The Last Burger

            by Matt Stewart-Cohn

 

            I’m hungry. It’s my lucky day, because I don’t have to travel to get a meal on this very special Friday. BBQ Club is being held today. The hamburger’s are relatively cheap, delicious, and plus I usually can get some food for free. My friend Mike is in the club. He gives me the free food, and the more the better. I’m not a little person. People occasionally remind me that at 6’1, 245, I’m a tad bit above average weight.

            I start walking toward the back courtyard where the event is taking place. As I get closer, I can smell the juicy, sizzling burger patties being grilled by my fellow Berkeley High seniors, Class of 2008. I step into line behind a tiny sophomore. Or at least I assume he is a sophomore, since no freshmen go to BBQ Club, because they’re all scared little kids. Silly little munchkins. I get to the front of the line and see that Mike is on cashier duty today.

            “Sup Mike. Let me get two cheeseburgers and a Cherry-Vanilla Cream Hansen’s. Hook it up with another burger if possible.”

            “Can’t hook it up today,” responds Mike.

            “OK. How about this. Hook me up with another cheeseburger or else I’ll sit on you.”

“THREE CHEESEBURGERS AND A HANSEN’S!” Mike screams to the assembly line that puts the food together on the plates. “That’ll be six dollars, Timmy,” he says and hands me my order.

 

The bell that announces the end of lunch chimes exactly as I finish eating. I stand up to head to class when Mike joins me.

“Don’t you have to clean up with the others members?” I ask.

“I have a math test this period so I’m not gonna clean. Did you get full off all the free food I so generously gave to you, O’ Mighty Sir Chubster?” asks Mike.

“Kind of. Three of those cheeseburgers aren’t that much food to me. I could eat a hundred of them. Give or take one or two.”

            “Don’t get delusional, Timmy. I bet you can’t even eat twenty BBQ Club hamburgers.”

            “You remember the day I ate three Fred sandwiches? With all the grilled chicken in between the bread, A Fred’s weighs way more than any burger. It would be nothing to me.” Was Mike stupid? He was there when I consumed three Fred’s. Why wouldn’t my massive girth be able to handle just twenty small, BBQ Club burgers? He must be crazy.

            “$100 dollars that you can’t eat twenty.” Mike says.

            “Deal!!” I say instantly, before the deal could get taken back. I’m a happy kid now. $100 dollars is a lot of In-N-Out burgers. What a wonderful day!

            “When is the next BBQ Club meeting?” I need to know. Even though I am ninety-nine percent positive that I can eat the BBQ burgers, I know that the number twenty when it concerns food is substantial. Eating that amount of most things is slightly difficult. Twenty Cheeseboard pizzas? Slightly difficult.

            “Sometime in December,” Mike says. “I hope you know that twenty BBQ burgers is a cool amount of food. I should know. I cook the damn things. And if you die trying, I’m not liable.”

            “Yeah…yeah…” I say, daydreaming about having $100 dollar bills and making it rain. “You better pay up else I’ll eat you.”     

 

 

            “Can you sign here?” asks Mike, while holding up his science journal in my direction.

            “What is this?”

            “Terms and regulations.”

            Terms and regulations? It’s a bet! There’s no rules! “Let me see that,” I say and grab the journal out of Mike’s hands. It reads:

FAT TIMMY IS TO CONSUME TWENTY BURGER PATTIES ACCOMPANIED BY 40 BUNS THAT CAN/MAY BE USED TO KEEP THE PATTY IN THE CENTER OF THE TWO. OPTIONAL. KETCHUP AND CHEESE SLICES AND WATER WILL BE OFFERED IF EATER REQUIRES ANY. IF REGURTITATION IS NECESSARY, IT CANNOT OCCUR BEFORE 3:15 PM OR ELSE REGURTITATOR WILL LOSE BET. BET SUM: $100

                                                                        Signature: ____________________

Honestly, the only thing that registers for me is that he has way too much time to kill. I sign my signature anyway, Timothy K.Q.J.X.U.Z.

“Thank you. Pleasure doing business with you, Timmy,” says Mike, and he falls silent, with a very smug look on his face that makes me think I just made a mistake.

 

I need to train. $100 dollars is a good chunk of change. I have to win this bet. I walk to the kitchen and take out a pack of Costco burger patties from the fridge. Mike told me that is the brand they use for BBQ Club. They’re surprisingly tasty, especially when they put the garlic salt over the sizzling burger patty. I’m slightly anxious to get to eating. This is the first time I’ve had a training session. I want to see how much I can eat. Probably twenty-four. Good show. I take the frozen meat outside to the barbeque and instantly start cooking. The burger’s start to sizzle at once. I can smell them cooking and my mouth begins to water with anticipation of a good meal. I’m hungry! I’m ready to eat!

 

Eleven. Fuck me. Eleven. I’m screwed. Eleven motherfucking hamburgers. Shit. How am I gonna eat twenty of these? It’s bad.

“You only ate eleven burgers?” asks Mike.

“Yeah…I felt like shit after, too. I felt bloated and fat.”

“Even more bloated and fat than usual?”

“Huh? Anyway I didn’t know eleven burgers could do that to a person,” I’m not a happy kid. $100 is a fair amount of loot to lose.

“It’s bad for you,” says Mike.

It’s bad.

 

I decide I need to train more vigorously. BBQ Club is happening in two weeks from this Friday, and eleven burgers is not an acceptable maximum number to be able to eat. Fuck the number eleven. I get the frozen patties from the freezer once again, and head out to the barbeque to start grilling. I’ve never been so unhappy about eating hamburgers.

 

“Fourteen, eh? You ate three more than last time, but it is still six burgers short and…let me see…” says Mike while pretending to do math on his fingers. “Around $100 dollars down! Ain’t that exciting!”

“Don’t you see? If I train enough I’ll be able to eat twenty hamburgers! It’s good!” I’m excited. Two weeks is a long time to train, and I’ve already made so much progress. If I train four more times, I’ll be able to eat at least twenty BBQ Club hamburgers.

 

            I have three days left until the Friday of the bet. I haven’t trained since I ate fourteen. Burgers just didn’t seem appetizing to me. I tried to follow my usual routine of getting the patties out of the fridge, but just couldn’t follow through with it. I’m starting to have second thoughts on whether I should have made this bet in the first place.

 

            Today is the day. Thirty more seconds of this damn period and the eating will commence. I could barely sleep last night because of how nervous I am about the enormous quantity of calories that about to consume. Don’t want to gain too much weight, now do I? The bell rings and the students file out of the classroom doorway in front of me. As soon as I hit the exit I start to speed walk towards the back courtyard where BBQ Club is located again. The familiar smell of the juicy burgers is getting stronger as I approach the barbeque stand.

            “Aye, Timmy!” says Mike, and gestures me towards him. “Glad you can make it, bro. You can sit in this chair right here. I will be cooking your burgers personally while keeping count and regulating the rules. So don’t try any funny business. Here’s your first burger. Tell me when you need more. Eat up.”

             I take the burger and am surprised that I’m excited to eat it. I haven’t had one in a couple weeks. I haven’t took a break that long since I was teething. It’s time to eat.

            The first six burgers go down with no problem. They even still taste good. The seventh is when my stomach starts to tell me that it can keep eating, but the amount it has already consumed is taking up space.

            “Burger, please,” I say to Mike, who promptly puts three onto my paper plate. “Thank you.”

            I instantly take a big bite out of burger number eight. Maybe I should slow down and take smaller bites? Nah. Just eat the damn burgers. Hamburgers eight, nine and ten have no effect on me at all. I feel just like I did after I ate the seventh one. This is easy. I could do this all day. Mike serves me eleven, twelve and thirteen onto my plate seeing that it was empty.

            “Think you can finish all twenty?” he asks. “Cuz you know if you start eating number nineteen I’m gonna have to kick you in the stomach.”

            I grab a fresh burger from my plate and devour it in front of his face to prove I can keep going. He stalks off to go cook more burgers for the customers, murmuring something to himself that sounds a lot like “the size of a killer whale.” Killer whale my ass. I’m much more the size of a male sea lion.

            Mike’s taunting seems to have opened up more room in my stomach. I have eaten seventeen burgers so far and can almost feel the hundred dollars in my pocket. But I still have three more to go. By now lunch is over and the BBQ members have all cleaned up, except the one grill that Mike is cooking on, and watching me struggle to open my mouth. Damn bastards. Don’t they have anything better to do?

            “Don’t you have anything better to do?” I ask the small crowd watching me.

            “No. Not really.”

            Oh. I can do this. If I can eat this last bite of burger I’ll only have two more to go. I can do it. It is the hardest thing I have ever done. The food tastes like cardboard and I have little strength in my jaws to chew. But I struggle on and finally force it down with a little help from my good friend water. I burp to clear space in my stomach.

            “Eeewww!” exclaims the crowd.

 

            It was just a burp guys. I have to focus now. The hundred dollars is staring me directly in the face, with two BBQ Clubs burgers for body guards and the only way I can reach it is to eat its two personnel. It’s on. If I can just eat one of the burgers, then I should be able to handle the other one with some effort. All I have to do is keep my eyes on the prize. Here it goes. Burger number nineteen. Every bite is torture. It feels like the last bite of burger eighteen, every time. I can barely handle it. I spend more time burping and taking sips of water than eating. I can barely look at the last hamburger.

            It takes me twelve minutes to finish number nineteen, and I feel a cement truck pried open mouth and force-fed me cement. Not a good felling. And I still have one more to go. I decide to rush through the burger as fast as I can. Physically, I’m exhausted. I can’t bear to try and take my time with another agonizing morsel of food. This burger has to go down fast, or not at all.

            I take a huge bite out of the last burger, while Mike and a couple other BBQ Club members fake retching in front of me. If I throw up, I’m aiming for them. The only way to swallow the big hunk of burger is with water, so I take a big gulp and then another big bite. I nearly gag and end the competition trying to swallow the bite. But I keep going. The hundred dollars is so close. It’s almost mine. Another bite, more water. Now there are two more bites left. I’m excited now. Mike is fake throwing up like his life depended on it now. I force feed myself another bite, accompanied by water. I feel dizzy, and nauseous. One more bite. Here goes nothing…

 

            I wake up lying in a room on a bed in the corner. I try to sit up but get dizzy and sit back down. I look around and see Mike sitting next to me on a chair, grinning like that damn cat.

            “How you felling there Timmy? You passed out after you took the very last bite of the twentieth burger.”

            “So that means I won, right?” I ask. “I ate all of the burgers and didn’t throw up, so I win. I WIN I WIN I WIN. Give me money!”

            “Actually, you lost,” says Mike. Say what? How can this be? “After you passed out you slid out of the chair you were sitting in. When you hit the ground, the last bite of the last burger flew out your mouth. So technically, you didn’t eat all twenty burgers. I win.”