In God we trust_ all others pay cash - Jean Shepherd [65]
The Jawbreaker requires and actually deserves a whole special treatise which, of course, space does not permit here. The virgin, or untouched Jawbreaker in its natural state was roughly a full inch in diameter and as hard and unyielding as obsidian. There were two basic Jawbreakers which actually were divergent types of the same majestic, classic Bicuspid Buster. They were simply know as “Red” and “Black,” the Red being coated on the outside with a brilliant, flaming, gleaming, smooth enamel of pure carmine; the Black stark, austere, and yet somehow dignified with its glistening, pristine ebony shell has not yet been improved upon as a study of sheer geometric and aesthetic unity. Here was and is truly a masterwork in the Penny-Candy genre of creativity. Structurally, both Jawbreakers were identical, but both represented opposing sides of the nature of Man and his universe. Ying and Yang. The Red Jawbreaker man rarely touched the Black and the Black Jawbreaker adherent knew what he wanted and would accept nothing else.
The Jawbreaker was never chewed, but sucked over long periods of time, allowed to soak in the salival juices, the lining of the mouth puckering and retreating as the succulent elixirs of layer upon layer of Jawbreaker forever established a whole range of attitudes of gustatorial appreciation. The Jawbreaker revealed its endless subtleties layer by layer, holding back, suggesting, stating, until finally, the inner core, the pit, the Mother Lode was finally reached.
Each layer of a Jawbreaker was slightly and subtly a different shade of coloration from the one that preceded it, after the initial black or red coating had been sucked off, had disappeared, the Breaker would emerge dead white and then a few moments later it changed imperceptibly to a dull, mottled brown with overtones of green, followed by a rich brick-red vein. Next, perhaps, a mocking, impudent onion-yellow. White again! And then a somber, morose purplish-gray, and on down, layer after layer, color after color, until finally, at about the size of a tiny French pea, it would crumble and reward the aficionado with a minute seed which crunched and then disappeared. The Jawbreaker, a fitting parable of life itself, infinitely varied, sweet, and always receding until finally only the seed.
The Black Jawbreaker unquestionably was one of the major influences in the formative years, the Silly Putty years, the cellophane-transparent malleable days of my budding youth. It was a Black Jawbreaker that taught me a major lesson of Man’s Inhumanity to Man.
There were other, lesser Penny Candies; the strips of white paper dotted with geometric rows of yellow, white, blue, and red pellets of sugar, fit only for cretins and two-year-olds, the banana-oil flavored, peanut-shaped obscenities beloved of elderly ladies, and girls, the jelly orange slices, and others.
There were a few minor works that bear mention. The Spearmint leaves, for instance, too subtle for ten-year-olds, which must be grown into. The flat, coconut-flavored watermelon slices; blood red, green-rinded, black seeded, sprinkled with sugar and fly spots. Oh yes, and the candy ice cream cones with pink and white marshmallow “ice cream” covered with sugar and a marshmallow cone that briefly caught me before I knew better. The tiny red peppermint hearts that old Pulaski sold by the scooping of a minute wooden barrel; hotter than Hell and arrogantly unpleasant.
But it is the Jawbreaker, when all is said and done, that represents the absolute pinnacle of the world of Penny Candy, lost and gone, but festering on in countless root canals wherever Dental appointments are made and broken on long American afternoons.
Sudden likes and dislikes, inexplicable fads, swept the Penny Candy