Illustrated by Lee Kuruganti © 2008
THE EGG MAN
© by Alec Cizak
Joe Yoke returned from an illicit farm outside of the city to get his daily fix. Every other commercial on his small television shrieked about the dangers of cholesterol, justifying the illegality of eggs.
"Whatever," he spit the word out with a violent shrug as he set about the task of making scrambled eggs. To avoid trouble with the law, he had to light incense by his front door so his neighbors wouldn't suspect anything. Satisfied that the aroma wouldn't escape his apartment, he proceeded to stir three eggs in a bowl and then poured them onto a steaming pan.
Joe had been an egg junky before the prohibition. The government's insistence on making eggs illegal spurned a stubbornness in him and he became one of the country's many egg men, using and dealing the poultry product on the black market.
As the yellow substance turned into a fluffy golden mound of scrambled eggs, Joe stirred them around the pan and then dumped them onto a plate. He sat in the corner of his one room apartment, low, away from the windows, and ate the dangerous food.
Joe closed his eyes as his stomach made peace with the eggs. Pictures of another world flashed through his mind:
Grass that smelled of summer green.
Little Joe Yoke, adopted, wondering why his biological parents didn't want him, running barefoot, chasing his dog, Boomer.
His parents buying him gifts he destroyed because he felt he deserved nothing.
All the anger inside, the untouched world outside.
The sky glorious blue, the clouds pure white, the seasons on schedule.
Everyone under the impression that the American Dream was waiting for anyone who tried hard enough to grab it.
The dangerous mixture of cholesterol and Joe's blood put him to sleep.
If he had a clock in his apartment, Joe would have recognized that it was well after two in the afternoon when a frantic knock fell on his front door. The egg man finally woke up and walked cautiously to see who it was.
Looking through the peep hole, all he saw was a hand, covering it up.
"Who is it?" he demanded.
A muffled voice laughed through the door.
Joe sighed, walked over to the only real piece of furniture in his apartment, a table, and grabbed a .9 mm pistol sitting next to a bowl with his latest bounty of eggs.
Opening the door quickly and pointing the gun at whoever was on the other side, Joe sighed when he saw Frank Bean, a regular customer of his.
"Relax, man, it's just me."
"What did I tell you about covering up the eye hole?" Joe lowered the gun.
Shrugging off Joe's concern, Frank looked around cautiously. He pulled the handle of a medium-sized frying pan out of his jacket. "You happening?"
"How many?"
Frank held up three fingers.
"Five bucks a piece."
"I can't get a discount for bulk?"
"You know the price cuts start at a dozen."
"I don't have that kind of money."
"Join the club."
"Alright." Frank tried to push past Joe into his apartment.
Joe stopped him, held out his free hand.
Frank produced fifteen dollars and gave it to him.
"Wait here." Joe went into his apartment, grabbed three eggs from the bowl on the table and returned to the door. "Remember," he said as he handed the eggs to Frank, "you get busted, I have no idea who you are."
"Yeah, yeah," Frank quickly took the eggs and hid them, carefully, in his outside pockets.
"Enjoy." Joe closed the door on the egg junky.
Frank Bean rushed out of Joe's apartment building. He looked left and right constantly, making sure no police were sitting outside, waiting to nab him. He hurried through the crowd of poor people shuffling up and down, looking for a job or something to take their mind off the fact that there were no jobs. Watching his feet as he walked, so as not to let on that he had three fresh eggs in his pocket to steal or confiscate, he did not notice the three-piece standing just up the street.
A fancy black car parked next to Frank and another three-piece got out and followed him. Frank walked right into the suit in front of him. His first instinct was to protect the eggs in his pocket. He cupped his hands around them to prevent any cracking, then looked up to confront the careless jerk who had not gotten out of his way.
"Oh," he quietly said. A three-piece never meant anything but money and power. "Excuse me," he turned around to walk in the opposite direction.
The three-piece from the car was standing right behind him. Joe stopped, looked back and forth between the two suits and started to run towards the street.
The well-dressed men grabbed him and dragged him to the car. They threw him in the backseat and drove away quickly.
Joe Yoke thought about looking for a legitimate job. He glanced outside his window at the masses below, wandering back and forth like rodents in a laboratory. "Who am I kidding?" he asked himself.
Another knock fell on the door. Joe put his gun in the front of his pants. He looked through the eye-hole and smiled.
Heather White, brown hair, blue eyes, clinging to the final strands of sexy life had afforded her, stood on the other side. She was dressed in a lightly sewn one-piece dress that she had cut well above her thighs to facilitate her own business.
"Hello," Joe's voice failed to hide the excitement he felt standing near her.
Heather pulled a small frying pan out of her otherwise empty purse. "You happening?" she asked.
"Always."
Heather peered around him and saw the bowl of eggs on his table. "Oh yeah," she said and tried to enter the apartment.
Joe stopped her. "Five bucks a piece."
Heather shrank. She curled her toes around in her broken sandals. "I don't have any money."
"Sorry," Joe stepped back and started to close the door.
"Wait a minute," Heather lifted the bottom of her dress up over her hips. Nothing covered her currency.
"Alright."
Joe cooked six eggs in his skillet. Heather sat with her back against the wall. Anytime Joe's attention returned to the burner, she would stare lustfully at the bowl on the table. Various schemes roamed her thoughts. She could knock him out and take the whole batch. That would require finding a new egg man as soon as she was dry again. Joe was one of the better-looking dealers, making the sordid task she was required to fulfill in order to get her fix slightly less demeaning. Best not to sour the arrangement, she concluded.
Before taking a seat next to Heather, Joe turned the television to the music station. Mono-rhythmic noise designed to placate the masses without encouraging linear thought thumped out of the speakers while test patterns swirled on the screen. Satisfied that the mood had been set for modern romance, Joe sat down.
Heather reached for the fork. Joe slapped her hand away, scooped some eggs up and held them in front of her face expectantly. She closed her eyes and opened her mouth.
Joe gently fed her, watching her chew and swallow. He occasionally took a bite from the same fork. They finished and leaned into each other with their eyes closed. Heather lay down and allowed Joe to undress her and collect his fee. As the egg man fooled himself into believing he was making love to her, she kept her eyes closed. The cholesterol allowed her to imagine a different time and place:
Little Heather White, visiting her Uncle Nick's house by Lake Michigan. Independence Day, every year. The family would watch fireworks on the water, the bright colors reflected in ripples to the thunder of the explosions in the sky. And then it would be time to go to bed.
Uncle Nick always insisted on being the last to say goodnight to her.
Joe finished and rolled over to go to sleep.
Heather was already there.
After the sun set, Heather woke up while Joe still slept. She wound herself free of his arms. Standing, naked, she glanced at the bowl of eggs, then at Joe. Her sickness for eggs prevented her from thinking strategically. She walked on the top of her toes to the table. Her mouth watered as she got closer and the prospect of escaping with the entire batch inched towards reality.
She picked an egg up from the top of the pile and stared at it the way her grandmother might once have stared at a diamond ring. Her clothes, purse and all-important skillet were in the corner. Taking a deep breath, she turned to gather her belongings.
Joe stood directly behind her. He grabbed his gun off the table. Heather put the egg back just as Joe yanked a handful of her hair and forced her to his front door.
"Please, baby," she whimpered.
"It's my fault for thinking you wanted something other than me," he said as he threw her into the hallway. "Don't ever come back." He slammed the door in her face.
The bowl was half empty by the next afternoon. Joe had made three sales in the morning and was asleep from his own fix when another knock interrupted him. He woke up slowly and approached the door.
A hand covered up the eye hole on the other side. Joe sighed, upset that junkies like Frank Bean never listened to him. He thought about getting his gun again, just in case, but decided walking across the room was too much work.
When Joe opened the door, he stepped back. Something horrific had happened to Frank. Before he could put it together in his mind, two suits and ties jumped around Frank and knocked Joe to the floor.
They slammed the door on Frank's hideous face. The larger of the suits picked up Joe and pushed him into the table with the bowl, gun and eggs. The eggs flew in every direction, the majority breaking on impact with the walls and floor.
"No!" he cried at the sight of the ruined product.
The second suit grabbed Joe's gun and tossed it out the window. He produced a gun of his own and a vial of clear yellow liquid.
"We're gonna show you the future," the suit explained, and then turned Joe's portable stove on. The skillet was still there from the morning fix. Dumping the liquid in the vial onto the pan, the well-dressed man concluded, "And you're gonna show the rest of the world for us."
"Who are you?"
The larger suit smacked Joe one time in the back of his head.
The substance from the vial popped and cracked on the skillet and then burst into a plastic-looking representation of scrambled eggs.
Joe considered asking what exactly the suits thought they were doing, then changed his mind.
The second suit dumped the fake eggs on a plate and shoved it under Joe's nose. "Dig in," he instructed.
"I'm not eating that," Joe turned his head away from the plate.
The suit pointed his gun at Joe's face. "You don't have a choice."
Joe cautiously sniffed at the plate.
"Just eat the stinkin' eggs!" The suit's face turned fire red. He looked like might actually explode.
Joe dug his fork into the stubborn substance and chiseled off a chunk. He closed his eyes and stuffed the imposter eggs into his mouth. The smell was so horrible his taste-buds went numb.
"Keep going," said the suit with the gun.
Joe couldn't taste or even feel the alleged food. When he finished, the suits sat back and looked at him curiously.
According to Joe's eyes, the room elongated. Sound wobbled in his ears as though it were being knocked back and forth over a ping-pong table. He did not fall asleep and he did not reflect on his life. Within an hour, the only thing he knew was that he absolutely had to have more of whatever the suits had brought in the vial.
They obliged on the condition that Joe introduce the new product to all his customers.
Heather White was able to stay away from Joe Yoke for two days before realizing he was the only egg man who didn't weigh three hundred pounds and smell like manure. She was going to have to bite the bullet and apologize with everything she had.
Adjusting herself in her dress, she knocked on his door. "I wouldn't be surprised if he doesn't even let me in," she said to herself.
The door opened. Heather stepped back, considered running. She couldn't take her eyes off the spectacle before her:
Joe's head had turned into a wide-eyed, perpetually grinning egg. He grabbed her before she could scream, dragged her into his apartment and slammed the door.
