December 19, 2012
Wednesday

“You work at the Stop-Kwik,” Callie said that first morning. “Daniel, not Dan. I remember your name tag.”
“You buy two six-packs of Diet Dr. Brown cream soda every Friday,” he said.
“Food of the gods.” Her laugh reminded him of the chimes he’d played in the high school band.
— Margaret DeAngelis, b. 1947, American fiction writer
from “Cardamom,” an unpublished manuscript

Breaking Bad is an American cable television series now in its fifth season. It is the story of mild-mannered high school chemistry teacher Walter White, who is diagnosed with cancer at the beginning of the series. He uses his knowledge of chemisty and an acquaintance with a former student to begin producing methamphetamine, with the aim of amassing enough money to provide for his family when he is gone. The show escaped my attention when it began in 2008, but for reasons I can’t explain, I became interested in it a few months ago, and Ron and I have been watching it, using library copies. In the next few days, we will watch the last episodes of Season 4, and will have to wait until next summer to see Season 5.

The show depicts the violence and degradation that come with a life of crime: the ruthless overlords who don’t use the stuff themselves but profit from those who do, the cookers and the lab assistants who produce it and find themselves in danger both from law enforcement and from the ruthless overlords who keep them working by threatening their lives and the lives of those they love, and the users who, for whatever reason, choose to waste their existence in an altered state which at first gives pleasure, but ultimately leads to a body and a mind ravaged by pain. It hardly sounds entertaining, and yet Ron and I are fully engaged with the personalities of Walter White, his former student Jesse Pinkman, his DEA agent brother-in-law, his teenage son who has cerebral palsy, his wife who moves from denial to complicity in his life of crime, even with his newborn daughter, who is seen from time to time being toted about in a child safety seat and who never seems to make any demands for food or attention.

In the second season, Jesse moves into a duplex and forms a relationship with, literally, the girl next door. Jane lives in the other half of the house and manages it for her father, who owns it. She’s a recovering addict and Jesse’s a drug dealer, but their tender relationship helps each of them begin becoming his or her best self. At one point, though, Jane decides to “use” again, and she persuades Jesse to join her. She shows him how to liquify the meth, shake the bubbles out of the syringe, pop a vein in the arm, and shoot up. Within seconds, each gets a look of profound ectasy, falls back on the bed, and, for the duration of the drug’s action on their bloodstreams and brains, enjoys an experience that cannot be described by one who hasn’t been there.

I’ve never taken an illegal injectable drug, but I’ve had something akin to that feeling. In the piece I wrote on Sunday, I mentioned that I consumed a can of Diet Dr. Brown’s Cream Soda, the first one in more than a year. Eliminating aspartame was a “good health” action that I took some time in 2010. I noticed the difference right away — I had more energy, my metabolism speeded up, and though I began drinking soda with sugar, I didn’t gain weight, and I was more aware of just how much of the stuff I was guzzling, since I had to account for the Weight Watchers points in the regular soda.

I tried the regular Dr. Brown’s Cream Soda. It just is not the same. So I went without. When I spent those weeks in New York City in the summer of 2011, however, I did drink a lot of the Diet Dr. Brown’s. It’s a kosher product, and in New York City it costs $1.19 for a 2-liter bottle. $1.19!! At home it doesn’t even come in 2-liter bottles, only a six-pack of cans, for almost $7.00. How could I not buy it at that price! (I know. That doesn’t make sense. But when you’re an addict . . . ) I drank too much of it then, and for those weeks I lived mostly on fresh fruit and yogurt and Turkish cookies from the market on the ground floor of my building, so I had a lot of rehabilitation work to do on my health and my nutrition when I got back home.

Maybe it’s the holidays, that atmosphere that makes us yearn for the things we loved in the past that perhaps are no longer available to us. (Ron’s sfratti is a lot like his mother’s, but it’s not the same, and I won’t even attempt her biscotti nor my own mother’s sand tarts.) A few years ago, we had a mysterious Dr. Diet Dr. Brown’s Cream Soda shortage. All the other flavors, including celery, were available, but not DDBCS, and for months, Isaac’s was the only restaurant where you could get it. And maybe I was drawn to Isaac’s on Sunday not just because we like the place and it’s nearby, but because I knew I could get a single can there. When my server asked what I wanted, I made a decision.

I popped the top on the can. I inhaled the aroma. I poured the amber fluid into the glass. And with the first sip, I was Jesse’s girlfriend Jane, closing my eyes and letting myself be transported to another world. It was ambrosia. It was nectar. It was the food of the gods. The flavor, absent so long from my awareness but not from my imaginings, coursed through me. Odors and tastes can bypass cognition and go directly to the brain’s centers of memory and desire. You don’t think, “I am drinking a Diet Dr. Brown’s Cream Soda” or “This bread has cardamom in it,” you feel what you felt the last time you had it, you see the people you were with, you taste their presence one more time.

I enjoyed the treat, enjoyed the evening, as my post from Sunday will attest. Yesterday, when I found myself once again at the Giant (we needed toliet paper, coffee, olive oil, and tangerines — always with the coffee and the olive oil!), I walked down the aisle where the kosher foods are shelved. I ran my fingers along the stacked six-packs. I’d had no ill effects from the single can on Sunday — no fatigue, no carbohydrate cravings, no headache. Maybe I could have another can as another special treat, use moderation, make a six-pack last a month instead of only two days.

I didn’t even bring it in from the car until this morning. I placed it in the refrigerator, and thought about when I might have one again. And then I went about my business.

A woman comes to clean our house every two weeks — mostly the care and coddling of our white kitchen floor. She sometimes brings a lunch, always asks if she can put it in the refrigerator. Of course, of course, we say. And help yourself to anything you might find there.

When I returned from my day’s occupations, I thought I would reward myself for completing errands, assembling and delivering some small gifts, and also writing a page of fiction by enjoying a Diet Dr. Brown’s Cream Soda. I opened the refrigerator.

One can of the six was gone.

Of the panoply of juices, cola drinks, beer, white wine, and healthful filtered water available in that refrigerator, our contracted domestic worker had chosen a can of Diet Dr. Brown’s Cream Soda. I felt affronted, robbed. I stopped myself. Dear God, what am I thinking? If she’d asked me for something to drink, I’d have suggested the DDBCS, pulled one off the plastic collar myself and handed it to her. There are five left, enough (according to my new plan for parceling them out as if they were rare) for three weeks at least. And if I want to, I can go back to the Giant at any hour of the day or night and get myself more.

Suddenly, I viewed the DDBCS as a gateway drug. Not only was I flirting with the ruination of my health again, I was having feelings of entitlement, of ill will toward another.

I should have immediately taken the five remaining cans and poured them out so they couldn’t hurt me any more, called a Weight Watchers buddy for support, distracted myself with a productive activity. But I didn’t. I closed the refrigerator door. I’ll cope, I said. I’ll cope.

Fans of Breaking Bad will know that things didn’t turn out well for Jane, who thought she could handle an excursion into ecstasy once in a while. The substance I am craving is far less addictive and far less damaging than crystal meth. At least this incident gave me fodder for a 1500-word essay, an awareness of just how obsessed I am with food, and a desire to go back to a manuscript that, with a few tweaks (such as correcting the name of the drink — I have “Dr. Brown” instead of “Dr. Brown’s”), could start making the rounds of literary magazines.

So look for Diet Dr. Brown’s Cream Soda at a supermarket (with a good kosher section) near you, and, sometime in 2013, an announcement that “Cardamom” is slated for publication.