Chapter 17

The conversation slowed to a halt and the only noise to fill the cab was that of the road for quite a while. There was something poetic about it. Every boy dreams about it; calling the highway your home, driving a big rig across the country, and seeing more of it in a single week than a lot of people do in a lifetime. Justin wasn’t all that different than Rick or me. He just had sixteen more wheels, and he was getting paid. The silence was not awkward. It was enjoyed, comfortably, by all three of us for at least an hour while a sea of sand stretched out on all sides of us. I was amazed to see nothing for miles and then suddenly a house or two speckled in the middle of this ocean of sand. Where do these people work? How do they live? How do they manage to survive so disconnected from the civilization of which I was accustomed? I was proud of myself for attempting to ride a bike through and now hitch-hike across this parched jungle. But now I realize the significance of my accomplishment is relevant at best. I’ve read books and have seen television shows that further affirm this new revelation of mine. These desert dwellers provide just as good a reality check as the Sherpa or the native Polynesian. Weekend adventurers drive there hummers to the airports and fly across the globe to climb a mountain and feel like kings. Their trips would be short and ill-fated if not for the help of those who live in the shadows of that mountain and climb it every other day with a different millionaire in order to feed and clothe those waiting for him back in the shadows. Likewise, a twelve-hundred dollar fiberglass surfboard underneath a fifty-dollar pair of aqua-socks from Los Angeles rarely brings a smile bigger than that of a hand-me-down board underneath the browned and coral calloused bare feet of a twelve year old boy from the other side of the island. I don’t want to point any fingers or make it sound like I’m casting any sort of blame on the people that can and do afford to do such things. I am merely pointing out the fact that I was beginning to realize that I did not necessarily deserve to be the center of attention wherever I was at that point. My level of appreciation for humanity was beginning to increase, and my respect for others as individuals was also developing, and ironically enough… I was proud of myself for it.
The silence was broken by the ring from Justin’s cell phone.
Justin picked up the phone and placed it to his ear and uttered the single funniest greeting I have ever heard, “Telephone!” Rick and I looked at each other and started laughing. Justin was a quirky guy who had been through a lot and conventional he was not. It was evident that Justin liked to have fun and enjoy people and their reactions to him and his personality. There was a joy deep down inside in spite of his past and it was contagious.
“Oh yeah? What time?” He asked. “Well, I guess so. If that’s what it takes. I can be there in about eight hours. I have to make one stop first. So I won’t be able to get headed that direction for about an hour or two. Ok. All right. Sure thing. Talk to ya later. Ok. Bye.”
Justin looked at his phone while he ended the call then looked at Both Rick and me and said. “Well boys… I’ve enjoyed it, but it looks like the end of the line.”
“Oh really?” asked Rick.
“Yup. That was the office. One of our guys was involved in a wreck about six hours north of here. Everyone’s fine but his truck aint goin nowhere tonight, so since I’m the closest and happen to be travelin light, I get to pick up the pieces and take them the rest of the way. I guess it’s all right. I was hopin to have a couple of days to myself before I had to turn around but now it looks like I’m gonna be pushin it to make both deadlines. So if you guys want to keep headin west you’ll probably want to get off at the next stop.”
“You said you had one more stop to make in about one or two hours. Where’s that?” Rick asked.
“There’s a great hamburger joint just up the road called Tubbies. I stop at it every time I’m in the neighborhood. They got a one-pound hamburger that if you eat it you get your picture taken and put up on the wall of fame. I got my picture up on the wall more times than anybody else.” Rick and I were impressed. Justin’s small frame barely looked like it could hide a junior cheeseburger much less a one-pounder. “I’ve gotten to know the manager pretty well. He says that he’s been planning on makin a two and a half pound hamburger (that’s ten quarter pound patties)” he added, “and whoever can eat the whole burger along with a pound of fries and a gallon of coke will get their twenty bucks back. Says he’s talked to his bread company and they got a special bun they’re gonna send him just for that burger. As soon as I heard that, I gave him my twenty bucks right then and told him to have it ready tonight when I come through town.”
“NO WAY!” chortled Rick.
“What?!” I was amazed at what I had just heard. I’ve heard of those hole-in-the-wall steak places where you get your meal for free if you eat the entire 140oz. steak, but this seemed like suicide on a plate to me. I mean you might as well hook yourself up to a mayonnaise IV. Ten quarter-pound patties, a pound of French fries, and a gallon of coke would probably be my choice for a last meal if I was on death row and wanted to beat the hang-man to the punch, not my evening meal before driving a big rig across the state to help a stranded colleague.
“Yeah, he said he would have it ready for me at 5:00.”
“Well, how are you going to make it to help out your other driver? It’ll take you all night long to finish that hamburger, much less the pound of fries and gallon of Coke.” I added.
“Oh no. That’s the thing. To get your money back you gotta finish all of it in less than an hour.”
This garnered an even bigger roar out of Rick and myself. “There is no way you are gonna be able to do that.” Rick proclaimed, and I quickly affirmed.
“Yeah, no way.”
Justin just grinned and nodded his head as if he knew something we didn’t. “I got a plan. You see… you remember this morning? All of those pancakes I ate at the truck stop back there?”
“Yeah” said Rick and I in unison.
“Well that was all part of my plan. I stuffed myself full of those pancakes. So full I could barely walk, and I stretched my stomach out good and full. Let’s see, that was about 5:00 this morning, and we haven’t had lunch yet have we?”
“No” Again in unison.
“Well, my stomach is empty, still stretched out, and I got a pretty good appetite worked up again. So, I reckon I should be able to put away most of the burger before I even start feelin full. I think I’m gonna tackle the fries first and then the burger, and all along washing them both down with the coke. The pace is gonna be the tricky part. If I start out way too fast, I’m gonna hit the wall pretty quick and probably won’t be able to keep it all down. Oh yeah, that’s the other rule. You gotta keep it all down… at least until you’re done. But anyway, I figure, if I keep an even pace… not too fast and not so slow that I don’t finish in time, I’ll be on top of the wall of fame by 6:00.”
Rick and I laughed and looked at each other as if we were about to witness a tabloid headline first-hand. It sounded like such an impossible task that we were both getting pretty excited to see him attempt it.
The big rig rolled into the burger joint parking lot around a quarter to five. There was a big sign shaped like a blue elephant and underneath the elephant also in blue was the word “TUBBIES” outlined in flashing neon. Rick and I swung out of the passenger side of the truck. He punctuated his landing with a small hop the way a kid does when he’s expecting to have a lot of fun and nodded over his shoulder, “This is gonna be good.”
Justin walked straight up to the bar and sat on a stool with a look on his face that suggested everybody in the place was waiting for him to arrive. Rick and I sat on either side of him. Sure enough, the cook drapes his towel over his right shoulder and throws his hands up in the air and yells, “Hey everybody, he’s here!” Rick and I leaned forward simultaneously and glanced at each other with raised eyebrows and then back at the cook.
“Hello hun, how ya doin’?” A waitress straight out of Alice’s diner leaned over the bar and gave Justin a kiss on the cheek. “Who are your friends?”
“Oh just a couple of bums I picked up off the side of the road.” Justin laughed out loud elbowing Rick and me both on the arm.
“We were...” I started in.
“They were out there in the middle of nowhere with no water and planning on makin’ it to California. They woulda been road kill in another couple of hours if I hadn’t showed up.” Justin seemed to be really showing off for the waitress, and she was eating it all up.
“Well any friend of Justin’s is a friend of mine. I know what he’s here for, what can I get you fellas?”
“I think I’ll pass on the whole iron man challenge, but I think I will try the one-pounder and get my picture up on the wall.”
“Heck yeah, me too!” Rick was rubbing his hands together with excitement.
“You got it, I’ll have ‘em right out for ya. And yours’ is almost ready” she said pointing her pink ball point pen at Justin. “I hope you’re hungry. All my days; I’ve never seen a burger this big. He he… jeez.” She stuck the pen behind her ear and walked into the kitchen laughing and shaking her head. Not more than a minute later she walked around the corner carrying the most amazing display of food. A full sized cast iron skillet held a hamburger that was at least five inches high and whose bun took up every inch of the pan from side to side, a large dinner plate had a mound of French fries that were spilling over the edges, and a extra large soda cup that would need to be refilled three times to make a gallon.
“Oh… my… Gosh!” All three of us sputtered in perfect unison and with our mouths and eyes wide open.
She sat the feast directly in front Justin and like a teacher dropping a pop quiz in front you the day after spring break, she smiled a wicked smile and rattled out one long fast word, “Onyourmarkgetsetgo!” rang the bell, and slapped the timer down on the counter in front of us.
Justin took a deep breath and dove right into the French fries first. He had a nice mouth full of fries, washed it down with a little soda, and picked up part of the huge hamburger that had been cut into quarters. This was going to be the biggest challenge by far. The sheer volume would be difficult enough, but the logistics of a small guy getting his mouth around a burger that big proved to be a little more than even Justin anticipated. But he was not going to be denied. He chomped away bit by bit, corner by corner. Sometimes he would only get mouthfuls of bread, others would be solid beef, and every once in a while he would throw in some more fries and immediately wash it down with more soda. “You see the trick is...” with cheeks full and pausing to chew and swallow a little, “not to get mentally defeated. You have to tell yourself that you only have to eat a burger; the fries and coke are just tools to help you wash it down.” I’m not sure if he was actually talking to us or simply encouraging himself, because he didn’t look away from his plate. He just took another deep breath and polished off the first quarter of the burger quicker than I had ever seen anybody eat anything before. The pace however would quickly come to a craw around the end of the second quarter. Justin held the last piece of the first half of the burger in his hand, breathed deep again, this time with eyes closed, and let out a huge belch. “Whoa, I needed that.” He shook his head and popped the last piece into his mouth. He sat there for about a minute not saying anything. By this time mine and Rick’s burgers had shown up and we were all eating together, glancing over every few seconds to monitor Justin’s progress. Not just out of interest, but with ever increasing fear of being the one in the path of a two and a half hamburger as is decides to reject it’s consumer. But that didn’t happen. He kept plugging away. Slowly but surely he chomped away at the second half of the burger and pushed it down with fries. He was stopping more and more to concentrate on the soda, which was proving to be quite a chore in itself. He realized he was just sending off for his first refill when he encountered a problem that he had not prepared for. He totally had to pee. When he asked if it was all right if he got up to go to the bathroom the waitress caught him and asked.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
“I totally have to pee.”
“Oh no you don’t hon. There will be no bathroom breaks until your time is up. How do we know if you plan on goin’ back there and freeing up a little space… if you know what I mean.”
“Are you serious?” Justin had a look of horror on his face as a drop of sweat rolled down across his cheeks that were now packed full of chewed-up hamburger meat.
“Just sit your little fanny right back down. You only have fifteen minutes left.”
Rick, Justin, and I looked at the timer in unison. We had forgotten it was there. The hamburger was down to its last quarter, about a third of the fries were left, and he still had two and a half more glasses of soda to drink. Panicked, Justin sat back down and started eating with renewed fervor. More beads of sweat appeared on his forehead as he tried to suppress his bodies urge to completely reverse the digestion process. His feet danced below him on the footrest as he also tried to keep from wetting himself, and almost in tears now he called for his third and fourth glass of coke. For as silent as the timer was for the first forty-five minutes, each click echoed in Justin’s ears now as he continually chewed and crammed more food into his mouth and swallowed mouthfuls of soda. With small little whimpers, Justin swallowed the last bites of hamburger and emptied his third soda. He puckered his lips around his fourth and final straw and began guzzling, nearly on top of his seat now, and mixed in a French fry every couple of seconds. With quite a large crowd of people standing around us now and watching, Justin cleaned the plate of French fries, slurped the last bit of soda out of the cup, and opened his eyes just two seconds before the buzzer sounded. The entire diner erupted in cheers; the waitress hugged Justin and gave him his twenty dollars back. He shoved the twenty dollars back into his pocket pulled away from the hug and plowed his way through the crowd of people and threw himself through the bathroom door.
Rick and I left our tips on the counter and went to the cash register to pay for our dinners. The waitress took our pictures and posted them up on the wall for finishing our one-pounders, and we headed out to the truck to wait for Justin. Finally, about twenty minutes later, Justin comes stumbling out of the diner with his hair messed up, shirt untucked, and as white as a ghost. Before either one of us could say anything, Justin held up a finger and said, “Remember that old rumor that says if you experienced every single bodily function at once it would kill you…well they were right!” And all three of us exploded into the biggest laugh, creating a moment that will live in my mind forever.