Bread on Arrival

by Lou Jane Temple

  Ernest leaned down and picked some kernels up and handed them to Heaven. She thought they were wheat but they didn’t look normal. Think, think, she told herself. They were sticky, like something was seeping from the kernels. They were the wrong color too, a dark purple that was almost black. She remembered. The description of ergot in the medical books had mentioned both the color and the “honey” that oozes from infected grain.

  “The trick was to get it to grow on wheat,” Ernest explained calmly. “Rye was easy, the grasses in the cow pasture were easy, but it took some time to get it to attack wheat.” Ernest took Heaven’s arm firmly and guided her to the wrong end of this vast enclosed platform, the end away from the elevator that could take her down to the ground again.

  “By the way, Ernest, where is the fellow who checks the grain with that probe?” Heaven said with as much of a cheerful tone as she could muster.

  “This is a co-op, and I’m a member. I told Gene he could take a long lunch break, I’d watch things while my grain loaded,” Ernest said as they neared a huge conveyor belt. The belt must have been three feet across and was going incredibly fast, as huge stainless steel bearings propelled it from some lower floor.

  “How fast does that thing go?” Heaven asked.

  Ernest pushed Heaven roughly down a small flight of stairs, to another vast room in which rubber conveyer belts ran in every direction. “Fifty or sixty miles an hour. They direct the grain to the correct silo, then,” Ernest took the brass probe and smacked Heaven with it across her middle, like an ancient swordsman. She staggered backward. “In goes the grain and down a hundred feet.” He hit Heaven again and again, until she fell, landing on her back on the conveyor belt. As she felt herself being pulled up an incline, she grabbed for the end of the probe and held on for dear life, knowing that it was connected to Ernest.

  Ernest was caught off balance by Heaven’s last-ditch attempt and he, too, fell on the conveyor belt. The belt was climbing toward the top of the building again. Heaven looked for a place to jump off but couldn’t see anything to grab hold of. The grain made the rubber surface of the belt as slippery as a greased slide on a school playground. She looked at the dancing kernels all around her and realized they were dark purple. She was riding on the ergot wheat. She grabbed for the whirring edge of the belt and cut her hand right away but held fast with one hand while holding on to the pole with the other. She felt blood seeping out of her palm and her whole hand throbbed.

  First, she had to get rid of Ernest. She started pushing on him with the tip of the probe, jabbing with as much strength as she could muster. Ernest was lying twisted on the belt with one leg bent under his body. He was trying to use the probe and Heaven’s weight above him to help pull himself around.

  “Stop this thing,” Heaven screamed. “Help. Somebody help.” She was jerking the probe with all her might, and Ernest was holding on with all his might. His hat had fallen off and his long hair and beard were flying wildly. The conveyor belt was on a fairly straight stretch right now, but was flying along five feet off the floor. Below, several of those manhole covers were open, exposing the opening through which the grains were loaded into the silos. Heaven didn’t want to chance jumping if it meant she could end up buried in a hundred feet of soybeans.

  But jumping didn’t seem so bad when Heaven saw what was coming up. The conveyor belt had almost reached the end of the line. She could see a steep drop ahead and hear the rushing sound of grain falling like a waterfall. She dropped her end of the probe and got ready to bail out. A broken bone was better than suffocation. The belt fed the grain directly into one of those round holes on the floor, so the trick was to ride it close to the floor but without going over the lip into the abyss.

  Heaven jumped, rolling over on to the floor with a thud. Ernest wasn’t so lucky. When Heaven had suddenly let go of the brass pole, Ernest had tumbled down the belt, out of control. Just as he straightened himself out again, he rolled over the side.

  “Dear God, take my spirit … oh, thank you, thank you. Heaven, help me. You have to help me.” Ernest pleaded from the dark hole in the floor. Heaven crawled on her hands and knees over to the opening. Her ankle was badly twisted and her hand was still bleeding, but other than that she thought everything was still in one piece.

  A guy wire hung down into the black emptiness. Heaven supposed that occasionally someone—it was hard to imagine a worse job—had to go down in these things. Maybe they clipped a safety belt to the wire. Right now, Ernest Powell was dangling on the wire about ten feet down. Heaven estimated the top of the pile of grain was another twenty feet below him. Heaven grabbed the wire but with one hand almost useless, she didn’t think she had a chance in hell of pulling him up.

  “Someone help us,” she screamed at the top of her lungs. Then she peered down at Ernest who was slipping inch by inch towards his tainted grain. “Ernest, you say God is present when you make bread. Well, then he’s sure to be down there with you now. I wish I could just walk away and leave you, you son of a bitch, but…” She pulled on the wire with both hands as hard as she could. Her blood trickled down on the dusty floor. Ernest rose a foot or so.

  “Ernest, help me save you. Pull yourself up the wire.” Ernest put one hand in front of the other but quickly slipped back and lost all he had gained.

  “Heaven, tell my wife I love her,” Ernest cried.

  “Don’t give up. You can’t give up. You have to live to tell people about your cockamamy scheme. No one will ever believe me. What were you going to do with this trainload of bad wheat anyway, make the whole country see God whether they want to or not?”

  “They want to,” Ernest said, with the old conviction back in his voice.

  Heaven gave a fierce pull on the wire. Suddenly it went slack in her hand. She peered over the side just in time to see the shadow that was Ernest disappear in that dim grain grave.

  “Poisonous grain, seventy feet deep. Who says there isn’t justice in the universe,” Heaven muttered as she lay on the floor, panting from fear and exhaustion.

  Butterscotch Brownies

  ½ cup melted butter

  2½ cups light brown sugar

  2 eggs

  1 tsp. vanilla

  1 cup sifted all purpose flour

  ½ tsp. salt

  1 cup chopped walnuts

  Add the brown sugar to the melted butter in a heavy sauce pan and stir until bubbly. Remove from heat and cool to room temperature. Add to other ingredients and mix. Bake in a greased 9 × 11 pan, 35 minutes at 325 degrees.

  Butterscotch Sauce

  11/3 cups sugar, white or dark brown

  ¾ cup dark corn syrup

  3 T. butter

  2 T. water

  4 T. heavy cream

  Combine all ingredients but the cream in a heavy sauce pan. Slowly bring to a boil, stirring occasionally. Boil 5 minutes. Remove from heat, cool, and stir in cream, beating until the sauce has a satiny finish.

  To make butterscotch sundaes, place a blond brownie on the serving plate, top with vanilla ice cream or frozen yogurt, and drizzle with commercial hot fudge topping and the butterscotch sauce. This is great with banana ice cream, too.

  Sixteen

  “Mom, come on. Say yes.”

  Heaven was driving around the airport circle drive for the fourth time. They still had so much to talk about. “I suppose it wouldn’t kill me. I’ll come.”

  Iris grinned and jumped up and down in her seat. She still looked very frail to Heaven but she insisted she was fine. “You haven’t been to visit for two years. Come in November, for your birthday. I know you can’t get away for the holidays but you can come for your birthday.”

  Heaven sighed and pulled the van over to the curb. “Okay, okay. I’ll come to England for my birthday. Honey, are you sure you feel like this long trip? I wish you’d stay a few more days.”

  Iris gave her mother a stern look. “You wish I’d stay a few more years you mean. Can’t you just see us, down on 5th Street in
fifty years, with twin electric wheelchairs and you telling me I’m too young to leave home.”

  “I can’t tell you how sorry I am that you were put in danger.”

  “Mom, I’ve done worse stuff on purpose.”

  “I don’t want to know,” Heaven said, smiling in spite of herself.

  Iris opened the door and started piling her bags on the sidewalk. Heaven turned off the engine and went around the van to help. Iris gave her a sweet hug. “I’m sorry you almost ended up buried in grain. I thought Uncle Del was going to have to be taken off to the hospital when he got the call to come get you. He was hysterical when he called us.”

  “I’m just glad, well not really glad, but I’m just glad the bad grain was right there where Ernest fell. Those folks would never have believed that nice Ernest Powell was trying to feed the whole country LSD in their bread so they could be close to God. I’m sure most of them still think it was just a tragic mistake, that his mind was poisoned and he didn’t know what he was doing.”

  Iris shook her head. “Well, it was and he didn’t. Thank God that grain didn’t get to the mill. It would have really caused a mess.”

  “As you know,” Heaven said, her eyes filling up with tears.

  Iris punched her Mom in the arm. “I know it would do no good to say don’t cry and feel sorry for yourself but please try to enjoy it at least.”

  “I have until five this evening to feel miserable. Then I’ve got to pay attention. We have lots of reservations. There’s some conference in town.”

  “It better not have anything to do with food,” Iris said as she hugged her mother one last time.

  “Dairy farmers, I’m afraid.” Heaven said, and they both laughed.

  “No mad cows, Mom. I’ll see you in November.” Iris turned to go inside the airport.

  “Honey,” Heaven said urgently.

  Iris turned with a little smile. She wondered how many times it would take for her to finally get in the door. “Yes, Mom?”

  “Say hello to Stuart for me, even though I still think he’s too old and too rich for you.”

  Iris beamed. “I’ll give him your love.”

  * * *

  Heaven played listlessly with her latte. She was moping. She had cried all the way back from the airport, but she still wanted a little more time to feel pitiful.

  Hank was gone for the weekend too, off to Chicago to some doctors’ meeting. She couldn’t bear the thought of going to the cafe, so she had come to the Classic Cup in Westport instead. The owner, Charlene Welling, came over to her table with a scone fresh out of the oven. “This’ll make you feel better,” Charlene prescribed.

  Heaven pulled the snapshot from the accident in Manhattan, Kansas, out of her pocket. She had found it under one of Iris’s open suitcases. Heaven peered at the guys in the hazmet gear. Was one of them Ernest? She honestly didn’t know. Would it have prevented anything if she had found this photo sooner?

  “Penny for your thoughts.” It was Patrick Sullivan, the BIG BREAD research man. Only today, Patrick was in chef whites.

  “Patrick, what are you doing here dressed like that?”

  “Making your scone. Go ahead, taste it,” Patrick said proudly. He sat down at Heaven’s table.

  Heaven took a bite. It was delicious. “Very buttery. How do you feel? But just because I asked how you feel don’t think I’ve forgotten or forgiven you for the rats. What are you doing here?”

  “Well, I saw God when I was tripping and he told me not to work for those clowns another day, that my soul was in danger. I went right over there on Thursday and told them I had an “experience,” that I wouldn’t be any good to them. Then I came over here and talked to Charlene. I’m the new baker and pastry chef. Please don’t tell her what I did to you.”

  “Because she would fire your ass?” Heaven said with an malicious smile on her face.

  “I made a terrible mistake. I will spend the next two years of my life trying to make it up to you. How about dinner tonight?”

  Heaven shook her head. “You know better. I own a restaurant. I can’t go out to dinner, and if I could go out to dinner, I certainly wouldn’t go with you, someone who terrorized me in my own van.”

  “Breakfast, then, on Sunday? I know the restaurant is closed on Sunday.”

  “Maybe in a few months after you’ve been punished, maybe breakfast,” Heaven said. “Now, you have to answer one question for me.”

  “Ask anything.”

  “Your company…”

  “My ex-company remember,” Patrick interjected.

  “Your ex-company applied for a patent for something that they didn’t really invent. My research says only the inventor can patent something, and he’s dead. What do you think will happen to the perennial wheat clone?” Heaven asked.

  “The BIG BREAD lawyers will argue that even though the research lab was an independent entity, at the time of the discovery, they were working for BIG BREAD, so any invention is the property of the BIG BREAD, or at least that’s what I would argue,” Patrick said.

  “Boy, I’m glad you aren’t on their side anymore. You have a sneaky mind.”

  Patrick pushed his glasses up on his nose. “I’ll accept that as a compliment and wait to hear what my next sentence is. In the meantime, will you taste my new butterscotch brownie hot caramel sundae?”

  Heaven smiled. “Bring it on, babe. There’s nothing I like better than two rich baked goods products before eleven in the morning. It sets you up for the day.”

  Patrick picked up the photo. “What’s this?”

  “Old news, Patrick.”

  Patrick got up and held his hand out to Heaven. She shook it. “By the way,” he said, “some time when it all isn’t so fresh I’d like to hear what happened out there with Ernest and all. Now, I’m going to make you a sundae you won’t forget.”

  “Deal,” she said and slipped back into her funk. Heaven was glad for Patrick. Too bad she felt so sorry for herself.

  “There you are. Thank God.” It was Murray Steinblatz, looking frantic and happy at the same time.

  “How’d you find me?” Heaven asked. “And what’s wrong?”

  “I knew you’d be depressed after you took Iris to the airport, so I figured you’d come here. You don’t like to be around your staff when you’re depressed.”

  “Everybody thinks they’ve done something wrong when I’m depressed. Today, nobody did anything except Iris. She left. It’s just that old I-hate-to-let-go syndrome. I’ll be fine tomorrow. Answer my second question. What’s the matter?”

  A server brought the butterscotch brownie extravaganza and she and Murray both dug in with due diligence for a minute.

  “Nothing’s the matter. I wrote it.”

  “Wrote what, Murray? Oh, your first new piece for the Times?”

  Murray beamed and pulled some sheets of paper out of his old corduroy sports coat. “It’s all about the bread conference.”

  Heaven looked doubtful. “I don’t know Murray. I don’t think they’re ready for that story in New York.”

  Murray took another bite of ice cream and brownie. “No,” he mumbled with his mouth full. “No,” this time with his mouth empty, “I didn’t tell them the whole story. I’m saving that for a screenplay. It’ll make a terrific made for television movie, H. No, I just told them all about Walter and the perennial polycultures and how we have all our eggs in one basket when it come to grains and God knows what else. I went out and talked to Walter yesterday and then stayed up almost all night writing.”

  “How was Walter?”

  “Better. Boy did he have some good pot. We got stoned and had a ball talking.”

  “I don’t want to know the gory details, please. So, have you sent the column off yet?”

  “Yep,” Murray said, with that look on his face that was a mixture of panic and joy. “Faxed it about nine.”

  “And?” Heaven could tell there was an “and”, she just couldn’t make out if it was good or bad.

>   “And they loved it. Said it was great stuff. Thought they should do a piece on the science page about GRIP or maybe it was on the business page. Anyway, babe, I’m a hit!”

  “Again, Murray.” Heaven reminded him. “You’re a hit, again.”

  Heaven, perked up by Murray’s good news, took another bite of ice cream.

  Recipe Index

  Sweet Pepper Bread

  Goat Cheese Spread

  Baked Eggs

  Green Tomato and Apple Pie

  Borscht

  Bierocks

  Cherry Moos

  Hot Hacked Chicken

  Scones

  Peanut Butter Shortbread

  Heaven’s Panzanella

  Vegetable Root Bake

  Mrs. O’Malley’s Meatloaf

  Red Cabbage and Apples

  Oatmeal Cookies

  Butterscotch Brownies

  Also by Lou Jane Temple

  A Stiff Risotto

  Revenge of the Barbeque Queens

  Death by Rhubarb

  BREAD ON ARRIVAL. Copyright © 1998 by Lou Jane Temple. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

  First Edition: November 1998

  eISBN 9781466867659

  First eBook edition: March 2014