Triple Hug
by Jim McInvale
Once again, ZZ
country store won by default. We work in the
shadow of a cooling tower, and are banished to
the boonies where the other lunch options are, in
order of preference: vending machines, road kill,
and our plant cafeteria, The Stomach Pump Cafe.
Even engineers shun “The Pump” and
besides, we were celebrating. One of our own had
jumped the fence - Randy Dan landed a job back
east.
This was a
bittersweet occasion so we’d reverted to
adolescent behavior and were bantering like tenth-graders
cutting class when I turned onto route ZZ. Our
companions passed with horn blaring and I looked
left in time to see a pair of buttocks pressed
against a window looking back at me. Both
vehicles pulled into a gravel lot down the road
and seven of us spilled out, still howling over
the midday moon. We went in and made for a picnic
table down at the service bay end.
The waitress/head
mechanic came up, pulled menus from her coveralls,
and passed them around. Randy Dan, sitting across
from me, silenced the room with his order.
“Triple
hug.”
ZZ country
store is locally known for the hug burger. Its
name originated from a semi-literate misspelling
of “huge”, and it has a simple recipe:
squash a double handful of ground beef into a
plate-sized circle and drop it in a vat of
boiling lard. Cook for two minutes; nestle
between slabs of bread, and slather with
mayonnaise. Finally, serve it on a hubcap with a
shovel full of potato wedges.
A double
scares off most diners; a triple is insanity. The
waitress’s jaw dropped and her gold tooth
gleamed.
“You’re
joking?”
She didn’t
know RD like I did. She twice offered him a
chance to back down, then shook her head and
walked off muttering something about his next
bowel movement. Table talk resumed and betting
broke out.
When the
waitress heaved RD’s order up on the table,
it hid everything but the hair atop his big mid-western
mug. I worked my burger and watched RD’s
face rise slowly above a diminishing mountain. A
hush fell near the end - like a bowling alley
when someone is closing on a 300 game - and a
roar arose when he downed the last bite, but RD
was too smitten to celebrate. He looked fragile. I
collected his winnings - afraid he’d erupt
if he moved.
The waitress
took our hubcaps back to the carwash, but we
stayed to let the hero recover and spent the time
building his legend (and arguing over who would
ride back with him). Though RD trembled like
Vesuvius, he never blew, and we finally went back
to work.
Later, I
stopped in his cube with the winnings, but a
toxic cloud drove me back out. I tossed the cash
on his desk and shouted. RD sat unconscious at
his computer - victim of a food-induced coma.
“Hey man–
you’re making a big carbon footprint.”
The lids
flickered. RD yawned and chuckled.
“There’s
your cash.” I pointed to the desk. “Was
it worth it? That could’ve killed you.”
He leaned left
and grimaced before answering. I backed further
into the aisle.
“You
know”, he said, “… when it’s
my time, I’d like a big hug goodbye.”
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