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by Pete Hautman

  I’m impressed with how thorough his list is. He’s probably cribbed it from some other eating contest.

  When he has finished reading the list, Papa looks at us and says, “Is-a that-a hokay?”

  I raise my hand. “What about dipping?”

  “Dipping?” Papa says.

  “Can we dip the slices in our water?”

  Papa is horrified. “Why you want-a to do-a that to Papa’s nice-a crisp-a crust-a?”

  “I don’t know,” I say, wishing I’d kept my mouth shut. I might’ve given away a pro tip to the other eaters.

  “Whatever. Dip if you want to,” Papa says, forgetting to use his fake accent. “Come on up — take your seats.” As we all climb onto the stage and sit down behind the long table, Papa looks forlornly at the two dozen spectators. I’m sure he hoped for ten times that many.

  Downtown Vacaville is usually a dead zone on the Fourth of July. There used to be an Independence Day parade, but not for the past few years. People are too busy doing other stuff — picnics, barbecues, and so forth — and they moved the fireworks display out to Vacaville Lake, two miles south of town. I think Papa was hoping his contest would lure people back.

  Most of the spectators are friends and relatives of the eaters. I look for my personal cheering section, HeyMan and Cyn. HeyMan is right in front, chatting with the Fangor sisters with a silly grin on his face. A lot of guys get that way around Tessa and Trina. Cyn is standing a few feet behind HeyMan with her arms crossed, watching him with a carefully blank expression.

  I end up sitting near the middle with the Fangor brothers towering on either side of me. I lean forward to check out the rest of the competition. Egon Belt is two seats to my right, then Hap Hardwick. They are the only two over thirty years old. I recognize the three other guys from around town but don’t really know them. To my left is Jake Grossman, Hoover, and two more guys I don’t know. Twelve of us altogether.

  Vito is wheeling out the first batch of pizzas on a metal cart. He sets the boxes on the table in front of us, one box each. It’s the extra-large box, not the sixteen-inchers I’m used to. That’s fine with me — pizza is pizza. But why only one pizza each?

  Vito goes back inside. I expect him to bring out more pizzas, but he returns with a tray of large plastic cups filled with water.

  Hoover looks askance at the water. “No beer?” he asks.

  “No-a beer,” Papa says.

  “No-a fair!” Hoover says.

  Papa scowls at him. “No wise-a remarks or you-a disqualified.”

  That shuts Hoover up.

  Papa looks over the spread and straightens out a few of the boxes.

  “What happens when we finish this one?” I ask.

  “You gonna eat more than one?” he asks, surprised.

  “Joey Chestnut ate forty-five slices of Famiglia pizza in ten minutes,” I say.

  “You-a no Joey Chestnut,” Papa says. “And this-a no Famiglia pizza.”

  “I’m pretty hungry,” I say.

  Papa considers this, then looks up and down the row of contestants.

  “I’m-a pretty hungry too-a,” Hoover says.

  “You-a wise-a guy,” Papa says. “You finish this one, we get you another.”

  More people have showed up. I don’t know where they came from, but the crowd on the street has doubled in size.

  Papa grabs the microphone. “Hokay, hokay, hokay! Is-a almost time for a big-a event! At this-a very moment, at Pigorino’s all across the great state of Iowa, the world’s greatest pizza eaters are sitting down to enjoy the world’s greatest pizzas! One, and only one, of these amazing gladiators of the gut will go on to compete in the world’s greatest pizza contest: the Pigorino Bowl!” He is so excited, he keeps forgetting his accent. “Let’s have a big Vacaville welcome for our hungry contestants!”

  He steps to the side, and everybody is looking at us and clapping. I see Cyn and HeyMan in front. They seem to be really close and really distant at the same time. I don’t know if it’s stage fright or excitement, but my heart is banging against my ribs and my hands are shaking and gravity has disappeared.

  “ARE YOU READY?” Papa shouts into the mike.

  Am I ready? I have no idea! The whole situation feels unreal, like I’m in someone else’s body, in another reality. I want to say, Wait! Hold on a second! Rewind!

  “GO!”

  I open the pizza box. I’m expecting a cheese pizza, but what I find is something else entirely.

  I am looking at a Grande BLD. Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner. For a family of six. A two-and-a-half-inch-thick monstrosity supported by a double-thick crust turned up at the edges to form a tall, rock-hard rim. My throat hurts just to look at it. The pizza has been cut into eight fat wedges, then topped with a hash-brown nest big enough for a chicken, with a sunny-side-up egg and a sprig of parsley.

  I look up and down the table. Most of the others are gaping at their BLDs in shock, uncertain how to attack, but Hoover has already picked up the fried potato nest in both hands, sucked down the egg, and is cramming the rest of it into his mouth, yolk running down his chin.

  The rest of us dive in.

  The potato nest is the easy part. I get it down in about twenty seconds, no problem, then pick up the first slice. It weighs a pound. I shove the tip into my mouth and bite down through the layer of bacon, vegetables, sausage, and crust. I don’t bother tasting — all my energy is going into chewing. That crust is as thick as a slice of bread, but with the texture of baked cardboard. Bite, bite, bite, swallow. Again. My entire universe contracts. I am a biting and gulping machine. Bite, bite, bite, swallow. The rim is as hard as a week-old bagel. I dip it in my water glass and tear into it. Halfway through, I stop and tear the rim off the next slice and stick it in my water to presoak.

  Egon Belt has finished his first slice and is munching contemplatively on his second, seemingly in no hurry at all. I look to my left. Hoover is on slice number two as well. The Fangors on either side of me are still struggling with their first slices.

  I make quick work of slice two and power down the crust. The presoaking helps. I do the same thing with slice three.

  “Five minutes!” Papa shouts into the mike.

  I take another quick look at my competition. Some of them have already surrendered, but Egon Belt is a machine, already into slice four. Hoover and I are neck and neck, but I can tell from the redness of his face and the panicked look in his eyes that he is approaching the wall. I dive back in. I can feel myself hitting the zone. I forget about the other eaters and the crowd of onlookers. My entire universe is reduced to hands, mouth, teeth, and gullet. Time passes slowly. I don’t even stand up to do the Joey Jump — my stomach has infinite capacity. My teeth blast through rock-hard crust; my throat opens and the pizza goes down.

  Papa’s amplified voice cuts through the fog of consumption: “One minute!”

  I check out Hoover. He is starting his sixth slice, chewing frantically. Nobody else is even close to me and Egon Belt. The Fangors are regarding their remaining half pizzas blearily, making no effort to continue. Hap Hardwick has left the table. Jake Grossman is slumped morosely in his seat; he never made it past the third slice. I am on number seven. I can feel the pressure building inside.

  Egon Belt is sitting back in his chair wearing a slight smile, his beard streaked with grease but still neat-looking. In the box before him rests a single slice of BLD.

  I can catch up; I know it. I chew. I dip. I swallow.

  I am shoving the last chunk of crust in my mouth when Papa shouts, “STOP!”

  Egon Belt and I look at each other. I chew and swallow the last bit of pulverized crust. He winks.

  It’s a tie.

  The next few minutes are a blur. People are yelling and clapping, Papa Pigorino grabs my hand and Egon Belt’s hand, and we both stand up. I just about lose it, but Egon Belt looks as if he’s eaten nothing more than a donut and a cup of coffee. He’s smiling and waving back at the crowd. Papa is yelling into h
is microphone. “Is a tie! Is a tie! We have-a two-a winners!”

  He goes on, but I can’t hear what he’s saying — all I want is to get off that stage and lie down. After a few minutes that feel like hours, Papa runs out of things to say. I climb down off the podium, and HeyMan runs up to me and slaps me on the back. Seismic events occur within my digestive system. With a superhuman effort, I keep it together.

  Vito is handing out free slices to the crowd. Just watching people shove pizza into their mouths is making my world spin. I stagger off toward Vaccie, toward that patch of shaded grass. HeyMan and Cyn, on either side of me, are both talking. HeyMan is telling me I’m awesome; Cyn is asking if I’m okay.

  “I gotta lie down,” I mumble. I sink onto the grass and stretch out. Cyn and HeyMan look down at me worriedly. I feel the BLD trying to sort itself out inside me. A few seconds later, Hoover joins us.

  “I don’t know how you do it, dude,” he says with regretful admiration.

  “Me neither,” I say. I want to belch, but I think that might lead to other things.

  “I thought that old dude had you smoked, but then he just stopped. You got lucky.”

  Egon Belt. I roll onto my side and push myself up, trying to stand without compressing my belly. Hoover grabs my hand and helps me up.

  “Anyways, congrats,” he says, then walks off.

  HeyMan says, “Maybe you should, like, just not move for a while.”

  “I gotta say thanks.”

  “You’re welcome,” HeyMan says.

  “I mean, to Egon Belt.” I look around, trying to spot Egon Belt’s John Deere cap. “Where’d he go?”

  “I saw him go around back of Pigorino’s,” HeyMan says.

  HeyMan and I find Egon Belt in the alley next to the restaurant sitting on an upended crate. He is sitting stiffly, leaning forward just a little, his big hands gripping his knees, his eyes fixed on something that isn’t there. His face is unnaturally pale.

  “Maybe we shouldn’t bother him,” HeyMan whispers.

  Egon Belt must’ve heard him, because his head jerks up a notch and his eyes fix upon us.

  I say, “Mr. Belt?”

  “Yep,” he says.

  “Um . . . I just wanted to say thanks. You had me beat.”

  “That’s okay,” he says, following up with a small belch. “The rules say you got to eat the whole slice — half slices don’t count. I couldn’t have finished that last one anyway.”

  “Well, it was an honor to eat with you.”

  “Honor?” he says. I can hardly hear him. He squeezes his eyes shut for a few seconds. He really doesn’t look good. His face is whiter than the inside of a hot-dog bun, and it’s covered with tiny beads of sweat.

  “It’s no honor, son,” he says after a moment. “It’s gluttony and conceit.”

  He makes a noise that might be an attempt to laugh, but what comes out is another belch.

  “But —”

  “But nothing. Now, go on. Leave me alone.” He swallows, looking paler than ever. The droplets of perspiration on his forehead are quivering, and I realize his whole body is shaking. “Go on. Get lost. Believe me, you don’t want nothing to do with this business. And you do not want to be here for what’s about to happen next.”

  I get what he is saying and start to back away. I can sense the pressure building. His face seems to swell, and the whiteness of it gives way to red as the blood rushes from his stomach into his extremities. HeyMan can see it, too. We turn our backs and walk quickly away. I flat-out refuse to describe the sound we heard a moment later.

  Back in front, most of the spectators have left. Vito is moving the traffic cones off the street. Cyn is waiting for us in Vaccie’s shadow.

  “Did you find him?” she asks.

  “Yeah,” HeyMan says. “He’s back there having a reverse-eating event.”

  Cyn grimaces, then looks at me. “How about you?”

  “I’m okay,” I say. “Things are settling down.”

  “I think they’re still giving away pizza. You hungry?” She grins.

  “Not so much.”

  “I guess there’s a first time for everything.”

  “I think I need to go home and chill for a bit.” I look back toward the alley. “I hope Egon’s okay. He didn’t look so good.”

  Just then, Egon Belt comes striding out of the alley. He goes over to Papa, who is helping Vito take down the folding tables, and shakes his hand. He’s standing up straight, he’s smiling, his color is normal, and his beard is neatly combed. He looks nothing like a guy who’d been barfing his guts out five minutes ago.

  “Back from the dead,” HeyMan says.

  “Egon’s a real pro,” I say proudly.

  Mal is inching across the backyard on his hands and knees, his nose almost touching the ragged tips of the freshly mown blades of grass. He stops and picks up a withered dandelion blossom, examines it, then carefully sets it back in place. So far, the only Things he has kept are a single rose petal and a V-shaped twig, both now resting on the edge of the patio near the foot of the chaise longue where I have been sitting for the past hour.

  Mal is inhumanly patient; I am inhumanly bored. Arfie, sprawled beneath the picnic table, looks bored, too.

  I have a book, one of Dad’s thrillers. Dad likes to read books in which large numbers of people are shot or blown up, especially stories that involve advanced military weaponry. In real life Dad is as peaceful as they come, but his taste in books is homicidal. The one I’m trying to read is about an ex-Marine whose wife is murdered by this secret government assassin group, and the guy sets out to kill them all, using a different weapon for each of them. I’m on page sixty-two, and so far there has been one strangulation, a drowning, a samurai-sword impaling, a machine-gunning, and two guys run over by a tank. Dad also likes politics, and there is a lot of politics in the book. I skip those parts. But the main reason I keep putting the book down is because of Mal. As boring as it is watching him crawl around in the grass, I can’t stop watching. It’s hypnotic.

  My hypnotic trance is broken by the chirp of an arriving text message.

  It’s Cyn. I’m not in a texting mood, so I call her.

  “Mal found a twig,” I say.

  “That’s amazing,” Cyn says. “Is it a good twig?”

  “It is an excellent twig.”

  “Good for Mal.”

  “I’m reading about violent death and weapons of mass destruction.”

  “Why are you doing that?”

  “It’s one of my dad’s books. I thought I’d give it a try. Did you know you can kill a man with a dessert spoon?”

  “By feeding him too much pudding?”

  “No, by — oh, never mind. It’s stupid.”

  “I could have told you that.”

  “I’m watching Mal crawl all over the yard. It’s very exciting. Really looking forward to the next few weeks.”

  “When does your mom get home?”

  “The day before the Pigorino Bowl.”

  “How’s your training going?”

  “I’m taking a break.” In fact, ever since the qualifier, every time I sit down to eat something, I remember the sound of Egon Belt barfing in the alley, and my appetite disappears. “You want to come over and help me watch Mal?”

  “Only if he promises to find more twigs.”

  Twenty minutes later, Mal has collected a leaf that blew in from our neighbor’s maple tree and another interesting twig. His knees and the palms of his hands are green from the grass, and he is getting that pinched look that happens when he is tired. I automatically go on meltdown alert.

  “Hey.” Cyn lets herself in through the back gate. “Any more twig action, Mal?”

  Mal smiles and keeps his eyes on the ground. Very few people can make Mal smile that way. He likes Cyn, but he won’t look at her when she is looking at him. As soon as she looks away he senses it, and his eyes go back to her. Mal and I watch her cross the yard. Cyn walks like a cat, very smooth and liquid.
I think that’s why Mal likes her so much. He doesn’t like people who move in jerks, or who stomp around, but he’s liked Cyn ever since he was a toddler.

  Cyn notices Mal’s Things lined up on the edge of the patio.

  “Good job, Mal,” she says without a hint of sarcasm.

  Mal gives no indication that he hears her, but I know he does. Cyn slides into the other chaise. “How are you doing?” she asks. “Are you nervous about the big contest?”

  “I’ll probably die of boredom before then, so not really.”

  Cyn smiles. “Mal isn’t keeping you entertained?”

  “You’re lucky to be an only child.”

  “Why?”

  “You get to be the oldest and the youngest all at the same time. I’m always stuck in the middle. I have a sister and a brother, but Bridgette’s moved out, and even when she was here she treated me like a pesky rug rat. And Mal, well, look at him. It’s like being alone with no privacy, you know what I mean?”

  “Maybe you have middle-child syndrome.”

  “Is that really a thing?”

  “No idea, but if it’s not, it should be. Anyway, I wouldn’t mind having a sister. Or even a brother.”

  “You want Mal?”

  Cyn nods seriously. “I would take Mal. Is he for sale?”

  We watch Mal. He has found something. It looks like a dried-up earthworm. Arfie, who has been watching from beneath the picnic table, trots over to investigate. Mal offers him the worm. Arfie sniffs it, turns away, and returns to his post. Mal replaces the worm in the grass and continues his crawl.

  “Make me an offer,” I say.

  Cyn laughs, and I realize that this is the longest conversation we’ve had lately without HeyMan being there too. Just as I am having this thought I hear the gate open.

  “Dude and dudette,” HeyMan says cheerily.

  I look at Cyn.

  “I told him I was coming over,” she says.

  HeyMan wants me to eat more.