A Little Taste of Chocolate
Hi Friends,
There’s no audio version today, unfortunately. I’ll be reading to you again the next time, though. Today I’m sharing A Little Taste of Chocolate, a short story I wrote when I was living in Brooklyn in 2011. I wrote a handful of short stories under the umbrella Brooklyn Bites, each one focused in part around a specific food. The story below was the first and my favorite of the bunch. Maybe because chocolate is involved. I hope you enjoy.
So much love to you all,
Scott
A Little Taste of Chocolate
Rick watched Shelly sleep, as the sun started to light the morning over McCarren Park. He had awakened, as always, to the barks of that spotted French bulldog across the street. A cute little dog, to be sure, when he kept quiet. Satan’s beast when he barked. Without fail, for the past month, as late night staggered into early morning, the dog yelped for a minute, then stopped for two, then yelped for another minute, and then stopped for two. He went on like this for a good half hour, a confused rooster on snooze. Rick invariably awoke at the first bark. Shelly usually slept through the entire series.
And so she slept this morning, on her back, arms folded across her belly like a corpse. A little too much like a corpse for Rick’s taste, so he tugged gently at her right arm until she unclasped her hands and let her arm fall to her side. Much better, he thought. He leaned in to listen to her raspy breaths. Not quite a snore, but almost. He didn’t like her to smoke, but he loved what the cigarettes did to her voice, and to her breath.
Rick swore that Shelly never looked happier than when she slept. Her lips turned up to her closed eyes in a hopeful smile. He liked to imagine her walking through open fields of flowers in her dreams, in a brand new polka-dot dress and a big colorful hat like the ladies wore to the Kentucky Derby. He liked to imagine she was a princess in her dreams, living in an old stone castle with silk sheets and a staff of servants who brought her breakfast in bed. Who brought them breakfast in bed. Poached eggs and fried eggs and crispy bacon and burnt sausage and blueberry pancakes and oatmeal with raisins and, of course, fresh-squeezed orange juice and about a gallon of coffee. Enough food to satisfy a kingdom.
Shelly never remembered her dreams, but Rick knew by the happy look on her sleeping face that she went to beautiful worlds each night—worlds far away from the cruel concrete of New York City. God how he wished he could offer her those worlds when she was awake.
Moving to Brooklyn was a small step in the right direction. He definitely preferred Brooklyn to Manhattan. More space. Fewer people. Less competition. He kicked himself for taking so long to make the move across the East River. Five years of struggle in the City should have pushed them out sooner. But he was stubborn. So was Shelly. And hopeful, too, both of them. They always saw a better life for themselves, sometimes simply because it didn’t seem like things could get any worse.
Shelly liked Brooklyn, too. She loved to watch the young families and hear children play, to lounge under trees and sleep without the noise of Manhattan traffic. They both preferred McCarren Park to popular Tompkins Square Park in their old neighborhood. McCarren Park wasn’t exactly the Snow White of parks, but what it lacked in beauty, it more than made up for in vibe. The sprawling neighborhood park, especially in the summer, swarmed with Williamsburg and Greenpoint residents. They came for soccer, and baseball, and dog runs, and picnics, and farmer’s markets, and tennis, and handball, and good old-fashioned hanging out. Rick was no longer surprised to see runners racing around the track at four in the morning, or kickball games ending well past midnight. He liked his Brooklyn neighbors, much more so than the Manhattanites who had passed him on the street without so much as a smile. Yes, it had been a good decision to move here.
Police sirens echoed nearby, and where the bulldog had failed, the sirens managed to drag Shelly from her sleep. She opened her eyes slowly, blinking. Her lids looked heavy, like her body, still spiked with alcohol. They’d put away two bottles of wine the night before. “Good morning, beautiful,” said Rick with a big smile. He kissed her. She smelled like alcohol. Tasted like it, too. So did he.
“Is it?” she asked. “Is it really a good morning?”
“So far,” he replied. “The rain’s gone. And we’re together.”
Shelly pressed her palms deep into her eye sockets and rubbed them in circles. She had never been a morning person, and had seen the sun rise at the end of a night much more often than at daybreak. That’s how she preferred it.
Rick carefully unwrapped a dark chocolate bar and broke off two squares. “A little taste of chocolate for my sweet,” he said, and placed one square on Shelly’s waiting tongue. He placed a second square on his own, and then carefully rewrapped the bar and set it aside. They let the chocolate melt into their tongues, saturating the alcohol and the cigarettes and the morning breath. They smiled at each other, each a little bit more alive with the singular perfection of good chocolate warming their mouths.
This was their morning ritual, a little taste of chocolate to start each day. A taste of chocolate to sweeten their struggles, to relax their desperation. Rick had started this tradition about three years earlier, one morning when Shelly woke up in a particularly bad mood. She’d had a terrible night’s sleep filled with one too many nightmares. A violent ex-lover. A screaming baby. A fall off a cliff. All in one night. Unlike her dreams, she always remembered the nightmares. Rick tried to comfort her with hugs and kisses and as much love as she would allow him, but nothing had worked. And then he remembered the chocolate bar they’d been given the night before, when they were both too drunk to enjoy it. So he unwrapped it, broke off two squares and handed one to Shelly.
“A little taste of chocolate for my sweet.”
And something about his innocence and his compassion and his sweetness melted Shelly in that moment. His love had swallowed up her nightmares, had made her world safe once again, if only for a little while. Each day from that moment on, no matter what, they began their days with a little taste of chocolate. Sometimes straight dark. Sometimes milk. Sometimes even white.
Rick leaned in for another kiss and flicked his chocolatey tongue into Shelly’s mouth. “Why are we even awake right now, Ricky?” she asked. As if on cue, the bulldog started to bark again. “You should feed him some chocolate,” she added. “That’ll shut him up.”
Shelly rolled over on her side and backed into Rick’s arms. She closed her eyes and tried hard to delay the start of another day. She listened to the bird chatter all around the neighborhood, the morning squawks and songs that would be drowned out later by the buses and the children and the city itself.
She thought of the day she and Rick met, in Central Park, underneath the giant whatever-it’s-called tree. Shelly had been sitting on a bench watching a Latino family celebrate something. She hadn’t known what, but there were streamers and balloons and loud music and two long folding tables packed with food. Dozens of birds had darted in and out of the tree above her, calling back and forth to each other, making themselves heard above the guitars and marimbas and maracas pulsing from the speakers below.
That’s when Rick had walked by, easy in his stride, moving his hips to the music, just enough for her to notice. He smiled at her, his wide-open grin inviting her to smile back. And she did. Then a big white clump of bird shit plopped right on top of his head. He looked up just in time for a second clump to smack him in the forehead. “What the hell?” he said, as he wiped at his face with the back of his hand and glanced skyward for the culprit.
Shelly thought she might piss herself from laughter. She jumped up from the bench with a crumpled, not-too-clean napkin, and walked over to him. “You always so lucky?” she asked, as she wiped away the bird shit from his forehead.
“Got you off the bench,” he replied. “That’s pretty lucky.” And he smiled that toothy smile at her again. She had known, immediately, they would have a future to play out.
Shelly liked to remember that first meeting. She liked to lose herself in happy memories. Things hadn’t been going great in her life on that day she’d met Rick. But five years later, things seemed much worse. So she thought of Rick swaying his hips to the music, and she thought of the birds flying in and out of the tree, and remembered the shit, two large clumps landing square on his head. She held onto Rick’s arms wrapped tightly around her and started to giggle.
“What’s so funny?” he asked.
“The bird shit,” she replied, and laughed some more.
He laughed with her. “I say thanks to that bird every day for bringing me you.” He tightened his grip around her and pulled her even closer. “I love you so much, baby,” he said.
“I love you, too,” she replied.
They stayed like that for a minute, silent, locked in each other’s arms, locked in each other’s love.
“What are we gonna do, Ricky?” she asked.
“I’m not sure, baby. A little more of the same, I guess,” he replied.
“It’s not working, though,” she said. “Nothing’s working anymore.”
“We’ll make it work,” he replied. “You and me together, we can do anything.”
“Are we still trying?” she asked.
“We’re trying. Sure, we’re trying,” he said. “It’s tough out there right now. It’s been tough for a while. But we’ll keep on trying.”
“I’m tired, Ricky.”
“I know, baby. Me too.”
“I’m gonna be 50 soon,” she said.
“You’re an old lady,” he joked, and kissed her on the ear.
“I am an old lady. Old and red and wrinkled and sad.”
“Don’t forget beautiful, baby,” he said.
“Beautiful is a thing of the past,” she replied. “Now, I’m just alive.”
“Don’t talk like that. You’re still the most beautiful woman I know.”
“Yeah, well you don’t know many women.”
“I don’t need to.” He kissed her neck. “I don’t need to know anyone but you.”
And he didn’t. His life was shit. He knew that. He couldn’t get a job. He couldn’t stop drinking. He couldn’t take care of his woman the way he wanted to, the way she deserved. In so many ways, he was miserable. But he was also in love, deeply in love. He went to sleep each night with the girl of his dreams, and woke up each morning with her in his arms.
And no amount of hardship, or misery, or desperation could overwhelm the love he felt for Shelly. That love walked him through each day. That love reminded him that anything was possible. That love alone kept him alive.
“Let’s go back to sleep,” said Shelly.
“I’m wide awake, baby, but you sleep. I’ll hold you.”
“Where do you wanna go today?” asked Shelly. “What day is it anyway?”
“Saturday,” replied Rick. “Let’s hit the flea market at the waterfront. That’s good on Saturdays.”
“Okay,” said Shelly. She turned around to kiss him and then retreated into his chest.
Just then, he heard a single bark and looked over to see the French bulldog walking towards them, its owner in tow.
“Good morning,” said Rick, to the dog’s owner.
“Morning,” said the owner, only slightly friendly.
“Don’t suppose you can spare any change?” asked Rick.
“Sorry, man,” replied the owner, and tugged on the leash as his dog barked and darted after a squirrel.
Join me and David Gandelman for Live Your Truth, in Spain! I’m so excited about this retreat. He and I joined forces for the first time last summer for a weeklong retreat in Montana and it was deep and powerful and so much fun. In Spain, we’ll be writing and meditating and doing breathwork and eating fresh local foods and connecting with other open-hearted souls. Go HERE for details
