A submission for my non-fiction creative writing class
Orange Oranges
My mother, my sister, and I often made fun of my father before any family celebration as he probed the kitchen. He packed bags of shrimp, homemade sauces, and various picky dishes in large boxes. He always worried that there would not be enough food for everyone even though all of the family drives home with a trunk full of leftovers every Christmas, Thanksgiving and Easter. Year after year, we are stuck with two weeks’ worth of kugeli, a Lithuanian potato dish, because my Uncle Joe bakes six pans worth for every gathering. As a kid, I was force fed kugeli with promises that, over the years, I would acquire a taste for it. Only when the fridge is bare with food do I venture to eat the potato mess. It hits my stomach like a ton of soft bricks, soft and fluffy but strangely weighty.
His over packing is a result of his over buying. Once he discovered Costco, we were faced with four pounds of american cheese, vats of mayonnaise, and trash bags full of oranges. Every other day, he would peruse the aisles for saving on things we never needed. When he came home and unpacked everything he would yell at me for not eating the oranges while holding a newly bought bag.
“Have an orange,” he would say.
“I don’t want an orange,” I always answered.
“They’re like candy,” he says as he bites into a slice.
Over time the oranges would disappear one by one but they were quickly restocked as if our fridge was a grocery store. There were oranges everywhere; in the fruit tray, the vegetable tray, and stacked neatly on the bottom shelf. Every time I opened the fridge, I imagined the hard round fruit flooding the kitchen and drowning me like a child in a ball pit. My refusal to eat the oranges were no longer from lack of hunger but out of habit and spite.
Late in the spring, my friends called me to play Ultimate Frisbee at our old high school. Should I bring anything, I wondered. I jogged down to the basement to grab a few waters out of the spare fridge. Cases upon cases of Poland Springs water bottles were stacked next to fridge almost four feet high, damn those Costco sales. My eyes wandered to the cooler, maybe other people will need some water. I poured ice into the cooler and dumped about two dozen bottles of water in it.
I dragged the cooler upstairs and then thought; maybe I should bring some food too. I opened the fridge and the oranges color hit me first. I emptied the bottom shelf of its twenty or so oranges and sliced them then stuck them in a few plastic bags. What could be more perfect than oranges on a warm sunny day, do I have enough? I grabbed one of the slices and bit into it. The taste was sharp at first and triggered my mouth to water. The juice was cool and the pulp nestled between my teeth.
I was suddenly eight years old again, sitting on a bench during the half time of my youth soccer game. The juice was so sweet compared to the sweat pouring from my brow, over my lips. My knees were skinned and stained green but my cheeks were sunburn red. The air was humid with the scent of steamed grass and salty earth. My flashback was suddenly interrupted by my mother. Her eyes darted to the cooler overflowing with waters and bags of orange slices and then sighed heavily.
“Jesus, what is your father packing for now?”
