Coveting Chocolate
Grocery day was always a big event in our house. The pattern was quickly discerned by us children and the day was honoured and awaited. When we were very young, we only got to look inside the bags and mom would put the items where they belonged. Some went downstairs to the big freezer, some to the fridge and its smaller freezer, some to the cupboards, and some to where ever mom decided they would be stored or would be safest. When we were older, she would come home from the supermarket and we would troop out and bring in all the bags before putting the contents away ourselves – either in the fridge, freezers, and cupboards, or in our stomachs.
My mom, among many other things, is a baker. She loves to make sweets and treats as much as our clan loves to eat them. Baking brings many tasty ingredients into the house. Exotic variations of sugar, like brown, golden, yellow, and the sweetest of the bunch – icing sugar, along with raisins, dates, sprinkles, and cacao powder all made their way through the door. There was also, of course, the most important item of any baking supply – chocolate.
When I was young, baking chocolate came in the chips we know today, and in the boxes with measured individually wrapped pieces. But my mother would also bring home baking chocolate from a magical place called ‘Woolworths.’ This chocolate would come in broken chunks in a thin, clear plastic bag, or as big battered slabs in a bed of white Styrofoam, much like meat does today. And, just like today, the white square on the package broadcasts to all who can read the valuable information as to the item, its weight, its cost, and its best before date.
In a house with five growing children, mom often had to hide this ingredient or it would never make it to its intended creation. She would put it up in the highest cupboards, camouflaged with more mundane items like cornstarch and baking soda, or hidden in pots in the cupboards where we children would never bother to forage.
On this grocery day, my very-young self excitedly noted the huge piece of chocolate mom brought home, tightly packed with cling wrap, sitting in a white Styrofoam bed with its white square in the top left-hand corner. I tracked its movement and noticed that mom put it in the freezer of the fridge, which was strange. It must have been for something very special, or it was very special itself.
For the rest of the day, I couldn’t stop thinking about that piece of chocolate. Every time the fridge door was opened, I went to the kitchen, thinking it was going to be revealed and shared around, or used and transformed from its current state. But it was never that big piece of chocolate coming out; it was usually milk or something else for my younger siblings.
I continued to think about the chocolate. The next day, at the first opportunity I had to be alone in the kitchen, I checked on it. Not an easy feat, as I had to quietly manoeuvre a chair to the fridge in order to reach the freezer part, check for my prize, and then get down, close the door and replace the chair before I was found or caught. I managed it and the chocolate was still there, glittering and glistening with frost like tasty frozen gold. As I reversed and raced from my reconnoitre, heart pounding, I wondered what the purpose of this beautiful brown brick was. What did mom have planned for it?
Another day passed, and another night. I was plagued with dreams of chocolate, rivers of the stuff, dreamy dreams of creamy chocolate, dancing on my tongue, filling my mouth with its unique wonder.
I began to covet that chocolate.
The next day, I checked the freezer again when nobody was in the kitchen. The slab was still there. I poked it further back into the icy box. Using mom’s tactic of concealment, I put other things on top of it and hoped it would continue to go unnoticed. I was now obsessed and devised a plan to have it all for myself.
I’ve always struggled with sleep, and while my older brother took to it like a duck to water and my younger siblings slept like babies because they were babies, my mother swore she rarely found me with my eyes closed. And it’s true – from then to now – I don’t sleep well. I find it difficult to attain and maintain the cycles of the unconscious, unlike most of my family. Because this was noted early on in my development, I was given some latitude on the weekends, even at my young age. One of the advantages that came with my insomnia was being allowed to stay up late and to be trusted to turn off the TV and lights before I went to bed.
It was Friday night and time to make that chocolate mine.
While the rest of the family went to bed during the evening, I stayed up and watched reruns of The Twilight Zone until fairly late into the night. Once my dad was gone to bed, I waited a while longer before I turned the sound down low and just let the glow of the screen light the living room as I began to carry out my plot. The hallway, dining room, and kitchen were dark except for the faint light thrown by the range hood bulb. I moved to the hallway and stood there, my ear turned toward the stairs and the bedrooms above.
I waited for what seemed like forever, trying to listen to everyone breathe over the pounding of my heart. I couldn’t stop thinking about that frozen chunk of chocolate. I loved chocolate and cold chocolate was just as good – it only took a few more minutes to hit your taste buds and deliver that smooth creamy goodness of the gods. I was lost in thought of my delightful goal when I realized that everyone, even the dog, was asleep.
Confident but still mindful of my clandestine mission, I made my way to the kitchen. Once in the dining room, I gave my eyes time to adjust to the weak light from the stove until I could see the clear path to my pot of gold.
Once adapted, I walked straight to the table and took a chair and lifted it to the fridge, positioning it so that I could access the freezer. I moved silently and stealthily in the semi-dark, extracting my prize within a minute. I reversed my initial movements, first getting my treasure to safety on the table, and then going back to close the freezer door and replace the chair.
I walked towards the wall that partially separated the dining room from the kitchen and stood against it, calming myself, my reward in my hands, my heart beating hard. I breathed deeply for a few moments and listened. Hearing nothing to alarm, I slid down the wall, looking lovingly at the package, my mouth starting to fill in anticipation of all that special chocolate, and all for me.
I flipped the package over and carefully undid the cling wrap that held the cargo in place. I turned it back and uncovered my treasure. I took the whole piece of cold brown heaven and brought it to my gaping waiting mouth. I began to gnaw like a starved rat. Up and down that block I went until I had a brimming mouthful. Only then did I stop to swallow some, chew more, and wait for the impact of all that beautiful taste.
As I chewed, the mixture thawed and revealed itself in all its glory. The swallowed bit was a suddenly stalled swelling stuck in my throat as my scant internal library of taste registered an error. This was not chocolate. Repeat: This Is Not Chocolate.
Then what is it?
It’s…it’s liver – frozen liver.
I couldn’t scream and my mind was strangely calm and matter-of-fact as it reported this to me. My body, on the other hand, was in full panic mode. I began clenching in the precursor to a violent vomitus episode – shoulders clenching together, stomach cramping, saliva pooling. I gritted my teeth and snorted air, caught between being more loathe to lurch up raw liver and completely abhorring having to swallow more of the organ-grinded bits. But I did have some experience with not eating or tasting things I did not like. I stiffed my upper lip and held the putrid payload in my mouth, breathing through my nose, as I began to try to rectify the situation I was in.
I kept a tenuous hold on my composure as I carefully situated the chewed chunk back onto the Styrofoam and put the cling wrap over the top. I held it and turned it over and wrapped it back on the bottom. I flipped it again; making sure the white square was in the right place. I stood and put it on the table while I positioned the chair. Tears were streaming down my face, past my firmly closed mouth, as I placed the distressed thing back in the freezer, carefully hiding it under other items as I had before.
I got back down, replaced the chair, walked to the living room, turned off the TV, and crept up the stairs. I went directly to the bathroom as quietly as I could and silently spat my midnight snack into the sink. I was crying softly, trying desperately to get the frozen liver out of my mouth, scraping it off my tongue with my teeth and then trying to get it off my teeth with my hands while it continued to stick everywhere. It was in my hair and on my nightgown, its frozen crumbly consistency stuck to everything like burrs. They were small scarlet reminders of my horrid midnight mistake.
I slowly ran the tap and swished out my mouth, hoping the water would take away the last of the loathed lingering liver. Several minutes passed before I turned the faucet off, grabbed a handful of tissue, and slunk to bed, mindful to be as quiet as possible, not wanting to be caught in the middle of a spectacular failure with my tear-streaked face telling the tale before I could.
I gratefully climbed into my bed, pushed myself deep into the mattress and pillow, and brought the covers to my face. I squeezed my eyes in parody of sleep, hoping it could take me away from this self-made nightmare if I tried hard enough.
But it didn’t. I lay there for a long while; locating and extracting tiny, slimy, yet somehow dry, crumbs of loitering liver, hidden in places I didn’t know existed in my mouth. It gave me a lot of time to think about what I had done and what I had learned.
I had been greedy and sneaky and I was sure I had been punished because of this. I was being taught the error of my ways and the wisdom of the world. But I also felt something else. I wasn’t sure what the emotions were then. But I think now that it was a mixture of shame, embarrassment, and humiliation. I was ashamed of my actions and greediness. Yet, paradoxically, I was embarrassed at my failure and humiliated that I didn’t know better.
I was also kind of scared that I might be caught up in some kind of Twilight Zone experience of my own. After all, it happened to ordinary people in the show. My panicking mind kept trying to find the right words, the appropriate axiom or maxim that would sum up my circumstances, give me heed with few words, or help me better portend the future from my present situation. Rod Serling’s distinctive voice was alive in my head and reminding me of sayings like: look before you leap, don’t judge a book by its cover, buyer beware, and all that glitters is not gold.
The words melded together in my young, impressionable, and currently terrorized mind, finally finding a phrase that mirrored my situation and, as a fan, I felt was fit for an episode of the freaky show. I could hear Mr. Serling’s voice over the pounding of my own blood. He was repeating the words ‘Look Before You Liver.’ Although my eyes were closed, I could feel his looking at me, through me even, and warning me with those words and the benefit of his broad experience.
With each new piece that I found and placed in the ball of tissue, now heavily dotted with red-brown bits, I would repeat this motto, and found comfort in the adage. It cursed each new-found aberration, chastised me for my actions, and warned me for future situations. As I continued my search for the never-ending outliers, those sagely said words – Look Before You Liver – became what I felt was my very first important self-taught lesson.
The second one was that I needed to learn how to read.
©CRodgers