First it was brownies. Then corn-on-the-cob. Then blueberries. Watermelon – and when I knifed it up and presented it to Alex in pieces in the bowl, he tried to slide it back together into a whole watermelon. That was cute and useless at the same time.
For a while there was chicken, deep-fried from places like Popeyes or McD’s. Once he tore into the Popeyes Tenders and found that they’d just come out of the fryer. “Careful, honey,” the lady behind the counter said. Sometimes at home we baked frozen in-the-box nuggets. Still Alex would maul them, other times leaving nothing but tan crumbs in the bottom the shallow dark-blue plastic bowl that seems to have become his in the moments of feeding. “How does he do it?” an old friend asked me once, watching Alex, “on no food?”
Fuck if I know. Jill got him to eat brownies in a Queens diner when he was a toddler. Later we smashed a blueberry or two across his front teeth. Strawberries too, I think. I forget. I’ve begun to forget. A lifetime later, Jill got him to nibble corn-on-the-cob at a Manhattan Street fair.
I saw her doing this with him and moved to help when she said, “Leave us alone. We’re doing fine. Get’im when he’s hungry.”
Month by month, Alex’s dinner evolved into three Hebrew Nationals fried for a few minutes in a crappy little tin pan we’re ruining with Hebrew Nationals. I dumped the slices into the blue plastic bowl. I slice the hot dogs into pieces about three-quarters of an inch wide. Any more or less and you’re just fooling yourself. “Alex, hot dogs.” Months on months he took the plastic bowl of sliced Hebrew Nationals in his fine fingers. Then one night he didn’t.
Then another night he didn’t. “Alex, don’t you want hot dogs?” Even tonight:
“Alex, hot dogs?”
“Noooooo!”
“Alex, hot dogs?”
“Nooo! That’s o-KAY!”
I’d feed him something better: I’ll give $500 cash to the person who gets him to eat a steak, baked potato and salad. But it was hot dogs. Hot dogs. I sent Hebrew Nationals (and God they are good – have you tasted them?) to him night after night.
“Nooooooooo.”
Nooooooooo. And he’s supposed to live on .. what? Alex’s reb-hab nurse notices this; every Thursday and Friday evening the blue plastic bowl comes back to her.
One Thursday, she tries chicken from the Chinese joint around the corner. “Try it,” the nurse says to him, “Good boy! Chew! Very good!”
“Chew, chew,” Jill says. “You’re eating it!”.
Later I ask Jill the secret. “I would say the trick with Alex is getting him when he’s hungry.” Jill looks at him. “Alex, all right? All right.”
