On the first day of 3rd grade I discovered a forbidden fruit…
Art by Pete Whitehead
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Story performed by: Aaron Calafato
Audio Production: Ken Wendt
Original Art: Pete Whitehead
Music Contributor: thomas j. duke
Podcast Coordinator: Cori Birce
Creative Consultant: Anthony Vorndran
Transcript
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This episode, Lorenzo and the Apple.
Have you ever noticed there's a lot of appearances by Apples over the course of human history and our myths and our stories? Think of a big story that a lot of people know Genesis, Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve, the Apple. There's Eve, there's the apple, there's a serpent. And the serpent says, "Come on, Eve, go ahead. Take a bite of that apple. No worries." Eve takes a bite crunch, cosmic consequences in that story.
But on a lighter note, let's go to a Disney movie, Snow-White. There it is, the apple. What about American folklore? Johnny Appleseed. Or science? Isaac Newton sitting under a tree. Apple falls off the tree, hits him in the head. Huge idea, changes the world and the phrases I could do a whole 7 minute story just on these. But here are a few: the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. He or she is a rotten apple. An apple a day keeps the doctor away. Or from one of my favorite movies, Good Will Hunting. How do you like them apples? So it's really my duty as a human being to tell you my apple story.
So this really starts for me in third grade, the first day of third grade. I'll never forget this. I faced a great challenge from 11:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. and it was the snack and story hour. But let me give you some context as to why. So, in third grade I noticed my appetite changing, meaning I wanted to eat everything. I was pounding large pizzas. I was eating 10 to 13 tacos at Taco Bell. Don't know why growing kid, but it was just happening. And this made it especially difficult because I was getting up for school at like 5:45 a.m.. 6 a.m. I don't know why kids are getting up this early? It's ridiculous, but you have to. We did. My point is when I woke up in the morning, and to this day, I'm not one of these people that likes to get up and eat breakfast right away. I like to ease into my morning, you know, have a little cup of coffee at that time, maybe some OJ, maybe a piece of toast, biscotti, a Danish maybe? But just kind of ease into it that way. I'm not one of these people that wakes up at 4:30 a.m. and pounds a farmer's breakfast, you know what I'm saying?
So, when I would wake up in the morning, first day of third grade, I'm not eating a lot of breakfast and we go to school, I get there, it's 7:30am, now I'm starting to get hungry, but from 7:30 a.m. to 11:30 am. I'm doing lessons, I'm looking at girls in the class who have crushes on. I'm trying to see if I remember to turn in my homework. I'm doing all the stuff, listening to the teacher. But this goes on for hours and hours and hours. And so by the time I hit 11:30 am, I'm famished. But you're probably thinking, Aaron, you're good. It's snack and storytime, you're good. Here's a problem. My mom didn't always pack the greatest snacks. Now, this is no offense to her. I love her so much. She was an amazing public school teacher. So she's waking up earlier than I am. She's busting her ass for two kids. So grateful to her. She's still an amazing educator. But sometimes she'd forget my snack or sometimes I got to be honest, I was like an inadequate snack, meaning I don't think she understood how hungry I was at the time. And I remember this, distinctly, on that first day. Our teacher says, "OK, we're reading a story" and it's me and all the kids. And I remember this kid named Ken. He he didn't have a snack and neither did I. And we're just looking at each other. We already have a camaraderie, you know what I'm saying? We're both staring at each other like we're going to get through this together. And the teacher starts reading and I'm going through stages here of hunger and they call it hangery now. I'm wanting to rip snacks from kids' hands. I'm having to make choices in my brain of like, do I just reach across and get that kid's snack or ask for a bite?
But I didn't want to do any of that. And then I look over and I see this kid named Lorenzo. Great kid. He eventually would come over to one of my birthday parties. Lorenzo. Jet-Black, hair wide-eyed, really nice smile, great kid. He reaches into this paper bag and, teachers reading, and he pulls out what had to be the largest Granny Smith Apple I'd ever seen on the face of the Earth. To this day, I've never seen anything like it. You know, it's the first day. So, it's like August, September. The sun is coming in through the window. It's bouncing off of this apple. You can see it just shining. And he's looking at the apple. Lorenzo's is just examining this apple, kind of smiling at it. He's appreciative. He's appreciative of what's in front of him. And so are we. I'm watching this guy and Lorenzo takes the bite of the apple and when he bites into it. The juices just spray everywhere. And he's crunching on the apple and I'm getting hungry and hungrier. And I want a piece of that apple. But it gets better. As I'm watching Lorenzo eat this apple bite by bite by bite. I realize this isn't an ordinary apple. It has its middle cored out somehow.
Like if you put your eye against it, you could see through it like a telescope and where there where seed and a core before, now there was just an empty space from top to bottom. And Lorenzo's mom or somebody had injected the thickest creamiest peanut butter you have ever seen. So, now Lorenzo's on a journey. My man's going to the center of the apple and when he gets there now he's licking the peanut butter and I'm salivating. He's got peanut butter on his cheek. And then for the rest of the journey, for the second half of the apple, he gets to taste the essence of the salty peanut butter with the sweet nectar from the apple. It was torture. And this happened, by the way, every single day for an entire year. The guy had the same snack, same elegant apple, different colors for an entire year. And I remember just running to the lunchroom after snack and story time every day.
And I would get there and I would eat my lunch and I would feel full, but rarely satisfied. And as the year went on, I never asked Lorenzo to try the apple, you know? And I never told my mom about it because I didn't want her to feel bad. And after third grade, Lorenzo moved away.
So flash-forwards years in the future, I'm in my 20s, I'm in New York, I'm studying acting. I'm in my apartment. And I got the script I'm going through. And the character I'm playing is supposed to be eating an apple. So I go to the fridge, open up, and I look at this Granny Smith Apple that I have and it triggers this memory of the story I'm telling you. And I realize we have that thing that you can core out an apple with and some peanut butter. And so I do my best on the kitchen table to put together this apple. I stuff it full of peanut butter. And I take a bite and another and I eat the whole thing. And it's very good, I mean, it was really, really satisfying. But I was a little let down. You know? It wasn't that the fruit wasn't sweet and the peanut butter wasn't salty, and it came together beautifully. It just wasn't.... Lorenzo's.
