Man Eating Corn
I was lucky enough to be able to leave work a bit early today. When I got to the corner where I wait to see which of my two buses will get there first, I had some time to sit and wait. The sun was still high enough in the sky that it beamed down on me from above the buildings. I sat on the narrow platform at the base of the metal lamppost in my jacket and tie feeling very much the rustic cosmopolitan on my improvised bench.
To complete the ensemble, I reached into my messenger bag to pull out an ear of roasted corn, a leftover from last night’s dinner that I’d neglected to eat at lunch. I’d not even completed a single row—for that’s how I eat corn, in typewriter rows—when a woman waiting to cross the street turned to me and said, “You tryin’ to share? “Cause you tearin’ it up. That’s makin’ my mouth water.”
I hadn’t gotten a third of the way through when a college-aged girl coming in the opposite direction asked me, “Where you get corn on the cob in town?” and was disappointed to hear that I hadn’t. “Man,” she said, “I want me some.”
I was about halfway done when a third woman whom I’d seen watching me eat from a block away stopped and asked me where I’d bought it. “I think people would eat that, you know,” she told me, “because that looks good.”
I suggested that maybe she should talk to the hot dog vendor on the next block. She shook her head, dropped her voice to a whisper and shielded it from the watchful eyes of any lip-reading passersby who might happen to be behind her. “I wouldn’t eat from him,” she hissed, “He looks pretty dirty.”
As I finished my corn, a mustachioed man in a Kenny Chesney t-shirt paused quickly before hopping into the passenger seat of a red SUV that had pulled over to get him. He flashed a quick grin my way. “That sure do look good,” he said, and with that he slammed closed the door and the car was gone.
My one bus came before the other, I saw it approaching from my right. I quickly tossed the cob back into my bag to take home for my compost and dashed the half block down the street to the stop, arriving slightly after the bus did, but just as its back door was opening. The man eating corn was no more.
September 13th, 2007 at 7:30 pm
Maybe Pittsburgh just needs to catch up to Chicago! During the summer there are several small-time vendors that just walk the neighborhood streets, and some of the carts sell ears of corn. However, these are Latino vendors, and the corn is fixed in such a way that it’s covered in cheese or butter or both - I’m not quite sure because that part always scares me off from buying one.
September 16th, 2007 at 8:11 am
Too funny. Sounds like Portland…
September 16th, 2007 at 1:55 pm
When we were in China recently, we noticed that there were several people eating corn on the beach near us. We thought maybe they had brought it with them. When we returned to the beach a couple days later, we notice an elderly gentleman carrying a fully-laden bag of…you guessed it Corn. The ears were not grilled by steamed, and he ended up with many beach going families gathered round him with their “yuan” ready to purchase his delicious wares. In fact, we later saw him in town with an empty bag. Seems like the Chinese have also beaten Pittsburgh.