I originally wrote this as part of my application to NYU’s film school. They wanted a story about gluttony. I sent them a story about giant hamburgers in a Texas BBQ joint. I don’t know what they thought of it, but after choking in my interview, they wait-listed me and then accepted me a few months later. By that time, I was working in the Austin film scene and leaving to rack up huge student loan debts wasn’t so appealing anymore. When I finally did go to grad school at UT, I rewrote the story into its present state for a writing seminar. The teacher, a serious and talented writer named Zulfikar Ghose, asked me to read this to the class at the end of one meeting. I read it, wondering why he had selected this one. By the end, everyone was laughing and Ghose was in tears from laughing so hard. Over the next few semesters, it wasn’t uncommon to be approached by people who were in that class and would laugh when they saw me and reminisce about the day I made Ghose cry. - JB
Meat and Potatoes
My brother is a pig. By that, he is a very intelligent animal with an insatiable appetite and a competitive but lazy nature. Eating, for him, is more than a means of survival; it is the reason to survive, the ultimate pleasure in a life of hedonism.
Near Hutto, home of the fighting Hutto Hippos (incidentally the largest relative of the pig), can be found Bob’s BBQ-Burgers-Beer. A slow flashing red neon sign blinks the menu (BBQ, burgers or beer) at all who chance to drive past the small concrete building with the large eternally smoking black grill tended by the short eternally cooking Mexican chef in the parking lot. Beside the door there is also a large sign constantly daring anyone to attempt to clean the infamous ‘Hell Burger Plate.’
On a sunny picture book day with families photographing young children wearing their Sunday best in the bluebonnet fields beside the highway, my brother, who was driving in the general direction of Hutto, offered to buy me lunch. I rode shotgun and nodded agreement. “I could use a bite,” I said. Jon smiled. He had heard of a huge burger. A legendary burger. The Hell Burger. I told him I’d pass and sure enough, he rescinded his offer to buy lunch unless it was to be a Hell Burger.
Reasoning with him, I told him I didn’t think I could eat the whole thing, for I too had heard tell of The Hell Burger.
The Hell Burger Plate may be the last test of true manliness in central Texas. When one decides to try his endurance at Bob’s, he receives a pound and a half of meat, almost a pound of several different kinds of cheese, onions, pickles, tomatoes, jalapenos and a quarter pound of bacon on a sesame seed bun. With this comes a pound of the greasiest fries in central Texas. The plate costs around twenty dollars, but if you are up to the challenge and single-handedly clean the plate, Bob, out of the goodness of his greasy heart, will not charge you for the meal. In fact, Bob will buy you a beer to wash it down. If you do not finish, however, you pay and Bob’s beer is on you.
My brother seemed up to the challenge. He told me I would be a wuss, a loser, a coward if I didn’t try it. I would not be a true American if my younger brother could eat an entire Hell Burger and I could not. I meditated on the possibility of going without lunch, of trying to reason, but finally I gave in. My buttons had been pushed as only family can push them. Preparing my arteries for the coming assault, I watched as Jon steered the car off onto the Hutto exit. The exit leading to Bob’s and the Hell Burger.
By this point, Jon was all smiles. He was confidant he could eat the entire thing, twice if he had to, and I must admit by this point I was a little excited as well. It’s easy, I thought, to begin enjoying yourself once you’ve got past the point of no return. Jon parked the car beside the Mexican chef who diligently tended the meat. Smoke billowed from the grill, and the old chef smiled his toothless smile as we walked through the smoke and up to the door. Had I been Catholic, I might have crossed myself as we walked inside.
While waiting to be seated, I admired the plain white and occasionally cracked concrete wall, the barbed wire sculpture, saddles and autographed Willie Nelson photo, which served as the mark of credibility for any country BBQ joint. The picture seemed to say, “you’ll be all right—Willie eats here.” Wooden picnic tables served for seating. A fly buzzed around the room, zooming over to a large woman with big hair and blood red lipstick who smashed it under her fist when it got too close to her iced tea. She cackled and wiped her hand on her jeans before resuming eating. The skinny man, with the shinny Texas shaped belt buckle, who sat across from her smiled and glared at me when he caught me staring. Bob, his own bad old self, walked out to seat us. He lumbered up, belly protruding from behind faded grease splotched overalls.
“Up to the challenge today, boys?” he asked heartily.
I nodded.
“Two Hell Burger Plates,” my brother said, using his most important sounding voice. The big haired woman gasped and turned to stare. Her man quietly smiled, his eyes sparkling, mocking as if to say, “yeah right, punk, I’d like to see you try.” The big haired woman finally barked a loud laugh and turned back to her man, who after one last leer resumed eating his lunch.
Bob grinned at the two of us, a couple of skinny city boys, shrugged, and said, “seat yerselfs,” before retreating to the kitchen to personally prepare the means of our destruction. Jon and I looked around and found a picnic table in the corner under a faded and signed photograph of Governor Bill Clements. We sat down, and I fidgeted with my napkin, tearing it into small shreds while we waited. Bob came out and placed two tumblers of iced tea on the table. “You’ll need these,” he said.
I pointed out to my brother that if we failed, lunch was going to cost him forty dollars. Then came the clincher. Jon confessed he only had eight—eight and no checkbook, no credit cards. The stakes had gone through the roof. I could almost hear Governor Bill laughing down on us. If we wanted to walk out of this place without washing dishes, without enslaving ourselves to Bob, we would have to finish. There could be no turning back now. I stared into my oversized tumbler of tooth-rottingly sweet iced tea, preparing for what would be one of the most important and fiercest battles of my life.
I heard Bob’s boots marching across the bare floor, crunch-clomping closer and closer like the soundtrack to a shark attack. I think I stared at the brown plain boots for several minutes, noticing the stitching and the worn toe, where the leather was almost white, before willing myself to look at the meal he placed before us.
“Good luck boys, heh-heh-heh,” he sneered through the toothpick clenched between his five teeth.
Jon smiled. He looked happily into his plate, then at me. I forced a smile as I set my paper napkin on top of the glistening bun to soak up the external grease. As I removed the stained, now translucent, napkin and placed another atop the bun, I began to nibble my fries, reducing the poundage ounce by hot, greasy, salty ounce.
I hefted the Hell Burger to my mouth and took my first bite. Perhaps it was one of the finest burgers I had ever sampled, much better anyway than your typical roadside fast food burger, but I knew then and there I would not be able to finish. Jon happily munched, chewed, sucked every drop of flavored grease from his burger. I chose to pace myself. Jon was a sprinter and knew he would have to finish quickly. I, on the other hand, did better over the longer haul.
Bite. Chew. Rip. Tear. Jon launched into a tirade against vegetarians, pointing out that humans had canine teeth, with which to tear flesh. He pointed at his own food coated canines and then demonstrated their use. Suck. Sip. Swallow. Lick. The ancient Romans, Jon said, would eat till they could no longer eat, until they were stuffed beyond their capacity to move their own bodies and then would make themselves vomit so they could eat more. Indeed. I wondered if this were idle chatter or perhaps a strategic suggestion. Surely Bob had rules against purging else where is the challenge of the binge.
I thought about strategy, and my plan was to eat the burger first. The fries I could probably force down at the end, but the burger would have to disappear soon. Jon was stuffing his hole. Burger in right hand, french fries in the left, he never seemed to slow down, in fact he seemed to eat faster and faster, and I began to feel like I was watching a film in which the footage had been sped up beyond the point of realistic movement. I wondered whether he was even bothering to chew. I had an awful vision of him choking; he clutched his throat, trying to cough, to talk, to get something up or out. I stopped eating. I began to panic. I sweated and cursed the moment I had gotten in the car this morning to go for a drive so long ago. When I saw the big-haired woman, her man and Bob all watching us contemptuously, I realized that if I gave in to The Fear, thought about the consequences, I would never finish; I had to think only of the food. All else would matter later. Eat, dammit man, eat.
Jon’s fries were almost gone, and he was easily setting into the second half of his burger. I had barely touched my fries, but my burger was half gone already. I kept going. Eating, eating, eating, eating, eating. Jon, grease dribbling from his chin, ketchup on his cheek, laughed the laugh of maniacal victory as he downed his last french fry. He glanced over at Bob, checking to see if he was getting nervous yet. Bob looked at me struggling with my burger and he threw back his head laughed at Jon. Jon began devouring his burger with even greater determination. I began to wonder whether my brother had tapeworms, as the food had not even begun to slow him down. I, on the other hand, needed a second wind. I was slowing down fast.
Jon finished his burger. He won. He defeated the Hell Burger Plate. I still had a quarter pound of burger to go and an almost full basket of french fries. I needed a distraction and Jon, sensing this, jumped up, and yelled at Bob, “You no good, cheap skate, dirty bastard! That was no full pound and a half of burger, I want more, damn you. On the house! I finished your challenge and you ripped me off. I didn’t get my fair share. I want another quarter pound. ON THE HOUSE!”
Bob, trying to prevent a scene shook his head and walked back to the kitchen to prepare Jon’s second burger. The big haired woman and her man nodded approvingly at Jon, but their contempt made it impossible to even look at me. Jon sat down, livid, asking me if I too had been ripped off and would I like some more. I declined, as I put away the last bite of Hell Burger. All that remained was almost a pound of french fries. I was on the home stretch.
One by one I dipped them in ketchup and put them in my mouth, forcing myself to swallow. It felt like there was a mountain of food in my stomach, slowly growing and filling up my esophagus. I wondered when I would reach the point where the pile of fries would be visible in the back of my throat, the point when I would be unable to swallow, because my throat would be jammed with fried, chewed potato matter.
I was slowing, giving up, when Jon received and quickly began putting away his second burger. Like a wise Zen master, he told me I must not be fooled by the illusion of the fries, I must think through them. When he finished his second burger I had five fries left. One by one, I put them on my tongue, chewed, and swallowed, allowing them to slide down my throat, to the top of the pile, which felt to be somewhere between my lungs and my neck. I came to the last fry. I felt if I ate it I would throw up, but I had reached the end. I ate the fry. Jon cheered. Bob winced. Beer arrived. Shakily, we stood. Bob allowed us to sign the Hell Burger Eaters Saddle Of Fame. Subdued, Jon and I left. I sat very still in the car, trying not to move so I wouldn’t barf.
Jon glanced over and grinned his most evil grin. “I’ve still got eight dollars left.”
“And?”
“Dairy Queen? I could use some desert. I’ll buy.”
I wanted to grab him by his smiling snout and throw him out of the car, instead I sat there, unable to budge and we went to Dairy Queen. I waited in the car while he ordered and ate a banana split. Extra chocolate sauce.
These days if you ask Jon what his favorite restaurant is, he’ll tell you Bob’s BBQ-Burgers-Beer, and woe be to any out of town visitors who ask to go somewhere good to sample the local cuisine as the destination is invariably Bob’s. Order the Hell Burger, he’ll say. You can do it, he’ll assure you.
Me? I’m a vegetarian. I haven’t touched meat in six years.
© 1994, James Brush