“Well I’ve come all this way,” Zachery sighed annoyed, “Let me have, whatever it is that you do.”
“Right you are young sir.” Boo smiled pleasantly, “One special for the newcomer Harold.”
Harold slid a patty into a seeded bun and Zachery’s heart sank;
not a hotdog vendor after all
, he thought
. Just a bloody burger van
. “Alright,” he snapped, taking the proffered container, “What do I owe you?”
“Oh, first taste is always free young man,” Harold said beaming, “The first taste is always free.”
The old pair were starting to freak Zachery out more than just a little, and so he waved them a goodnight and walked away. He was fully intending to throw the cholesterol ridden burger into the nearest trash can when the juicy aroma wafted up to his nostrils once again. His stomach gave another treacherous rumble and he couldn’t help but feel a little curious. He opened the polystyrene container and looked down at the limp bun inside. There was nothing special about the look of the meal; nothing to recommend its attractiveness or even edible nature, but still he was intrigued. He lifted the burger to mouth and found to his surprise that it was already watering in anticipation. He shrugged his shoulders and bit down. It only took one bite and he was gone. The meat melted in his mouth and his taste buds positively exploded in orgasmic delight. The burger was succulent and divine. He could detect traces of caper berries, garlic, sun-dried tomatoes, and a whole host of other spices that he couldn’t quite place. Almost as soon as he had started eating it, he looked down in horror to see that his hands were already empty. The taste lingered in his mouth long after the last morsel had been plucked from his gums. He suddenly felt ravenous for more. He turned and ran back to where the truck had been parked, only to find that it was now gone. He stood in the middle of the road like an idiot for around five minutes before he realised that it wasn’t coming back.
Somehow he found himself back at his apartment with no real memory as to how exactly he had managed to wander home. The sun was breaking through the darkness and peeking over the horizon by the time he staggered wearily into bed. The remainder of the night was a constant toss and turn. His dreams were shallow and fitful and always of hunger. When he could stand it no more he rose more tired than he went to bed. A hot steaming shower did little to lift his spirits or sharpen his senses. He wandered into his exquisitely designed Italian kitchen and rooted fruitlessly for something to fill the large hole in his stomach and quench his hunger.
He was a man who appreciated only the finest things in life, and his greatest talents lay in his ability to recreate any meal or recipe. No matter how complicated the chef made a signature dish, Zachery would be able - through sheer taste alone - to serve his own version, and usually with some improvements.
He plucked various tins and packets from the pantry. He dragged cold meats and frozen dinners prepared by his own hand from the freezer; nothing seemed appetizing in any way. He flung a wine glass against the wall in sheer frustration. The expensive crystal shattered with a high pitched echo on the sleek black tiles. His mind was still full of the delicacies from the night before. All he could picture, all his senses demanded was a culinary history lesson. He closed his eyes and his mouth drooled like a slack jawed yokel’s. All he wanted was another taste from the rickety nameless food truck. Nothing else would suffice. His daydreams of dark morsels were interrupted by the ringing telephone and he snatched up the handset, eager to return to reality and away from his memory’s taunting.
“Yes,” he snapped irritably, as was his usual manner.
“Bet you’re wishing that you could turn those clock hands back about now eh?” The man’s voice from the night before mocked.
“Who is this?” Zachery demanded.
His question was met with hollow laughter.
“Where are they now?” Zachery asked in a softer tone that was alien to his mouth.
“Oh I just bet that you would like to know wouldn’t you?” the man sneered, “I bet that you are starving for another taste about now.”
Zachery’s stomach rumbled with vicious thunder in reply.
“I bet that nothing else will quite hit the spot ever again,” the man laughed again. “I bet that last night’s meal is all you can think about, all you can dream about.”
Zachery sank into a kitchen chair as his legs felt suddenly weak and uncooperative. All of a sudden he felt the real pangs of a ravenous hunger. He felt like he hadn’t eaten for a week and yet everything in his immaculately maintained kitchen turned his stomach in nauseating waves of disgust.
“Please,” he begged for the first time in his life. “Where can I find them? I must have more.”
“Ah now there’s the rub of the tale. Only a select few ever know just where they will show up next.”
“Do you know?” Zachery pleaded, “Please, you must tell me.”
“Will you give me anything?”
Zachery’s insides cramped and distorted. His face twisted in pain and he clutched the phone tightly with white knuckles. “Yes, yes anything, name your price, I’ll pay you anything you want, just tell me where they are.”
“Well there is one thing that I want,” the man said tersely.
“Name it,” Zachery stammered.
“Can you give me my wife back?”
Zachery struggled to understand, “Excuse me?”
“My wife, Amy, that’s what I want. You give Amy back to me and I’ll tell you where they are and you can stuff yourself with as many burgers as you can manage.”
“Amy?”
“Yes you bastard,” the man’s voice was now savage with rage. “You don’t remember me do you? I suppose I’m just another notch on your bedpost, just another poor soul whose life you ruined.”
“Do I know you?” Zachery genuinely asked.
“My name is Jonathan Guzman. My wife and I used to own a restaurant in the city called Ciao Bella. It was a silly name I know, but it was our dream; our dream that you shattered out of sheer spite Mr. Carmine.”
Zachery thought hard. The name raised a slight flicker in his memory but no more than that. “Did I review your establishment?” He asked, but fearing the answer.
“If that’s what you want to call it. It was a hatchet job; you tore apart our menu, our service, and our décor. You questioned our hygiene and recommended us only to Muslims during Ramadan.”
“Oh,” was all Zachery could manage. Now he remembered the place. It had been an attempt at quaintness that had irritated him from the start. He had been hung-over and just that morning he had been turned down for a raise. He had been in a foul mood and had taken out his poison pen to dish a little retribution, however randomly, caring little for innocent bystanders.
“Oh indeed Mr. Carmine. We lost everything on the back of your review, we had sunk every penny that we had into that business, every penny that we had and a lot more that we didn’t. We lost it all; our savings, the kids’ college fund, even our house. Amy took it all on her own shoulders and couldn’t cope with our ruin.” Guzman’s voice was teetering on the edge of hysteria. “She slashed her wrists open you son of a bitch. Our nine year old found her in the bath, and he hasn’t spoken since.”
Zachery could only listen horrified, but despite the tale of woe that he had helped to cause, the thoughts of that food still invaded, angrily pushing for attention.
“What can I do?” He asked.
“I already told you, you can give me back my wife or you can rot in hell. And since you can’t do the first, I look forward to you doing the latter. Here’s the thing Mr. Carmine; no matter what you do, you are never going to able to eat anything else ever again. That taste that you had last night will be the only thing your body is ever going to crave; anything else will just be poison to you. You are going to starve to death. It’s going to be a long hard excruciatingly painful journey for you Mr. Carmine, and I look forward to it.”
Zachery stared in horror as the phone went dead; he flung the handset hard against the wall, where it ended up laying broken amongst the wine glass shards.
----------
For the next week Zachery slowly fell apart, both mentally and physically. Guzman’s threat had appeared to be not as hollow as Zachery had once hoped. No matter what he tried to force down his mouth, it was soon violently expelled by his system. He had tried every possible recipe that he could think of; every dish, every ingredient, every food source, but nothing would stay down. He had sat and tried to recollect every taste and morsel of that burger. He had tried to remember every ingredient, to summon up every spice and every herb. His once immaculate kitchen was now a designated war zone; expensive pots and pans were strewn about with abandonment. Luxury utensils were thrown away, discarded, and crusted with failed recreation attempts. In his fast becoming doomed endeavor to reproduce the magical taste he had tried every kind of meat he knew existed. He had used every cut of beef, every type of pork, turkey, chicken, and venison. He had used every contact that he had in the industry to procure every exotic animal that he could think of; horse, zebra, camel, ostrich, and kangaroo to name but a few. He had even managed to get his desperate hands on a small sample of alligator meat, but nothing fit the bill; no single meat or combination could reproduce the taste. His weight began to plummet from a healthy lean and trim to skinny, then down to wasting. All he existed on at the present was water and a few vitamin pills that he sometimes managed to keep down. Most worryingly of all was that his mind was starting to slip as his body failed around him. He was struggling to think clearly anymore. He wasn’t sleeping anymore as every time he closed his eyes, all he could see was that damned yellow polystyrene container. He hadn’t been into the office since that night, mainly because he was afraid to face anyone in his current emaciated state.
He sat in his armchair facing the city. Even the view that he had once so lovingly enjoyed failed to lift his spirits. He had been a man who had valued his mind above all else, but now his most valuable asset was foggy and glazed. He had been certain at first that Guzman was just playing a prank on him, to scare him with tales of gypsy curses in retribution. Zachery had of course found this all very amusing after his initial shock, but his humor had soon dried up and turned to dust as he found himself unable to eat. He had dismissed his early failed attempts to eat as simple mind over matter; a physical manifestation of a guilty conscience. After three food deprived days he began to think of a solution - any solution. His arrogance had led him to believe that he would simply give in to his conscience and reproduce the burger; after all there was nothing that he couldn’t replicate. But failure after failure had driven him close to insanity; his food deprived senses had played second fiddle to his arrogance. He had been unable to accept that he was unable to duplicate a simple burger from a simple food truck. He was now at the point of desperation, unable to deny the simple facts that he could not eat and that he was going to starve to death. He had used every contact he had but no-one had heard anything about the food truck. There were no rumors, no sightings, nothing. He had used the paper’s investigative powers to find out what had happened to Jonathon Guzman and his wife. His worst fears were confirmed when he was emailed the gory details. Mrs. Guzman had indeed committed suicide when the family were on the verge of bankruptcy. She had also been discovered by her nine year old son. The boy was swiftly taken into care as Jonathon Guzman had fallen apart. The last record that anyone had of him was when he was sectioned to Blackwater Heights hospital. Zachery knew that Blackwater was a nuthouse, but one phone call had confirmed that Guzman had indeed been a patient, but that he had also been released some two years ago. Unfortunately for Zachery, since then Guzman had quite simply vanished off of the face of the earth. He had no paper trail, no benefit claims, no title deeds, and no electoral register - nothing to find him with.
He stood on shaky legs and grabbed an extra sweatshirt and his coat, dimly aware that his bony frame would need the extra layer against the cold night.
He hailed a cab and ignored the nervous stares of the driver. He caught a glimpse of his emasculated face in the rear view mirror and the damage was greater than he had feared. For the past seven days he had felt the weight slide off of his bones, but his vanity had prevented him from looking into any mirror. His cheeks were hollow and his eyes were deep set dark pools in a shrunken skull. The skin across his face was stretched tight and paper thin like dusty parchment paper. He was wearing his smallest tightest fitting clothing, but it still billowed around him like sheets in the wind.
The driver took him back to the original destination and pulled up alongside the curb. Zachery handed over the fare with a generous tip, but the driver took the money delicately so as not to risk touching Zachery’s fingers, as though the slightest brush would pass on whatever terrible disease he was carrying.
Zachery headed for the same spot where the truck had been parked on that fateful night. He held out little hope as he staggered across the street. The moon was full and bright and lit the way, but he could already see that the truck wasn’t there. The street was deserted - only framed by desolate buildings - and covered overhead by the disused stretch of the metro railway tracks that used to ferry workers back and forth - when there was work. Despite his thick layers he felt his bones knocking together in the cold. He stumbled towards a bench and sat down heavily. His mind was weary with confused thoughts of pity and a growing sense of anger.
“Not tonight fella,” a voice echoed out of the darkness.
Zachery turned to face the man as he wandered out of the shadows from behind one of the thick girders that lined the street carrying the metro tracks. The man was disheveled in filthy clothing; his overcoat was brown and torn in several places. He wore a thick woolen cap on his head pulled down against the cold weather. His hair underneath was long and his beard was thick and bushy with yellow nicotine stains. When he spoke Zachery could see the black gaps between yellowed teeth.