All Over Creation (16 page)

“Shawna,” Y repeated with a smile. “That's a nice name.”

She blinked and froze. Her fingernails, laminated with green sparkly polish in keeping with the pre-Christmas season, hung in midair above the conveyor belt of oncoming groceries. Her eyes were blank. Frank shook his head. Shawna was a frigid bitch. Hadn't even let him kiss her. This was not going to work.

But he was wrong. He had underestimated Y's charm. It took a minute, but by 1225 three things had fully dawned on Shawna: that Y was a cute, hip, older guy; that he was probably not from Ashtabula; and that he was attempting to have a conversation with her.

It was like someone had flipped a switch.

“Thanks,” she said, smiling and running her tongue under her upper lip to keep it from sticking to her teeth. She tossed her hair. The conveyor belt delivered a ten-pound bag of bakers. As she dragged it across the glass surface of the bar-code reader, Y took her hand.

“Hey, great nails,” he said. “Listen, before you ring that up, I wanna ask you something.” His voice seemed to be growing deeper and louder.

“Yeah?” she squeaked. She was practically batting her eyelashes at him. Ol' Shawna sure was stoked now, thought Frank.

“Those potatoes, do you know if they are genetically engineered?” Y asked. His voice was really loud, now, booming over the ambient Christmas music being pumped in through the PA system—so loud that the customers in line at the checkout stations looked up to see what was going on.

“Huh?” Shawna didn't know what he was talking about, and his volume was making her nervous.

“These potatoes!” Y held up the bag. “Have they been genetically engineered?”

Shawna looked around. She didn't want to get in trouble. It occurred to her that maybe this guy was a creep. Then, two lanes down, she caught sight of Frank, grinning like a madman. She narrowed her eyes.

“Listen,” she said smartly, “like, do you want me to ring this up or not?”

“I don't know. Could you call your manager and maybe I could ask him?”

“Are you, like,
serious?
”

“Yeah, I really want to know.” Y turned toward the fit young mother behind him. “Maybe you could tell me,” he said, looking apologetic but still very concerned. “Do you happen to know if these are genetically engineered?”

The woman shook her head. “No, I'm sorry. I don't know—”

Y nodded. “That's the problem, isn't it?” He held out his finger to the infant in the shopping cart, making her dribble and coo. “We don't know because they don't tell us! They're genetically engineering poisons into potatoes these days. But they refuse to label it, so how are you supposed to know what you're feeding your baby?”

Meanwhile Shawna was hollering over to the next cashier.

“Hey, Doreen, you hear anything about someone engineering the potatoes?”

The woman next in line tapped the young mother on the shoulder. “Did he say something about bug poison?”

“Poison?” cried Lilith over in Lane 1.

“Poisoned
potatoes?
” echoed Charmey in Lane 7.

And just then a deep, amplified voice boomed out over the PA system.

“Attention shoppers! Did somebody say
POTATOES?
”

The loud reggae version of “Here Comes Santa Claus” drowned out the Christmas carols and silenced the crowd. They turned and stared at the apparition dancing toward them.

It was Mr. Potato Head, twirling a candy-striped cane as he pushed a shopping cart bearing an enormous boom box toward the cash registers. Now, Mr. Potato Head was not just any old spud. He was a sweet, sporty potato, friendly and dapper. He had big, googly eyes and lozenge-shaped ears, as pink as Pepto-Bismol. He wore a green leisure suit and a Santa Claus hat perched on the top of his bald, orbicular head. He hung his cane over one arm and did a spudly little soft-shoe on his spindly green legs.

He positioned his cart in a central location in front of Lane 5, then danced along the aisles, distributing paper daisies and leaflets. By now the children, tired of waiting with their moms, were laughing and clapping. They ran to him and tugged on his burlap hide. They jumped up and down.

The Seeds quickly followed suit, passing leaflets to the customers in their lanes. Then they pushed their shopping carts forward, circling Mr. Potato Head's boom box like a wagon train shoring up defenses. Frank started joining the carts together with inconspicuous lengths of precut baling wire. The barricade would not be much of a deterrent to the police, Geek had explained, but it would make their arrest more spectacular. When the cops showed up, the Seeds would close ranks and cordon themselves off in the center. In order to reach them, the cops would have to tear the shopping carts apart or tip them over—a noisy business. Crude and violent. Very impressive.

Charmey, meanwhile, had opened a bag of Idaho bakers and tossed a couple of spuds to Y, who juggled them and threw them to Lilith, who added a squash, and before long, dozens of potatoes, zucchinis, squashes, and even tomatoes were tumbling through the air in precise, intricate arcs. Mr. Potato Head returned to the center of the circle and continued his soft-shoe amid the flying vegetables, and the children started to clap and cheer.

Frank finished securing the carts and stood to one side, scanning the store. He caught sight of Shawna talking to a fat fuck named Phil who had once been Frank's supervisor at Mickey D's. Shawna pointed one long green nail in Frank's direction. Phil narrowed his eyes and headed back toward the glassed-in office area, where Frank saw him pick up the phone. Frank headed toward Y.

“Yo, dude. The manager's back on site, and he's making the call.”

Y nodded. Without missing a beat, he walked to the boom box and slowly faded down the volume. On cue the jugglers snatched the vegetables from the air. When the music was quiet, Mr. Potato Head took up a small microphone.

“First we want to thank Thrifty Foods for opening its doors to us,” he said. He turned to the kids, wiggling his rosy, discoid ears. “Who wants to play a game with Mr. Potato Head?”

The children had formed a circle around him. He pulled out a big red tomato and held it up for them to see.

“What's this?” he asked. “Can anyone tell me?”

“A tomato!” cried a little girl in front.

“Very good!” said Mr. Potato Head. “You think it's a tomato. Now, how many of the rest of you think it's a tomato?”

The others nodded in agreement. It was a tomato, all right.

“Well, what if I told you it
wasn't
a tomato?” Mr. Potato Head pulled out a chiffon scarf and draped it over the tomato.

“What if . . .”

He held the scarf out in front of him for the kids to see.

“. . . I told you . . .”

He circled slowly.

“. . . it was . . .”

The kids held their breath.

“. . . a
flounder!
” And with that he yanked off the scarf to reveal a large, slimy fish. Charmey had defrosted it the night before and daubed it with glycerin to make it drip and glisten. A clamor went up from the circle of kids.

“Yuuuuck!” they cried. “Gross!” They screwed up their noses.

Mr. Potato Head raised his black, sluglike eyebrows. “You said it, kids.” He tossed the fish over his shoulder to Charmey, who caught it neatly in a burlap sack.

“Now try this one. What's this?” He held up a potato. This time the children weren't so sure.

“A potato?” asked a little boy.

“Nope.” Mr. Potato Head stepped forward. “It's not a potato. . . .” He reached behind the boy's ear and pulled out a candy cane.

“Ooops, it's not a candy cane.” He handed it to the boy and tried again. He reached behind the ear of a little girl. This time he pulled out a plastic Christmas tree.

“Oh, dear! It's not a Christmas tree either,” he said, handing it to the girl, who gave a little skip and turned around to show her mother.

“No, my miniature friends,” he continued, holding up the potato and draping it once again with his scarf. “This potato is not a potato at all.” He leaned over the heads of the children and invited a mother to pull off the scarf. “It is . . .”

The woman giggled, then gave a yank.

And sure enough the potato had been transformed in his hand into a large spray can of household insecticide, which he held up for all to see.

“This, my friends, is the perverted magic of biotechnology.” Mr. Potato Head's voice grew serious now, as he addressed the mothers over the heads of their offspring. “But genetic engineering is no joke, not when it comes to the food you feed your children. As of 1997 over thirty genetically engineered crops were approved by the U.S. government for sale, including potatoes that are genetically spliced with a bacterial pesticide and tomatoes crossed with fish genes to increase their resistance to the cold. Then there's corn, canola, soybeans, squash. . . .”

He had the mothers' attention.

Frank, meanwhile, was counting. He figured they had about five minutes before the cops showed up. He looked around for Charmey. He tested the strength of his wire.

“Approximately sixty to seventy percent of processed foods now contain some form of genetically modified corn or soy. That means infant formulas, baby foods, pizza, soda, chips. . . .”

The mothers scanned the contents of their carts.

“And it isn't just vegetables either. . . .”

Frank looked out the window and realized he was wrong again. Five-O was pulling into the parking lot. Three squad cars. He alerted Y, then stood close to Charmey in case things got rough. Y passed the word on to Mr. Potato Head, who started speaking faster now.

“Who here drinks milk?” He looked around at the circle of children, then to the mothers behind. There wasn't a woman without a gallon and a child.

The assistant manager ran to the door as the police approached.

“Po-po's here, dudes,” Y said. “Hang on. Here we go!”

The Seeds retreated to the center of the circle of carts. Frank secured the opening with the last of the wire, then took Charmey's hand, forming, along with Lilith and Y, a tight line of defense around Mr. Potato Head, who raised his cane and his voice.

“That's right. Even milk! The big corporations have introduced genetically modified food into your supermarkets and therefore into your bodies, without your knowledge or consent. There's been no long-term testing of their safety, but the government doesn't make them put warning labels on these foods. . . .”

The cops approached, six of them, assessing the situation. Frank recognized a couple of faces, but the one he knew best was a sergeant named Meinike who'd busted him and confiscated his board, just for doing nose grinds off the benches by the senior center, a vengeful action seeing as there weren't even any seniors sitting on the benches at the time. He was a mean mother. The other cops held back, but Meinike charged right over.

“All right, punks,” he growled. “Party's over.”

He grabbed a cart and hauled on it, trying to break through, and looked quite perplexed when it resisted. He began to rattle the carts, trying to pull them apart, but Frank had done a very good job with the wire.

“Without labels, you don't even know what you are buying and feeding your families!” Mr. Potato Head shouted, bug eyes popping, jumping up and down. “It is a violation of your consumer's right to know!”

Meinike was really pissed now, and the other cops closed in. “You're under arrest for trespassing and creating a public disturbance!”

Three of the patrolmen pushed through the crowd of customers and attacked the circle from the other side.

“We're not disturbing the public,” Mr. Potato Head said. “We're educating the people.” He turned back to the crowd. “Learn about the issues!” he shouted over the clatter of carts. “Your children are at risk! Their futures—the future of
life itself!
”

The Seeds began to chant, “Power to the people!” as the police broke through. The first person they reached was Lilith.

“Police brutality!” she shrieked as soon as the cop touched her. Her body went limp, and she dropped to the floor as though she'd been shot.

“Oh, my God, they're hurting her!” a woman cried. The mothers grabbed their kids. They continued to watch from a safe distance.

One by one the Seeds fell to the ground, until Frank was the only one left standing. His friends lay there, absolutely still and chanting, as the cops tried to haul them to their feet. Meinike approached him.

“Well, the chicken man. What a surprise.”

“Shut the fuck up, Meinike.”

“Oh, sure, Frankie. Anything you say.” He slapped a handcuff on Frank's wrist. A cop was dragging Charmey up by her armpits. It looked like he was hurting her. Frank pulled away, but Meinike jerked his arm behind his back and attached the second cuff. “Calm down, will you?”

Charmey threw back her head and screamed. Frank twisted, breaking free from Meinike. He lowered his chin, took aim at the cop who was holding Charmey, and put everything he had into a head butt into the officer's rib cage. The man staggered. Charmey dropped to the floor. Meinike spun Frankie around, drew back his fist, and delivered a sucker punch, deep into Frankie's solar plexus.

“What's wrong with you, chicken man?” he said as Frankie crumpled. “I said calm the fuck down.”

 

 

“The point of the exercise,” Geek explained later, when they'd finally gotten back to the Spudnik, “is theatrical.” He toweled off his hair, still wet from the snow outside, and watched Charmey wrap an Ace bandage around Frankie's cracked rib. Frankie flinched. “Passive resistance,” Geek said. “Nonviolence. You make the police look like brutal oppressors in front of the citizens. You're not supposed to get hurt.”