- Anthony Bourdain
There are many things I have seen and tasted in life. There are many things I am seeing and tasting in life, currently. But for some reason, tonight, I want to take you back to one of the most innocent moments I can remember in my life. A moment that feels like it should have existed in the 1950s. A moment that feels so pure in comparison to anything else, arguably, that has transpired.
(pause)
When I was a child, I took a piece of candy from the Brach's candy display in my local supermarket. It was the candy by the pound bulk bin display. As my mother pushed the cart past the display, I took the piece that I wanted (a candy coated gumball, if I recall correctly), and placed it on the bottom of the cart. The part underneath the cart, for oversized or heavy things. Somehow, I got the piece of candy to balance between two of the long, parallel, metal bars that made up the shopping cart.
When we got to the line and we emptied the cart onto the black rubber-ish conveyor belt to check out, the candy remained under the cart. We placed the bags back in the cart and walked out to the car. I took the piece of candy from underneath the cart.
From this point, my memory gets fuzzy.
One of the strange things about having neglectful and/or abusive parents is that, as you grow up, there are moments of potential tenderness or normalcy that become sublime in their stature. There are only a handful and so, like some type of strange worry doll, we run our minds over them again and again building a fiction of tenderness and lesson that may or may not have ever existed. Generally speaking, there will be two stories that exist in your mind. One is an idealized version of what should have happened, usually made up of snippets of television shows and of stories from what you've witnessd or heard about other people's parents. The other is what actually happened. Over time, these stories intertwine forming a strange rope that attempts to lasso any actual facts but, by adulthood, the fiction is as valuable as any type of truth.
What I recall is that I took the candy off the cart and held it in my small hands, twisting and turning it around in a guilty worry waiting for my mother to notice it. I waited until she asked me where I had gotten the candy and then I readily confessed to her what I had done. She turned the car around, marched me back into the store, and had me tell the manager what I had done. I felt ashamed, but I also felt loved. I was glad that my mother had fallen into my trap to love me.
Yet at the same time, I have this memory of the indescribable flavor of a singular, stolen, candy. I recall the texture of the candy coating over the bubble gum. As I type this, the memory becomes more vivid. I am certain that it was a candy covered piece of bubble gum. I can feel the shatter of the candy against my teeth, and the incredible mix of sharp candy mixing with the malluable tough of the gum. I recall the color of it: Red. The taste of it: Cherry. My palms start to sweat, and my heart starts to race - not with fear, but with anticipation and want.
What is it that truly happened? More than likely, a combination of the two. More than likely a child who stole a piece of candy and fantasized while chomping on the stolen gem, and for hours and years afterwards, of the intervention of the care and attention of an imaginary parent.
Be well, be loved,
(If you aren't? Just imagine it. Make it up in your head: It will come.)
k.
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