Where Breakfast Went
Story by Sophie Kipner
Photo by Stephanie Gonot
Larry’s unwashed hands held a cardboard sign. Two largely printed words that would, every now and then, elicit a thumbs up. “Got Pot?” was the only question he really wanted an answer to. Just when his arms started to tire, an elderly woman in a BMW SUV slowed to a stop in front of him at the red-lit intersection of Topanga Canyon and Pacific Coast Highway. She looked over and chuckled as if she’d never been asked before, and rolled down the window. Larry’s beaten eyes widened in anticipation as she grabbed something from her glove box and then reached her tightly held fist to meet his open hand. She dropped a quarter-sized nugget of the most beautifully vibrant, pistachio green he had ever seen in the center of his sweaty palm. He thanked her and quickly closed it tight so as not to let the wind take his most appreciated gift, and sucked in its equally gorgeous scent as she drove off. It smelled like Christmas. Maybe Thanksgiving, but only if it was the kind of Thanksgiving he used to have, when he had a home.
He had in his pocket a handmade plastic bottle bong and some free matches he took from the liquor store. He secured a shaded spot underneath a tree in a park a few blocks north of his intersection, and admired the tiny hairs that grew from the gnarled ball of medicinal grass. They looked like little legs, he thought. Little hairy legs on a tiny mountain. He took his first hit and lay down, letting his body sink into the ground. Not having eaten much at all, his empty belly gurgled as pangs of hunger crackled like fireworks. Desperate to eat, he roamed the park for leftovers and left behinds from picnics and play dates but to no avail. Not one noodle floating in a Styrofoam cup, not even remnants of melted cheese on a burger wrapper. Nothing.
It was almost 4:30pm when he saw in the grass a few scattered neon circles forming a messy trail, something left from Hansel and Gretel. He followed the mix of blues and pinks and greens and yellows and purples until he stumbled upon a perfectly cylindrical hole in the ground so colorful and fruitful he thought it must be a mirage. It was too good. Too perfect. He knelt down without hesitation, placed his left hand to stabilize his posture and began to scoop the Froot Loops out of the hole with a spoon that was miraculously left there, just for him. He felt like he was diving headfirst into a pool of after-midnight-snack heaven. As milk dribbled down his chin and stained his already dirty shirt, he remembered being at his parents’ wooden breakfast table, eating a bowl of cereal every single morning. He even ate cereal when he was away at college, every morning, until one morning he woke up without a spoon or a bowl or a kitchen or a house or a family. As he munched away the most delicious meal he’d ever eaten, he wondered where the fresh milk had come from. He looked around, saw no one. When he turned back towards the dirt bowl, it was just a hole. He put his finger in the soil to see if it was still milky, but it was dry as desert grass. Scratching his head, Larry became extremely sleepy. He didn’t know why he was so tired- deducing that if there was no milk, there was no tryptophan, thus no reason to be so exhausted. Regardless of the cause, he soon after fell asleep. When he woke up, he was 6 years old again at his parents’ wooden table in their old kitchen in Delaware, with a spoon in his hand and a large bowl of Froot Loops and milk before him. He wondered why, on this day in particular, they tasted so fucking good.
