Why do I like Joe Frank so much? Because he writes
things like this:
He went
to a small college in Iowa. It was in the sixties.
He didn't take part in the sit-ins and marches, but
still saw himself as a rebel.
In his
freshman year he drove to Manhattan on Thanksgiving.
It was a long trip, more than fourteen hours. The
car was packed with students. Their first stop was
a service area just outside Cleveland. They sat at
the counter of a Howard Johnson's restaurant, looking
at a sign that listed more than fifty kinds of ice cream.
And, to the amusement of his friends, he asked for
even more exotic flavors.
"Can
I have a broccoli-mint apple pie cobbler?
"No,
wait, I think I'd prefer the orange sunburst chicken-nut-fudge
crunch"
"Or,
perhaps the pistachio fried-egg okra delight with the
dehydrated applesauce topping and stewed lungs."
* * *
It started
as an accident.
There
was a stack of brownies on the counter, wrapped in
cellophane. He took one, and meant to pay for it, but
he realized on the way to the car that he'd forgotten.
Rather than go back, he unfolded the cellophane and
ate it. At the next service area, he stole two more
brownies to share with his friends.
At the
third stop, he borrowed a purse from one of the girls,
held it in his lap at the counter, and emptied a dozen
brownies from the display platter, and passed it
back to her. Finally, just outside New York, he emptied
an entire platter of brownies into his book bag. The
restaurants were so busy that no one noticed.
As they
drove, he and his classmates munched on the chocolate.
But they could only eat so many, and he soon found
himself with a surplus. By the time he got back to
college, he'd accumulated so many brownies he thought
he'd build something out of them. But he didn't know
what. All he knew was that he needed more.
So whenever
he drove home for vacations, he'd stop at every Howard
Johnson's coming and going, to steal as many brownies
as he could. And over a period of a year, he amassed
two steamer trunks full.
The brownies
got hard and stale. He banded them together, the way
they stack money in bank-heist movies. Eventually
his brownie collection became famous. Students from
all over the campus came to look at it. His only problem
was that by next fall, the brownies began to stink
up his room. The odor of stale chocolate was in his
clothes, his shoes, his hair. He couldn't stand the
smell, and decided to get rid of them. But he didn't want
to just throw them out. He wanted to do something whimsical
and original, to feed his reputation as a campus legend.
Finally
he came up with an idea — he'd return them.
So that
Thanksgiving vacation he placed one of the trunks
in his car, and set out on the journey home with a
new sense of mission. Now, every time he stopped at
a Howard Johnson's, he would fill the pockets of his
shirt, overcoat, and pants with brownies, walk in, sit
down at the counter, and while he sipped a Coke he'd
furtively empty his pockets, emptying his own stale brownies
onto the platters in front of him. Soon all the students knew
of his project. He was the talk of the college. They
thought it was a great idea, and they were all behind
him.
Both Thanksgiving
and Christmas went well. He had managed to return one
and one half trunks of brownies because he and his friends
stopped at every service area between Cedar Rapids and
New York.
Then,
during Easter, he arrived at the first Howard Johnson's
rest stop, his pockets filled with the dried chocolate
squares, but the brownie platters were gone. He was
stunned. Were they onto him? He looked around, half
expecting to be seized by security guards, when he noted,
with relief, that the brownies had been moved to the
candy counter in front of the cash register.
It was
too risky to add his stolen brownies to the stacks
in front of the cashier, so he sat down at the counter
and ordered dinner. When he'd finished his meal, he
polished his plate with his napkin, and holding the
plate on his lap, stacked his brownies, Howard-Johnson's-style,
on it, put it back on the counter, paid the check,
and left.
At the
next plaza, his friends helped him. They argued heatedly
with the cashier, claiming they'd been overcharged,
while he reached in the deep pockets of his overcoat,
drew out dozens of stale brownies, and placed them
on the shelves over the lollipops, Caramello bars, and
maple sugar people. And by the summer, he managed to
return every brownie he'd stolen.
And it
wasn't long before Howard Johnson's restaurants were
converted into cafeterias with pay toilets and cheap
air dryers in the bathrooms, and not long after that
that he saw them closing down.
Although
he realized that it was because of the expanding fast
food industry — the McDonald's, Burger Kings, Pizza
Huts, Taco Bells, Kentucky Fried Chicken outlets, and
all the rest, he felt a bittersweet sense of victory.
He knew he'd played a small part in the decline of
a great American institution.
to listen.