Heirloom Tomato

I stared at the plate with only a tomato on it. I didn’t want a hamburger or salad or cole slaw or any of the other foods laid out at this small picnic lunch. Only the tomato. Jane told us it was an heirloom tomato that she’d picked up from the farmer’s market in Rhinebeck, NY. This perfectly red beefsteak tomato practically filled my whole plate, as big and vibrant as the August sun that heated the day.

I sprinkled a little salt and then cut into it with a fork and knife (these were wealthy cultured friends of my parents — couldn’t forget my manners). I lifted the small piece to my mouth. I never took my eyes off the tomato. [It was safer anyway to not have to look up].

When I put it in my mouth it tasted like pure red. Like brown earth and brown skin and blue sky. Fresh air cool water and fecund summer. It tasted.

It’d been three weeks since my brother died. In those first few days, I’d pretty much eaten nothing but bananas and cigarettes. Then when Michael and the kids and I made our way through Europe for the 2 weeks after the funeral, there were street crepes, pomme frites, sausages. I remember duck confit along the way. A lot of Aperol and cheap wine. More cigarettes when I could sneak them [when I was out the kids sight]. Cappucinos and ambien.

But that tomato which I ate so slowly was the first thing I actually tasted, that tasted like anything [since we’d put him in the ground]. So I had another and another until I’d eaten all of Jane’s farmer’s market tomatoes she’d sliced really to go onto of the hamburgers. And when she offered, I said yes please slice some more.

5 August 2010, near Rhinebeck, NY