the fruits of autumn

8/4/2019 The Fruits of Autumn

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The Fruits of Autumn

By Thomas Fullmer

5210 S 900 ESalt Lake City, UT 84117

E-mail: [email protected]

Home Phone: (801) 270-0475Cell Phone: (801) 230-6190

Word Count: 1312

We met at the farmer’s market, Barbie and I. It was love at first sight, at least on

my end. She was standing next to tables covered with ornamental squash of all shapes,

sizes, and autumn colors. Her lush auburn hair bounced up and down on her shoulders as

she moved between the tables lifting up each multicolored squash she examined each as

if it were a priceless Van Gogh. When she looked up and saw me, her steamy blue eyes

gave me a come hither look and I was hooked. Her smooth, graceful movements and

gentle, shy smile reeled me in.

It was all about vegetables and fruits, as the fresh smells of summer’s finest faire

filled our nostrils as I approached and said, “Hi, I’m Tom.”

She extended a delicate hand and responded with a smile that melted my lonely

heart right down to my leather sandals and said, “I’m Barbie.”

I took her hand and on impulse reached down and kissed it. She slowly withdrew

it holding it to her cheek as if it had been touched by the finger of God and with her other

hand picked up a zucchini, extended it to me, and said, “Care for a squash?”

Our first date was shared over steaming plates of that zucchini mixed with red bell

peppers, Walla Walla onions, portabella mushrooms, and bright yellow summer squash.

Squash, squash, squash, we had it coming out of our ears and other orifices down

at the farmer’s market. We were like squash that was carefully sliced into one pot to

make a delicious stir-fry, lightly peppered with our love for spice. When we made love



we were like a peach and a plum, which thrown together made a delicious, juicy

nectarine. Or is it apricots and peaches, either way the analogy applied to us. Our next

meal was breakfast and for it we had mixture of fresh fruit: strawberries bright and red

and luscious; nectarines, of course, that were yellow and red and juicy; and bananas, lots

of bananas, long and yellow and firm; and blueberries, very blue and very sweet.

For lunch the next day, a Saturday, we had a salad full of romaine lettuce, red

onions, red cabbage, the left over mushrooms and red bell peppers from our stir-fry, and

big, red, juicy tomatoes to match Barbie Dolls lips. That same afternoon we went to the

farmer’s market and purchased an acorn squash, potatoes, berries, more bananas, and of

course nectarines. There were always plenty of nectarines with us, the yin and yang of

the fruit world; a perfect mix of two fruits, sweet and delicious and bursting with

vitamins and flavor.

That night we had spinach and artichoke dip, both from the farmer’s market, with

pita chips as an appetizer. For the main course we had the acorn squash halved and full

of butter, baked perfectly; scalloped potatoes; and tofu fried and seasoned with onions,

red bell peppers and mushrooms. For desert we had nectarines and bananas and each

other. We never had meat, fish on occasion, but never meat. My palate wouldn’t tolerate

a butchered animal. Of course we did share one meat, the one that dangled between my

legs, and when we did that we were both in ecstasy. It was the sensual food that aroused

our deepest senses, fruit and vegetables, zucchini and acorn squash, mushrooms and

peppers, peaches and plums, and of course nectarines and bananas.

We shared everything, every moment we were together, each day was drawn out

agony as we waited for the night to fall when we could leave the prisons we called work



and walk freely together, thrown into the mix of love with fruit salad and walnuts the

stamp of approval from the God of produce. After all, work is only day care for adults,

and our nights were an extended recess on the playground of love with a big, green,

striped watermelon to add sweetness to our journey, and a huge, orange pumpkin with

our spices we made the most delicious pie.

As we walked down the street on those cool autumn evenings the scents of fall

filled the air. There were the pumpkin entrails decomposing in the garbage; over ripe

apples rotting on the ground; and the fresh, sweet scent of vanilla from Barbie’s perfume.

But change is subtle and with change you have growth or demise. The storms of

December were brewing on the horizon as the greatest of all autumn celebrations

approached in the guise of Thanksgiving, or as we fondly called it, Tofurky Day. It

started with an argument over grapefruit for breakfast, whether salt or sugar was the

topping of choice to bring out the flavor. I was sugar, Barbie was salt. It was such a little

thing. But from that grew an argument over whether candied yams required almonds or

not, and whether to use nutmeg in the apple pie. But all that was enough.

The Sunday after Thanksgiving Barbie served me a plate of something that would

change our relationship forever. Mixed with the onions, mushrooms, and bell peppers

was something new, something different, something spicy and delicious, little brown

crumbles. “What did you put in this?” I asked. “It’s sumptuous.”

She leaned over the table and said in the most venomous tones, “It’s ground

sausage from the butcher down the block>”

I immediately spit out the mouthful I was chewing on and exclaimed, “Barbie’

what have you done!?”



“Nothing,” she said, “I just thought we could use a little meat in our diet. So I

threw some in. You know a little meat, like you, protein. It won’t kill you, although the

pig it came from is long dead. Besides I like sausage and the butcher down the block has

big, spicy ones.”

I ran screaming from her apartment, and threw up in the bushes outside her

building, so hard it wrenched my gut and nearly dislocated my jaw. Then I ran screaming

bloody murder down the street.

Now my broken heart cries for her each night, my Barbie Doll. It was almost like

a song, but it was just too sad to write. I drowned my sorrows that night and cleansed my

palate with peach cobbler and pumpkin pie covered in whipped cream, and bananas and

rum cherries for desert, lots of rum cherries.

I never touched nectarines again though, every time I saw one I started to cry.

And weeks latter when I saw Barbie and the butcher walk arm in arm in the cold snow of

December, I noticed Barbie wore a fur coat, and carried big, juicy sausage links that were

almost falling out of a big brown bag. The butcher’s sausage links dangling there for all

the world to see. She was laughing, carrying on as if she didn’t have a care in the world,

as if I didn’t exist; like the treacherous bitch she was. She’d killed the cow or pig or

whatever, along with those cute little minks, and fried them upon the altar of our love.

She’d killed my heart, just as if she’d stabbed a butcher’s knife right through it.

All I was left with was the zucchini bread recipe she’d given me that first date,

made with a sprinkling of walnuts, freshly shelled, you know for protein; and bananas;

but never again nectarines. I never touched that fruit or went back to the farmer’s market

again. Instead I went to the organic produce store, to drown my sorrows with a vegetable

the fruits of autumn

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