 © Cydney Brooke McIntyre
|
The Juiceman Cometh Click to read Click to |
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© Cydney Brooke McIntyre
|
The Juiceman Cometh Click to read Click to |
The Juiceman
Cometh
I woke up this morning determined to start eating nothing but liquid food. Raw
vegetable juice, elixir of life—uncooked celery and parsley and spinach and
lettuce—anything that’s green, green, green. . . .
The Juiceman has his own TV show. (Actually, it’s an "infomercial," but I’m sure the Juiceman’s mother would like to think it’s his own show, and who am I to disabuse her?) On this show, the Juiceman said that all life on this planet comes from stuff that is green. Then he held up a bunch o’ parsley and ran it through a huge extraction machine that looked suspiciously similar to one of those old butt-reducing exercisers from the 1950s. I watched, transfixed, as lumpy green liquid came out of the wide plastic spout and—glub-glub—filled a cut-glass tumbler to the brim. It did not exactly make me want to belly up to the bar.
But then the Juiceman explained that this parsley extract had to be mixed with carrot juice, at a ratio of one to three. And only moments before he’d pulverized twenty-five innocent bystander carrots, reducing them to two ounces of unjustly victimized carrot juice. Now I don’t love carrot juice, but in a fit of self-improvement pique I can sort of imagine getting to like carrot juice. It is, after all, orange—an acceptable color for a potable substance. But that green stuff . . . I mean, I like parsley, but mostly when it’s served up as a garnish next to a double bacon cheeseburger with raw onions. "If You Eat A Sprig of Parsley, You Needn’t Eat Your Onions Sparsely." I read that once on a sign in Burger Heaven. But apparently the Juiceman has never dined at that particular establishment, because he insists that the proper way to ingest parsley is in liquid form, mixed one to three with carrot juice, shaken not stirred. Do you know what happens when you mix one part dark green with three parts bright orange? Your cup runneth over with thick, pulpy, murky, muddy, polluted-looking brown.
What is really more disturbing than the grotesqueness of the Juiceman’s potion is my own sudden need to extract. Because for me, any radical commitment to lumpy brown parsley/carrot juice means I’m feeling out of control and frightened. When I’m feeling OK—when my emotional, psychological, and spiritual energies are relaxed and sane and accepting—I know it doesn’t make a damned bit of difference if I eat barbecued spare ribs and chocolate mousse because we’re all going to die anyway so we might as well live now. But when I am running scared—afraid of every shadow in my future, panicked by every scar from my past—when I’m spiraling down into that psychic pit (at whose bottom, incidentally, bubbles an evil, steaming brew resembling one part parsley and three parts carrot juice), then I’m desperate enough to try and make that bargain with God, with Mother Nature, with the Juiceman. Because then I feel, taste, smell, and especially hear Time passing, as if somebody put tiny little microphones on my gasping molecules. And let’s be honest: my face is falling, my joints are creaking, and each scarlet pimple seems a suspicious, malignant lump. I still don’t have a husband who loves me—hell, I don’t even have what I used to have, a boyfriend who loathes me—and any potential suitors are either married, crazy, or resemble suspicious, malignant lumps. Then, speaking of lumps, there’s my career . . . well, what’s the point, right? We’re all out of control. We’re just going to die anyway, so we might as well kill ourselves now.
But wait! Cometh the Juiceman and his promise of eternal youth. If only I’m willing to give up flesh-eating, spirit-imbibing, dairy-suckling, and the ingestion of anything warmer than room temperature. ("Eat it raw!" he intones. Same to you, Juiceman.) Still, he’s got me. I’ve got to live. Forever. Right now. I’ve got to control my life; it’s all out of whack, going crazy, slipping down the eternal river in a leaky inner tube. But if I eat nothing but live foods pounded to a watery pulp, I know I can beat the house at its own game.
So I woke up this morning determined to start eating nothing but raw vegetable juice, elixir of life—uncooked celery and parsley and spinach and lettuce dutifully liquefied in my new butt-reducer/juicer. I ordered it from the infomercial, using the convenient 800 number, and I remembered to have my credit card handy because operators were standing by. (Of course, I know they really get to sit down at those comfy little Formica cubicles.) I’m going to live forever, and my juicer only cost two hundred forty-two dollars and ninety-five cents. Plus shipping and handling. The Juiceman was right: All life on this planet comes from stuff that’s green.
Profile
The next thing is the laugh—big and generous. We first met at Columbia University, where we were both candidates for our MFAs, and I recall an evening when a gaggle of first year students convened at the local hangout. Hillary was holding forth, surrounded by new friends and all that glorious hair, looking intelligent and glamorous (not an easy trick). She had us in thrall, delivering one hilarious joke after another in the most authentic old-lady Yiddish accent this side of Minsk. That’s Hillary.
—Jill Bossert
Bio
Hillary Rollins
Place of residence: Santa Monica, California.
Day job: Freelance writer.
Education: B.A., SUNY, Empire State College. M.F.A., Columbia University.
Credits: Television—numerous shows for Nickelodeon, The Disney Channel, and
others. Special projects for ABC, Nick-At-Nite, USA Network.
Current projects: Playwright in the Summer Shorts Festival at City Theater, Miami.
Participation in the HBO New Writers/Performers series at Melrose Theatre, Los Angeles. A
full-length play, Love & Work. Promotional campaign for ABC Daytime. A
book-length memoir about growing up in Manhattan.
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