Breakfast of Champions

(Taken by moi)

Ok. Yesterday's post may have been a bit too heavy-handed with the homoeroticism. I was pandering to a particular audience; a mistake I will not make again.

Perhaps a story about my recently critical reader? Let's give him a name: Spink. A portmanteau hailing from his Asian phenotype and Hispanic ethnicity. Again, that adolescent ingenuity. 

Spinky had been born a natural victim. Anyone could see it just by looking at his Alfred E Newman-esque face. I knew it in fifth grade when he pronounced Ross Perot as Ross Parrot. He invited an unrelenting kind of ridicule. But he was a sweetheart; astute; a good listener; a dependable friend. On this particular day, he and I had spent our time in the classroom examining the potential ways we could throw a party at his parents' house while they were away. We had it all figured out.

With my fake ID I'd take care of acquiring the necessary supplies, and he would host. We'd send the communique through a select network of friends to keep the party tractable and ensure the presence of pretty girls. A party without women is like soda without bubbles, and nobody likes flat soda. Or flat women. 

The party went off swimmingly. In his sister's bedroom I wooed a girl who would become my longest lasting partner. A mutual friend met his future fiancée that night too. The depravity crescendoed when a girl (that future fiancée) collapsed onto the floor laughing as she told me I had pubes for hair. Good times were had by all, until the morning came. 

Everyone hurried out of the house leaving Spinky and I to clean up the last of the evidence. He told me he needed to eat something first and asked if I wanted breakfast. When I answered yes I had no idea it would be one of the most decadent meals of my life. He had a true culinary gift, Chef Spinky. While he cooked I swept up stray pieces of potato-chips and popcorn and cleaned up areas of the kitchen that had been made sticky by spilled beer. Before I knew it he was calling me to the breakfast-table to join him for a feast. I sat down and saw what he had prepared: a half-full, stale 40 of Budweiser, peanuts, three burnt strips of bacon and a hot-dog placed inside a stale bun he'd mangled and ripped apart. A crusted bottle of ketchup beside an expired bottle of mustard stood watch over the meal like Royal Guards. I was speechless. Proud with himself, he proclaimed it "the breakfast of champions," as he smiled and raised his hand for a high-five. I stared at him and asked "who's gay" while he sat there with his hand in the air. He muttered something about ungrateful fucks and removed an exquisitely grandiose silver fork and knife from the poorly torn piece of paper-towel beside his plate. He tucked the paper towel into his shirt and looked at me as if to say I should do the same. Still shocked, I began hysterically laughing. He thought he was good. I told him this was the worst thing I had ever seen and that he should be ashamed of himself. "You're right," he said as he quickly stood up from his chair, "I forgot the O.J!" He returned from the fridge with the juice and poured himself a glass. 

I had a game I liked to play with Spinky when he was eating. I'd try my best to make him laugh at the exact moment he was swallowing - a game that would prove almost fatal nearly a decade later - and this breakfast was no exception. What I had said to make him laugh I've forgotten, but what happened next I'll never forget. He snarled and slammed his silver knife down abruptly, chipping his plate, and his hands rose toward his throat as orange juice burst from his nostrils like twin volcanoes. Eyes wide and rapidly blinking, he began violently coughing and belching before jumping to his feet sending the chair crashing to the floor behind him. I followed him as he ran to the sink, not to help him, but to continue making him laugh. He waved me away as he gagged and hiccuped between suppressed laughter, but it was too late for him. I had delivered his coupe de grâce. Hunched over the sink heaving, he emitted a sound kind of like a long burpy scream, culminating in a wet outpouring of vomit. He cursed me and told me I'd ruined breakfast. 

I told him it was him who'd ruined breakfast, as soon as he'd cooked that meal.