one day in september, at a farmers market on the far north side of chicago, a merchant was selling his apples. they were sweet and round and red, but they were quite expensive. the merchant called them sweat beets even though they were not beets at all, because he liked the name and thought it sounded delicious. the apples came from the merchant’s family orchard which sat on a big plot of land outside naperville. the merchant had inherited the plot from his father who had inherited it from his father. they had planted the first seeds in the days of the old stockyards, and sold the apples to the men who worked there, carrying the buckets up and down the stockyards, selling them for a penny each. this was how the merchant and his family learned their trade.

his father had always told the merchant to be eating one yourself, to make a show of biting into one, of pretending to do it when you thought no one was looking, to bite with your front teeth and to pull back with the incisors so folks can hear the crack, the rip and the pull of the apple’s flesh. if you down down instead of pull, it will squish, and you’ll lose the john, his father would tell him. and when you bite, make a big show of wiping the juices off your mouth, if you have a towel or a long shirt sleeve on hand, make a show of reaching for it, as though the juiciness of it had caught you by surprise. make little noises while you eat to show your contentedness. make a show of paying others no mind. folks find that sort of thing irresisitable. the merchant told folks all of this, pulling them into conversation, making them feel like they were friends, recounting the story of sweet beets, explaining why you pay a premium price on them. we’re chicago’s apples, he says. we are part of the story of this city.

but the merchant grew very angry when the mole people came to beg him for a free apple. they kept the manhole covers open on farmers market days. the mole people were allowed to come and go as they as pleased on such days. the people of chicago allowed them to come above and wander among the stalls and sample the available wares from the merchants. but the merchant never shared his apples with them. it’s bad for business, he’d say, ripping them from the mole people’s tiny furry hands. this upset people and a good deal. it was not the mole people’s fault that they were smelly and dirty. it was society’s fault. it’s all our faults really, women in big gardening hats would say to the merchant walking by. all chicago schoolchildren were taught the sad history of the mole people. their presence in the region preceded even the potowataemie natives. historians believe mole people have lived beneath the plains of the chicago portage since the end of the last ice age, and lived largely off a species of wild onion native to the region which the indigenous miami-illinois called shikaokwa, famously transcribed by the seventeenth-century french explorer robert de la salle as “checagou.” but western expansion and american exceptionalism devastated their food supply. their homelands were flooded with the foundations of the city. their food supply was decimated. mass genocide took place. the mole people were brought to the edge of extinction. those that remained were reduced to a scavenger’s existence. the tallest among them were hardly three feet high, so they were frequently mistaken for large dogs or even bear cubs. they were frequently killed by motorists attempting to cross dusable drive. modern chicagoans demanded a reckoning with its history toward the mole people. it was part of the platform of politicians, and was featured prominently on the mayor’s website.

but the merchant did not care for all this modern political correctness, and did not wish to give his sweet beets away like that. in all the world, he told his friends and confidants, he has only this, only these apples, their name, their brand, the idea of ‘sweet beets.’ we are not in the food business, no one is just in any business anymore. we are all in the experience business, we have to make people like themselves when they buy and apple, we have to make them feel good about that situation, that choice. that impulse to consume is good, and you can be good just by eating an apple. see, you are fine, everything is gret, in fact. you chose to eat a sweet beet today. mole people make people feel awful. the story is so bloody and the crimes too huge to imagine. if people see mole people eating sweet beets, they will be glad to see mole people eating, but they will not want to eat sweet beets. because mole people are sad, and they do not want to be sad, too.

after the mole people had given up begging for sweet beets, they huddled together in a panguey, which is when mole people stand like little penguins, toes to toes and head to head. this is a means of keeping warm. the scene, when done on the riverwalk or montrose beach, usually gathers a crowd who take pictures and enjoy the sight of it. it is sort of a tender display, like a fuzzy bush or three otters kissing. in the old days, people would come up and touch it, but we would not think to such a thing today.

this display drew the sympathy of the crowd who castigated themerchant for his unfeeling nature. his lack of moral sympathy, his lack of political concern, his privilege and prejudice. loath to stir controversy, he acquiesced. he took an apple and threw it before the feet of the panguey. a moment passed, and the panguey began to break down. one by one, each mole person peeled themselves away like slugs pulling back off the sidewalk. mole persons generate a kind of mucous secretion in a penguey meant to retain warmth around the eyes and sinuses. it bonds them like a pungent elmers glue, to the point where they must peel themselves away from the one another.

a furry hand reached out and took the apple, puncturing the skin with its sloth-like talons and skinned it until it was a soft white ounce of flesh. the mole person cracked the apple open and the sound burst in our ears and made the crowd joyful. inside the apple were five ripe seeds. the mole person removed one, holding it awkwardly in hand. stumbling to one of the nearby public trees, it lay the seed within the flower bed. then it called out for something, rearing back its head and giving out a loud bark followed by a series of whistles and pitched calls we had come to know as the traditional language of their peoples. a few moments later, another returned with a streaming cup of hot water. the first took the water and poured it slowly oer the seed. all stood back and watched in marvel as a tree sprouted, ruptured and bloomed in but a moment’s time, ripping through space and time with a yawning ache of the bones and the engorgement of wood and branch, tearing through the sapling tree which grew above it. the crowd laughed and applauded and screamed with delight as apples burst like stars at the end of the branches. round, juicy apples, brighter and redder even than sweet beets. the mole persons climbed the branches, skilled climbers and diggers they were with bat-like lat muscles.

from the branches they threw down the apples to the cheering crowd who ate them and stuffed their faces and stomachs with them. and no one thought to buy sweet beets the rest of the day. for who would pay money for something given freely?