volume one IN THE D U D L E Y C L A R K - Ohio Vine Tours

underwear. It’s a regular place for regular people who eat
regular food. Roy has never understood what the deal is about
organic food. Organic food is all rocky and puny compared to
the shit Safeway offers that’s always bigger and more colorful,
and cheaper too. He figures it’s a Yuppie conspiracy to make
everybody feel bad because they can’t afford to buy tomatoes that
have yellow tape wrapped around them like at a police crime
scene, only instead of Crime Scene it says Certified Organic.
Roy figures it’s their way of feeling superior.
Seattle is so freaking Politically Correct.
Roy figures the Yuppies want Seattle all to themselves. They
want a city where men can kiss men and women can kiss women
in broad daylight, and restaurants can cost seven hundred dollars
to eat in and, if you want to wear fur, they shoot you.
It feels safe in the Safeway.
Probably why they call it that.
You still run into the occasional slumming Yuppie, of
course—how couldn’t you? They’re like cancer cells. You kill
one in Larry’s, and two pop up at the PCC.
Mostly, the Safeway is a YFZ—Yuppie Free Zone.
And bright, too. It’s easy to see things in the Safeway.
No earth tones. No mood lighting. And the music is cool.
Especially at the Red Apple on MLK. It’s so cool, in fact, that
sometimes Roy turns off his Sony and listens.
That reminds him that he has to buy batteries.
As he thinks this, Roy arrives at a large, red banner that
proclaims
PRODUCE
He is standing before bins overflowing with the colorful
bounty of foreign lands—: carrots and cilantro, potatoes (red and
golden Yukon), celery and beets, snap beans, jalapeños, and on
and on. What he is looking for is zucchini, but what he finds is
broccoli.
As Roy stares at the broccoli, his heart starts to pound and he
has trouble catching his breath.
ROY ROGERS IN THE 21ST CENTURY