Don't Eat The Deadly Chilli

On Saturdays Buddy A cooks dinner for me.  Buddy B, the guy who sublets from him, also cooks me dinner but that’s on Thursdays.  The purpose of both dinners is to have a full stomach in preparation for an evening of heavy tequila drinking and movie viewing, usually until the wee wee hours of the morning.  Buddy B is something of a gourmet.  Buddy A … well his heart’s in a right place, and Saturday is his day.  So I go over to his house around five-thirty and after we eat we leave his house, hop into my car and I drive him over to my place with my big screen TV and the aforementioned night of heavy drinking with all the pretty colors to look at on the screen.

On one particular Saturday around three in the afternoon I was puttering around my apartment when my cell phone lit up. I went over to my desk and picked it up and after flipping the lid saw I had a text message from Buddy B. I hit open and read it.

The txt said: ‘Call me.  Urgent’.

Okay.  I punched his number and put the phone to my ear.  After a few rings he answered.  I said, “What’s up?”       

“Dude,” said Buddy B.  “Is his ‘A’ - ness cooking you dinner today?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Well, you know how I am about food preparation, and I don’t like the way he’s been handling that pound of ground meat he has out.”

“Oh?  What’s he doing wrong.”

“Well first he left that frozen ground meat out in the alley so the dogs could piss all over it to thaw it out.”

“Oh?” I said.

“Yeah and the dogs wouldn’t even eat it.  That should tell you something.”

“Speaks volumes.”

“Then, he takes that pound of ground meat back inside and puts it on the kitchen window shelf under the hanging fly strip.  He let it sit there for three days.  And Dude, you know how that fly strip is.  There’s so many dead flies on already you can’t even see the sticky surface any more.  All the flies already stuck there?  Well there just falling apart into little pieces of legs and wings and heads that just sprinkles down on whatever’s under them.”

“Oh my God,” I said.

“Then,” said Buddy B, “he takes that ground meat and puts it on a plate, puts a whole bunch of diced onions on the plate and takes it the bathroom.  With the plate in his lap he was mixing the onions into the meat while taking a shit.”

“Uh ha,” I said.

“And he didn’t wash his hands after.  Dude, if I were you I’d try and find some way to get out of eating whatever it is he wants to cook.”

“Okay, I get the picture.  If his handling of that ground meat is that bad, I’ll need a back-up plan.  I know.  If he hasn’t started cooking yet, I’ll say, ‘Hey, no sense slaving over a hot stove at this late date.  We’ll just over to my place and I’ll spring for a battleship from ‘The Triangle.’  That should work.”

“Good.  I only thought it fair to warn you.  And don’t tell him I told you any of this.”

“Okay, I appreciate the heads-up.  Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.  What are friends for, huh?” 

So five-thirty rolled around.  I was outside the house of Buddy A and walking up the steps to the porch.  The front door was unlocked so I opened it, stepped in, and after closing the door I went through the hall and into the kitchen.  There was Buddy A, wearing a chef’s hat and a chef’s apron, holding the end of a wooden spoon and stirring whatever was inside a tall, old steel pot with multiple streaks of something brown escaping from the trim, traveling all the was down to the gas stove’s flame where the brown stuff and fire met with satanic hissings and sputterings.  As Buddy stirred, steam rose from the pot and collected as a gray cloud before the overhead kitchen cabinets.

“Hey,” I said.

He looked away from the pot and said, “Holla.  We’re having chili tonight.”

“Chili?” I said.

“Yeah.  Last Saturday we talked about what we’d be having today.  I said, chili and you said fine.  Remember?”

“Oh, yeah.  I remember.”

“Good because you’re in for a treat.  This is a family recipe.”

“Good,” I said.  “So I’ll just go into the dining room and take off my coat.”  I turned and went through the doorway between the rooms.

Just inside the dining doorway and on the wall was a rotary dimmer switch, but it’s one of those kinds of switches where you have to press the button in first to get the chandelier full of CFL bulbs to light, and then you can turn the knob one way and make it go bright, or turn it the other way and make it go dark, or make it go bright and make it go dark or make it just so you can see what the hell you’re doing.  The chandelier, which was a bizarre enough sight to begin with, hung over a dining room table with five chairs, two on either side and one at the end, all squeezed together because the other half of the table was stacked halfway to the ceiling with books and newspapers, Arby’s coupons, DVDs, and on the last bare space available a lot of little miniatures figures from fantasy role playing games, all scattered about as if making a massive break from a maximum security prison and this was the view from the Sheriff’s helicopter.

I went around the table to the right side.  After emptying my pockets of wire note pad and pen and cigarettes and lighter and tossing them on the table, I hung my coat on the furthest chair then sat on the one beside it.  I grabbed the ashtray which was a little ceramic statuette of some extreme character you’d see at a Rusted Root concert, his pants and shirt all decked out in African yellows and greens, beads around his neck, a fat knit hat on his head, beard and sunglasses, a ceramic roach with a bright red end covering about a third of his face and pinched between big ceramic lips.  Above his head held in wannabee Altas fashion a small ceramic notched bowl for cigarette ash.  I reached for my pack of Dunhills.

Suddenly the cell phone went off in my pocket.  I reached in and pulled it out, flipped the lid open and checked the message.  

The text said: ‘He made chili.’

I texted back: ‘I know.’

I slipped the cell phone back in my pocket, a mistake since the phone went off a second later.  I pulled it back out of my pocket and opened it and read the next message.

‘Did you eat the chilli yet?’

‘No.  Not yet’, I replied and I put the cell phone on the table next to my smokes.

Buddy A came into the dinning room carrying knives, forks and napkins.  “Who is texting you?” he said.

“The King Bee upstairs,” I said.

“Well what’s he want?” He turned and went back into the kitchen.

“Oh … uh … he wants to know what we’re doing tomorrow.”

The cell phone went off again.  Again I flipped the lid and checked the message.

‘I wouldn’t eat it if I were you.’

I texted, ‘I’ll take my chances.’  I put my phone back on the table.

Through the doorway into the kitchen I could see Buddy A with his back to me, again at the stove having resumed stirring that chili with his wooden spoon.  He kept stirring for a few moments then stopped and removed the wooden spoon from the chili and gawked because the bowl on the end was missing.

“Oops, “ said Buddy A and he started to laugh.  “This spoon comes in two pieces.  I need another.”  He walked to his right and out of view

The cell phone went off yet again.  Yet again I picked it up and flipped the lid and checked the message.

‘I warned U.’

Buddy A stuck his head through the doorway and said, “Tell him you’re eating.”

“I think he’s said everything he’s has to say.”

Buddy A ducked back into the kitchen.  A few minutes later, sans chef’s hat and apron, he returned carrying in each hand two steaming earthen bowls.  He came over and placed a bowel of chili before me then placed his at the head of the table where he usually sits.  He turned and left the dining and seconds later returned this time carrying one plate with a gray-white mountain of diced onions and another of a greenish-yellow mountain of diced jalapeno peppers.  He put both plates before me then plopped his big self into his chair.  He picked up his spoon and looked at me with a big grin.

I picked up my spoon too and I noticed my hand was shaking.  I said, “How many of those onions can I have?”

“Oh I have enough onions in my chili.  You can take as much as you want.”

“And the jalapenos?”

“Same.”

With my left hand I reached forward and grabbed that plate of onions.  I brought it over the chili and with my spoon I scrapped it all in.  I put the plate back where it had been then grabbed the plate of jalapenos and repeated the process.  My theory was if there was anything questionable about the ground meat in this chili, the combination of onions and jalapenos should mount at least a spirited defense against anything nasty.  I took my spoon and dipped it into the chili and began to stir.  As it did I looked over at Buddy A.  I noticed he ate chili with a rotary hand motion that bore a disturbing resemblance to the spinning blades of a push mower.  I went back to the chili I was stirring.  Then I stopped - the moment of truth had arrived.  With my spoon I scooped up some chili, opened my mouth and slid it in.  After thoroughly chewing the jalapenos bits and the onions bits and the beans and the meant, I swallowed. 

“How’s the chili?” said Buddy A with a big grin.

“Not bad,” I said.

My pack of Dunhill cigarettes was near my left hand.  Dropping my spoon into my chili, hoping it would be there went I got back to it, I reached with my right and slid out a cigarette.  I popped the cig into my mouth and grabbed the Steelers lighter and fired it up.  After transferring the cig to my left hand, I grabbed my spoon.

I had work to do.

“Care for some music?” said Buddy A.

“Sure.”

Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr. Bobby Bare.