By: Will Meinen
“Do you have any change? I'm so hungry,” he said. “I’ll eat anything. Chili. I love chili."
He did. He loved chili. It’s also true that he would, at that moment, eat anything.
But, if you were to give him a choice of any meal, not a last meal things weren’t quite that dire and he wasn’t incarcerated although he had spent time in the Cook County jail for check fraud, it would be chili.
How can that be you might ask? Why not a filet of corn fed hormone-boosted Illinois beef with blue cheese, garlic mash potatoes or a roast chicken with mustard greens cooked in bacon fat?
No thank you, too rich for his blood you can keep your steak house entrees what he wanted was a bottomless bowl of chili.
Texas style. No beans. Cubed beef coated in a dry rub and seared simmering in bone- broth thickened with tomato paste seasoned with garlic, onion and chili powder left to cook all damn day until the smell wafting from the kitchen commanded you to stand over the counter slurping the stuff into your salivating mouth.
“Do you have any change? I'm so hungry,” he said. “I’ll eat anything. Chili. I love chili.”
He had lived in Texas for 10 years from 1985 to 1995 on an offshore oilrig. Not much of a life if you’re trying to keep a woman around but the money was good. He liked the schedule. On for 24 hours off for 24 hours - like a firefighter.
Chili was something he could prep when he was off the clock. He’d make big batches of it, running four or more slow cookers at a time all plugged into one power strip.
The guys on the rig couldn’t get enough.
They’d stick they’re heads into his bunk while he was reading and ask when he’d be making the next batch and he’d pretend to be ticked because they interrupted his reading and he was real into this Tom Clancy story and get lost I’ll make it when I’m damn good and ready.
It made him feel good when they asked but he wouldn’t let them see how happy it made him. Right when they’d given up badgering him or seem to have forgotten entirely, that’s when he’d whip up another batch.
Man that would make ‘em perk up like a rooster waking the farmyard.
“You ol’ so and so why we thought you were gonna make us wait forever you dirty son of a bitch you,” they’d say.
He’d laugh and threaten to take the hand of any man who snuck even a spoonful before he said it was ready to eat.
“Show some patience, this isn’t like trying to get in your girl’s pants back home, this is worth waiting for,” he’d say.
One obnoxious shit bird asked what it was he put in the chili that made it taste so damn good and then pretended to jerk off into the slow cookers.
“You puttin’ some of your special sauce in there, huh?’ he’d say and slap his buddies on the back.
“You stay away from my slow cookers, you here?” the chef would yell and smack his ladle on the metal counter so hard the silverware would jump into the air, settling back down forming a crooked alphabet of ‘t’s’ and ‘X’s’.
The fellas on the rig got him a chef’s hat for his birthday in 1990. A white chef’s hat like you’d see in a French kitchen. In 1991 they got him an apron that said, ‘If you can’t take the heat, stay out of the kitchen’ with hot peppers wearing chef’s hats above the lettering and his name across the pocket.
He got fired from the rig in 1995 for failing a piss test. Everybody failed piss tests. If they fired everybody who got high they wouldn’t have anybody to work the rigs.
He’d gotten on the wrong side of his supervisor is what happened and so the rotten bastard screwed him over just because he could.
His last day the fellas made a point of saying they’d miss having him around and what the hell would they eat now. Mariano said he’d make tortilla soup but what the hell is that asked the shirt bird who pretended to jerk off in the chili, a bunch of god damn chips in a bowl of salsa or some shit?
He had a daughter in Cedar Rapids so he thought he’d head back up there and get a job working construction. Reconnect with his daughter and make peace with the girl’s Mom.
That could turn out all right he thought.
He called the girl’s Mom and told her of his plans but she said that they were getting on fine without him being around and so he should probably just stay out of the picture.
Probably for the best although he had started to like the idea of being a Dad.
He could’ve showed her the few card tricks he knew and how to feed 30 people.
Instead he moved to Chicago where he had some family.
In 2003 his Mom died after a long battle with lung cancer. She always was a heavy smoker and it caught up with her.
Everything does though doesn’t?
That’s what he was thinking when the tall, dark haired man in the camel colored topcoat and leather gloves walked towards him on the sidewalk just off the Belmont red line stop.
“Do you have any change? I'm so hungry,” he said. “I’ll eat anything. Chili. I love chili.”
“Do you have any change? I'm so hungry,” he said. “I’ll eat anything. Chili. I love chili."
He did. He loved chili. It’s also true that he would, at that moment, eat anything.
But, if you were to give him a choice of any meal, not a last meal things weren’t quite that dire and he wasn’t incarcerated although he had spent time in the Cook County jail for check fraud, it would be chili.
How can that be you might ask? Why not a filet of corn fed hormone-boosted Illinois beef with blue cheese, garlic mash potatoes or a roast chicken with mustard greens cooked in bacon fat?
No thank you, too rich for his blood you can keep your steak house entrees what he wanted was a bottomless bowl of chili.
Texas style. No beans. Cubed beef coated in a dry rub and seared simmering in bone- broth thickened with tomato paste seasoned with garlic, onion and chili powder left to cook all damn day until the smell wafting from the kitchen commanded you to stand over the counter slurping the stuff into your salivating mouth.
“Do you have any change? I'm so hungry,” he said. “I’ll eat anything. Chili. I love chili.”
He had lived in Texas for 10 years from 1985 to 1995 on an offshore oilrig. Not much of a life if you’re trying to keep a woman around but the money was good. He liked the schedule. On for 24 hours off for 24 hours - like a firefighter.
Chili was something he could prep when he was off the clock. He’d make big batches of it, running four or more slow cookers at a time all plugged into one power strip.
The guys on the rig couldn’t get enough.
They’d stick they’re heads into his bunk while he was reading and ask when he’d be making the next batch and he’d pretend to be ticked because they interrupted his reading and he was real into this Tom Clancy story and get lost I’ll make it when I’m damn good and ready.
It made him feel good when they asked but he wouldn’t let them see how happy it made him. Right when they’d given up badgering him or seem to have forgotten entirely, that’s when he’d whip up another batch.
Man that would make ‘em perk up like a rooster waking the farmyard.
“You ol’ so and so why we thought you were gonna make us wait forever you dirty son of a bitch you,” they’d say.
He’d laugh and threaten to take the hand of any man who snuck even a spoonful before he said it was ready to eat.
“Show some patience, this isn’t like trying to get in your girl’s pants back home, this is worth waiting for,” he’d say.
One obnoxious shit bird asked what it was he put in the chili that made it taste so damn good and then pretended to jerk off into the slow cookers.
“You puttin’ some of your special sauce in there, huh?’ he’d say and slap his buddies on the back.
“You stay away from my slow cookers, you here?” the chef would yell and smack his ladle on the metal counter so hard the silverware would jump into the air, settling back down forming a crooked alphabet of ‘t’s’ and ‘X’s’.
The fellas on the rig got him a chef’s hat for his birthday in 1990. A white chef’s hat like you’d see in a French kitchen. In 1991 they got him an apron that said, ‘If you can’t take the heat, stay out of the kitchen’ with hot peppers wearing chef’s hats above the lettering and his name across the pocket.
He got fired from the rig in 1995 for failing a piss test. Everybody failed piss tests. If they fired everybody who got high they wouldn’t have anybody to work the rigs.
He’d gotten on the wrong side of his supervisor is what happened and so the rotten bastard screwed him over just because he could.
His last day the fellas made a point of saying they’d miss having him around and what the hell would they eat now. Mariano said he’d make tortilla soup but what the hell is that asked the shirt bird who pretended to jerk off in the chili, a bunch of god damn chips in a bowl of salsa or some shit?
He had a daughter in Cedar Rapids so he thought he’d head back up there and get a job working construction. Reconnect with his daughter and make peace with the girl’s Mom.
That could turn out all right he thought.
He called the girl’s Mom and told her of his plans but she said that they were getting on fine without him being around and so he should probably just stay out of the picture.
Probably for the best although he had started to like the idea of being a Dad.
He could’ve showed her the few card tricks he knew and how to feed 30 people.
Instead he moved to Chicago where he had some family.
In 2003 his Mom died after a long battle with lung cancer. She always was a heavy smoker and it caught up with her.
Everything does though doesn’t?
That’s what he was thinking when the tall, dark haired man in the camel colored topcoat and leather gloves walked towards him on the sidewalk just off the Belmont red line stop.
“Do you have any change? I'm so hungry,” he said. “I’ll eat anything. Chili. I love chili.”