The Kafe Buffet
The diner was barely a tin can of hot metal and a tarred roof baking
in the angry sun just off the New Jersey Turnpike. You just had to take
Exit 4 and then turn right on Route 73, and right again on Fellowship
Road to get there before coming to their Kafe Buffet’s driveway that was
never adequately marked with white stripes so that people just parked
wherever the hell they wanted to being New Jerseyites, that is, a special
breed of people who have strong backbones, garrulous lips, and nasal
toned voices and who while driving are very prone to use American
sign language a lot. During summertime, the Kafe looked like a big
sardine can so that if you pulled back the top out would pop a lot of
orderly sardines in thick oil and marinara sauce.
But of course, Mikey Fizzano, a hot-headed Sicilian, would get
pissed since he was the owner of the place, and it was his church and
congregation.
But who knows?
The Kafe was really a great place during awful times where we
just ate and ate, and ate some more, before we had to purge ourselves
before going back and eating more food again. We were like the ancient
Romans, and had a lot of fun, maybe, just too much before the place
was closed.
“It’s one of those inconspicuous places,” my Uncle Fabbie said
drinking from a bottle of Pisano wine, “but you’ll love the food there.
They get it just right.”
“They got the best burgers and fries to die for,” Connie chimed in.
“If I were on death row, and they asked me for my last meal, and I
don’t care if I was sittin’ on Alcatraz Island in some shitty cell, I’d say,
‘Get me one of them burgers from Kafe in New Jersey.’ And I think
they’d have to do that since it was your last meal and all,” Danny said as
he was a little overfamiliar with the judicial system in Trenton.
The police swarmed the place though right around Labor Day, after
the killings and after a bunch of wildfires had hit the New Jersey pines.
We had gone there over the weekend, looking to relax after breaking
our backs working for a bunch of Wall Street overlords who wanted
to make billions of dollars in the shadiest manner as we looked the
other way, and bent rules to where they were unrecognizable, and
misconstrued things, and twisted the truth, and expertly mangled the
English language to where it ultimately persuaded and said something,
but it meant nothing in the final analysis.
Like hogs feeding at trough, we buried our hungry faces into
the menus and salivated and had dreams and more dreams of food,
packing the pounds on just thinking about it. I was in a booth with
my wife, Kathleen, and our five kids, where we had come to enjoy a
regular dinner, but where I would witness a Zapruder film frame-by
frame tragedy from the supposed gunshots in the book repository to
the grassy knoll shots to the entire unraveling hysteria.
But Maggie started the whole thing off with a shebang.
Maggie told the waitress: “I’ll take the Suicide Burger with extra
cheese. Along with High Blood Pressure Fries with the Stroke-Me-Out
Salt and Die Young Mayo.”
“Anything to drink?”
“I’ll take a Bloody Mary and Gimme-Some-Heart-Burn Chocolate
Cheesecake.”
Her jowls shook with laughter like one of those hogs on Nolan’s
Farm. She had an attractive face that had been weathered over the past
years from depression and she had the dark bags under her eyes that
could have been used for shopping bags to prove it, just in case.
“I’m splurging since I just gotta raise.”
“And you ma’am?”
“I don’t know ‘bout you. But I’m famished” Stella said having come
back from a recent Wildwood vacation with her kids. “I’ll take The
Myocardial Infarction Pizza with everything on it, except the kitchen
sink, dear. Make sure it has the hot dog stuffed pizza crust. And that you
give me some packets of Blow-It-Out-Your-Butt Texarkana Hot Sauce,
too. And a diet Coke.”
Stella pulled in her brown chair, and huffed and puffed more like a
chugging locomotive, always going up a steep hill. Her reddish hair was
still up in curlers. But she pulled out her compact mirror anyways to
check her makeup and put on more coral pink lipstick.
“And you, sir?”
“I’m looking to finally cure myself of hellish anorexia,” Sam said
chuckling as he scratched his arm that could’ve been a runway model’s
thigh. “Lemme see. What am I Jonesing for? Tonight, I’m gonna go
French, and get the Mac Lobsta’ with freshly made noodles spruced
with tender chunks of fresh lobster finely mixed with cognac, tarragon
and mascarpone.”
“What kind of cheese would you like on it, sir?”
“I’m goin’ for the homemade Velveeta stuff, ok?”
“Anything else tonight?”
“I’ll take a Clog-Those-Arteries Filet Mignon Steak and a Shortcut-To?Heaven Blueberry Milkshake to wash it all down right before I get my will signed in my lawyer’s office tomorrow. Hopefully, my luck won’t
run out on me as my second wife and kids would be pissed.”
He tucked in his lumberjack shirt that kept falling out and rubbed
his hand over his tummy like an expectant mother.
“And you, sir”
“Hell, I’m gonna out do all of you chickens, and get The Vertical
Burger with ten patties and twelve slices of cheese, and I’ll take The
Thick Menstrual Ketchup along with the Die Young Mayo with your
secret sauce, too,” Bernie said as he bit his upper lip feeling a sharp pain.
“And put a couple of ‘em Krispy Kreme Donuts on it for my hamburger
buns – I hate it when people can’t go big and start countin’ calories
when in a fine restaurant like this.”
“What would you like to drink, sir?”
“Today’s Friday. I got about as much energy as a slug. I’ll take a
Mocha IV with a new syringe and one of ‘em slow drips in my right
arm. Should wake me up some.”
The place buzzed. People were slap happy.
“How’s the job goin’ Maggie?” Bernie asked as he was still getting
over the loss of his ex-wife, Lena.
“I’m fine so long as I ain’t got to fly from JFK to Los Angeles, again.
My boss got so ticked off.”
“For what?”
“Cause I got pulled out of the pre-boarding line and charged two
fares for taking up two seats by American Airlines.”
“Why?”
“I’ve been labeled as morbidly obese by them using a scientific chart
profiling my weight and my height.”
“Goddamn. I can’t stand livin’ in a skinny-ass centric world these
days.”
“The nerve of those people.”
“My boss now may not fly me since we went substantively over
budget on the trip. If that happens, I’ll probably lose my Efficiency 5
Rating and be susceptible to a layoff the next time around.”
“You should sue ‘em.”
“Naw. I can’t”
“How come?”
“Didn’t you hear the Supreme Court ruling last week?”
“Nope.”
“It’s called Workers United vs. Krispy Kreme Donuts.”
“Sounds bad.”
“Not half as bad as you might think.”
“Whadya mean?”
“The media’s calling it: Fat People vs. The Rest of Us.”
“How dare their bony asses!”
“Is this a sick joke?”
“No, I wish it were.”
“Then what?”
“It’s about tens of thousands of workers having to taste test a bunch
of high calorie blueberry to glazed to chocolate to crème-filled donuts
and eclairs, some for years at a time. Now, most of them put on a lot of
weight and had commensurate health problems, and now they want to
be compensated for the damage, and there are others who now are so
fat that they can’t get off the damn couch and want long-term disability,
too. And believe it or not, the public thinks it’s their fault.”
“They weren’t borne that way.”
“Not their fault, at all.”
“Fat people are taken advantage of every day,” Sam said, as he was
tired of being looked at as F-A-T. “We’re labeled as being lazy and
sloppy. But we’re thought of as always being easy going and jolly like
we’re an out-of-season Santa Claus. At the same time, they train us to
eat the worse food imaginable.”
“Amen, brother!”
“But in Workers United vs. Krispy Kreme Donuts the Supreme Court
had to decide if being morbidly obese was a long-term disability.
Companies panicked. Insurers did, too. The rest of the public became
more inflamed than a charcoal broiler during the fourth of July. The
so-called experts said it would take, at least, a trillion a year if fat people
became permanently disabled and we had to take care of them as they
sat on the couch, weeping into their handkerchiefs watching reruns of
Dr. Phil, Maury Popovich, and Oprah Winfrey all day while snacking
on anything that didn’t move.
“But they ruled against us big time!
“The public rejoiced. They had a field day on all those TV networks
telling their favorite fat jokes: “Your momma so fat she left the house
wearing high heels and came back wearing flip flops!”; “Your momma so
fat I ran outta gas trying to drive around her!”; “That guy’s so fat, he shows
up on radar!”; “If Betsy fell into the Grand Canyon, she’d get stuck!”; “Why
did the Mr. Softy Truck stop coming to our neighborhood? It got hijacked
by the fat kids.”; “Can fat people go skinny dipping?”; “What is Newton’s
Law of Motion? A fat body will stay a fat body in motion unless acted
upon by an outside Force.”; “Why did the fat man like his big tummy.
Cause it was a bitch repeller.”; “How do you seduce a fat woman? Piece of
cake.” and “I’m not fat. I’m just four feet too short.”
“Don’t they know?”
“No, they don’t.”
“We’re the biggest minority in this entire country!”
“Bigger than Blacks and Latinos combined.”
“There’s a pandemic of Fat People and we’re taking over the world!
Soon the Presidents, The Prime Ministers and the legislators and the
courts will all be filled with Fat People – and we’ll finally get our just
desserts.”
“OUR OWN PIECE OF THE PIE!”
“WITH WHIPCREAM ON IT!”
“AND A FEW MARASCHINO CHERRIES!”
Everyone was as starved as The Donner Party and getting ready to
resort to cannibalism, if necessary, but, at last, the food leaving trails of
the finest aromas came.
Maggie began devouring her Suicide Burger, half raw with reddish?brown blood, and nonchalantly, washing it down with a stiff Blood Mary. The High Blood Pressure Fries flushed her face, neck, and chest
pink complementing her makeup for such an occasion, and made beads
of sweat, like tiny jewels, appear.
“Oh, my God! This definitely hits the spot like one of them surgical
strikes in, oh, I forget, umm, in Iran.”
Sam was as hungry as a wild horse.
His feeding bucket, I mean, his Mac Lobsta’ with Velveeta Cheese
came along with freshly made noodles spruced with tender chunks of
fresh lobster finely mixed with cognac, tarragon and mascarpone.
He leaned to the right side – and blew his bugle horn.
“Oh, Sam!”
“What?”
“Not here!”
“That’s my pressure valve.”
Stella was gasping with sheer delight over her culinary choices, but
started feeling keen pain in her left arm as she winced.
“I’d take some nitroglycerine, girl. That’s a real Myocardial Infarction
Pizza if I ever saw one.”
“Oh, Bernie, I’m fine. I ate dozens of these in my younger days and all
I got for it was that I became a real BBW for all these men in town who
desperately wanted a woman with some rare, fine meat on her bones.
You’d be surprised how many men from the mayor to the lawyers in
town that have a Chunky Ass Fetish. Their wives would be too!”
“I didn’t know.”
“Dunno what?”
“Didn’t know you were in such demand, girl.”
“That’s almighty fine for you, Stella. But I’m tired of being called fat,”
Bernie sighed as he began trying to scale his Vertical Burger in a free
climb without any kind of rope or pylons. “It doesn’t sit well with me,
anymore. I mean, the kids near my house used to call me Java the Hut,
and I’d play along with it doing his deep voice and pretending to deep
freeze Han Solo. But one day, I told ‘em I don’t want to play this anymore.
They said, ‘Why?’ And I told ‘em even Java the Hut has feelings.”
“Good job, Bernie.”
“Those kids need to be re-educated.”
“Those smart ass kids aren’t educable, Maggie.”
“Well, we should organize ourselves, especially, since we’re gonna
become the silent majority soon in the good Ol’ U.S. of A.,” Maggie
said as she began cutting into her Gimme-Some-Heartburn Chocolate
Cheesecake which gave her naturally acid reflux which even a bottle of
Tums couldn’t defeat. She could feel it rushing up into her filled mouth,
but through sheer will was able to swallow and keep it all down for now.
“How are we gonna do that?”
“Maybe, The Fat Suffragette Movement.”
“What’s that?
“Kinda like the Women’s Movement in the 1920’s to where we all
have meetings and protests nationwide, discuss the important issues,
and naturally to make everyone comfortable, we bring along homemade
cookies, NY cheesecake, tarts, Italian pudding cake, brownies, and
Rocky Road, Pistachio Nut, Peanut Butter and Chocolate ice cream,
and sherbet! And what else? Oh, yeah, we could bring an assortment of
Pennsylvania Dutch pies—I know a great bakery down the street that
does them, cannolis, chocolates and truffles, and anything else that my
gastric juices can digest but for the present time I can’t remember.”
“Sounds good but too expensive, Marge.”
“The budget would be a killer.”
“What we really need is to have a big leader, almost, who can speak
to people’s hopes and fears and dramatically shift public opinion and
get things done.”
“Like a Joe McCarthy!” Stella said.
“We could have The House Un-American Activities Committee!”
Sam chimed in throwing down his Shortcut-to-Heaven Milkshake.
“And do what?’ Bernie asked as Stella gasped, and fell onto the floor
hard and cold as a stone.
But everyone knew, even the waitresses that she had done this once
to get out of a very expensive restaurant bill at Bookbinders when she
had been binging for weeks at a time.
“Nah, what I’m talking about is to have a potent message. We should
be coherent and talk about how American it is to eat your per Capita
amount of apple pie, hamburgers and hotdogs, anything that comes
from an outdoor grill, potato salad and pounds of Velveeta cheese – and
that if you don’t, you should be put under suspicion for NOT EATING
AMERICAN.”
“That way, we’d have the upper hand!” Maggie said feeling woozy
after eating most of her Suicide Burger.
“And we’d still have the bigger tummies!”
“And do what after that?’ Bernie asked as he began uncontrollably
twitching from his gastrointestinal speed ball – from the lude-like
effects of the Vertical Burger while he still had the Mocha IV quintuple
expresso stuck in his arm.
With that, Sam drained his Short-Cut to-Heaven Milkshake making
a loud slurping sound, more like a Hoover vacuum cleaner, as most of
the patrons craned their stiff necks to look over.
The Jersey Devil himself emerged from the burnt pine woods with a
pitchfork and appeared in a puff of black smoke.
“Lucifer and His Minions!”
Ka-thump!
Sam had fallen over like a three-hundred-and-fifty-pound sack of
Idaho potatoes onto the floor keeling over, dead as door knob.
Most went back to voraciously eating at their troughs. Maggie
though had had enough of these strange shenanigans.
“Waitress!!”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Are you seeing what I’m seeing?”
“Uh, we just called 9-1-1.”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“That man threw down a Short-Cut-to-Heaven Milkshake, and saw
Lucifer and his minions.”
“I’m not sure what I saw, ma’am.”
“Right now, he’s probably in purgatory cause of your false advertising.”
The waitress threw up her hands and glanced at the manager.
“At The Kafe Buffet, Ma’am, we try our darnest to bring you the most
delicious and wholesome cooked food possible at the cheapest prices so
that the down out and the in-between and the fancy rich can come in
here, and find something to eat while having fun.”
“Well, could you please check on Stella?”
The waitress bent down, felt her jugular.
“It doesn’t appear she has a pulse or anything,” the waitress said in
a Kentucky drawl, “but don’t worry, the ambulance should be here any
minute.”
“Well, at least, that makes sense,” Maggie replied as she threw down
the rest of her Bloody Mary and motioned for two more.
“Why’s that?”
“Cause she just got done your Myocardial Infarction Pizza with the
hotdog crust. At least, that’s true advertising. And it makes sense, in a
world that has gone Pistachio Nuts!”
“Is that all, Ma’am?”
“Nope, I’ll take the World Trade Center Super Duper Sundae. And
don’t forget this time to bring the Chocolate United Airlines jet with it, too!
Bernie, do you wanna share?”
“Nah, I’ll just splurge and go for my Empire State Building Sundae
with one hundred and two edible floors, ma’am.”
“Anything else?”
“Yes, could you PLEASE remove those two bodies and put them in the
back room cause they are seriously killing our appetites.”
“I’m only here to help, ma’am, and to serve you the meals that you
ordered.”
She sauntered towards the kitchen door.
The men salivated like Pavlovian dogs over her spicy breasts and
lean beefy hips as they swiveled, looking for a raw bone with some meat
on it.
“I can’t believe how much IQ’s have dropped.”
“Neither can I.”
“They’re the most dumbest I’ve seen.”
“Much worse than I thought.”
“Sure are.”
“We got our backs up against it.”
“Heck, we need to find someone like Lyndon B. Johnson who can
press and cajole people into signing legislation.”
“Like a Civil Rights Bill for Fat People Who Can’t Get Enough
Respect?”
“Exactly.”
“I can hear it now from the Capitol: ‘Ask not what that Piece of
Delicious Pecan Pie can do for you! But what you can do for that Piece of
Delicious Pecan Pie!’”
“That was JFK, not Lyndon, Bernie.”
“You sure?”
“Yep.”
“But it could pass.”
“But right now, I’m focused on this World Trade Center Super
Duper Sundae, and damn if they haven’t forgotten the Chocolate United
Airline Flight 175, again! Must’ve went off the radar on ‘em.”
“Their tip is goin’ on life support now.”
“Waitress! Waitress!”
Bernie began eating The Empire State Building with a complementary
King Kong hanging from it. His fork expertly crushed about ten floors
of The Empire State Building when Maggie began talking about how
much she loved Kafe Buffet and Old Glory and America.
“All this negative press – it ain’t deserved.”
“Love it – or Leave it!”
“I can’t stand people who wanna burn the flag and criticize this
country and become apologists to the terrorists and talk about how
much we need to change. I think they all should be deported.”
Bernie grunted.
“I mean, I love The Good ol’ U.S. of A. so much I could gobble it up
like this here Neapolitan ice cream!”
With that, Bernie began raucously laughing while thirty floors of
The Empire State were in his mouth. Unfortunately, he inhaled, and
most of the floors sans furniture, of course, slid down his windpipe as
he began choking.
“Someone do something!”
“I don’t know the Heimlich maneuver.”
“Neither do I.”
Maggie began to panic as her face flushed red, like a fresh beet.
“Eat more, Bernie! If you eat more, you’ll force the rest of the food
stuck in your throat down into your stomach like a train moving along.”
Frustrated, she ran over to him, and began cutting through The
Empire State Building, almost forty floors, and tried to force feed Bernie
who gasped and gasped, and waved his arms.
“What do you want?!”
“Not you lady.”
“What an idiot!”
Bernie pressed his fist to his stomach and then cupped motioning
that he wanted the Heimlich maneuver done. Maggie ran behind him
and put her stout arms around his waist and began pushing up and into
his diaphragm.
The patrons watched still voraciously eating and ordering food.
At first, nothing happened.
“Jesus Christ! Come on, Bernie. Cough this shit up!”
Spectacularly, then about 30 floors of The Empire State Building were
coughed up in pristine condition like they had not even been eaten.
Then the rest of it, even the tower. Bernie was still gasping for precious
O2 as Maggie continued. Soon, his Vertical Burger was coughed up in
perfect condition with ten grilled patties of delicious hamburger meat,
twelve slices of finely melted cheese, and Krispy Kreme Donuts as
hamburger buns, almost dripping hot off the serving platter.
“I guess he had indigestion.”
“Yep.”
“Sure did.”
Bernie, however, was still turning shades of deep blue. Maggie
continued with renewed strength as she didn’t want to see another
friend collapse.
Up came lunch.
Once again, it was like it had never be eaten and passed hungry lips:
This time, it was an exquisitely French-chef made chaud-froid of egg
capped with sherry-vinegar-infused whipped cream which, of course,
belonged to a main entrée of foie gras custard with haricot beans and
boudine blanc.
Another heave ho!
Quite miraculously, then came the main course comprised of a very
delicious hickory smoked veal rump with coffee emulsion made in an
exquisite manner by the most delicate hands followed by a rich dessert
of chocolate ganache with blueberries.
A few bystanders gawked – it was a miracle!
“Heck, it looks like he never even touched it.”
“Someone should grab a plate. Chow down!”
“Why not? It’s free.”
By now, Bernie was turning Persian blue. More meals began coming
up from the depths of his stomach that seemed to be almost infinite: last
night’s midnight snack of anchovy pizza, a five-course dinner, an Italian
lunch consisting of a pound of pasta and a hearty American breakfast
along with deluxe nachos, a few Kit Kat bars, and a bag of glazed donuts
from the day before – they had all been discounted bargains, too hard
to ignore.
“This guy’s a treasure chest.”
“He’s coughed up everything.”
“Grab a dish!”
Desperate, Maggie gave one more final pull as Bernie’s mouth
suddenly enlarged, and a finely polished kitchen sink flew from his
mouth, and landed ka-thud onto the table.
“Never saw that before!”
“Me, too.”
Bernie collapsed like a puppet with cut strings.
And was dead.
Maggie sobbed.
A few of the patrons of Kafe Buffet tried to console her.
“It’ll be alright.”
“He’s up there with Jesus shaking hands right now.”
“Not one of them there sparrows falls to the ground outside your
Father’s care.”
Maggie had had enough. She grabbed a steak knife and pushed them
away as a small circle of friendly neighbors surrounded her.
“Something’s wrong here, folks. How can a black man be lying there on
the floor navy blue in the face? How can he throw up everything including
the kitchen sink?
“This here ain’t normal.
“Life’s not supposed to be this bizarre.
“We’re just people eating a regular dinner and then the shit hits the
fan and everyone’s dead in my group? Sam, Stella and now Bernie? You
poisoned our food and drink. This is some kind of conspiracy.”
“Maggie put the knife down.”
“What did all of us have in common?”
“Don’t do anything rash.”
“I’m gonna find out what happened.”
“We’re here to help.”
“You could’ve helped Bernie!”
“Bernie had eaten too much.”
“Nothing could be done for him.”
“But you can save me?”
“Yes.”
“From what?”
“From yourself.”
Maggie lunged at a few of them who were wearing hunting gear and
plain clothes with a serrated steak knife.
“Get back! Get back!”
The patrons obliged moving back a few steps.
“This here’s as serious as a heart attack!”
“Now, don’t do nuthin’ stupid?”
“You callin’ me stupid?!”
“I’m just saying you ate a Suicide Burger.”
“You’re sayin’ I didn’t read the menu!”
“No, I’m not saying that, Maggie.”
“I’m a big girl. I know what I’m doin’.”
“Ok.”
“We just want what you want, Maggie. And that’s for this here thing
to be finally over.”
“Me, too.”
With that, Maggie cut her jugular vein so that the blood spewed
worse than at a slaughter house gushing all over and running mahogany
red onto the floor. The dishwasher came and mopped it up swishing
with suds, and wringing the mess into a few buckets, and the endless
patrons who came to The Kafe from all walks of life went back to their
seats barely missing a drum beat, errr, leg.
The diner was barely a tin can of hot metal and a tarred roof baking
in the angry sun just off the New Jersey Turnpike. You just had to take
Exit 4 and then turn right on Route 73, and right again on Fellowship
Road to get there before coming to their Kafe Buffet’s driveway that was
never adequately marked with white stripes so that people just parked
wherever the hell they wanted to being New Jerseyites, that is, a special
breed of people who have strong backbones, garrulous lips, and nasal
toned voices and who while driving are very prone to use American
sign language a lot. During summertime, the Kafe looked like a big
sardine can so that if you pulled back the top out would pop a lot of
orderly sardines in thick oil and marinara sauce.
But of course, Mikey Fizzano, a hot-headed Sicilian, would get
pissed since he was the owner of the place, and it was his church and
congregation.
But who knows?
The Kafe was really a great place during awful times where we
just ate and ate, and ate some more, before we had to purge ourselves
before going back and eating more food again. We were like the ancient
Romans, and had a lot of fun, maybe, just too much before the place
was closed.
“It’s one of those inconspicuous places,” my Uncle Fabbie said
drinking from a bottle of Pisano wine, “but you’ll love the food there.
They get it just right.”
“They got the best burgers and fries to die for,” Connie chimed in.
“If I were on death row, and they asked me for my last meal, and I
don’t care if I was sittin’ on Alcatraz Island in some shitty cell, I’d say,
‘Get me one of them burgers from Kafe in New Jersey.’ And I think
they’d have to do that since it was your last meal and all,” Danny said as
he was a little overfamiliar with the judicial system in Trenton.
The police swarmed the place though right around Labor Day, after
the killings and after a bunch of wildfires had hit the New Jersey pines.
We had gone there over the weekend, looking to relax after breaking
our backs working for a bunch of Wall Street overlords who wanted
to make billions of dollars in the shadiest manner as we looked the
other way, and bent rules to where they were unrecognizable, and
misconstrued things, and twisted the truth, and expertly mangled the
English language to where it ultimately persuaded and said something,
but it meant nothing in the final analysis.
Like hogs feeding at trough, we buried our hungry faces into
the menus and salivated and had dreams and more dreams of food,
packing the pounds on just thinking about it. I was in a booth with
my wife, Kathleen, and our five kids, where we had come to enjoy a
regular dinner, but where I would witness a Zapruder film frame-by
frame tragedy from the supposed gunshots in the book repository to
the grassy knoll shots to the entire unraveling hysteria.
But Maggie started the whole thing off with a shebang.
Maggie told the waitress: “I’ll take the Suicide Burger with extra
cheese. Along with High Blood Pressure Fries with the Stroke-Me-Out
Salt and Die Young Mayo.”
“Anything to drink?”
“I’ll take a Bloody Mary and Gimme-Some-Heart-Burn Chocolate
Cheesecake.”
Her jowls shook with laughter like one of those hogs on Nolan’s
Farm. She had an attractive face that had been weathered over the past
years from depression and she had the dark bags under her eyes that
could have been used for shopping bags to prove it, just in case.
“I’m splurging since I just gotta raise.”
“And you ma’am?”
“I don’t know ‘bout you. But I’m famished” Stella said having come
back from a recent Wildwood vacation with her kids. “I’ll take The
Myocardial Infarction Pizza with everything on it, except the kitchen
sink, dear. Make sure it has the hot dog stuffed pizza crust. And that you
give me some packets of Blow-It-Out-Your-Butt Texarkana Hot Sauce,
too. And a diet Coke.”
Stella pulled in her brown chair, and huffed and puffed more like a
chugging locomotive, always going up a steep hill. Her reddish hair was
still up in curlers. But she pulled out her compact mirror anyways to
check her makeup and put on more coral pink lipstick.
“And you, sir?”
“I’m looking to finally cure myself of hellish anorexia,” Sam said
chuckling as he scratched his arm that could’ve been a runway model’s
thigh. “Lemme see. What am I Jonesing for? Tonight, I’m gonna go
French, and get the Mac Lobsta’ with freshly made noodles spruced
with tender chunks of fresh lobster finely mixed with cognac, tarragon
and mascarpone.”
“What kind of cheese would you like on it, sir?”
“I’m goin’ for the homemade Velveeta stuff, ok?”
“Anything else tonight?”
“I’ll take a Clog-Those-Arteries Filet Mignon Steak and a Shortcut-To?Heaven Blueberry Milkshake to wash it all down right before I get my will signed in my lawyer’s office tomorrow. Hopefully, my luck won’t
run out on me as my second wife and kids would be pissed.”
He tucked in his lumberjack shirt that kept falling out and rubbed
his hand over his tummy like an expectant mother.
“And you, sir”
“Hell, I’m gonna out do all of you chickens, and get The Vertical
Burger with ten patties and twelve slices of cheese, and I’ll take The
Thick Menstrual Ketchup along with the Die Young Mayo with your
secret sauce, too,” Bernie said as he bit his upper lip feeling a sharp pain.
“And put a couple of ‘em Krispy Kreme Donuts on it for my hamburger
buns – I hate it when people can’t go big and start countin’ calories
when in a fine restaurant like this.”
“What would you like to drink, sir?”
“Today’s Friday. I got about as much energy as a slug. I’ll take a
Mocha IV with a new syringe and one of ‘em slow drips in my right
arm. Should wake me up some.”
The place buzzed. People were slap happy.
“How’s the job goin’ Maggie?” Bernie asked as he was still getting
over the loss of his ex-wife, Lena.
“I’m fine so long as I ain’t got to fly from JFK to Los Angeles, again.
My boss got so ticked off.”
“For what?”
“Cause I got pulled out of the pre-boarding line and charged two
fares for taking up two seats by American Airlines.”
“Why?”
“I’ve been labeled as morbidly obese by them using a scientific chart
profiling my weight and my height.”
“Goddamn. I can’t stand livin’ in a skinny-ass centric world these
days.”
“The nerve of those people.”
“My boss now may not fly me since we went substantively over
budget on the trip. If that happens, I’ll probably lose my Efficiency 5
Rating and be susceptible to a layoff the next time around.”
“You should sue ‘em.”
“Naw. I can’t”
“How come?”
“Didn’t you hear the Supreme Court ruling last week?”
“Nope.”
“It’s called Workers United vs. Krispy Kreme Donuts.”
“Sounds bad.”
“Not half as bad as you might think.”
“Whadya mean?”
“The media’s calling it: Fat People vs. The Rest of Us.”
“How dare their bony asses!”
“Is this a sick joke?”
“No, I wish it were.”
“Then what?”
“It’s about tens of thousands of workers having to taste test a bunch
of high calorie blueberry to glazed to chocolate to crème-filled donuts
and eclairs, some for years at a time. Now, most of them put on a lot of
weight and had commensurate health problems, and now they want to
be compensated for the damage, and there are others who now are so
fat that they can’t get off the damn couch and want long-term disability,
too. And believe it or not, the public thinks it’s their fault.”
“They weren’t borne that way.”
“Not their fault, at all.”
“Fat people are taken advantage of every day,” Sam said, as he was
tired of being looked at as F-A-T. “We’re labeled as being lazy and
sloppy. But we’re thought of as always being easy going and jolly like
we’re an out-of-season Santa Claus. At the same time, they train us to
eat the worse food imaginable.”
“Amen, brother!”
“But in Workers United vs. Krispy Kreme Donuts the Supreme Court
had to decide if being morbidly obese was a long-term disability.
Companies panicked. Insurers did, too. The rest of the public became
more inflamed than a charcoal broiler during the fourth of July. The
so-called experts said it would take, at least, a trillion a year if fat people
became permanently disabled and we had to take care of them as they
sat on the couch, weeping into their handkerchiefs watching reruns of
Dr. Phil, Maury Popovich, and Oprah Winfrey all day while snacking
on anything that didn’t move.
“But they ruled against us big time!
“The public rejoiced. They had a field day on all those TV networks
telling their favorite fat jokes: “Your momma so fat she left the house
wearing high heels and came back wearing flip flops!”; “Your momma so
fat I ran outta gas trying to drive around her!”; “That guy’s so fat, he shows
up on radar!”; “If Betsy fell into the Grand Canyon, she’d get stuck!”; “Why
did the Mr. Softy Truck stop coming to our neighborhood? It got hijacked
by the fat kids.”; “Can fat people go skinny dipping?”; “What is Newton’s
Law of Motion? A fat body will stay a fat body in motion unless acted
upon by an outside Force.”; “Why did the fat man like his big tummy.
Cause it was a bitch repeller.”; “How do you seduce a fat woman? Piece of
cake.” and “I’m not fat. I’m just four feet too short.”
“Don’t they know?”
“No, they don’t.”
“We’re the biggest minority in this entire country!”
“Bigger than Blacks and Latinos combined.”
“There’s a pandemic of Fat People and we’re taking over the world!
Soon the Presidents, The Prime Ministers and the legislators and the
courts will all be filled with Fat People – and we’ll finally get our just
desserts.”
“OUR OWN PIECE OF THE PIE!”
“WITH WHIPCREAM ON IT!”
“AND A FEW MARASCHINO CHERRIES!”
Everyone was as starved as The Donner Party and getting ready to
resort to cannibalism, if necessary, but, at last, the food leaving trails of
the finest aromas came.
Maggie began devouring her Suicide Burger, half raw with reddish?brown blood, and nonchalantly, washing it down with a stiff Blood Mary. The High Blood Pressure Fries flushed her face, neck, and chest
pink complementing her makeup for such an occasion, and made beads
of sweat, like tiny jewels, appear.
“Oh, my God! This definitely hits the spot like one of them surgical
strikes in, oh, I forget, umm, in Iran.”
Sam was as hungry as a wild horse.
His feeding bucket, I mean, his Mac Lobsta’ with Velveeta Cheese
came along with freshly made noodles spruced with tender chunks of
fresh lobster finely mixed with cognac, tarragon and mascarpone.
He leaned to the right side – and blew his bugle horn.
“Oh, Sam!”
“What?”
“Not here!”
“That’s my pressure valve.”
Stella was gasping with sheer delight over her culinary choices, but
started feeling keen pain in her left arm as she winced.
“I’d take some nitroglycerine, girl. That’s a real Myocardial Infarction
Pizza if I ever saw one.”
“Oh, Bernie, I’m fine. I ate dozens of these in my younger days and all
I got for it was that I became a real BBW for all these men in town who
desperately wanted a woman with some rare, fine meat on her bones.
You’d be surprised how many men from the mayor to the lawyers in
town that have a Chunky Ass Fetish. Their wives would be too!”
“I didn’t know.”
“Dunno what?”
“Didn’t know you were in such demand, girl.”
“That’s almighty fine for you, Stella. But I’m tired of being called fat,”
Bernie sighed as he began trying to scale his Vertical Burger in a free
climb without any kind of rope or pylons. “It doesn’t sit well with me,
anymore. I mean, the kids near my house used to call me Java the Hut,
and I’d play along with it doing his deep voice and pretending to deep
freeze Han Solo. But one day, I told ‘em I don’t want to play this anymore.
They said, ‘Why?’ And I told ‘em even Java the Hut has feelings.”
“Good job, Bernie.”
“Those kids need to be re-educated.”
“Those smart ass kids aren’t educable, Maggie.”
“Well, we should organize ourselves, especially, since we’re gonna
become the silent majority soon in the good Ol’ U.S. of A.,” Maggie
said as she began cutting into her Gimme-Some-Heartburn Chocolate
Cheesecake which gave her naturally acid reflux which even a bottle of
Tums couldn’t defeat. She could feel it rushing up into her filled mouth,
but through sheer will was able to swallow and keep it all down for now.
“How are we gonna do that?”
“Maybe, The Fat Suffragette Movement.”
“What’s that?
“Kinda like the Women’s Movement in the 1920’s to where we all
have meetings and protests nationwide, discuss the important issues,
and naturally to make everyone comfortable, we bring along homemade
cookies, NY cheesecake, tarts, Italian pudding cake, brownies, and
Rocky Road, Pistachio Nut, Peanut Butter and Chocolate ice cream,
and sherbet! And what else? Oh, yeah, we could bring an assortment of
Pennsylvania Dutch pies—I know a great bakery down the street that
does them, cannolis, chocolates and truffles, and anything else that my
gastric juices can digest but for the present time I can’t remember.”
“Sounds good but too expensive, Marge.”
“The budget would be a killer.”
“What we really need is to have a big leader, almost, who can speak
to people’s hopes and fears and dramatically shift public opinion and
get things done.”
“Like a Joe McCarthy!” Stella said.
“We could have The House Un-American Activities Committee!”
Sam chimed in throwing down his Shortcut-to-Heaven Milkshake.
“And do what?’ Bernie asked as Stella gasped, and fell onto the floor
hard and cold as a stone.
But everyone knew, even the waitresses that she had done this once
to get out of a very expensive restaurant bill at Bookbinders when she
had been binging for weeks at a time.
“Nah, what I’m talking about is to have a potent message. We should
be coherent and talk about how American it is to eat your per Capita
amount of apple pie, hamburgers and hotdogs, anything that comes
from an outdoor grill, potato salad and pounds of Velveeta cheese – and
that if you don’t, you should be put under suspicion for NOT EATING
AMERICAN.”
“That way, we’d have the upper hand!” Maggie said feeling woozy
after eating most of her Suicide Burger.
“And we’d still have the bigger tummies!”
“And do what after that?’ Bernie asked as he began uncontrollably
twitching from his gastrointestinal speed ball – from the lude-like
effects of the Vertical Burger while he still had the Mocha IV quintuple
expresso stuck in his arm.
With that, Sam drained his Short-Cut to-Heaven Milkshake making
a loud slurping sound, more like a Hoover vacuum cleaner, as most of
the patrons craned their stiff necks to look over.
The Jersey Devil himself emerged from the burnt pine woods with a
pitchfork and appeared in a puff of black smoke.
“Lucifer and His Minions!”
Ka-thump!
Sam had fallen over like a three-hundred-and-fifty-pound sack of
Idaho potatoes onto the floor keeling over, dead as door knob.
Most went back to voraciously eating at their troughs. Maggie
though had had enough of these strange shenanigans.
“Waitress!!”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Are you seeing what I’m seeing?”
“Uh, we just called 9-1-1.”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“That man threw down a Short-Cut-to-Heaven Milkshake, and saw
Lucifer and his minions.”
“I’m not sure what I saw, ma’am.”
“Right now, he’s probably in purgatory cause of your false advertising.”
The waitress threw up her hands and glanced at the manager.
“At The Kafe Buffet, Ma’am, we try our darnest to bring you the most
delicious and wholesome cooked food possible at the cheapest prices so
that the down out and the in-between and the fancy rich can come in
here, and find something to eat while having fun.”
“Well, could you please check on Stella?”
The waitress bent down, felt her jugular.
“It doesn’t appear she has a pulse or anything,” the waitress said in
a Kentucky drawl, “but don’t worry, the ambulance should be here any
minute.”
“Well, at least, that makes sense,” Maggie replied as she threw down
the rest of her Bloody Mary and motioned for two more.
“Why’s that?”
“Cause she just got done your Myocardial Infarction Pizza with the
hotdog crust. At least, that’s true advertising. And it makes sense, in a
world that has gone Pistachio Nuts!”
“Is that all, Ma’am?”
“Nope, I’ll take the World Trade Center Super Duper Sundae. And
don’t forget this time to bring the Chocolate United Airlines jet with it, too!
Bernie, do you wanna share?”
“Nah, I’ll just splurge and go for my Empire State Building Sundae
with one hundred and two edible floors, ma’am.”
“Anything else?”
“Yes, could you PLEASE remove those two bodies and put them in the
back room cause they are seriously killing our appetites.”
“I’m only here to help, ma’am, and to serve you the meals that you
ordered.”
She sauntered towards the kitchen door.
The men salivated like Pavlovian dogs over her spicy breasts and
lean beefy hips as they swiveled, looking for a raw bone with some meat
on it.
“I can’t believe how much IQ’s have dropped.”
“Neither can I.”
“They’re the most dumbest I’ve seen.”
“Much worse than I thought.”
“Sure are.”
“We got our backs up against it.”
“Heck, we need to find someone like Lyndon B. Johnson who can
press and cajole people into signing legislation.”
“Like a Civil Rights Bill for Fat People Who Can’t Get Enough
Respect?”
“Exactly.”
“I can hear it now from the Capitol: ‘Ask not what that Piece of
Delicious Pecan Pie can do for you! But what you can do for that Piece of
Delicious Pecan Pie!’”
“That was JFK, not Lyndon, Bernie.”
“You sure?”
“Yep.”
“But it could pass.”
“But right now, I’m focused on this World Trade Center Super
Duper Sundae, and damn if they haven’t forgotten the Chocolate United
Airline Flight 175, again! Must’ve went off the radar on ‘em.”
“Their tip is goin’ on life support now.”
“Waitress! Waitress!”
Bernie began eating The Empire State Building with a complementary
King Kong hanging from it. His fork expertly crushed about ten floors
of The Empire State Building when Maggie began talking about how
much she loved Kafe Buffet and Old Glory and America.
“All this negative press – it ain’t deserved.”
“Love it – or Leave it!”
“I can’t stand people who wanna burn the flag and criticize this
country and become apologists to the terrorists and talk about how
much we need to change. I think they all should be deported.”
Bernie grunted.
“I mean, I love The Good ol’ U.S. of A. so much I could gobble it up
like this here Neapolitan ice cream!”
With that, Bernie began raucously laughing while thirty floors of
The Empire State were in his mouth. Unfortunately, he inhaled, and
most of the floors sans furniture, of course, slid down his windpipe as
he began choking.
“Someone do something!”
“I don’t know the Heimlich maneuver.”
“Neither do I.”
Maggie began to panic as her face flushed red, like a fresh beet.
“Eat more, Bernie! If you eat more, you’ll force the rest of the food
stuck in your throat down into your stomach like a train moving along.”
Frustrated, she ran over to him, and began cutting through The
Empire State Building, almost forty floors, and tried to force feed Bernie
who gasped and gasped, and waved his arms.
“What do you want?!”
“Not you lady.”
“What an idiot!”
Bernie pressed his fist to his stomach and then cupped motioning
that he wanted the Heimlich maneuver done. Maggie ran behind him
and put her stout arms around his waist and began pushing up and into
his diaphragm.
The patrons watched still voraciously eating and ordering food.
At first, nothing happened.
“Jesus Christ! Come on, Bernie. Cough this shit up!”
Spectacularly, then about 30 floors of The Empire State Building were
coughed up in pristine condition like they had not even been eaten.
Then the rest of it, even the tower. Bernie was still gasping for precious
O2 as Maggie continued. Soon, his Vertical Burger was coughed up in
perfect condition with ten grilled patties of delicious hamburger meat,
twelve slices of finely melted cheese, and Krispy Kreme Donuts as
hamburger buns, almost dripping hot off the serving platter.
“I guess he had indigestion.”
“Yep.”
“Sure did.”
Bernie, however, was still turning shades of deep blue. Maggie
continued with renewed strength as she didn’t want to see another
friend collapse.
Up came lunch.
Once again, it was like it had never be eaten and passed hungry lips:
This time, it was an exquisitely French-chef made chaud-froid of egg
capped with sherry-vinegar-infused whipped cream which, of course,
belonged to a main entrée of foie gras custard with haricot beans and
boudine blanc.
Another heave ho!
Quite miraculously, then came the main course comprised of a very
delicious hickory smoked veal rump with coffee emulsion made in an
exquisite manner by the most delicate hands followed by a rich dessert
of chocolate ganache with blueberries.
A few bystanders gawked – it was a miracle!
“Heck, it looks like he never even touched it.”
“Someone should grab a plate. Chow down!”
“Why not? It’s free.”
By now, Bernie was turning Persian blue. More meals began coming
up from the depths of his stomach that seemed to be almost infinite: last
night’s midnight snack of anchovy pizza, a five-course dinner, an Italian
lunch consisting of a pound of pasta and a hearty American breakfast
along with deluxe nachos, a few Kit Kat bars, and a bag of glazed donuts
from the day before – they had all been discounted bargains, too hard
to ignore.
“This guy’s a treasure chest.”
“He’s coughed up everything.”
“Grab a dish!”
Desperate, Maggie gave one more final pull as Bernie’s mouth
suddenly enlarged, and a finely polished kitchen sink flew from his
mouth, and landed ka-thud onto the table.
“Never saw that before!”
“Me, too.”
Bernie collapsed like a puppet with cut strings.
And was dead.
Maggie sobbed.
A few of the patrons of Kafe Buffet tried to console her.
“It’ll be alright.”
“He’s up there with Jesus shaking hands right now.”
“Not one of them there sparrows falls to the ground outside your
Father’s care.”
Maggie had had enough. She grabbed a steak knife and pushed them
away as a small circle of friendly neighbors surrounded her.
“Something’s wrong here, folks. How can a black man be lying there on
the floor navy blue in the face? How can he throw up everything including
the kitchen sink?
“This here ain’t normal.
“Life’s not supposed to be this bizarre.
“We’re just people eating a regular dinner and then the shit hits the
fan and everyone’s dead in my group? Sam, Stella and now Bernie? You
poisoned our food and drink. This is some kind of conspiracy.”
“Maggie put the knife down.”
“What did all of us have in common?”
“Don’t do anything rash.”
“I’m gonna find out what happened.”
“We’re here to help.”
“You could’ve helped Bernie!”
“Bernie had eaten too much.”
“Nothing could be done for him.”
“But you can save me?”
“Yes.”
“From what?”
“From yourself.”
Maggie lunged at a few of them who were wearing hunting gear and
plain clothes with a serrated steak knife.
“Get back! Get back!”
The patrons obliged moving back a few steps.
“This here’s as serious as a heart attack!”
“Now, don’t do nuthin’ stupid?”
“You callin’ me stupid?!”
“I’m just saying you ate a Suicide Burger.”
“You’re sayin’ I didn’t read the menu!”
“No, I’m not saying that, Maggie.”
“I’m a big girl. I know what I’m doin’.”
“Ok.”
“We just want what you want, Maggie. And that’s for this here thing
to be finally over.”
“Me, too.”
With that, Maggie cut her jugular vein so that the blood spewed
worse than at a slaughter house gushing all over and running mahogany
red onto the floor. The dishwasher came and mopped it up swishing
with suds, and wringing the mess into a few buckets, and the endless
patrons who came to The Kafe from all walks of life went back to their
seats barely missing a drum beat, errr, leg.
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