Buck's Against Despair
CRIT
07-05-02023
“What the fuck, Chuck?”
“My name ain’t Chuck, Buck.”
“Well Chuck, you owe me 40… uh… bucks.”
“Name ain’t Chuck, Buck. And take a fucking breath will ya. 40 bucks couldn’t even buy Chipotle for two these days.”
“Well I ain’t buying Chipotle for two, I’m buying Pizza for a dozen. And 40 bucks gets me five Hot n’ Readys and a Code Red two liter for mixers. Delivered.”
“Doing right by your guests, I see.”
“Beggars can’t be choosers.”
“Dear. How does anything get chosen in our little scene?”
“No more witty tit-for-tat, Chuck. Just VeMo me the 40 bucks you owe me.”
【 $40 from Chük for ‘Not Chuck🍕🍕’ 】
“That gonna leave enough for a tip?”
“They switched to drones. See you Friday?”
“No ‘so how are ya Chük’? Just shake me down for pizza scratch and…”
“I’m going to Nat’s reading thing. It starts in an hour.”
“That hippie shit?”
“That hippie shit. She said it was important to get there by 9, that’s when the ‘container closes’ or something… whadda you care. I gotta go.”
“Wait, where is it can I…”
【 CALL ENDED 】
I took the Valley Metro train even though it costs me more than a Whymo self-drive would have. Self-Drive startups were all rocking that make-it-so-cheap-the-competitors-starve phase of growth. There are no taxi companies left to compete with of course, so they’re undercutting the Phoenix Transit Authority now—forcing the PTA into a war of attrition with their angel investors. Lively & nimble Jaguar SUVs with soft pleather seats and free breath mints vs. the slow screech-n-clunk of Metro. Seats—if you dared sit in them—like hard plastic bowls of UTIs.
Nat’s evite recommended taking public transit to help get into the spirit of the evening. To experience the ‘inconvenience of ecology’. Riding a bike was also recommended, but I’d pancaked into an opening Whymo car door last month and my shoulder was still sorta fucked. If I’m being honest, the crash spooked me. I haven’t worked up the courage to mount my bike again. Still waiting on the settlement payout. Whymo is ‘processing a backlog’. At least that's what the chatbot said.
The ads on the train-screens are like the ones I used to see on TV when I stayed home from elementary school, all aimed at elderly types. Ads for showertubs with little doors in the sides. For commemorative coin sets with civil rights leader inlays (MLK, but no Malcom X, Rosa Parks, but no Assata Shakur). For so many pharmies; symptoms all cued by the pill in the next ad. The only eyes tuned in at 10 AM on Tuesday in 2008 are now the only Metro riders with disposable income.
‘No way I’m taking the train home,’ I think. ‘This is a one-way inconvenience.’
“Could everyone please form a circle? It's a little cramped but do your best. Perfect. Thank you for coming tonight. I know the effort it takes to make it anywhere at 9 pm on a Wednesday. I'm not being ironic, I really mean that. Let’s all take a breath together and appreciate ourselves.”
“I want to thank Cherry for helping set up the space. These plants… Auh! Cherry, yes please, applause are in order. Beautiful job. In a moment I want to go around and have each of us say our name, preferred pronouns if you like, and then I’d like us to mention the last time we felt really connected to nature. It can be something big or small. Small is often the most beautiful. If you're uncomfortable with any of that you are welcome to just say ‘pass’. Nothing tonight is mandatory, but respect. Before that though, our speaker would like to lead us in a Cacao Ceremony. Cherry has prepared some cups for us all and, ya, she’s passing them around now. Don’t drink just yet, I’m looking at you. Oh I’m just kidding Buck, your eagerness is flattering. We will all drink together after our speaker finishes their blessing. And with that, I yield the floor to Gabi.”
“Gracias Nat… does everyone have a cup… one more over there if you could Cherry… wonderful. I’ve been invited here to speak on my time in an Ecuadorian climate camp, where the rainforest indigenous and allies are protesting oil pipeline constructions as we speak. But first, let us all imbibe that rainforest. What you have in your cups is a varietal of cacao known as Arriba Nacional. It is an old cacao, an heirloom from the time of its earliest cultivation. The word ‘cacao’ comes from a European mispronunciation of the word ‘ka’kau’, a Maya word meaning heart’s blood. You see, freshly roasted cacao is not brown, but a deep purple-red. The color of a heart pulled fresh out the chest. A cacao ceremony is a blood ritual. To drink cacao is to drink the blood of gods. The Catholics will be familiar, yes? There is so much rich history to this, but our cacao is cooling. Let’s all go ahead and take our first sip.”
“As I tell you about this cacao, I want you to keep blood in mind, how it flows through you with each heartbeat. The cacao tastes bitter, yes? Earthy? Cacao has an astounding mineral density, and its iron is rapidly becoming your blood. Blood into blood. God into Gods. This cacao was harvested by a farmer in the northern coastal region of Ecuador, grown in the shade of banana and papaya trees. Cacao needs these shade trees to protect its delicate flowers — flowers as small as your pinky nail — and their pollinator, the Chocolate Minge, a fly the size of a poppy seed. For cacao, even a gentle breeze can be a doom. This farmer loves bird song. He leaves thick strips of his land untouched so that tall trees can continue to grow, providing shelter for those birds. Seen from above, the hilltop farm resembles a curled kitten as a great hand gives it a gentle squeeze, fur raising up between the fingers.”
“Let’s take another sip.”
“He drives the harvested cacao beans to the Eco Cacao Community Collective Processing Center in a 1992 Toyota Hilux pick-up. There, they are fermented, dried, roasted, and ground into blocks of cacao paste. The blocks are shrink-wrapped in 4 mil poly-plastic, then placed in heavyweight corrugated boxes. These are packed into pallets and driven to the Port of Emeraldas. The blood is really pumping now, out from that first beat of the rainforest. Out, out, out. Let’s take another sip.”
“Truck to crane to container ship to crane to truck, the blood of Gods continues through the vascular of the global supply chain, coming to rest at Ultimate Superfoods LLC in Oxnard, California. There the blocks are pulverized into small chunks and repackaged into stand-up pouches labeled Ultimate Vitality Organic Ceremonial Grade Cacao. The pouches are compostable — a corn PLA material that is a byproduct of the corn syrup industry. Corn syrup’s waste packaging the blood of gods, under the label Ultimate Vitality. The price of a 5 pound bag was just shy of the free shipping minimum, so I bought a second bag of God. Truck to plane to truck to my bicycle and, finally, to your cup. Nat prepared it with boiled Phoenix tap — its journey is less known to me, but I am comfortable calling the water Ceremonial Grade. I believe, yes, Nat confirms, it was passed through a Brita. We can sip at leisure now.”
“How is it? Still bitter, but growing in subtlety I hope. At the risk of sounding pretentious, try to search beneath that bitter flavor and look for floral notes. Arriba Nacional is known for these subtle floral notes. Search your palate. The flowers are there, I promise, lingering on the tongue after bitter’s had its fun. Once you get a note of flowers, hold it. Reverse the flow this cacao took. Out of your heart, out your mouth, and into cups. Cups to hands to bikes to trucks, planes, and ships. Our blood, drawn back to the heart of the Earth. Jungle birds, shade trees, and the tiny Chocolate Minge. That whole journey, tanker and minge, PLA and papaya, sip and soil, is your blood now. Feel into that.”
“For me, it’s a bitter feeling, but if I stay with it… there they are, delicate little flowers.”
The walk home was hot, but less oppressive than the Metro. If only because my own motion moved me.
I arrived home… tired.