A Memorable Meal by Karen

It is an early July Sunday — monsoon season, Tucson-style. Two residents of the Spadefoot Housing Co-op sprawl across assorted porch furniture; two more adhere to faded living room upholstery.

Ours is a parched, spent, 108° quiet. We have no juice in the house, and for that matter, we have little food. The communal budget is stretched tight this summer, and so we have cycled, since our last shopping trip, from plenty to paucity.

An argument breaks out briefly in the kitchen, then stops, its participants retiring to their respective hiding places.

After a few moments, the back door creaks open slowly. We listen to the sound of a box hitting the counter top. “Can someone give me a hand?” a voice calls. Tentatively, we move toward the kitchen. It is — yes, it is — FOOD!

Our regular supply buyer, Elliot, is weighted down with cardboard boxes from the Tucson Cooperative Warehouse. There are whole cases of cereal, pasta, and frozen concentrate. Chris, a natural foods worker, follows right behind. He carries an unexpected bounty: artichokes. A delicacy everywhere, they are especially welcome in this foodless house.

Before long there is a pot of water boiling upon the industrial size stove, a vegetable aroma wafting up the staircase and out the open door.

By the time the artichokes are finished cooking, a makeshift group has assembled in the common room. One of our newer residents, Jess, picks up an artichoke by its stem, holding it out cautiously. She examines it briefly, then sets it back without a word. Chris responds with a step by step tutorial, peeling off a leaf and raking it several times across his teeth.

“I don’t know about this.” I giggle. “Eating artichokes is one of those things you only do in front of your family, like walk around in a bathrobe.”

Jess rolls up the sleeves of her flannel shirt and places both elbows squarely on the table. “This is my family,” she pronounces.

And so, for the moment, we are. We gather a communal butter dish and a communal refuse dish. Watermelon is sliced, garlic roasted, and we begin.

Just as we are sated, the rains come. We notice first a dimming of lights, then a slap-clapping that grows, in the space of perhaps one minute, from tentative footfall to a full-fledged stampede. It is the long-awaited first monsoon of the season.

Abandoning our plates, we run outside. Most take refuge on the porch; a few run, crazed, through the downpour.

The water falls in torrents. The streets, antiquated and sloping, are again caught unawares. They swell, filling curbs and ditches. Ignoring the danger (the sky is by now lit by lightning) Shane and Chris go body surfing, dog paddling down a flooded University Boulevard.

Jess is shrieking with laughter; I am shrieking with fear. Thunder sounds. Chris dances around a light pole until the lights go out and the street darkens. It is — may God not strike us dead — a perfect moment.

But by the time Shane has hauled his dripping body inside and shaken off onto the golden retriever, we are all laughed out, and the mood has begun to evaporate. We try to prolong it, as if by prolonging the silliness, we can make everything else last: the exuberance, the electricity, that brief moment when we were indeed family.

We are seventeen people building a life together. We cycle in fifteen — no, five minutes — from camaraderie to conflict, from kin to something worse than strangers. Community breaks out, then dissolves, quick as a thunderclap, as quick as the desert rain.

© 2010, kimmanleyort. All rights reserved.

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Tags: artichokes, community, desert rain, karen, memoir writing, memorable meal, Tucson

This entry was posted on July 20, 2010 at 9:53 pm and is filed under Karen, Memoirs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.