Southern Oil

Slice a verdantly green tomato into slices just thick enough to keep the sopping juice off the scarred white of the cutting board. Douse them in flour from a Ziploc bag in an empty drawer, egg wash the color of an Easter bunny, and bread crumbs crunchy like the dust of traditional bones. Toss them in fragrant deli oil and watch the pops of fire escape the wok like birds whamming into glass before bouncing back into their stride. Salt; pepper; devour.

These morsels of contradictions are familiar to Southern tongues accustomed to warmth, butter, and colorblindness on the table, but strangers to city children with cravings for tartare and filet mignon and experimental casarece served thrice-priced. We know only the front, the show, the facade of extravagance over a blank reality. What else could be lost along with an accent?

My father fried them up and laid them on a beautifully pretentious platter. I had five, the brown of dirt but the taste of the earth swallowing my mouth into a cultural void. So sure, I couldn't stand the endless sun, the political foolishness, the religious expectations. I can, however, certainly stand the content reality of those who don't know what they are missing; blessed are the clueless.