A Bite of the Apple

A short story

Inessa Nelson clenched her fists so tightly that she almost birthed two black holes. The thirty-seven-year-old raven-haired woman stomped on the hardwood kitchen floor, sending seismic shock waves at least seven stories down to the first floor and possibly throughout Manhattan. 

From the apartment below came the bang-bang-bang of a broom handle against the ceiling. 

Inessa stomped again; the broom handle rapped against the floor once more, and Inessa razzed her husband, “See what you’ve done? Now we’re at war with the downstairs neighbors.”

“I didn’t do anything,” Leon said, stroking his red beard. “I was merely suggesting that you not clean the stove top until after it cools because the cleaning solution will chemically react, making things worse.”

“If you want to clean the stove, clean it your way, but if you micromanage me, I’m going on a janitorial strike.”

“Striking for what? I do most of the vacuuming, scrubbing, scouring, and polishing. Plus, your makeup splatters all over the bathroom mirror.”

Inessa snorted. “You want to talk about mess? Have you ever looked at the bathroom floor after you’ve peed? You’d think that after forty-one years on this Earth, your aim would have improved even a little bit.”

Leon extended his palms in a gesture of peace, but before he could say anything else, Inessa twisted off the cap of the one-liter bottle of Dr. Joe’s Clean-It-All she’d been using and poured the remaining solution down the kitchen drain, where it gurgled and frothed until it disappeared. 

“I don’t think that you’re supposed to put it all—”

“You know what? I’m going to chill with Netflix. Go ahead and clean or not. I don’t care.”

“With what?” Leon picked up the bottle and grumbled as he weighed the empty Dr. Joe’s in his hand, but Inessa had already exited the kitchen.

By the time Christina Long’s cat, Princess Priscilla, had finally agreed to eat the fourth bowl Christina offered, having rejected Jasmine Cat Chicken, Mon Cafe Tuna and Liver, and Royal Feline Medical Blend Gourmet Five Meats, Dr. Joe’s Clean-It-All from Inessa and Leon’s apartment above had solidified into a three-inch long cement-hard clog in the drainage pipe of her kitchen. 

Christina scraped the uneaten cat food into her kitchen sink’s drain, turned on the water, and flipped the switch to power up the garbage disposal. Three seconds later, her kitchen drain erupted like Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull, splattering gooey cat food detritus everywhere.

As Princess Priscilla methodically licked the smorgasbord of fish and meat from the walls, Christina speed-dialed the twenty-four-hour plumber, Morgan Stephanopoulos, who promised to be over within thirty minutes by 9:15 p.m. He told Priscilla that between 6 p.m. and 10 o’clock he charged emergency rates—one-point-five times the daytime amount—but the midnight rate didn’t kick in until after 11 p.m, and her plumbing issue sounded like something he’d be able to fix in under forty-five minutes.

At 9:58 that night, Morgan summoned Christina from the living room to the kitchen to watch how freely water now flowed through the drain. He proudly proclaimed that he had fixed the problem and the total bill was $312.15. When Christina handed Stephanopoulos her Visa card, Morgan said, “My card reader’s broken. Can you do PayPal?”

Christina replied, “I don’t have PayPal.”

“Cash?”

“I don’t have that much, but I can run to the ATM and return in five minutes.”

Morgan glanced at his gold Rolex and appeared to think about that for a few seconds. Finally, he said, “Okay, and I won’t charge you waiting time.”

Christina ran to the ATM at Seventy-First and Second, edging inside the vestibule just as an elderly woman, Evelyn Jacobson, was about to enter. Christina mouthed “sorry” but didn’t slow, and, in one fluid motion, removed her ATM card from her shoulder bag, slid it into the slot, entered her PIN number, and then accidentally pressed $2,000 instead of $200. 

After the ATM spit out her twenty-one-hundred-dollar bills, the machine displayed, CLOSED FOR CASH REPLENISHMENT.

Christina clenched her jaw, mouthed “sorry” again, and dashed toward the door.

Evelyn not-so-quietly barked, “Fuck you,” to Christina while aiming her middle finger at the back of Christina’s head. She ran her gnarled fingers through her gray hair and muttered, “Fuck you” again after Christina was gone.

Now what? Evelyn thought as she exited the vestibule. Her hands shook from the chilled December wind and her Parkinson’s.

There wasn’t another ATM nearby, at least not one she could walk to in time. 

Five hundred dollars. How am I going to get five hundred dollars now? 

The four-sided clock on the post on the corner told her she had less than two hours to come up with the cash or the gangsters would break her son’s legs—or worse. Stephan didn’t know she knew; he didn’t know Evelyn had overheard the gangster named Uri extorting Stephan to “protect” his 112th Street and Amsterdam bodega, Meats and Sundries.

Evelyn shuddered. They will hurt him. They have to hurt him to keep the other shopkeepers in line. I will protect my son. 

Evelyn took a long breath, held it, and glanced across the street. Traffic was light, but there was enough so she could do it. She had to do it. 

With Parkinson’s and diabetes, how much time do I have left? She rephrased the question. How much quality time do I have left?

This wouldn’t get Stephan money tonight, but it would bring him even more when the life insurance check arrived. With the guarantee of cash to come, she hoped the mobsters would wait a little longer, even if Stephan had to hand over more—“interest,” they would call it. Evelyn had no doubt the insurance company would pay because an old lady hit by a car while crossing the street at night wouldn’t look like suicide. Evelyn only wondered if it would hurt.

She felt her heart slow, blood warm, the calm of certitude filling her. 

She looked up toward the crescent moon. Two bright points of light hung nearby. Venus and Jupiter? Evelyn remembered reading about the coming conjunction of these three celestial objects and thought this would be a fitting last sight. 

With her eyes fixed on the sky, she stepped into the crosswalk. The wind from a speeding car goosebumped her neck. Then another, accompanied by the screech of brakes and the shrill call of horns, growing closer and clamorous, a clarion cry of peril; all the while, Evelyn locked her gaze on the heavens, until a wall of steel shoved her to the pavement.

But she did not die because the large truck had slowed to a harmless one mile per hour before hitting her. The driver, Clint Thu, a gaunt man in his fifties, had applied many times his weight to the brakes, stopping his truck in time but also blowing six of its eighteen wheels because of the massive heat from the friction of rubber against concrete. 

The truck spun to a diagonal position across Amsterdam Avenue. 

A herd of eight police cars arrived five minutes later, followed by a New York City Department of Health van, summoned by an alert police officer who noticed a green fuzz on one of the shipping crates when he inspected the truck’s cargo. 

The Department of Health confirmed that the fruit—melons, kiwi, oranges, apples, strawberries, blueberries, and bananas—were contaminated with a highly-toxic subspecies of Stachybotrys mold, and had the fruits been consumed, many dozens, perhaps hundreds, of New Yorkers would have died. 

“No offense to our boys and girls in blue,” the Department of Health officer said to the cops, “but just a few specks of the green Stachybotrys can kill. If these fruits had reached the market, the Reaper would be doing his thing all over New York City tomorrow.”

Twenty minutes later, Rachel Witherspoon, vice-president of Jolla Grocery, the chain to which the fruit was to have been delivered, arrived. Witherspoon, a tall woman in her thirties with long, blonde hair and turquoise eyes that reflected the streetlights’ glow, gave Evelyn a thousand dollars in gratitude for saving New Yorkers and the company’s reputation. 

“What time is it?” Evelyn asked Rachel.

She glanced at her watch and replied, “Eleven-forty.”

Another cascade of goosebumps rippled across Evelyn’s skin. “May I ask a favor?”

“Of course. Anything.”

“Can you give me a ride to my son’s bodega? It’s close.” Evelyn eyed the BMW that Rachel had driven. 

“They want you to be checked out at the hospital.” Rachel nodded the paramedics’ way.

“I need to get to my son first. It’s urgent.” Her lips trembled. “It’s urgent,” she repeated. 

After a moment, Rachel replied, “You got it.”

Evelyn scooped her shoulder bag off the street. Thanks to Rachel, she arrived at Stephan’s shop at eleven fifty-seven, with three minutes to spare. She hugged her son, whispering, “I’ll take care of everything,” and handed gangster Uri Hass five one-hundred-dollar bills. 

Uri stood five feet six inches tall and appeared nearly as round. He grunted as he shoved the money into his too-tight front pants pocket. 

“Take it and get out of here,” Evelyn hissed. She pivoted so her open bag faced the mobster, angling it to provide a clear view of the contents. 

Uri growled at Stephan through his missing two front teeth. “I’ll be back next month.”

“Like hell you will. That’s all you’re ever getting from my son.” She poked the air in front of Uri with her finger.

“You’re so wrong, old lady. I’ll take what I want when I want.” He whipped his hand into Evelyn’s bag, grabbed a red apple that Evelyn had found behind the fruit truck, and took a large, loud bite. The mobster wiped the green-tinged apple drip off his chin with his arm. 

“I don’t think so.”

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If you liked A Bite of the Apple, I think you’ll enjoy my story, Gerald Gray’s To-Do List.