Chocolate Avocado Cake

Chocolate Avocado Cake
By: J.D. Welles

Jacob Johnson discovered the story one Monday on his morning commute. His Q train stopped between 34th Street and 42nd Street from a sick passenger at Columbus Circle, he glanced away from his neighbor's New York Post, shifting his feet. He was one stop away - only one stop away - when he noticed the spray painted scrawl on the tunnel wall.

"Once upon a time, there was a chef. The chef had no special culinary talents - his soufflés often fell, his loaves didn't always rise. But he loved his kitchen and he spent most of his time there thinking of something that would make him special. He searched and searched for some kind of nouveau cuisine combination that would make him stand out among his peers.

On a typical Monday, still tired from the weekend rush, but unwilling to let even his day off pass without a trip to the kitchen, the chef began to throw things together in a bowl. He put flour there and baker's chocolate and whole fresh eggs. Then his hand fell on an avocado. Black as 98% cocoa on the outside, green as envy on the inside.

The chef paused, then skinned it and tossed the pulpy mass into the batter. He mixed. He baked. He removed the concoction from the oven.

The chef gave a slice to his sous chef, then to his busboys and his waiters. They loved it.

He had created chocolate avocado cake. He became famous. People traveled the world over for just a slice of his dessert. His restaurant, once failing, prospered and he became a household name. The Food Channel gave him his own cooking program.

The chef was happy. Yes, really happy. Until he died."

Jacob Johnson almost missed the ending as the train lurched forward. But he caught it. Really happy, huh?

How nice, Jacob Johnson thought, for the fabled chef.

Jacob Johnson went about his work-a-day life, punching in, punching out, taking the train in, taking the train out. Brooklyn to Manhattan, then Manhattan to Brooklyn and God bless the MTA.

On a Friday, less than week from the Thanksgiving break, the fanatic restaurant review of a hot new patisserie caught Jacob Johnson's eye as did the gray-green, black-black of the confection on the page. Chocolate Avocado Torte.

Avocado and chocolate? Jacob Johnson thought and then he remembered.

Huh. Must have seen that story too.

Thanksgiving came and went with Jacob Johnson traveling up to his wife's family's home in Connecticut for a traditional weekend of food and fun. But Christmas was coming. His boss informed him that he'd be staying a little longer every night until the holiday and oh, he was promoting that kid Robertson, but don't worry, Jacob Johnson was sure to be the next up the corporate ladder.

Then a blast of mid-December snow halted his evening ride.

Flooding in the tunnels. Rerouting every train over the bridge. Great, Jacob Johnson thought, anxious for home after his third twelve hour day in a row.

The faces around him stared blankly forward, a palette of browns and pinks striving equally to ignore each other, the delay. And the writing on the wall.

"Once upon a time, there was a nurse. The nurse was born in the West Indies, but she believed in an American Dream. She worked as an intensive care nurse and every day soaked up the shit and blood of the dozens that didn't make it.

Every time she stepped onto the floor, the nurse felt like an angel of death descending daily on her tawdry, trumped up wings of mercy.

Her head nurse ignorantly called her Rastaslut behind her back because she wouldn't sleep with the boss' brother and mocked her Indies accent to her face.

That changed.

The nurse saved a life.

Not just any life, but a wealthy man's life. And this wealthy man proved very, very grateful, indeed. He rewarded her with money and a new place to live and a clerk who gave her three children and her American Dream.

The nurse was happy. Yes, really happy. Until she died."

How nice, Jacob Johnson thought, for the fabled nurse.

Christmas passed. Every morning after, Jacob Johnson strapped on his favorite present, a Rolex from his wife. New Year's passed. Jacob Johnson suffered his first and only hangover of the year.

Winter dragged on, as it must, in a series of schizophrenic fits between unseasonably warm and unseasonably frigid. The tabloids and the Post put a young Trinidadian nurse on their front pages for defying her doctor and changing a patient's prescription. Her disobedience earned her $100,000 from a Rockefeller, a new apartment on the Upper East Side and a wedding date with a grateful aide.

Then there was a policeman; there was an art student and there was a rock guitarist. The policeman died breaking up a child porn ring that saved three eight year olds' lives. The art student discovered a lost Da Vinci, painted over by a paranoid 19th Century eccentric, who thought to hide it during the War of 1812. The rock guitarist was forced to take a day job and found his true talent, managing other night-time musicians at a data processing firm.

How nice, Jacob Johnson thought, for the cop, for the student, for the rock guitarist.

He never expected the walls to speak to him. Until they did.

"Once upon a time there was a businessman. He worked very hard for his wife, a semi-beauty from Connecticut, and for himself and for what? For what, he thought. No one will ever know me or ever care about what I did or who I was. I'm a nobody in a city fed by faceless nobodies hoping to be somebodies, but content to be anybodies.

The businessman never knew this upset him. He always thought he was happy. He believed he was happy.

But he was not.

He was passed up twice for a promotion in favor of an inferior worker. His wife grew bored with his erratic behavior and contemplated an affair with his best friend, a stockbroker. She thought about divorce. Even his Rolex, guaranteed for life, stopped running.

Then his hands fell on the shoulders of a tourist boy in a University of Georgia sweatshirt. One push, he thought, and I'll be the sanest subway shover in history. I'll birth an urban legend. The MTA will have to issue warnings and I'll save hundreds of lives.

Behind the yellow line, bitch! Booyah!

He pushed."

Jacob Johnson tore his eyes away from the tunnel, struggling for breath. The businesswoman standing next to him looked at him as if he were a pervert, but a beefy, paint-splattered construction worker put a gentle hand against his back.

"Hey, you wanna seat, guy? You don't look good."

"Thank you."

Jacob Johnson sank onto the molded plastic. He knew the next line. He repeated it to himself. "The businessman was happy. Yes, really happy. Until he died."

Jacob Johnson covered his face and cried.

Jacob Johnson didn't read anything else off the walls - wouldn't even look at them - but every day expected to see that boy in his sweatshirt standing at the edge in the Times Square station. Jackson, an arrogant young hotshot, took his vice presidency. He stopped eating much and he never slept with his wife. She vacillated between a divorce and an affair with his best friend, a stockbroker, and Jacob Johnson didn't think about that at all.

Spring soon sucked out the soul of winter and the wool coats and leather boots faded into the sweatshirts and sneakers. It was April 3 and Jacob Johnson was in the 42nd Street station waiting for his train.

He saw the family first. He knew them without seeing the boy, although soon enough the kid revealed himself, a rampant bulldog charging across his chest.

"Oh, God," Jacob Johnson said out loud and took an involuntary step forward.

He was a businessman, right? He had a wife from Connecticut, and a miserable existence, right? His boss promoted an inferior - twice! - his wife was distant and his best friend was a stock broker and - he glanced down at his watch - yes, his Rolex had stopped.

And he wasn't happy, was he?

So, that was that then.

Jacob Johnson sighed and slipped around the gargantuan Georgian mother to lay his hands on the son.

He didn't get the chance.

A handsome young man in a brown serge suit pushed past him and shoved a shoulder into the boy. The child squealed, his arms waving in the empty air before he pitched face first onto the tracks. His sister had only the time to scream before an N train pulled in and over the boy. Right on time.

"Behind the yellow line, bitch! Booyah!"

Laughter echoed through the station, suddenly frozen and quiet.

Jacob Johnson knew the businessman was happy. Yes, really happy.

And would be - until he died.