The Spam King of Fourth Avenue
or, A Day at Wal-Mart

By Chris Allen Clark

I follow the scent of black cherry candles into the Wal-Mart.  My eyes bother me. It is either from a rum fit or Diplopia. I have both. Gastritis as well. I smell. Not like black cherries but Spam. 
 
In the pharmacy section there are rows and rows of diet pills. I wish I had a Spam filter on my computer; maybe a fork and a bottle of rum nearby. Spam was invented in 1937 by George Hormel who also invented the chili my sister loves. Where did my obsession with Spam come from? I think I was forcefully bottle fed Spam as a newborn. It is possible. Somehow we find ways to cram things in bottles we know a baby would not dare eat. But I liked Spam even then.   
 
Isle three smells of flowers. Roses. Dandelions. The scent of Carnations. Who died on isle three? I am alive here and blessed by what I have. Still, there are the diseases: Syringomyelia, an Arnold Chiari malformation of the brain, Dropsy of the left leg, high blood pressure. How old I must be. Sometimes, I want to  revert back to my childhood and be bottle fed. So I revert on isle three while people watch me and wonder why I look eagerly for bottles and Spam.
 
A few nights back, I was kidnapped while in a drunken stupor, shoved into one of those electric wheelchairs and taken into Wal-Mart. When I could not operate the switches, my mother pushed and spoke harshly to me. “Now dammit, we’re going inside to look for your Spam, then you’re going to go home and sleep!” I did not. The fire department was called later that night after I drank rum and almost burnt Spam. The next day, I asked my mother: “How did I ever fit into the basket?”

Turkey Spam has a delectable taste on nights like these. I usually can’t taste, nor remember. All of the great recipes from Emeril, Paula Dean, and Rachael Ray have been wasted on a drunken night. I wonder if Rachael has ever had Sailor Jerry’s Rum, then gone to Wal-Mart in a basket.
  
One night, I ate two cans of turkey Spam fried in olive oil, along with six pieces of bread to make a sandwich, and four pieces of raw salt pork. I did not know it was raw pork. The diseases that are carried in raw salt pork are tumultuous. Trichinellosis, a worm disease. Again, all kinds of worms. Something called Taenie Solium worms.
Tapeworms.  Did you know that gentile ladies in the 16th century would intentionally eat tapeworms in order to lose weight? I push my basket through Wal-Mart and think of worms.
 
A can of Spam has been left in the Roses department.  Who would do such a
thing? When no one is looking, I toss it in my basket. I don’t know why I am  
paranoid. Wal-Mart has no Spam detectives, no potted meat FBI, of which I am
aware. Still, people watch me. I hide behind stems of cattails and hold my can of Spam as if it were the Holy Grail. I wonder if John, Paul, or Peter took Spam when they fished.   
 
When I mix rum and spam, I have chronic dysentery, or something the Civil War soldiers called the Tennessee Trots. The cow farmers would refer to it as the scowers. Whether I’m trotting fast or scowering slow, I glow from gastritis and probably bleed on my insides from the spicy foods I consumed the previous night. You would think I would learn by now, but still I look for that estranged potted meat people call Spam. If I’m John Boy lost on Walton’s Mountain, I look under a rock or down a stream for that can which might float in water. The cans float empty downstream and a school of dim-witted Salmon has eaten my Spam. Good night, John Boy. I’m down in the kitchen frying Spam
with Ma and Pa.

Good.  They play elevator music here. It sounds like Anitra’s Dance from Edward Grieg’s Peer Gynt suite. I push into the Pasta Isle to Grieg. How peaceful it must be to the Italians to sit at a table and eat a big bowl of pasta and listen to Norwegian music.   
With dozens of packages of bowtie, spaghetti, angel hair, and whole wheat pasta before me, I recall how beer and pasta don’t mix. I found out one night, after I had  binged on a six pack of Budweiser, and then eaten an entire bowl of bowtie pasta  with a jar of creamy alfredo Ragu sauce. Believe me, I live for their product, would double quick to a store to try and sell this delicious item, but it doesn’t travel well in a drunk. The next day, I eat Tums and Beano like candy. I have often thought of a water cooler for my room for
those mornings after I have binged on foods like Spam, cow tongue, and Kentucky Fried Chicken. In Bangkok, there is an ancient ritual which involves eating chicken testicles. Thank God, I will never go there to drink rum.

During Thanksgiving, I would eat leftover turkey and awake to a refrigerator that holds the carnivorous skeleton of some beast out of a Salvador Dali surreal painting. Worse, if we still raised cattle, they would be mute and tongue less. A new breed of cow? I should hope not. Still, I wonder if Wal-Mart has overalls. I want to raise cattle.

The Electronics Department has plasma televisions. Two giant 36” sets are tuned to Sesame Street. I stop for a moment to observe the Cookie Monster give a child a demonstration of the game patty cake. The producer of Sesame Street should have strayed away from Toll House and invented a Spam monster. The Cookie Monster is an idiot savant. He doesn’t know the proper way to teach a child patty cake. I want to pull the horn rim glassed granny away from the Kodak cameras and play, as the “old school” would, a game commonly known as patty cake. 
  
At the checkout, a young girl smiles at me as I ask for a pack of Winston’s and a bag of ice. “We’re all out of ice.” She says. Imagine that. “That’s good. Wonderful.”  Her eyes roll back.  “Wonderful?”

”Never mind. I’ll look someplace else.” I’m thankful for Wal-Mart anyway. I got Turkey Spam and lots of Tums and Beano. I am tired of walking. I want to drink rum, pop in my Grieg CD, listen to the Peer Gynt Suite, cook Spam and be left alone. Later at 4:00, I’ll invite the crew from our volunteer fire department. I hope they like Spam.