diane choplin

Liver. Mere mention of it sends chills down my spine, assaulting olfactory memory with dank, metallic pungency. My stomach churns recalling its unsettling consistency, soft and slightly chalky – a blood-flavored butter mint.

My mom, however, loves liver and onions.

The dish starts off well enough – thinly sliced yellow onion sautéed in generous amounts of salted butter – then runs amok with the addition of limp, glistening organ meat. Its oppressive odor filled our house like noxious gas, invisibly billowing around corners and seeping under door gaps. I’d flee outside, gagging, and gaze up at the expansive English walnut shading our kitchen window, envying squirrels their diet of nuts.

At home I had to try at least one bite of everything on offer at meals. If I didn’t like a particular dish, I wasn’t obliged to finish my serving, but there would be no hasty hot dog substitute, no dessert chaser. Most undesirable foods were worth choking down for a bowl of ice cream. Not liver. No way. Not even for mint chocolate chip with Hershey’s syrup, Cool Whip and a cherry.

Expectations changed slightly when dining at other people’s homes. No mention of not liking was allowed. If I absolutely couldn’t bring myself to eat this or that, I was to say I was full, thank you. Too full to finish dinner meant a definitive “no thank you” to dessert. Ultimate let down.

One Friday, Mom sent me to our across-the-street neighbors with backpack, pillow, and pajamas for an overnight. Bonnie and Dennis had two kids. Debbie was in sixth grade, and their son, Steven, preschool. I was smack in the middle as a third grader. Given our age differences, we weren’t playmates, the evening more dump run than slumber party. Bonnie was teary when she answered the door wearing a calico print apron over bell-bottom jeans and collared t-shirt.

“There you are,” she said.

She waved to my mom, who was standing in our driveway, in that “package received” kind of way, then shut the door and dabbed at her reddened, watery eyes with a corner of her apron.

“Onions. They get me every time.”

I paused in the entry, unsure what to do.

“How ‘bout you set your stuff over there for now,” she said, indicating a reclining chair in the living room. “I’m in the middle of making dinner. It’ll just be us. Dennis is working.”

I did as instructed and joined Debbie on the rust colored sofa to watch whatever was on TV. Steven reshaped shag carpet into trampled submission with his Tonka tractor, ducking in and out of a fort he’d made with a crocheted blanket and elevated recliner footrest.

Somewhere between Brady Bunch and M*A*S*H, a familiar stench jolted me out of media bliss. Liver? No way, I thought. Who makes that for kids? I looked at Debbie, then Steven, neither of whom seemed to register our impending doom. Too soon Bonnie called us to eat.

“Why don’t you girls sit at the counter?”

I reluctantly climbed up onto a padded brown barstool with back, next to Debbie, our plates already loaded with liver, lima beans and reconstituted mashed potatoes – the kind that come as dried white flakes in a box. I actually liked lima beans, especially with butter, so I figured that would score me some parental points, but the rest… ugh.

“Glass of milk?” Bonnie asked.

“Yes please.”

My serving of liver wasn’t that big, just the size of my palm. Maybe I could fake eating it. I looked around, assessing options. They didn’t have a dog. Even if they did, my stool was too high to clandestinely pass off bites, a strategy best executed when dining at cloth-covered table. The napkin! I could fake chew then secretly spit bites out in my paper napkin, throwing it away when I took my dish to the sink. Smug in my plan, I boldly asked for ice in my milk.

Bonnie poured two glasses, adding ice to mine, and set them next to me and Debbie, followed by a couple of cloth napkins. My heart sank.

Then she pulled a hot dog out of the microwave for Steven and plated it alongside a puddle of ketchup, our same sides, and two small bites of liver.

No fair.

As Bonnie settled at the table with Steven, I whispered to Debbie while prodding the liver with my fork, “You like this stuff?”

“Are you kidding?” she scoffed.

“Why don’t you say anything?”

“It’s no use. I just hide it and toss it out later.”

“Hide it where?”

She gave a slight downward nod. I followed her gaze. She slipped her fingers into the space between stool cushion and back, her lips curling into subtle smirk.

I considered. Not an expected dining gesture, unlike using a napkin, I feared I’d get caught.

“You girls need anything?” Bonnie asked.

“No,” we answered in unison.

“Don’t worry,” Debbie assured me. “Just wait for my signal.”

We resumed eating all but the liver.

“Hot gog!” Stephen demanded.

“You already ate it,” Bonnie answered.

“Hot gog!” he repeated, banging his fork on the table.

“Now,” Debbie urged under her breath.

I grabbed my liver, slick with melted butter and jammed it in my seat cushion. One small corner stuck out above fake leather piping. I tore at pan-fried organ with my thumbnail, breaking off the obvious bit and tucking it further into the crack while Bonnie cajoled Steven into trying a bite. The stuttered slide of rubber-tipped chair legs against linoleum jolted me back to awareness of my surroundings. Bonnie stood, sternly shaking her head, and carried Steven’s plate to the sink as he whined in protest. Wiping my hands on my napkin, I breathed a sigh of relief.

I’d done it.

“You girls were hungry,” Bonnie observed, scanning our cleared plates, her expression softening. “Well, then, how about some dessert?”

“Yes, please!” we enthused. Steven wailed.

Debbie and I left our perches to wash our plates and dish up ice cream. Making a grab for the vanilla, Steven acted the pest as we gathered bowls and spoons. Bonnie shooed him away, then hauled him off to take a bath.

Generous scoops sufficiently slathered, we made for the living room sofa, TV still on. Settling in opposite corners, we stretched our legs over the expansive middle. I ate slowly, letting the ice cream melt on my tongue while a hairy man in a strappy dress and tiara argued with an army officer.

“Come back here!” Bonnie boomed from somewhere down the hall.

Steven ran dripping and naked into the living room, clutching a toy boat.

“Steven Michael!”

Holding his vessel as if to throw it, he made an aggressive gurgly noise then, as if changing his mind, bounded back to the bathroom.

“What was all that about?” I chortled.

Debbie shrugged as if such scenes were normal, her eyes never leaving the TV.

Later that night, it was my turn for a bath. I preferred showers, but there wasn’t one that worked. I closed the door, feeling vulnerable in a strange house. There was no door lock, curtain, or textured glass screen for privacy –just unnerving open space with a door that could swing open at any time.

I turned on the faucet, set the rubber stopper, and filled the tub a mere three inches before slipping in to start washing, tap still running. I figured I’d shut it off when the waterline reached hair-washing depth, quickly finish up, and be dressed again in no time.

Once swirling suds obscured my thighs from view, I stopped the tap. Lying back with eyes closed, water up to my cheekbones, I smoothed my palms over my scalp, pushing floating locks into submerged submission. My bony elbows hit the tub’s sides making muffled thumps. Then came a disassociated bang. Startled, I bolted to sitting, water sucking at my back with the sudden removal of mass. I wiped my eyes and focused. Steven stood at the tub’s edge wearing a Star Wars nightshirt and evil grin. His pajama pants were pulled down and he’d stretched his little boy penis over the lip of the tub.

“Don’t you dare,” I warned.

He let loose a golden arc. I leaped from the tub and grabbed a towel.

“You little brat!” I raged. Conflicted as to whether to dry off and cover up, or wash again from the sink, I shielded myself with the towel and shouted “Steven peed on me! He peed in the bath!”

Bonnie and Debbie burst in right after Steven pulled up his pants. He stood grinning with satisfaction. Steven may have learned the arts of stealth, revenge, and cover up, but he hadn’t mastered his emotions. Bonnie took one look at his smug expression and knew it was true. He paid for his perversity with a sore bottom.

Weeks later Debbie told me a friend’s dog knocked over and chewed on the barstools, which had all the adults scratching their heads as to why. Marley was ordinarily so well behaved. What had gotten into him?

Marley, turns out, took care of the offal evidence we’d neglected to toss, our attention having turned from liver to ice cream.

Poker-faced, he betrayed nothing.

Good dog.

Poker-Faced Liver Eater

diane choplin