IN THE SHADOW OF HIS FATHER

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

Lawrence Jenkins, an undersecretary at the Food Safety and Inspection Service, unveiling a statue in honor of his father and a pioneer in the department, said Sunday afternoon that the government was right to commission the statue; it was proper to pay tribute to the inspectors tasked with visiting restaurants, grocery stories, and even local greenmarkets, and how they comported themselves when the call came. Jenkins, speaking “in the shadow of [his] father”—the remark drew polite laughter though he looked sentimental as he said it—noted that “selfless pioneers like Al Jenkins and his colleagues never failed the people of this country when it came to defending them.” He expressed gratitude that statues like the one dedicated Sunday, which depicted the elder Jenkins turning over leaves in a crate of  spinach as another inspector, likely a trainee, looked on, were springing up across the country, both because they served to raise awareness of the importance of food safety and because they paid tribute to the many felled by what he called “invisible enemies.”He then listed some of the most common causes of food-borne illness, including Campylobacter, E.  Coli, and Listeria, reviewing their sources and effects, as well as issuing a warning regarding some of the likely pathogens of the future, including crimson polycytogenes and brackish hat-box bacteria. Jenkins concluded by requesting that those in the assembled crowd who had lost a loved one to insufficient food safety bow their head in prayer. Across the street, in a restaurant set to open within a week, mice scurried from side to side behind windows soaped opaque by workmen.