Big Mouth (14 page)

Across the field, the visitor bleachers were dotted with random people running the steps. I almost joked about them, but I caught myself before the words left my big mouth. I had to remember that I
hadn’t
seen Gardo running punishment laps in the gym. He could trust me, too. But hey, at least someone had
made
Gardo run the bleachers. Those people on the visitor side were doing it voluntarily. What a bunch of whackos.

A few feet away from us, a guy who was maybe in college showed up and set down a gym bag and a bottle of water. He took off his T-shirt and started rolling his shoulders, forward and back, forward and back. The guy was cut.

Gardo leaned in close to me and whispered, “Someday you’re gonna be ripped like that.”

If only.
“Give me a break.”

“We’ll target your workouts, you’ll see. Ab work up the wazoo.”

Mr. Olympia stopped rolling his shoulders and stepped over to the railing. He stretched a leg up over the top and then bent so far over it that his forehead touched his knee, like he was warming up for an act of
Swan Lake.

This time I was the one who leaned in and whispered. “Talk about a groin pull.”

Gardo laughed. “C’mon, let’s go to my house. We’ve got some ab research to do.”

I practically skipped back toward the stadium gate with him. I’d just recruited a ringer. Maybe Lucy was right; maybe last night was the eve of great new things for me. With Gardo as my coach, I’d be rid of this fat belt in a few weeks, and then there wouldn’t be anything between me and the Mustard Yellow Belt of International Hot Dog Eating, not even Tsunami and his fifty-three and three-quarters HDBs. It said so in the stars, didn’t it?

“Where did you get these?” I asked Gardo.

“They’re my sisters’.”

We were sitting on his bedroom floor, my back against his big oak desk and his back against his bed, looking through a stack of magazines. Man-hater magazines, he called them. I could understand why. Every other article was “How to Train Your Boyfriend to Beg” or “How to Tell If Your Boyfriend Is a Cheater” or something anti-boyfriend like that.

“This is what girls read?”

“All day long.” He shook his head and got up off the floor, shoving a stack of folded clothes off his bed so he could lie across it while he rifled the pages of his magazine. “Sick, isn’t it?”

“Truly.” I picked up another one and flipped through it.

“‘My Prom Date from Hell.’”

“‘Transform Your Boyfriend from a 2 to a 10.’”

“‘How Playing Hard to Get Will Make Getting Him Easy.’”

Jeez. And girls said guys’ magazines depict women badly.

The articles that weren’t about how to hate your loser boyfriend were about makeup or dieting or exercising. That’s what we were looking through the magazines for. Not the makeup part, the dieting and exercise parts. Gardo said his sisters were always trying the workouts they found in these magazines. Their biggest beef was with their abs and their rears, and he said they swore by the exercises they got from these. I didn’t give a fig about my rear, it was the ab stuff I wanted to know. Between those tips and the stuff Coach Hunt was teaching Gardo, I would be smaller than Tsunami by Thanksgiving.

“Here’s one that sounds good.” Gardo held up a picture of a girl with green circles over her eyes.

“She’s got cucumbers on her face.”

“Not that page. The other one.” That one had some hottie in a pink sports bra hanging off the end of a bed with her hands behind her head. He read the caption. “‘Thinking bikini? Quick ab crunches three mornings a week will minimize unsightly belly bulge.’”

“Who’s thinking bikini?”

“You are. At least for the purposes of our research, you are. Your belt of…you-know-what…isn’t on your shoulders, is it?” He ripped out that page. “Here, we’ll make a stack of the ones we might use.”

I took the article and set it on the floor next to my knee, then went back to flipping through my man-hater rag. The issue was a
Special RELATIONSHIP Edition!
“Did you know that four out of five guys have considered cheating on their girlfriends?”

“Get out.”

“No, really, it says so right here. And four out of five girls like chocolate ice cream best.”

“What’s that got to do with cheating boyfriends?”

“I don’t know, but they’re in the same box. See?” I showed him the page with the colored squares and X’s through boys’ faces.

“Weird. Hey, here’s another good one. ‘Trim your torso with this bejeweled Belly Buster from Queen’s Fit. With the heat action of a four-star sauna and the smooth curves of the Queen’s Fit Lady Slim girdle, the Belly Buster targets the stubbornest tummies with high-sweat, high-comfort dual latex action. For the sportswoman in all of us.’ It sounds like a fancy version of Coach Hunt’s Gut Wrap.”

“What’s a Gut Wrap?”

“That’s what he calls wrapping your stomach in plastic wrap to make you sweat off the weight.”

“You want me to wrap myself in plastic wrap?”

“That, or wear this girdle. I’ll let you have a choice on this one.”

“Lucky me.” I took the magazine from him. The girdle looked comfortable—stretchy yet snug, and definitely smoothly curved. But I couldn’t do it; I couldn’t risk someone finding out I wore a girdle. That was the kind of thing that turned up in the
National Enquirer
after you were famous and ruined everything. It would kill the Thuff Enuff legend. “Bring on the plastic wrap.”

“Good, I’ve already stocked up for myself. I’ll send you home with a box.” He went to his closet and pulled out a bulging paper grocery bag. There must have been a dozen boxes of Saran Wrap in there. He tossed me one. “We also need to talk about what you’re wearing.”

“What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?”

“Nothing…if you
like
that belt of yours. But if you’re serious about losing it, you need to get some sweats and hoodies like these.” He gestured to his outfit.

“I’m serious. See?” I picked the ab article off the pile of potential exercises and waved it. “But we’re having a dry warm weather thingee. It’s eighty degrees out. Aren’t you hot?”

“That’s the point. You think I’m dressed like this because I’m cold? They’re called
sweats
for a reason. Make sure you wear an undershirt under your T-shirt, too.”

“And still wear the hoodie?”

“Yes. You need to sweat out the weight. When we go running tomorrow, I want you wearing long johns, too.”

“Running…” I nodded my head slowly. “Okay, I figured I’d have to do some running.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll start you out slow. Two miles only.” He reached into a dresser drawer and held up a pair of flannels. “Get these kind, they’re the thickest. And you’ll wear your hood over your head then, too. You lose nearly half your body heat through your head. We want to trap that in so you stay as hot as possible. I swear, Shermie, you’ve never sweat this much in your life. The weight will fall off, I guarantee it.”

He lifted up his shirt and patted his sweaty belly with pride. It was way smaller than mine. I could see his ribs. “Then we’ll do sit-ups. I’m working on a six-pack, so I do three hundred. You’re new to this stuff, though, so we’ll keep that light, too. I started at one hundred a day.”

One hundred? What had I gotten myself into? Lucy’s training had been hard, but at least that involved eating, not turning myself into a walking sauna. But I’d promised Gardo I’d do whatever he said, no question, and I meant it. I was serious about this. I was going to earn my legend.
Stuff that in your horoscope, Lucy.

After I tore out the picture of the Belly Buster—
hey, you never know
—I settled back into my spot against the desk. We spent the next two hours poring over magazines and ripping out pages with ab exercises. His sisters would probably be mad when they saw the carnage, but Gardo didn’t care. He had those girls wrapped around his little finger, just like every other female on the planet.

A couple of times I asked for a snack break—I’d skipped breakfast because of
his
practice, after all—but he only let me have two pickles and some celery. I liked pickles, but they didn’t really fill the void for long. Gardo said they were good for me right now because, with them being mostly water, I wouldn’t have to worry about working off calories. So I ate them without complaining. Besides, Lucy’s graph had me scheduled for fifteen dogs tonight, so I needed to fast anyway. Fifteen HDBs required a lot of stomach space.

When I rode my bike home that afternoon to change for my shift at Scoops, I felt like a new man. I was focused, I was motivated, and I was more excited about my eating career than ever. Gardo was going to help me beat the belt, and then I’d be world champion when I turned eighteen. I could practically hear hot dogs spitting on the Nathan’s Famous grill and smell the salty ocean air of Coney Island.

At the intersection of Lakewood and Palm Avenue, I turned right instead of heading straight. I’d take the long way home and enjoy the breeze on my arms and legs for the last time. After that, I’d have to wear thermals and hoodies for a while.

Plus the leisurely ride just felt good on my legs. They were loose now, all the wobble from my ride to Gardo’s practice that morning worked out. I could’ve pedaled forever. My leg muscles were doing their jobs; my lungs were breathing deep and long. Maybe this exercise stuff wasn’t so bad. Maybe I’d like running before school with Gardo. I’d be like Rocky, jogging through the streets of South Philly in his sweats and ski hat and taped-up wrists, only stopping long enough to slug slabs of frozen meat and race up a million steps in front of the Museum of Art. He went from Nobody to Champion, just like me. I was the Rocky Balboa of the Buffet Table. I was Sherman “Thuff Enuff” Thuff, the next Hot Dog–Eating Champion of the World….

And the crowd goes wild. Thuff, Thuff, Thuff! The Champion of the World raises his arms up high, pumping his fists in victory. Thuff, Thuff, Thuff!

My bike hit a rock and I dropped my hands back down onto the handlebars to steady it. A loud gurgle rumbled my stomach.

I hear ya, Big Guy, I hear ya.
The Hot Dog–Eating Champion of the World wouldn’t have minded a little food.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Friends and Fans…

Welcome to Nathan’s Famous Fourth of July International Hot Dog–Eating Contest, the most anticipated eating event in the world. We’ve sure got a match-up for you this year!

Dominating this twenty-eater table we have the reigning WORLD CHAMPION of hot dogs. Hailing all the way from Japan and weighing in at a mere 131 pounds, it’s the Mini Monsoon of Meat, the Tiny Tidal Wave of Teeth, the One…the Only…the Devastating…TSUNAMI!

And on the far end of the table, anchoring the assault on Tsunami’s reign, is this year’s come-from-nowhere challenger, a gustatory upstart from deep in the central valley of California. Weighing in at an amazing 130 pounds, this natural-born eater has been gunning for Tsunami for four years. And now, today, at Nathan’s, he finally gets his Big Shot to be the Big Cheese of Tube Meat. Please give a warm welcome to the Rocky Balboa of the Buffet Table, Sherman “Thuff Enuff” Thuff! Are YOU Thuff Enuff?

Thuff! Thuff! Thuff! Thuff! Thuff! Thuff! Thuff! Thuff! Thuff! Thuff! Thuff! Thuff! Thuff! Thuff!

CHAPTER 12

Fasting was for the birds. Or did I mean camels? Oh, who cared, whichever stupid animal it was that went without eating and drinking for years at a time. Because except for the pickles, celery, and two-inch tall cups of water that Gardo called “Gardo Glasses,” I’d had nothing to eat and little to drink since my Three Musketeers and Pepsi feast the night before…and even that didn’t count because of my reversal of fortune. I felt crankier than a camel.

Knowing I had a hot dog training session tonight was the only thing that got me through my sucky day. It went downhill right after my ride home from Gardo’s house: I opened the front door into my cheek, I tripped getting onto the escalator on my way up to Scoops, I forgot how to spell my name when I filled out my timecard, and I bounced a scoop of Spazzy Monkey off the rim of a waffle cone. I’d never missed a cone before. I was definitely in need of this training session.

How long does it take water to boil, anyway?
I drummed my fingers on the counter.
C’mon, c’mon…
I bounced on my toes for a minute, then walked around the kitchen island a couple of times. Like that would make it boil faster…I stopped at the counter and drummed my fingers again.
I swear, next time I’m nuking the dogs.

Waiting at the counter with me was a line of fifteen hot dog buns, ready for action. I pinched the end of a bun. It resumed its shape quickly. Not bad. Lucy had picked out good buns for my training. They were fluffy and fresh, not squished and old and pathetic like some hot dog buns could be.

“C’mon! Boil!” I knew screaming wasn’t going to help, either, but I just couldn’t help it. This was torture. And it wasn’t like I was bothering anyone with my yells. Mom and Dad were still in Tallahassee, and Grampy was closing Scoops tonight. It was just me and my HDBs. “Boil!”

I considered getting out the Nathan’s Famous mustard and some ketchup, but condiments were probably illegal on the Gardo Esperaldo Diet and Exercise Program.

Water wasn’t illegal, though—as long as I kept to my rations. Gardo said I could have eight of his Gardo Glasses each day without being in “hydration violation.” Anything less than that risked dehydration; anything more risked adding pounds to the scale. While I didn’t care that water equaled weight on a scale, I did care that weight added inches to my belt. So I would stick to my water ration and be glad for it. I was serious about this, after all.

As least Gardo okayed the fill line that I’d scratched into my plastic bun-dunking mug. He gave me the mug himself after our research session that morning. It would have to be enough to dunk fifteen buns in. And Lucy said that wet buns were the key to victory.

I nudged the water mug a few millimeters closer to the first bun.
Man, cooking takes forever.
The timer on the stove said twenty-six more seconds.
Close enough!
I flipped off the burner, carried the steaming pot over to the sink, then dumped the pot upside down into the colander. Once the cloud of steam cleared, I gazed down on a shiny pile of fifteen plump, juicy hot dogs. I could’ve eaten twice that many.

When the dogs looked dry enough, I slapped one into each bun and was HDB-ready.
At last!
Wait, not quite. I had one final thing to do while the dogs cooled: stretch. I was an athlete now, my body deserved to be properly warmed up. I put my right hand on my waist and leaned to the right, stretching my left hand to the sky. I repeated this stretch on my left side, then did five jumping jacks and two squats.

Then I remembered Mr. Olympia at the football stadium that morning. Someday I was going to be that cut; Gardo said so.
Might as well start now.
I tried to lift my leg up to the counter in the
Swan Lake
stretch, but I couldn’t kick up that high.
Dang.
That guy had made it look so easy.

I dropped my leg to the floor. Maybe I’d just give my arms an extra turn so they wouldn’t be trouble.
That
I could do. After all, my wrist and forearm had been pretty sore after the ice cream challenge. I couldn’t risk damaging them again during HDB training. Dropping my arms down by my side, I shook them good and long until they were totally relaxed.

There.
Done stretching, I planted my feet shoulder width apart, hunched over the HDB lineup, and poised my hands directly above the nearest HDB. It was going to be a great training session, I just knew it. If only Lucy could see me now.

I’d set the oven timer for twelve minutes, with three extra seconds for resuming my go position after pushing the start button. I took a deep breath.
Okay, here we go, fifteen dogs in twelve minutes.
“
Aaaaaannnnnd
ready…set…GO!”

I hit the timer button, then scrambled back into my ready stance. When I thought three seconds had passed, I grabbed the frank out of the first HDB, then broke the dog in half and shoved the pieces into my mouth side-by-side.
Bite, bite, bite, bite, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, swallow.
One dog down!

I was using the new and improved Solomon Method. I called it the Thuff Enuff Dog Dunking Method, and it was for eaters who couldn’t swallow after just two chews like Tsunami.

Next up, the bun. I grabbed it with two hands, ripped it in half, then dunked both pieces into the water mug deep and hard. Water flew everywhere when I yanked the soggy globs back out. Shoot. All that H
₂
O, wasted. I jammed the wet mass into my mouth and to my surprise immediately swallowed. It had slipped right over my tongue and down my throat.
Oh…ow…ow…
The unchewed wad was going down hard, like I’d swallowed a big rock. I flashed on an image of Gardo’s face as he’d choked and I started to panic.
Ow…ow…
I could feel the lump sliding slowly down my throat, millimeter by millimeter. When it was somewhere near my lungs, I looked toward the phone. Would the 911 operator hear me if I was choking? Then, suddenly, the lump was gone. It must’ve dropped into my stomach.

I’d have to be more careful.

I checked the clock. Forty seconds gone and I’d barely finished my first HDB. It was an awful pace, just awful. According to Lucy’s graph, I needed a .8 dogs-per-minute pace if I was going to do just my pathetic fifteen HDBs in twelve minutes. And I knew from experience that I was going to slow down as time ran low. Twelve minutes was too long for me to sustain an eating sprint, at least this early in my career. But I’d have to
learn
to sustain it, for crying out loud, or there was no way I’d catch Tsunami’s record. Fifty-three and three-quarters was 4.5 HDBs per minute.
4.5!
At my current pace, I’d be toast. The Thuff Enuff Dog Dunking Method’s slower bite-to-swallow duration was killing me. I needed to speed it up.

I attacked the rest of the disgustingly soggy bun like a squirrel:
little bite, chew, chew, swallow, little bite, chew, chew, swallow…

Better. The key wasn’t quantity in the mouth, it was speed of the swallow. Now
that
was the Thuff Enuff Dog Dunking Method. Plus there was no chance of choking when the pieces were that small. At least I didn’t think so. The memory of Gardo grabbing at his throat was so fresh, so real. I’d seen fear in his eyes last night, total fear.

My heart raced and my gut clenched, neither of which was good for eating.
Don’t think about Gardo…Focus on the food…Little bite, chew, chew, swallow, little bite, chew, chew, swallow…

Yet my mind kept replaying my Heimlich rescue. Only, in this version, it didn’t work.

Little bite, chew, chew, swallow, little bite, chew, chew, swallow…

I saw Gardo in a casket. His sisters were standing around it, crying.

I stopped chewing. I couldn’t do this. No one was here to give me the Heimlich if I choked. I didn’t
want
to do this, not tonight. Sports was all about mindset, and right then, my mind wasn’t so set on speed. Maybe it was a good night for capacity building. Lucy said I needed to do that. Yeah, I’d work on capacity instead. That was just as important.

I swallowed what was in my mouth then turned off the timer. I’d still eat fifteen HDBs, just like Lucy’s graph said, but I’d do it in a lot longer than twelve minutes. Maybe thirty minutes. After all, it wasn’t the speed that mattered in capacity training, it was the quantity. And just to show I was sincere, I’d whip up the extra five hot dogs from the second package. Make it an even twenty. Screw the timer.

Once the extra dogs were nuked, I stacked everything on a paper plate and headed for the couch.
Galactic Warriors
was probably on. They were always airing reruns on one channel or another, whatever time of day. Even though I didn’t need to dunk since I wasn’t trying to get those buns down fast, I brought the water mug with me. I was still as thirsty as a fish. This way, I’d get to enjoy my water the way it was meant to be enjoyed—swallowed straight, not absorbed in a soggy wad of bread. Wet buns might go down way faster and easier than dry buns, but they were gnarly.

I plopped onto the couch with the remote and my plate of dogs next to me. I planned to enjoy every stinkin’ bite. The Nathan’s Famous mustard in my fridge was calling out to me again, but I held strong.
See, Gardo, I’m serious about this.

The first dog went down just fine. Well, technically, it was the second dog, if I counted the one I’d downed during the timed portion of this training session. I ate number two traditional style. Without the clocking pushing me, I had time to savor the bun-to-meat ratio that was so important to the hot dog experience. Too much dog in one bite could overpower the salt glands on the tongue, causing excess saliva production that washed out the meaty taste. Too much bun was just blah. Speed-eating with all its separate-the-bun-from-the-dog techniques didn’t allow enjoyment of the food. Capacity training was way more satisfying.

As I suspected, I found
Galactic Warriors
pretty easily. It was on two stations, actually. On channel 14 was the “Quixote’s Nine Lives” episode. I loved that one. There were nine different phaser cannon battles in nine different dimensions, and Captain Quixote died in eight of them. In the ninth, he foiled the ambush, saved the universe, and sealed his legend. Multidimension episodes ruled. The episode on channel 23 was “T’larian Justice.” That one wasn’t so exciting, but it was important to know well because it provided the core logic for Captain Quixote’s beef with the T’larian magistrate in season three. They were plotting to nuke the Earth’s sun, which was the symbol of the Galactic Federation and the heart of its mythology, but only Captain Quixote knew why the T’larians cared about any of that. And even he didn’t remember the full reason until the season finale because at the end of this episode, his best friend, Commander Panza, got brainwashed, then popped him in the head with a T’larian Pain Stick.

Flipping back and forth between the two episodes, I worked through my HDBs. Numbers three through seven hit the spot nicely. Lucy had bought the good kind of franks, all juicy and plump, the kind that sent you straight to the ballpark no matter where you ate them. Combined with the top-of-the-line buns she’d picked, I had the perfect ballpark frank experience in my very own living room. Well, perfect if I could’ve heaped mustard and ketchup and onions and relish on them. But I couldn’t, so there you had it.

Thanks to Gardo’s strict food regimen, I had a lot of room for the night’s HDBs. But I started sensing trouble when I bit into number ten fifteen minutes into the training session. To be honest, I wasn’t so interested in eating it. My stomach was nicely satisfied, thank you very much, and more food didn’t strike it as necessary. But my brain knew darn well how to count, and ten was way short of my goal of twenty. What was I thinking, throwing in the extra five dogs? But I was committed now, so I ate it. Then I ate all but one bite of number eleven.

I stared at that last bite for a good minute or two. I was starting to feel the beginnings of
full.
This couldn’t be good.

Leaning back into the couch, I burped a few small burps, then stuffed in that final piece of number eleven. The salty dogs were making me thirsty, big time, but with how stuffed I already felt, I was afraid to drink and fill up valuable stomach space. The thirst was pretty overpowering, though, so I sipped just enough water to wet my mouth. On to number twelve.

When the twenty-minute mark hit, I was about a quarter of a dog shy of finishing number fourteen. My tongue felt like it was filling my mouth, and when I test-swallowed with no food in there, just to see that everything was working, the swallow was a lot of work, like my tongue was in the way and I didn’t have enough spit to get the job done. I could sense the prereversal gaggy feeling, that sensation of the back of my tongue dipping while the front stuck against my top row of clenched teeth.

But I had to keep going, so I bit the tiniest piece of the HDB, leaving an even tinier piece behind.

Chew and chew and chew and chew and chew
…. I finally made myself swallow, but I wasn’t happy about it. And I still had six more dogs to go.
Dang.

A medium-sized burp surprised me. It felt good, so I forced up another. That one made me feel a tiny bit better, but it wasn’t as satisfying as the natural burp was.

I stared at my plate of waiting HDBs and sighed. I really didn’t want any more hot dogs. Maybe I was hitting some kind of wall or something. That happened to a lot of athletes. I mean, I knew I
could
eat more if I could just
let
myself eat them, but still…
No. No buts. Climb that wall, Shermie, climb that wall.

I peeked at the clock. Twenty-two minutes had passed. I needed to forge on. Clearly I was going to miss my half-hour goal, but I still needed to get my groove on. Sitting up straight, I took a deep breath, then bit half of the tiny piece that remained of number fourteen.
Chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, swallow.
My stomach bulged, and I would’ve sworn it felt taller inside, too, like it was pushing up as well as out.

Stalling, I swallowed without food, then held my dipped tongue still in fear of the gag. Another burp escaped, but it wasn’t a big help.
Six more to go.