eyes next time. You know what I’m sayin’?”
There was another moment of silence and the man’s friends looked like someone had just defeated their super-hero. Do we follow the new King?
The man began to chuckle, wisely choosing to see things for what they were. “Hey guys, can’t you take a joke? I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything by all that. They call me Rowdy.”
Jon loosened his hold and Rowdy stepped away and rubbed at his neck. Jon could see that he was going to have more trouble, but he let it pass. “I’m Jon and this is Kyle. Do you still want to make that bet?”
“Damn right,” said Rowdy.
“Fair enough! Gladys, make sure those are your hottest wings, I’m buying!”
“We can pay our own way.”
“I insist.”
“Hot damn,” said Kyle. “Hot damn!”
Rowdy laughed like he understood what was really going on, but he didn’t, and he stalked back to join his friends. The swagger was gone and he stood a few inches shorter than when he had walked into the bar. Some words were exchanged, but Jon couldn’t make them out. One of the two goons then got up from his stool and walked up to the jukebox and soon The City Limits was grooving to Twisted Sister. The sharp smell from the wings started slow, but it was soon clearing sinuses and making eyes water. Rowdy and his friends suddenly became very interested in the kitchen.
“How hot did you say those things were?” Jon said to Kyle from the side of his mouth.
“A few thousand degrees, maybe hotter...”
“You lied to them; you know that, right?”
“I may have misrepresented myself, but technically I never lied about eating wings.”
“But those were Fours.”
“I know; that’s what makes this so perfect. Teach him to come to our town and gay bash.”
“That’s what I was thinking.”
Charlie Daniels followed Twisted Sister and the Doobie Brothers followed them. The air was noticeably warmer and the zesty smell infected the bar like a nasty virus. Shari brought Jon and Kyle out another round of beers. “These are on Gladys,” she said with a wink. “She lives for this, you know that.”
“I do,” said Kyle. “Thank her for us and you two can split this.” Kyle then handed her a twenty. “It’s from our new friend, Rowdy.”
“Thanks Kyle. I just wanted you to know how much we’re going to miss you.”
“I’m going to miss you, too.”
Jon looked away.
The order bell rang out of time with the jukebox, with Gladys ringing it like they were having some kind of medical emergency. Shari smiled and walked back to the kitchen.
“There’s no changing your mind?” Jon asked.
Kyle shook his head and smiled sadly. “Come on, we don’t want to miss the show.”
Jon picked up his beer and followed Kyle down the bar to where Shari had already set out two orders of the offensive wings. Rowdy’s friends sat at the bar and stared at their plates as if they were about to melt onto the bar. Shari returned with Rowdy’s plate and she set it down in front of him with a wide smile. Then, without being asked, she pulled three Buds from the cooler and uncapped them. Rowdy nodded bravely.
Introductions were made as Rowdy obviously stalled for time. The guy with the longish brown hair and the nose ring was named Stash, and the redhead with the Asian tattoo on his neck was called Mongo. Jon had nearly laughed when Rowdy had said the name. Gladys had come out from the kitchen. She was wearing a stained white apron over an old flowered dress. She was still a large woman at her advanced age, with hands the size of a man’s and a nose to match. She also looked as proud as a peacock. Nobody made wings like Gladys, and she knew it. She stared at the men through her thick glasses and the anticipation on her face was clear.
“Well?” asked Kyle.
“Don’t rush me, man,” said Rowdy. “I’m just letting them chill out for a minute. Mongo, go on ahead and show them what you think of their hot wings. Mongo eats his cereal with jalapenos.”
Everyone knew this was a total line of bullshit, but it didn’t matter. Mongo had suddenly been thrust on to center-stage and his freckled face flushed. He was painfully shy of handsome and his forehead was prematurely creased. With all eyes on him, Mongo picked up one of the drummies and he devoured it in three quick bites. He then smiled, licked his fingers and dabbed at his lips with his napkin.
“You gettin’ scared yet?” asked Rowdy. “Mongo can eat anything.”
Mongo had suddenly gone for his beer and Gladys gave him a knowing smile.
Marshall Tucker began to play on the jukebox as all eyes were on Mongo. He wore a worried expression as he downed the bottle of Budweiser. When he had sucked the last drop of liquid from the bottle, he motioned for Shari to bring him another. When Shari didn’t move fast enough, Mongo reached for Stash’s beer and he drank half of that.
“That shit is hot, huh?” asked Kyle.
Mongo nodded, but didn’t say anything. He sat with his mouth open and huffed in and out, like he was blowing up an air mattress. Tears ran from the corners of his eyes. Gladys was beaming with pride.
“You didn’t eat those wings,” said Rowdy, pointing to Kyle. “Faggot like you? Like hell you did.”
“Don’t you use that language in here, young man,” retorted Gladys. “He orders the same thing every time he walks in here, the same wings that I made for you. Are you going to call me a liar?”
Kyle stepped back and nodded his head. Cocky in the lie, thankful to have friends in the right places, thought Jon. Rowdy looked like he had been slapped, but he also looked like he’d had some direction in his young life and that he knew better than to argue with his elders. He slunk back onto his stool and looked at his food. “Come on guys, we’ve got a hundred and twenty bucks on this. That’ll buy us a lot of beers.”
“Ice,” said Mongo. “Bring us three glasses of ice.”
Shari nodded and went about filling three bar glasses with the little ice cubes from down in the cooler. Kyle gave Jon a sideways glance.
“Don’t think about it,” said Mongo to his friends in a husky voice. “Just put a couple cubes in your mouth before each wing. Chew it all together and don’t stop until your plate is clean. It’s the only way.”
Stash nodded his melon-head and he looked to Rowdy for approval. Gladys gave Shari a look of disappointment, as if Mongo had just stumbled upon the kryptonite to her super-wings. Rowdy caught the look and he was suddenly nodding his head. “We can do this,” he said with a toothy smile. “One hundred and twenty bucks, here we come!”
Jon caught Kyle’s eye and Kyle looked as confident as ever. He shook his head with a smirk and nodded to the three men at the bar. “What are you waiting for?” he asked. “This should be like taking candy from a baby.”
“Shut up, faggot,” said Rowdy.
“What did I tell you about using that language in my bar?” asked Gladys, who charged a few steps closer to the men. “Don’t you dare do that again, this is a family establishment.”
Rowdy ignored her; instead of replying he dumped a few cubes of ice into his mouth, picked up a wing between his fingers and hoisted it to his friends. “Let’s do it!”
There were a dozen wings on each of the plates, but soon that number had been cut in half. They ate as a team; drank the same way. Jon watched as they mechanically went about chomping their ice cubes before grabbing a new wing. It didn’t seem fair. One look to Kyle and Jon knew that he felt the same way. The jukebox was now silent and the only sounds were coming from the three men at the bar.
Gladys looked at the men with obvious amazement.
There seemed to be a wall at wing seven. Rowdy gave himself away as he dumped the remaining ice from his glass into his mouth. The tears streamed down from his pinched eyelids. Jon was suddenly confident, even as Shari refilled all three of the glasses with ice.
“Guys,” Rowdy said, raising his hands. “Time out, let’s take five.”
“Yeah
,” said Stash, thickly. “Five.”
“No,” said Mongo. “We’ve got to finish it, now. You don’t understand…”
If Stash and Rowdy heard him, they never responded. Mongo continued to eat.
This was actually Mongo’s eighth wing and he stripped it clean in two bites. “Ice water,” he hissed to Shari.
Shari brought him a large glass and he took two big gulps and dabbed his lips. Mongo then took hold of another wing and began to attack it. His eyes suddenly doubled in size and he stopped moving. He swallowed hard and then began to guzzle the glass of water. Mongo looked like he was dying, and he very well could have been, but nobody asked him how he was. Nobody said so much as a word.
Mongo closed his eyes and called upon whatever it was that gave him the courage to look in the mirror each day, and other bad things, such as situations like this. He never looked back. And although he would never know: Mongo became the first person to ever finish a plate of Gladys’ hottest wings. It didn’t come without a price. After eating the last bit of the twelfth wing, smiling, Mongo swung around on his barstool, took a long slug of beer and belched. The belch was worthy of the wings.
Suddenly, Mongo pitched forward onto the wooden floor with a crash. He remained in the same position on the floor as he had in the chair, face down, as if he had been set in cement.
For a moment nobody moved, not even Mongo. Jon and Kyle responded simultaneously. They carefully rolled the man onto his back and Jon put his ear next to Mongo’s open mouth. Mongo’s tongue was lolling out.