?”
”Look,” said Neal. ”You can see a forky bit on the edge of the spoony bit.” Neal dug into his chicken. His sporkwork was surprisingly dexterous.
”Jesus, Neal, watching you eat with a spork is like seeing Helen Keller at a ladies' afternoon tea.”
”Sporks are the wave of the future, Ray. Oh-pa.s.s me some of that ravioli.”