Shawna talking to a fat fuck named Phil who had once been Frank’s supervisor at Mickey D’s. Shawna pointed one long green nail in Frank’s direction. Phil narrowed his eyes and headed back toward the glassed-in office area, where Frank saw him pick up the phone. Frank headed toward Y.
“Yo, dude. The manager’s back on site, and he’s making the call.”
Y nodded. Without missing a beat, he walked to the boom box and slowly faded down the volume. On cue the jugglers snatched the vegetables from the air. When the music was quiet, Mr. Potato Head took up a small microphone.
“First we want to thank Thrifty Foods for opening its doors to us,” he said. He turned to the kids, wiggling his rosy, discoid ears. “Who wants to play a game with Mr. Potato Head?”
The children had formed a circle around him. He pulled out a big red tomato and held it up for them to see.
“What’s this?” he asked. “Can anyone tell me?”
“A tomato!” cried a little girl in front.
“Very good!” said Mr. Potato Head. “You think it’s a tomato. Now, how many of the rest of you think it’s a tomato?”
The others nodded in agreement. It was a tomato, all right.
“Well, what if I told you it wasn’t a tomato?” Mr. Potato Head pulled out a chiffon scarf and draped it over the tomato.
“What if . . .”
He held the scarf out in front of him for the kids to see.
“. . . I told you . . .”
He circled slowly. “. . . it was . . .”
The kids held their breath.
“. ..a flounder!” And with that he yanked off the scarf to reveal a large, slimy fish. Charmey had defrosted it the night before and daubed it with glycerin to make it drip and glisten. A clamor went up from the circle of kids.
“Yuuuuck!” they cried. “Gross!” They screwed up their noses.
Mr. Potato Head raised his black, sluglike eyebrows. “You said it, kids.” He tossed the fish over his shoulder to Charmey, who caught it neatly in a burlap sack.
“Now try this one. What’s this?” He held up a potato. This time the children weren’t so sure.
“A potato?” asked a little boy.
“Nope.” Mr. Potato Head stepped forward. “It’s not a potato. . . .” He reached behind the boy’s ear and pulled out a candy cane.
“Ooops, it’s not a candy cane.” He handed it to the boy and tried again. He reached behind the ear of a little girl. This time he pulled out a plastic Christmas tree.
“Oh, dear! It’s not a Christmas tree either,” he said, handing it to the girl, who gave a little skip and turned around to show her mother.
“No, my miniature friends,” he continued, holding up the potato and draping it once again with his scarf. “This potato is not a potato at all.” He leaned over the heads of the children and invited a mother to pull off the scarf. “It is . . .”
The woman giggled, then gave a yank.
“. . . bug poison!”
And sure enough the potato had been transformed in his hand into a large spray can of household insecticide, which he held up for all to see.
“This, my friends, is the perverted magic of biotechnology.” Mr. Potato Head’s voice grew serious now, as he addressed the mothers over the heads of their offspring. “But genetic engineering is no joke, not when it comes to the food you feed your children. As of 1997 over thirty genetically engineered crops were approved by the U.S. government for sale, including potatoes that are genetically spliced with a bacterial pesticide and tomatoes crossed with fish genes to increase their resistance to the cold. Then there’s corn, canola, soybeans, squash. . . .”
He had the mothers’ attention.
Frank, meanwhile, was counting. He figured they had about five minutes before the cops showed up. He looked around for Charmey. He tested the strength of his wire.
“Approximately sixty to seventy percent of processed foods now contain some form of genetically modified corn or soy. That means infant formulas, baby foods, pizza, soda, chips. . . .”
The mothers scanned the contents of their carts.
“And it isn’t just vegetables either. . . .”
Frank looked out the window and realized he was wrong again. Five-O was pulling into the parking lot. Three squad cars. He alerted Y, then stood close to Charmey in case things got rough. Y passed the word on to Mr. Potato Head, who started speaking faster now.
“Who here drinks milk?” He looked around at the circle of children, then to the mothers behind. There wasn’t a woman without a gallon and a child.
The assistant manager ran to the door as the police approached.
“Po-po’s here, dudes,” Y said. “Hang on. Here we go!”
The Seeds retreated to the center of the circle of carts. Frank secured the opening with the last of the wire, then took Charmey’s hand, forming, along with Lilith and Y, a tight line of defense around Mr. Potato Head, who raised his cane and his voice.
“That’s right. Even milk! The big corporations have introduced genetically modified food into your supermarkets and therefore into your bodies, without your knowledge or consent. There’s been no long-term testing of their safety, but the government doesn’t make them put warning labels on these foods. . . .”
The cops approached, six of them, assessing the situation. Frank recognized a couple of faces, but the one he knew best was a sergeant named Meinike who’d busted him and confiscated his board, just for doing nose grinds off the benches by the senior center, a vengeful action seeing as there weren’t even any seniors sitting on the benches at the time. He was a mean mother. The other cops held back, but Meinike charged right over.
“All right, punks,” he growled. “Party’s over.”
He grabbed a cart and hauled on it, trying to break through, and looked quite perplexed when it resisted. He began to rattle the carts, trying to pull them apart, but Frank had done a very good job with the wire.
“Without labels, you don’t even know what you are buying and feeding your families!” Mr. Potato Head shouted, bug eyes popping, jumping up and down. “It is a violation of your consumer’s right to know!”
Meinike was really pissed now, and the other cops closed in. “You’re under arrest for trespassing and creating a public disturbance!”
Three of the patrolmen pushed through the crowd of customers and attacked the circle from the other side.
“We’re not disturbing the public,” Mr. Potato Head said. “We’re educating the people.”
