by Jeff Oliver
“What? A cunt, Warren? Don’t you dare say it. You sound like your father again.”
“Always bringing up my father…”
“He’s a misogynist. And, I’m starting to see that you learned from him well.”
“Is this about the Twitter thing?” Lopez ventured. “Because I’ve apologized a million different ways.”
“You tweeted that we were getting a divorce, Warren.”
“It was an April Fool’s joke. People need a sense of humor!”
“It was March 29th. Three days early. Three days, Warren.”
“My Blackberry calendar broke. We did couples therapy over this. Not to mention I lost hundreds of Twitter followers.” Sharon shot lasers at him.
Lopez sighed. “You used to think my fuck-ups were charming.”
“Right. Okay, here’s a charming idea,” said Sharon. “Next April, tweet that I’ve got cancer. Go ahead.”
“You think that would fly?”
“Asshole.”
“Kidding! Jesus! Just trying to lighten the mood,” said Lopez.
“Then try having an adult conversation. Ever heard of those?”
Lopez scoffed. “Let me guess, because I can only think of one adult conversation with you. You want to talk about getting pregnant and giving Kale a sibling?” Sharon said nothing. “I’ve gone to how many clinics, Sharon? Six? Eight? I shoot blanks, okay. I smoked too much weed in college; I should never have worn tighty-whities. To be happy, do you need to emasculate me for the rest of my life?” Just to spite her, Warren picked up his cell phone, opened Sugar Rush, and squeezed in a quick game using his last three percent of battery power.
“I’m pregnant,” Sharon said. “Fourteen weeks.”
Lopez’s fingers played one last line, a purple diamond triple that barely shifted the field, before his phone dropped in his lap.
“You don’t seem excited,” Sharon said.
“I-I-I’m… in shock,” said Lopez. “Does this mean… I mean, are you saying… I’m a breeder?” A proud smile spread across Lopez’s face. His fists clenched in victory, he raised them high.
“Warren…”
“I am The Golden Forebear! The Alpha! Hey, terrorist guy, get in here. I’ve got an announcement. I’m going to be a progenitor!”
“Warren…”
“I knew those tests were bullshit. I felt it. Don’t get grossed out, but my load felt strong after drinking those protein shakes. I had one that Thursday after I played squash with Dave Bresdan. I bet that’s the day…”
“Warren, it’s not yours,” said Sharon. “Well, it is but… I used a donor.”
“You have to be shitting me.”
“So it’s not yours, genetically speaking. I would have told you but…”
Lopez went crimson. He spoke slowly, with a coiled rage. “We agreed that we wouldn’t use a sperm bank. In therapy. On that fucking three-hundred-dollar-an-hour couch. You agreed.”
“I didn’t use a bank,” Sharon said. “I used a… a direct donor.”
“You did what?” Lopez said.
“Ryan Riffstein.”
“Ryan Riffstein?” Warren found himself repeating the name, and then a flash of recognition lit his stunned eyes. “The dick doctor?”
“He’s a well-respected urologist, and he was the only one to agree.”
“You asked others?!”
“Not too many.”
“You fucked my best friend,” Warren said, in shock.
“You barely know him, Warren. Besides, I didn’t sleep with him. He did it in a cup. Actually, it was your USC beer stein.”
“You let Ryan Riffstein jizz in my alumni cup?”
“He did it mostly alone.”
“I’ll fucking kill him!” Lopez slammed his hand down on his leg and reeled from the pain. “Fuuuuuck!” he screamed.
The guard opened the door, gun first. “Quiet in here,” he said.
“It’s okay, Farkha. I just told him the baby’s not his,” said Sharon.
“Oh, okay,” said the guard, lowering his gun.
“Wait. The terrorist knows?” Lopez said.
“I had to tell him I was pregnant. If my blood sugar drops, it could hurt the baby.”
The terrorist gave Lopez a sympathetic shrug. Warren tried to laugh, but instead felt a great fury rise within him. He shot up from the ground and, with surprising force, lunged towards the terrorist. And he might just have knocked the guy on his ass had his cellphone, still paused on Sugar Rush, not gotten stuck underfoot, sending Warren splayed out onto his back, moaning in agony.
“What was that?” Sharon asked.
The terrorist shrugged again and closed the door on his way out.
The hot young chefs of Natural Dish-aster: Season Five arrived on set in a ten-passenger van, hung-over but in crisp chef whites. Several of the chefs had styled their hair into faux-hawks in tribute to the hospitilized Chef Brandon. In homage, Chef Etienne went so far as to tattoo a “B” for Brandon onto his already heavily inked forearm. Sara, Ruti, and Al-Asari sat in the control room tent with the DP awaiting the arrival of the terrorists.
“Send them in,” Sara directed over walkie.
As had happened the previous day, three jeeps raced towards the docks packed with terrorists in black masks and red kafiya, armed with machine guns. The hot young chefs reacted seamlessly, sneering at and taunting the terrorists, calling them “fuckwads” and “douchebags.” The terrorists jumped out of the Jeeps, machine guns across their chests. They stood on their marks.
“You think the chefs suspect anything?” Al-Asari said.
“They don’t have the foggiest,” replied Sara.
CJ Bazemore strutted out in a purple silk chef jacket with a dragon emblazoned on the back. “Team Amuse Bouche and Team Mise En Place, you have united to defeat the evil ISIS culinary terrorists,” he said. “I will now only refer to you as one hybrid team—Team Mise En Bouche.”
He paused for laughter. Nothing.
“Mise En Bouche, your teammate Chef Brandon has been kidnapped by these cray-cray Islamic fundamentalists and is now probably naked, undergoing who knows what kind of humiliation and torture. It will be your mission to get him back, and that means beating these terrorists in a series of culinary competitions.”
A producer stepped in to goad the cast members. “Sneer at the terrorists with more energy, just not too much, and do it silently.”
Bazemore continued, “Today’s Cannibal Challenge goes back to the very basics of cooking: foraging. You will be collecting your main ingredients from the natural environment. Sound simple enough? Well, you don’t know the half of it.”
On the dock sat two mini-motorcycles as small as children’s tricycles, but with the horsepower of Harleys. The docks were a serpentine obstacle course, with three coolers set up every fifty feet or so. At the final turn of the dock, several balloons covered in shaving cream were set up, and then farther still a thick rope dangled from a pole that leaned over the water’s edge.
“A member of each team will drive a mini-moto around the track, grab their foraged ingredients from the coolers, shave two balloons, and then swing from that rope back to shore. Aside from a limited pantry, the ingredients you forage will be all your team will get to cook your dish, so choose well. And be quick, because the victorious team also wins a $5,000 gift certificate from Oakley’s Beans. Oakley’s Beans, the best beans in the business.”
“Is that really the best you could do?” Ruti said in the control room.
“It’s not about the challenge, it’s about the human drama,” explained Sara.
“No, I mean the integration. I figure every hummus house east of Bethlehem would want in on this show. Sabra, at least.”
“Sabra wanted a verbal and an in-show usage integrated into every episode. Ad Sales said it would set a bad precedent.”
The challenge was covered from every conceivable angle—jibs, crisscross coverage, helmet GoPros shooting the face of the motorcyclists, an
d then an underwater camera in case there was a swimmer. Sara directed camera in Strider’s stead, and the Director of Photography was on board.
CHEF COWBOY (INT.): “I really want to beat these ISIS bastards so we can save Chef Brandon… Plus, I could really use that five grand… from Oakley’s Beans (frankenbite)… Their… beans are… delicious.”
Both teams chose their shortest teammate to ride the minibike, and the two competitors lined up at the start of the dock. Chef Clora, a stunning Vietnamese chef whose Bahn Mi food truck once caused a riot in Austin, Texas, stood next to a man dressed head to toe in army fatigues and a black ski mask. Clora shot him a vicious side-eye.
CHEF CLORA (INT.): “So I’m on my bike, inches away from this crazy ISIS terrorist, and I’m like, ‘Screw it. This clownhole’s going down.’”
TERRORIST #4 (INT.): “The Infidel has a crazy look of calm on her face—the face of a martyr seconds before their bomb ignites… *Are you nuts—I’m not saying this!” (*trimmed in edit).
CJ Bazemore shot a pistol in the air and a flag came out that said “FORAGE!”
Clora revved her engine and sped across the narrow dock, cutting off the terrorist, who immediately fell over and injured his ankle. He moaned and lifted up the motorcycle, but Clora was already at the end of the dock collecting lentils, olive oil, apples, and pomegranates from the first cooler and throwing it all into her backpack. Back on her bike, she sped towards the next cooler.
The terrorist, dizzy from pain, fell again on the way down the dock and so, exasperated and desperate, he rolled the bike towards the first cooler. There he found only mayonnaise and dragon fruit, two ingredients that even he understood to be deadly in a culinary competition.
“Daughter of a donkey!*” the terrorist yelled (*additional audio added in post).
Clora grabbed oxtail and lamb chops from the protein cooler and drove on. When the terrorist arrived and found only eel and beef tongue, he cursed the heavens. Meanwhile, Clora was already past the final cooler and at the balloon station. She grabbed the first of the cream-covered balloons and shaved it like Capone’s barber—careful and quick.
“You know how many dudes have let me shave their balls?” Clora called out triumphantly, wiping the last of the balloons clean. She fastened her backpack, leaned forward on her bike, and raced off the edge of the dock. The bike fell into the water just as she grabbed the rope and swung herself onto dry land, her premium ingredients intact and none the worse for wear.
The terrorist was not so fortunate.
CHEF LizZ (INT.): “He gave it his all, revving the engine hard, but at the last second, he totally pussied out and his bike bucked him off like a drunk dude on a mechanical bull.”
The terrorist recovered mid-air and managed to grab the rope with one hand. But instead of swinging himself onto land, he shifted back to the dock, where his ribs hit hard and he fell into the water like a stone. When the medics rushed to the terrorist’s aid, he waved them off and, in an angry fit of machismo, swam himself to shore with his now wet, totally shitty cooking ingredients.
“Cha-ching go the underwater cameras!” said the Line Producer, offering Sara a high-five.
“Giving the Network their money’s worth,” Sara grinned. “It’s what we do.” She flipped on her walkie. “Repo cameras for cooking.”
Cooking stations were set up near the docks. A metal pantry rich with spices sat next to gas ranges and two long, metallic cooking stations. Both teams stood at the edge of the docks with their “foraged” groceries in-hand.
“On your marks … run!” shouted CJ Bazemore.
The fifty-yard dash provided Supertease fodder, and when Chef Nisha twisted her ankle on the way and sobbed real tears, the producers again high-fived.
Both teams laid out their foraged ingredients on their cooking stations and discussed their options. Salid was stunned by the paucity of choice—dragon fruit, eel, turnips, mayonnaise, peanuts, etc. At least they had zucchini and the beef tongue. He closed his eyes to think.
“We are ruined,” a terrorist said.
“Salid, what do we do?” said another, seeing that Salid had closed his eyes. “He sleeps. What now?”
“Forget him,” growled Sheik, who was built like an NFL lineman, and whose mask barely made it over his thickly muscled neck. “I will lead. We make babaganoush.”
“But we have no eggplant.”
“Shut up and listen to me.” Sheik bared his teeth and the terrorist cowered. “Hand me the mayonnaise.”
Al-Asari watched nervously in the control room. “Salid is choking. How can we hide this?”
“There’s no stopping story,” said Sara. “If Salid chokes, he chokes.”
But Salid was not choking. He wasn’t even there. He was far off in a childhood memory, recalling the day his father was arrested. Salid must have been six or seven years old at the time. The settlers had raided his town again. This time they had knives and sticks. They set fire to the olive groves, dousing the branches with gasoline. Several local men, including Salid’s father, came with buckets of water to put out the fire, but also sticks and knives of their own, desperate to save their only means of income. But the men in white shirts, kippas, and tallits meant business.
There were younger ones too, children with them, and their bearded fathers cheered them on as they lit the olive branches. One young boy who was Salid’s age wandered off into the groves with a red toy-truck on a string. When the string untethered, the boy sat down in the dirt and began to cry. Salid walked over. He took the string from the boy’s hand and re-tethered it. They sat together in the dirt, amidst the smoke and screams and violence and played quietly with the truck, passing it back and forth.
“Yonatan!” a gruff voice called out in the grove. “Yonatan!” Fire licked the air around them and black smoke billowed in the sky. The two boys didn’t even notice. “Yonatan!” the man called, closing in.
“Abba?” the little boy called out. When the man with the gruff voice and thick beard saw his son sitting in the dirt with Salid, he ripped him away as if from a sewer rat. “Do not speak with these people!” he said. “They are our enemy. Do you know the evil they have done? The killing?” His eyes burned with rage as he carried his boy away. “We must leave. It is dangerous now.” The boy waved to Salid and threw his red truck down in the dirt for him to keep. Salid picked the truck up off the ground and waved back at the boy. And that’s when the army came. Sirens everywhere, smoke bombs, the deafening thump of military helicopters. Salid ran straight home. When he got there, his mother was curled up on the floor weeping. His father was missing.
“He’s a good man,” she cried. “A peaceful man!”
Salid hugged her, trying to cushion his mother’s agony, but she wept and wept. He couldn’t believe the amount of tears. That night, after her crying had finally subsided, Salid’s mother sat him down to a steaming plate of sinaya. Served in a terracotta bowl, it is a hearty Palestinian dish layered with tomato, fried zucchini, ground beef, pine nuts, and a thick helping of tahini.
“You are the man of the house now,” his mother said. “You must eat and grow strong.”
Salid dove into the aromatic dish and his mother stroked his hair as the steam hit his face and the earthy flavors filled him. He ate and ate until his emotional pain gave way to stomach cramps, until there was only him and the food. His father was gone now. He didn’t know for how long, or if he would ever return, but sinaya… that made him feel like he could survive.
“We make sinaya,” Salid said, finally opening his eyes.
“He wakes,” a terrorist mocked. “The midget chef wakes!”
“I will prepare the dragonfruit and the eel,” said Salid. “Rahan and Farkah, dice onions and zucchini, as thin as you can. Mohammed, crush peanuts for tahini.”
“Sinaya?” sneered Sheik. “That is peasant dish! We continue with babganoush. You have already failed us, Salid. It is over for you.”
“Yes, we follow Sheik,” a terrorist sai
d. “But we still have no eggplant.”
“Shut up and cook!” yelled Sheik.
Salid turned to the giant Sheik, a great resolve in his voice. “Sheik, you are a powerful man,” he said. “Your strength is legendary. I respect you and your family. But this is my kitchen. I am in charge. And you will obey my command.”
Salid peered up into Sheiks’s eyes and did not blink. Sheik bared his teeth and turned a shade of red that was close to blood itself. The others thought Sheik might rip Salid’s jugular out on the spot and add it to the babaganoush.
“It’s your throat,” Sheik growled.
Salid lit the gas ranges. “Tarik, I need you to squeeze the juice from these turnips,” he said. “Ramin, crush the garlic to a pulp. Isham, boil salted water like the sea and squeeze in a full lemon, then cover. I’m going to get us through this, but we must move fast.”
The men exchanged glances—they knew the sound of authority when they heard it. Salid grabbed the eel and slit the skin just behind the gills, circled the body with his blade, and peeled it back. He then cut into the ventral opening and sliced into the membrane before discarding the guts—the filleted eel was clean and ready to cook. The terrorists fell in line. Salid gave orders, and even Sheik complied.
From the control room, Al-Asari shook his head. “So that’s it? They plan a menu and cook. How do you make TV from this?”
“Wait for it,” Sara said.
Across the way, Team Mise En Bouche rejoiced at the wealth of their ingredients—a chef’s dream of lamb, oxtail, lentils, virgin olive oil, and more.
“We robbed a Whole Foods!” exclaimed Chef Nisha.
They all agreed that their ingredients were stellar, but with such an abundance of choices before them, the decorated young chefs of Team Mise En Bouche would have to actually agree on a menu plan. They huddled in a circle.
“Let’s do an elevated Stampede pulled-pork mac and cheese,” suggested Chef Dex, also known as “Cowboy,” since he was from Texas and that sobriquet worked for Casting. He wore a ten-gallon cowboy hat to play it up.