Potatoes: A Cautionary Tale

Buried deep, inches below the surface of North Dakotan soil, 3.8 million potatoes lay growing. Spuds, their colors a symphony of brown, soaking in nutrients of the middle western summer soil. Papa Reyes sits on his porch admiring the glorious pock-marked brown fields which expand without limit ahead of him; a universe of tubers, constantly growing, expanding, stretching their roots to the edges of their capacity.

Tammy Pampon had glorious dreams for her future. She longed to see her name in lights, her delicate features projected upon the silver screen like so many actresses who came before her. In her tiny Lincoln Heights apartment, shielded behind a vintage shoji screen, she would sit in her silk robe, hair set in curlers, rehearsing lines for auditions. So many dreams contained inside of the four walls of her studio apartment.

The Dali lobster telephone rang twice, a clanging headache of a ring. Miss Pampon set her smouldering cigarette in the ashtray, exhaling a raspy “hello?” into the receiver.”

“Hey Baby, it’s Buckles,” said Buck Finkle, her nasal-voiced beau of 15 months.

“Hey Doll,” she cooed, “what’s shaking?”

“My dick. How about dinner? Meet me at Papa Caliente’s. Be there at 8 or I’ll know you’re a chicken.”

“Chicken? You boneless pussy. Go on.”

“Good. See you there, babycakes.”

The North Dakotan sun had already fallen below the horizon. Bodies ached from hours of back-bending, sun-burning work. Children slept, widows watched T.V., and lovers pulled each other close, kissing the day into memory.

“Get off my eleventh finger. Now,” Papa Reyes said as he pushed Frangelica Boobles off his lap. “I’m tired.”

Frangelica, mere minutes from satisfaction, rolled over to her side of the bed. She lit a cigarette and opened Fifty Shades of Grey. At least she could attain some mental satisfaction, since physical was out of the question.

Papa Reyes awoke to the clanking engine of the truck that hauled in the early morning laborers. “Ain’t  nothing like the sweet scent of starch in the morning,” he joked. His cup of Folger’s sloshing stormily over the side of the cup.

Frangelica batted her clumped lashes at Papa. Even after all these years, after all his indiscretions, she still believed in that sweet clod of a man.

She was known to extol his virtues any chance she could get. At cocktail and block parties she was known to say things like, “he may be dense as a rock but he gets all mushy when he’s in hot water,” or “even when he’s deep in the grease, he comes out tender in the end.” She was a sweet, bubbling fountain of prune juice for her lover.   Frangelica Boobles, the hopeless romantic.

“Well, how long are you planning on sticking around? It’s the first day of harvest. I have places to be,” Papa Reyes complained.

“I’m  going, I’m going. Can’t I stay for breakfast?” Frangelica inquired.

“Not today, toots. Here’s a five. Go get yourself a cup of joe down at Marty’s."

“Such a thoughtful man you are, Papa. I could gobble you up.”

Tammy Pampon checked her reflection in her compact mirror, clapping it shut and stuffing it in her purse when she noticed her lover approaching. It was a hot afternoon and the L.A. August sun made her skin glint with moisture.

“You look like Hell,” Buck remarked as he took her clammy hand in his.

They entered Papa Caliente’s together. Papa Caliente’s was the hit potato bar in town. Its name came from one of the largest potato growers in the U.S., the restaurant’s supplier, Papa Reyes. Papa believed that growth was the key to his success and had opened restaurants in all the important cities, from New York to San Francisco, and many places in between. “The more people who know the name Papa, the better,” he was known to intone.

Tammy and Buck opened their menus, though by now their orders were as routine as their morning bowel movements. For the sake of tradition, they acted interested in what the other was ordering.

“Potato Leek Soup and French Fries? Excellent choice, dear. Oh, I think I’ll go with the Garlic Mash and perhaps a few slices of Potato Rosemary pizza.”

“Oh, that sounds lovely, hon.”

In the heartland, something had altered. New life had found its way into the planet. A change was coming, though it would be a change that no one could have anticipated.

What was it that old Darwin had always said? Diversity was key to evolution? Perhaps a lack-thereof would prove to change history as well. But to what effect? Only time would tell.

“The great thing about potatoes is, there’s always gonna be a mouth to stick them in. It’s the basic staple of all mankind. A little salt and you’ve got yourself a real piece of heaven,” Papa lectured the workers. Who knew if they understood. Who cares? he thought. If Frangelica had been present, she would have oohed and aahed his pompous postulations. Instead, he was attended to by the lowing of the cows and the flatulence of his unimpressed staff.

Busily expounding upon the virtues of his crops, Papa failed to notice the pallor on the faces of the laborers. He also failed to notice the vibrations of the ground beneath his feet. The humming of the potatoes, barely audible, but steady, and strange.

Tammy and her lover awoke, legs and arms tangled with sheets and clothes. Tammy, with smudged eyeliner and streaks of mascara down her cheeks. Buck, with the sweet smell of potato vodka on his breath, his hair full of flaky white bits of dried gel. They felt the pounding of their livers, they were bloated with edema, and they experienced the most profound longing for more potatoes.

“Papa Caliente’s for breakfast? I’m dying for their home fries.”

“Me too, just let me fix my face first.”

“Good idea. You don’t look very good.”

“You’re such a charmer.”

Tammy looked at her face in her magnifying mirror, examining her enlarged pores. Was it her imagination, or had she grown browner and puffier than the night before? Had her smooth white skin turned a little rougher, a little more textured? I have to quit drinking so much, she reasoned.

After breakfast, bellies satisfied with greasy starch, Tammy and Buck returned home to relax. Neither of them had ever before felt so exhausted after a night out together. While surfing channels, they each thought about the ramifications of their ever increasing ages.

Papa Reyes began to wonder what was going on with his staff. With each day, there were fewer workers showing up. Those that did show up kissed rosaries and burbled prayers in muted tones, crossing themselves after each potato picked. Papa had himself begun to sense something was not right with his crops. His enthusiasm for the harvest was hindered by an ever increasing fatigue, by a slowing of his thoughts, and a swelling of his body. He wondered also if it was merely the sun that was turning his caramel skin to russet. Frangelica, who never ate potatoes because she was watching her figure, wondered why Papa had ceased with his lectures. She missed his instruction and salt of the earth demeanor. Perhaps part of her attraction to him was owed to his drying-up well of confidence.

Tammy, Buck, and Papa weren’t the only ones who were experiencing the changes. All over the world, every person who consumed the generic russets of North Dakota began to feel, look, and behave differently. The term “couch potato” was abandoing its metaphoric significance for a more literal meaning. What could it be attributed to? Certainly logic, science, and even religion could offer no explanation. Only Michael Pollan, an influential food philosopher, had something to say about the matter. Pollan felt strongly that the changes occurring in the human gene pool had something to do with the consistently beautiful, lengthy golden wands that we know as the McDonald’s french fry. He had no specific explanation for the mechanics of the transformation, but cited frequently the Potato Famine of the late 1840’s, attributing fault to monoculutres. He urged the world’s inhabitants to follow the wisdom of the first potato culture, descendants of the great Incan Empire, the happy potato people of Peru. “There are over 5,000 varieties of potato in Peru alone. Why are we so obsessed with the nutrient-lacking Russet variety?!” he would angrily inquire.

The strange thing about the changes occurring throughout the human race, was that along with increased lethargy and pants sizes came increased cravings for the potato. No one could get enough! Business was booming at Papa Caliente’s, but as the staff’s dependence on the species Solanum Tuberosum amplified, so too did the instances of internal company theft. Within days of the worldwide outbreak of Potato Fever, potatoes had left the shelves of grocery stores. The demand for potatoes was so great that Papa Reyes was only able to supply potatoes to his restaurants. It escalated to the point where his employees would stuff their backpacks, pants, purses, and faces with potatoes to feed to their families and to sell on the black market.

One day, about two weeks after the New York Times had coined the term “Potato Fever,” a terrible discovery was made.

Tammy Pampon had gone out to Papa Caliente’s for ten orders of tater tots. Arms loaded with the delicious morsels, she knocked on the door repeatedly with her foot. “Buck? Buckles! Buck! Hey! I’m here, open the door!”

She heard nothing inside the apartment.

“Buuuuck??” she called, lowering her brows in concern.

Tammy reluctantly set the bags of tots on the floor, knowing that at any time some filthy urchin could swipe them when her back was turned. She unclicked the locks on her door and peered into her apartment. Her now russet complexion instantly turned to yellow, the palest shade her skin could muster. She forgot the tots laying in the hallway. She picked up her phone, pausing briefly to find the words to describe the scene that lay before her.

“MAN TURNS INTO POTATO!”

“POTATO FEVER CLAIMS ITS FIRST VICTIM!”

“POTATOES NOW ILLEGAL IN 25 STATES”

“INTERNATIONAL CRISIS - PEOPLE COLLAPSING LIKE SACKS OF POTATOES”

The headlines were confounding. Even Michael Pollan could not explain the phenomenon. His famous quote, “To the extent that you can put yourself in the place of these other species and look at the world from their point of view, I think it frees us from our sense of alienation from nature and we become members of the biotic community,” had become chillingly literal.

In a matter of days, every consumer of North Dakotan potatoes had fallen victim to the potato fever. Where once stood Tammy Pampon, Papa Reyes, and Buck Finkle, there now towered massive tubers. Tubers which were ever ripening, turning green, sprouting, growing poisonous. Frangelica Boobles had no idea what to do with the hulking forms. One doesn’t bury potatoes, one unburies them. Isn’t that what Papa had taught her? And yet, she wondered, how else should I honor the memory of my sweet Papa Reyes?

Frangelica grew lonely, aching for human contact. She snuggled up to the starchy bulk of her former lover. She kissed his rough skin, licking the dirt from her lips. She caressed his sprouts, the parts she imagined had once been his reproductive anatomy. She hoped it would comfort him in some way. “If only I could hold your eleventh finger, one last time,” she whispered, blinking away the tears.
One morning, Frangelica awoke to the sound of whirring blades. Assuming it was a helicopter, a sign of human life, she peeled herself hopefully away from her lover and ran outside. Though it was before noon, the sky had grown dark. Squinting, blinking in disbelief, Frangelica tried to understand the object which filled the sky. Descending to earth, she eyed a giant food processor. Slick metal contours. Wireless. “What the...” she mumbled.

The food processor landed with a dull thud in the fields of dirt, outside the former Mr. Reyes’ home. Frangelica double-knotted the belt of her robe. She put her hand to her hair, remembering how long it had been since she last showered.

A door on the food processor opened and out walked a thin, bald-headed, bespectacled man. Her first reaction, relief, was quickly followed by panic when she noticed this man was followed by dozens of identical men. A ship of Michael Pollans, flooding the North Dakotan plains.

“What are you doing here? What do you want?” she shrieked.

“We have come to clean up the mess,” Michael Pollan replied.

“What mess? What do you mean?”

“Your people, greedy with lust for the perfect french fry, were on the verge of destroying the only thing of value on this planet,” said Michael Pollan.

Another Michael Pollan approached the first, adding, “we have infiltrated your planet through the object of your passion, the russet potato.”

The first Pollan remarked, “How easy it was to get you humans to eat the alien potatoes. How blind you all were to the tell-tale signs of alien life.”

“Wh-what are you going to do to me?” Frangelica stammered.

“Don’t you even care to know where the true value of your planet lies?! Selfish beast!” shouted the first Michael Pollan.

Frangelica Boobles whimpered submissively.

“Michael Pollan explained this all to you people weeks ago. You could have stopped the process, but you chose to ignore our warning. You had the chance to follow in the ways of the Peruvian potato people, but you did not.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Diversity is what I mean! You were all so busy finding the perfect french fry that you abandoned the most nutritious, delicious, hearty and satiating varieties of the potato crop. Foolish, foolish humans!”
 
“So, you turned us all into potatoes?”

“Yes! So that you may truly become members of the biotic community.”

“I see. And what about me? I am not a potato.”

“We knew that there would inevitably be survivors. That is why we have come. We will throw each and every worthless potato hull of a human into our ship, creating a nutritious meal of mashed human potatoes for you to survive upon and feed to your progeny. With this nutrition, you will create a race of people who can harvest more than five thousand varieties of Solanum Tuberosum. To put it simply, we are here to reproduce with you. Please. Contain your excitement.”

Again, Frangelica’s hand went to her hair. She felt something stir inside of her. A strange mixture of fear, disgust, and... arousal? Who was this outgoing alien, this presuming Pollan, this confident creature? She couldn’t help but admit it. He reminded her of the dearly departed, Papa Reyes. She bit her lip, her mind raced.

“Well?” she huskily inquired after a few moments of silence. She stepped toward the alien, softly asking him, “what are you waiting for?”

The Dream Home

Alder left the meeting feeling nauseous. Looks of shock and anxiety on the men and women he had worked beside for the past four years triggered his panic. He had just bought a new car and worried about how he would afford the payments. The market had crashed and Countrywide was closing its offices all over the country. Jack and Alan had been picked up by Bank of America, but the rest of the office had been let go with several months of pay and no future prospects. He didn’t want to tell Laurel.

On his last day at work, Alder felt positive. He’d made a plan. He’d bought The Efficient Carpenter, Building Your Own Home For Dummies, Housebuilding: A Do It Yourself Guide, and a plot of land on the outskirts of town with his severance package. Amidst the panic and planning of the weeks that followed the announcement, he’d remembered a dream that he and Laurel once had, long before the realities and distractions of the daily grind had sapped his ambition. He would build their dream house. He would spend a year outside, cutting lumber, laying wire, caulking, carpeting, digging, sanding, painting, doing everything himself, the way that he and Laurel dreamed about.
When she heard the news, she exhaled through the pinpricks of adrenaline that shot through her fingers, chest and nose. She held his hand. She kissed the tear on his cheek and told him they would get through it together.

The land Alder bought came with a dilapidated cabin. A small kitchen with a stove that wouldn’t hold a turkey and nowhere to put the toaster or the french press. A living room. A bedroom. A bathroom, with no bath.

“It’s only a year?” she asked.

“It’ll be done before you know it!” He squeezed her shoulder gently and let the February wind sweep them inside.

The walls contained her. Boxes stacked to her head, blocked her view. Boxes and walls and acres of trees between her and the life they had known.

It wasn’t long before the doubts formed; fermenting, ballooning, and spraying their spores into his blood. Heavy, filling him with leaden dread. The walls of the cabin, like an unwanted nurse with cold hands and a cot in the living room, kept him inside. The project was immense. He was a child with tinker toys.

And Laurel at the loveseat. Laurel by the stove. Laurel and her magazines. On her hands and knees, scrubbing the grout between bathroom tiles. Patiently waiting.

She knew he wasn’t on schedule. In six months he’d only managed to scout a plot to build the house on. He told her that this was the hardest part. There had to be good light. There was a view to think about, an energy to comply with. The cabin creaked under the weight of his dream and she was trapped behind its yellowed, cracking paper and weathered boards. She was almost 33 and she felt the years that stood between her and children.

She couldn’t recognize him anymore; a quiet twin with shadows in his eyes. Dream walls erected above his reach. He knew how to process a lien, how to identify the market niche, but construction was beyond his ability. He couldn’t tell Laurel. She had been so supportive, a model of patience, but he sensed that a shift was occurring. A contractor wouldn’t fit the budget. Friends in construction? Perhaps classes to take. An apprenticeship, or a course at the J.C.? He would become lost, weighing the possibilities.

A monotonous job at Cuppola Insurance became the highlight of Laurel’s days. Immersed in the office drama, she could forget about the ghost back home. She spent the shrinking evenings of fall in the kitchen with a mug of tea and the phone. Complaints collided with rafters as Marie Callender’s lasagna heated in the oven. One night, while talking to her mother about how much she missed living in town, she discovered that the latch to the kitchen door had broken when it swung open and refused to shut. Something had loosened. The latch wouldn’t slip into the hole in the strike plate. As if the cabin was telling her, “You’re free to go now.”

Little bits and pieces of the cabin gradually gave in. A leaking pipe under the sink, dead bulbs just out of Laurel’s reach, clogged gutters, cracked window panes, stains and holes.

“Can’t you at least keep this cabin from falling apart around us?” Laurel asked.

“I’m trying! Can’t you see how much I have to do? I have a house to build.”

“Trying? You do nothing all day while I go work a dead end job I hate. I’m the one working to pay for this disaster. The foundation isn’t even done.”

“Don’t you think I would work faster if I could?”

“I don’t know what to think! But this isn’t my life. This isn’t where I wanted to end up. This wasn’t my plan.”

The fights happened more frequently. She needed him to understand how unattractive his apathy was. He needed her to listen patiently and suggest solutions.

The week leading up to Valentine’s Day was cold and wet. A winter storm was passing through, pushing wind through gaps in the walls, piling eucalyptus leaves on the roof, rattling against the window panes. Laurel had been standing in the kitchen, chopping up carrots and onion for a roast, thinking about the past year. A whole year had gone by since they moved in, with only a freshly laid foundation to show for it. She had watched Alder transform into a quiet, still fixture in her life; as if here were merely an appliance inside the cabin.

She turned on the gas and struck a match, feeling weighty love for her missing husband. She knew it was time to leave, with or without Alder. As she bent toward the stove, a gust of wind rushed through the crookedly closed window, blowing out the flame. She struck another match and it was immediately extinguished. Laurel felt heavy and could barely lift her arm. She wanted to get the food started so she could lay down with a book and a bottle of Pinot, but the wind was mocking her and she couldn’t get the stove to light. Each of four matches was extinguished just before the flame could ignite the gas. Tears pressed their way out of her eyes, blurring the spokes of the range top. She choked on her breath, feeling cool wet trails winding their way to her chin. She set the matches  on the counter, poured a tall glass of wine, and headed for the couch.

Had the cabin guessed at her mood? In awe, she stared at the couch, at the pale blue and white stripes which had turned dark in a growing circle. Drops of water fell from ceiling to sofa, making a muted pat-pat upon the fabric.
 
It took Laurel only four days to find an apartment in town that would hold the two of them, but that she could afford on her own. It took two more days to work up the courage to talk to Alder. On February 13, she found him sitting on the couch in the dried tears of the cabin.

“Hon, can we talk for a minute?” she nervously asked. Her breath was shallow, pushing its way out, around the huge words that she didn’t want to speak.

“What’s up?”

She exhaled. Blinked. “I can’t do this. I can’t live here. I can’t watch you spend your days staring at the wall, or wandering the property. I’m 33. I want a family, and this isn’t the place to raise one.”
“We’re not raising kids here, we’re raising them in the house! You wanted this, too!”

“I want a house, not a cement square! How long am I supposed to live like this? I’m miserable.”

“I am doing my best.”

“It’s not enough!”

He stared at her slippers. She nervously shook her heel.

“I found a place in town,” she said. “It’s small, but it’s clean and warm and safe. I already put down a deposit and I’m moving there tonight. I’ve had it with the cold and the wet. Alder. I love you. I want you to come with me.”

This is the time to tell her, he thought. Tell her about how much harder it was to build than you’d realized. Tell her you didn’t want her to hate you for moving her out here, spending so much on an impossible dream. 

“Aren’t you going to say anything?”

Tell her.

“Well,” she straightened her posture, “I’m leaving. Call me when you snap out of this.”

 She put on her shoes and grabbed her purse, slamming the door behind her. The roof creaked under the weight of wet eucalyptus leaves and years of neglect. Alder thought he saw the walls shudder. His throat was tight. He couldn’t breathe, but his heart was slamming blood into his arteries. He heard the car door slam and the engine turn on. The cabin groaned. The roof cracked, bending metal supports, splitting beams, shearing off screws, water pouring through, loud like the blood in his ears, crashing down upon him.