The Kafe Buffet
The diner was barely a tin can of hot metal and a tarred roof baking in the angry sun just off the New Jersey Turnpike. You just had to take Exit 4 and then turn right on Route 73, and right again on Fellowship Road to get there before coming to their Kafe Buffet’s driveway that was never adequately marked with white stripes so that people just parked wherever the hell they wanted to being New Jerseyites, that is, a special breed of people who have strong backbones, garrulous lips, and nasal toned voices and who while driving are very prone to use American sign language a lot. During summertime, the Kafe looked like a big sardine can so that if you pulled back the top out would pop a lot of orderly sardines in thick oil and marinara sauce.
But of course, Mikey Fizzano, a hot-headed Sicilian, would get pissed since he was the owner of the place, and it was his church and congregation.
But who knows?
The Kafe was really a great place during awful times where we just ate and ate, and ate some more, before we had to purge ourselves before going back and eating more food again. We were like the ancient Romans, and had a lot of fun, maybe, just too much before the place was closed.
“It’s one of those inconspicuous places,” my Uncle Fabbie said drinking from a bottle of Pisano wine, “but you’ll love the food there. They get it just right.”
“They got the best burgers and fries to die for,” Connie chimed in.
“If I were on death row, and they asked me for my last meal, and I don’t care if I was sittin’ on Alcatraz Island in some shitty cell, I’d say, ‘Get me one of them burgers from Kafe in New Jersey.’ And I think they’d have to do that since it was your last meal and all,” Danny said as he was a little overfamiliar with the judicial system in Trenton. The police swarmed the place though right around Labor Day, after the killings and after a bunch of wildfires had hit the New Jersey pines. We had gone there over the weekend, looking to relax after breaking our backs working for a bunch of Wall Street overlords who wanted to make billions of dollars in the shadiest manner as we looked the other way, and bent rules to where they were unrecognizable, and misconstrued things, and twisted the truth, and expertly mangled the English language to where it ultimately persuaded and said something, but it meant nothing in the final analysis.
Like hogs feeding at trough, we buried our hungry faces into the menus and salivated and had dreams and more dreams of food, packing the pounds on just thinking about it. I was in a booth with my wife, Kathleen, and our five kids, where we had come to enjoy a regular dinner, but where I would witness a Zapruder film frame-by frame tragedy from the supposed gunshots in the book repository to the grassy knoll shots to the entire unraveling hysteria.
But Maggie started the whole thing off with a shebang. Maggie told the waitress: “I’ll take the Suicide Burger with extra cheese. Along with High Blood Pressure Fries with the Stroke-Me-Out Salt and Die Young Mayo.” “Anything to drink?” “I’ll take a Bloody Mary and Gimme-Some-Heart-Burn Chocolate Cheesecake.”
Her jowls shook with laughter like one of those hogs on Nolan’s Farm. She had an attractive face that had been weathered over the past years from depression and she had the dark bags under her eyes that could have been used for shopping bags to prove it, just in case.
“I’m splurging since I just gotta raise.” “And you ma’am?” “I don’t know ‘bout you. But I’m famished” Stella said having come back from a recent Wildwood vacation with her kids. “I’ll take The Myocardial Infarction Pizza with everything on it, except the kitchen sink, dear. Make sure it has the hot dog stuffed pizza crust. And that you give me some packets of Blow-It-Out-Your-Butt Texarkana Hot Sauce, too. And a diet Coke.”
Stella pulled in her brown chair, and huffed and puffed more like a chugging locomotive, always going up a steep hill. Her reddish hair was still up in curlers. But she pulled out her compact mirror anyways to check her makeup and put on more coral pink lipstick.
“And you, sir?” “I’m looking to finally cure myself of hellish anorexia,” Sam said chuckling as he scratched his arm that could’ve been a runway model’s thigh. “Lemme see. What am I Jonesing for? Tonight, I’m gonna go French, and get the Mac Lobsta’ with freshly made noodles spruced with tender chunks of fresh lobster finely mixed with cognac, tarragon and mascarpone.” “What kind of cheese would you like on it, sir?” “I’m goin’ for the homemade Velveeta stuff, ok?” “Anything else tonight?” “I’ll take a Clog-Those-Arteries Filet Mignon Steak and a Shortcut-To?Heaven Blueberry Milkshake to wash it all down right before I get my will signed in my lawyer’s office tomorrow. Hopefully, my luck won’t run out on me as my second wife and kids would be pissed.” He tucked in his lumberjack shirt that kept falling out and rubbed his hand over his tummy like an expectant mother. “And you, sir” “Hell, I’m gonna out do all of you chickens, and get The Vertical Burger with ten patties and twelve slices of cheese, and I’ll take The Thick Menstrual Ketchup along with the Die Young Mayo with your secret sauce, too,” Bernie said as he bit his upper lip feeling a sharp pain. “And put a couple of ‘em Krispy Kreme Donuts on it for my hamburger buns – I hate it when people can’t go big and start countin’ calories when in a fine restaurant like this.” “What would you like to drink, sir?” “Today’s Friday. I got about as much energy as a slug. I’ll take a Mocha IV with a new syringe and one of ‘em slow drips in my right arm. Should wake me up some.” The place buzzed. People were slap happy. “How’s the job goin’ Maggie?” Bernie asked as he was still getting over the loss of his ex-wife, Lena. “I’m fine so long as I ain’t got to fly from JFK to Los Angeles, again. My boss got so ticked off.” “For what?” “Cause I got pulled out of the pre-boarding line and charged two fares for taking up two seats by American Airlines.” “Why?” “I’ve been labeled as morbidly obese by them using a scientific chart profiling my weight and my height.” “Goddamn. I can’t stand livin’ in a skinny-ass centric world these days.” “The nerve of those people.” “My boss now may not fly me since we went substantively over budget on the trip. If that happens, I’ll probably lose my Efficiency 5 Rating and be susceptible to a layoff the next time around.” “You should sue ‘em.” “Naw. I can’t” “How come?” “Didn’t you hear the Supreme Court ruling last week?” “Nope.” “It’s called Workers United vs. Krispy Kreme Donuts.” “Sounds bad.” “Not half as bad as you might think.” “Whadya mean?” “The media’s calling it: Fat People vs. The Rest of Us.” “How dare their bony asses!” “Is this a sick joke?” “No, I wish it were.” “Then what?” “It’s about tens of thousands of workers having to taste test a bunch of high calorie blueberry to glazed to chocolate to crème-filled donuts and eclairs, some for years at a time. Now, most of them put on a lot of weight and had commensurate health problems, and now they want to be compensated for the damage, and there are others who now are so fat that they can’t get off the damn couch and want long-term disability, too. And believe it or not, the public thinks it’s their fault.” “They weren’t borne that way.” “Not their fault, at all.” “Fat people are taken advantage of every day,” Sam said, as he was tired of being looked at as F-A-T. “We’re labeled as being lazy and sloppy. But we’re thought of as always being easy going and jolly like we’re an out-of-season Santa Claus. At the same time, they train us to eat the worse food imaginable.” “Amen, brother!”
“But in Workers United vs. Krispy Kreme Donuts the Supreme Court had to decide if being morbidly obese was a long-term disability. Companies panicked. Insurers did, too. The rest of the public became more inflamed than a charcoal broiler during the fourth of July. The so-called experts said it would take, at least, a trillion a year if fat people became permanently disabled and we had to take care of them as they sat on the couch, weeping into their handkerchiefs watching reruns of Dr. Phil, Maury Popovich, and Oprah Winfrey all day while snacking on anything that didn’t move.
“But they ruled against us big time!
“The public rejoiced. They had a field day on all those TV networks telling their favorite fat jokes: “Your momma so fat she left the house wearing high heels and came back wearing flip flops!”; “Your momma so fat I ran outta gas trying to drive around her!”; “That guy’s so fat, he shows up on radar!”; “If Betsy fell into the Grand Canyon, she’d get stuck!”; “Why did the Mr. Softy Truck stop coming to our neighborhood? It got hijacked by the fat kids.”; “Can fat people go skinny dipping?”; “What is Newton’s Law of Motion? A fat body will stay a fat body in motion unless acted upon by an outside Force.”; “Why did the fat man like his big tummy. Cause it was a bitch repeller.”; “How do you seduce a fat woman? Piece of cake.” and “I’m not fat. I’m just four feet too short.”
“Don’t they know?” “No, they don’t.” “We’re the biggest minority in this entire country!” “Bigger than Blacks and Latinos combined.”
“There’s a pandemic of Fat People and we’re taking over the world! Soon the Presidents, The Prime Ministers and the legislators and the courts will all be filled with Fat People – and we’ll finally get our just desserts.”
“OUR OWN PIECE OF THE PIE!”
“WITH WHIPCREAM ON IT!”
“AND A FEW MARASCHINO CHERRIES!”
Everyone was as starved as The Donner Party and getting ready to resort to cannibalism, if necessary, but, at last, the food leaving trails of the finest aromas came. Maggie began devouring her Suicide Burger, half raw with reddish?brown blood, and nonchalantly, washing it down with a stiff Blood Mary. The High Blood Pressure Fries flushed her face, neck, and chest pink complementing her makeup for such an occasion, and made beads of sweat, like tiny jewels, appear.
“Oh, my God! This definitely hits the spot like one of them surgical strikes in, oh, I forget, umm, in Iran.”
Sam was as hungry as a wild horse.
His feeding bucket, I mean, his Mac Lobsta’ with Velveeta Cheese came along with freshly made noodles spruced with tender chunks of fresh lobster finely mixed with cognac, tarragon and mascarpone. He leaned to the right side – and blew his bugle horn. “Oh, Sam!” “What?” “Not here!” “That’s my pressure valve.”
Stella was gasping with sheer delight over her culinary choices, but started feeling keen pain in her left arm as she winced.
“I’d take some nitroglycerine, girl. That’s a real Myocardial Infarction Pizza if I ever saw one.”
“Oh, Bernie, I’m fine. I ate dozens of these in my younger days and all I got for it was that I became a real BBW for all these men in town who desperately wanted a woman with some rare, fine meat on her bones. You’d be surprised how many men from the mayor to the lawyers in town that have a Chunky Ass Fetish. Their wives would be too!”
“I didn’t know.” “Dunno what?” “Didn’t know you were in such demand, girl.” “That’s almighty fine for you, Stella. But I’m tired of being called fat,” Bernie sighed as he began trying to scale his Vertical Burger in a free climb without any kind of rope or pylons. “It doesn’t sit well with me, anymore. I mean, the kids near my house used to call me Java the Hut, and I’d play along with it doing his deep voice and pretending to deep freeze Han Solo. But one day, I told ‘em I don’t want to play this anymore. They said, ‘Why?’ And I told ‘em even Java the Hut has feelings.”
“Good job, Bernie.” “Those kids need to be re-educated.” “Those smart ass kids aren’t educable, Maggie.” “Well, we should organize ourselves, especially, since we’re gonna become the silent majority soon in the good Ol’ U.S. of A.,” Maggie said as she began cutting into her Gimme-Some-Heartburn Chocolate Cheesecake which gave her naturally acid reflux which even a bottle of Tums couldn’t defeat. She could feel it rushing up into her filled mouth, but through sheer will was able to swallow and keep it all down for now.
“How are we gonna do that?” “Maybe, The Fat Suffragette Movement.” “What’s that? “Kinda like the Women’s Movement in the 1920’s to where we all have meetings and protests nationwide, discuss the important issues, and naturally to make everyone comfortable, we bring along homemade cookies, NY cheesecake, tarts, Italian pudding cake, brownies, and Rocky Road, Pistachio Nut, Peanut Butter and Chocolate ice cream, and sherbet! And what else? Oh, yeah, we could bring an assortment of Pennsylvania Dutch pies—I know a great bakery down the street that does them, cannolis, chocolates and truffles, and anything else that my gastric juices can digest but for the present time I can’t remember.”
“Sounds good but too expensive, Marge.”
“The budget would be a killer.”
“What we really need is to have a big leader, almost, who can speak to people’s hopes and fears and dramatically shift public opinion and get things done.”
“Like a Joe McCarthy!” Stella said.
“We could have The House Un-American Activities Committee!” Sam chimed in throwing down his Shortcut-to-Heaven Milkshake.
“And do what?’ Bernie asked as Stella gasped, and fell onto the floor hard and cold as a stone.
But everyone knew, even the waitresses that she had done this once to get out of a very expensive restaurant bill at Bookbinders when she had been binging for weeks at a time.
“Nah, what I’m talking about is to have a potent message. We should be coherent and talk about how American it is to eat your per Capita amount of apple pie, hamburgers and hotdogs, anything that comes from an outdoor grill, potato salad and pounds of Velveeta cheese – and that if you don’t, you should be put under suspicion for NOT EATING AMERICAN.” “That way, we’d have the upper hand!” Maggie said feeling woozy after eating most of her Suicide Burger. “And we’d still have the bigger tummies!” “And do what after that?’ Bernie asked as he began uncontrollably twitching from his gastrointestinal speed ball – from the lude-like effects of the Vertical Burger while he still had the Mocha IV quintuple expresso stuck in his arm.
With that, Sam drained his Short-Cut to-Heaven Milkshake making a loud slurping sound, more like a Hoover vacuum cleaner, as most of the patrons craned their stiff necks to look over.
The Jersey Devil himself emerged from the burnt pine woods with a pitchfork and appeared in a puff of black smoke. “Lucifer and His Minions!” Ka-thump! Sam had fallen over like a three-hundred-and-fifty-pound sack of Idaho potatoes onto the floor keeling over, dead as door knob. Most went back to voraciously eating at their troughs. Maggie though had had enough of these strange shenanigans. “Waitress!!” “Yes, ma’am.” “Are you seeing what I’m seeing?” “Uh, we just called 9-1-1.” “No.” “Then what?” “That man threw down a Short-Cut-to-Heaven Milkshake, and saw Lucifer and his minions.” “I’m not sure what I saw, ma’am.” “Right now, he’s probably in purgatory cause of your false advertising.”
The waitress threw up her hands and glanced at the manager.
“At The Kafe Buffet, Ma’am, we try our darnest to bring you the most delicious and wholesome cooked food possible at the cheapest prices so that the down out and the in-between and the fancy rich can come in here, and find something to eat while having fun.”
“Well, could you please check on Stella?”
The waitress bent down, felt her jugular.
“It doesn’t appear she has a pulse or anything,” the waitress said in a Kentucky drawl, “but don’t worry, the ambulance should be here any minute.” “Well, at least, that makes sense,” Maggie replied as she threw down the rest of her Bloody Mary and motioned for two more.
“Why’s that?”
“Cause she just got done your Myocardial Infarction Pizza with the hotdog crust. At least, that’s true advertising. And it makes sense, in a world that has gone Pistachio Nuts!” “Is that all, Ma’am?” “Nope, I’ll take the World Trade Center Super Duper Sundae. And don’t forget this time to bring the Chocolate United Airlines jet with it, too! Bernie, do you wanna share?” “Nah, I’ll just splurge and go for my Empire State Building Sundae with one hundred and two edible floors, ma’am.” “Anything else?” “Yes, could you PLEASE remove those two bodies and put them in the back room cause they are seriously killing our appetites.” “I’m only here to help, ma’am, and to serve you the meals that you ordered.”
She sauntered towards the kitchen door.
The men salivated like Pavlovian dogs over her spicy breasts and lean beefy hips as they swiveled, looking for a raw bone with some meat on it.
“I can’t believe how much IQ’s have dropped.” “Neither can I.” “They’re the most dumbest I’ve seen.” “Much worse than I thought.” “Sure are.” “We got our backs up against it.” “Heck, we need to find someone like Lyndon B. Johnson who can press and cajole people into signing legislation.” “Like a Civil Rights Bill for Fat People Who Can’t Get Enough Respect?” “Exactly.” “I can hear it now from the Capitol: ‘Ask not what that Piece of Delicious Pecan Pie can do for you! But what you can do for that Piece of Delicious Pecan Pie!’” “That was JFK, not Lyndon, Bernie.” “You sure?” “Yep.” “But it could pass.” “But right now, I’m focused on this World Trade Center Super Duper Sundae, and damn if they haven’t forgotten the Chocolate United Airline Flight 175, again! Must’ve went off the radar on ‘em.” “Their tip is goin’ on life support now.” “Waitress! Waitress!”
Bernie began eating The Empire State Building with a complementary King Kong hanging from it. His fork expertly crushed about ten floors of The Empire State Building when Maggie began talking about how much she loved Kafe Buffet and Old Glory and America. “All this negative press – it ain’t deserved.” “Love it – or Leave it!” “I can’t stand people who wanna burn the flag and criticize this country and become apologists to the terrorists and talk about how much we need to change. I think they all should be deported.” Bernie grunted. “I mean, I love The Good ol’ U.S. of A. so much I could gobble it up like this here Neapolitan ice cream!” With that, Bernie began raucously laughing while thirty floors of The Empire State were in his mouth. Unfortunately, he inhaled, and most of the floors sans furniture, of course, slid down his windpipe as he began choking. “Someone do something!” “I don’t know the Heimlich maneuver.” “Neither do I.” Maggie began to panic as her face flushed red, like a fresh beet. “Eat more, Bernie! If you eat more, you’ll force the rest of the food stuck in your throat down into your stomach like a train moving along.” Frustrated, she ran over to him, and began cutting through The Empire State Building, almost forty floors, and tried to force feed Bernie who gasped and gasped, and waved his arms. “What do you want?!” “Not you lady.” “What an idiot!” Bernie pressed his fist to his stomach and then cupped motioning that he wanted the Heimlich maneuver done. Maggie ran behind him and put her stout arms around his waist and began pushing up and into his diaphragm. The patrons watched still voraciously eating and ordering food.
At first, nothing happened.
“Jesus Christ! Come on, Bernie. Cough this shit up!”
Spectacularly, then about 30 floors of The Empire State Building were coughed up in pristine condition like they had not even been eaten. Then the rest of it, even the tower. Bernie was still gasping for precious O2 as Maggie continued. Soon, his Vertical Burger was coughed up in perfect condition with ten grilled patties of delicious hamburger meat, twelve slices of finely melted cheese, and Krispy Kreme Donuts as hamburger buns, almost dripping hot off the serving platter. “I guess he had indigestion.” “Yep.” “Sure did.” Bernie, however, was still turning shades of deep blue. Maggie continued with renewed strength as she didn’t want to see another friend collapse. Up came lunch. Once again, it was like it had never be eaten and passed hungry lips: This time, it was an exquisitely French-chef made chaud-froid of egg capped with sherry-vinegar-infused whipped cream which, of course, belonged to a main entrée of foie gras custard with haricot beans and boudine blanc. Another heave ho! Quite miraculously, then came the main course comprised of a very delicious hickory smoked veal rump with coffee emulsion made in an exquisite manner by the most delicate hands followed by a rich dessert of chocolate ganache with blueberries. A few bystanders gawked – it was a miracle! “Heck, it looks like he never even touched it.” “Someone should grab a plate. Chow down!” “Why not? It’s free.”
By now, Bernie was turning Persian blue. More meals began coming up from the depths of his stomach that seemed to be almost infinite: last night’s midnight snack of anchovy pizza, a five-course dinner, an Italian lunch consisting of a pound of pasta and a hearty American breakfast along with deluxe nachos, a few Kit Kat bars, and a bag of glazed donuts from the day before – they had all been discounted bargains, too hard to ignore. “This guy’s a treasure chest.” “He’s coughed up everything.” “Grab a dish!” Desperate, Maggie gave one more final pull as Bernie’s mouth suddenly enlarged, and a finely polished kitchen sink flew from his mouth, and landed ka-thud onto the table. “Never saw that before!” “Me, too.” Bernie collapsed like a puppet with cut strings. And was dead. Maggie sobbed. A few of the patrons of Kafe Buffet tried to console her. “It’ll be alright.” “He’s up there with Jesus shaking hands right now.” “Not one of them there sparrows falls to the ground outside your Father’s care.” Maggie had had enough. She grabbed a steak knife and pushed them away as a small circle of friendly neighbors surrounded her. “Something’s wrong here, folks. How can a black man be lying there on the floor navy blue in the face? How can he throw up everything including the kitchen sink? “This here ain’t normal. “Life’s not supposed to be this bizarre. “We’re just people eating a regular dinner and then the shit hits the fan and everyone’s dead in my group? Sam, Stella and now Bernie? You poisoned our food and drink. This is some kind of conspiracy.” “Maggie put the knife down.” “What did all of us have in common?” “Don’t do anything rash.” “I’m gonna find out what happened.” “We’re here to help.” “You could’ve helped Bernie!” “Bernie had eaten too much.” “Nothing could be done for him.” “But you can save me?” “Yes.” “From what?” “From yourself.” Maggie lunged at a few of them who were wearing hunting gear and plain clothes with a serrated steak knife. “Get back! Get back!” The patrons obliged moving back a few steps. “This here’s as serious as a heart attack!” “Now, don’t do nuthin’ stupid?” “You callin’ me stupid?!” “I’m just saying you ate a Suicide Burger.” “You’re sayin’ I didn’t read the menu!” “No, I’m not saying that, Maggie.” “I’m a big girl. I know what I’m doin’.” “Ok.” “We just want what you want, Maggie. And that’s for this here thing to be finally over.” “Me, too.” With that, Maggie cut her jugular vein so that the blood spewed worse than at a slaughter house gushing all over and running mahogany red onto the floor. The dishwasher came and mopped it up swishing with suds, and wringing the mess into a few buckets, and the endless patrons who came to The Kafe from all walks of life went back to their seats barely missing a drum beat, errr, leg.
