Meatballs

what if you went to a restaurant and they just had the best meatballs you've ever tasted. you demand to thank the chef. it's disgraced dark souls priest monster slug thing andrew cuomo of the deep. 

I was famished when I sat down, and food always tastes better when you’re hungry, but on my mother’s honor these were the most mouth-wateringly delicious meatballs I have ever tasted. That you’ve ever tasted? you might rightly ask. I’m not sure how many meatballs I have eaten in my life—that would be a strange thing to know—but let’s put it on the order of a thousand, at least. These were beyond compare, simply leagues above any other contender—so juicy and flavorful, the texture just incredibly complex and perfect, spiced in a way that made my tongue come alive and dance. I couldn’t stop eating them. I finished off the plate and immediately ordered another. I gorged myself on that one and ordered yet another.

An hour later, bloated and fatigued from so much gustatory pleasure, I asked the server, “Could the chef spare a moment for my gratitude?”

The server was frazzled and annoyed; it was the peak of the lunchtime rush. “You wanna thank the chef?” they clarified.

“Yes please,” I urged, my eyes watering with discomfort and sincerity.

The server glared. “Sure,” they said and disappeared.

Two minutes later the chef emerged from the noisy, sweaty kitchen. After a split-second of intense cognitive processing, I realized who it was. Sweet fuck, I breathed. It’s disgraced Dark Souls priest monster slug thing Andrew Cuomo of the Deep.

Andrew Cuomo towered over me like a church, his eyes burning down with a wicked mix of arrogance and depravity. I sat huddled in my chair, peering up at him, the blood beginning to drain from my face. My lips parted to say something but the words wouldn’t come. He grinned at me with base pleasure, feeling his own power. He leaned down and put his fists on the table, his face inches from mine. He breathed a hot swirl of noxious gases in my face: vodka, antacids, pus, blood. He got even closer somehow. In a gnarled hiss as old as the Adirondacks, he spoke:

“YOU LIKE MY MEATBALL.”

It wasn’t a question. It was a provocation. It was a declaration. He was daring me. He was testing my will, testing my right to be in this restaurant, my right to live. He was taunting me, challenging me. He wanted me to react. I felt something in my spine, a tingle of life, a spark of courage, growing and surging through me, gathering strength as it flooded my body. I was enveloped in a bright cocoon of clarity and focus. I pushed myself up from my chair and stood to his height. Andrew Cuomo flinched and stepped back, the expression on his face changing in an instant. The leering grotesqueness withered; he became afraid. His eyes grew wide. I closed the distance between us, my jaw set in determination, eyes now fiery where they had been tepid.

“Andrew Cuomo,” I growled, my voice ominously soft at first then growing louder with each syllable. He seemed panicked. He looked back toward the kitchen, but I grabbed him by the collar and pulled his face to mine. The capillaries on my forehead pulsed and my face burned bright red. I opened my mouth to shout, but what erupted was more like a roar:

“I LIKE YOUR MEATBALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL”

The entire restaurant broke into mayhem. Tables tumbled, dishes splintered. I heard the cries of young children and the screams of elders. Sirens and smoke alarms went off at the same time, and I, feeling a strange calm, reached into my bag. My movements were slow and even. Finding my wallet, I pulled out two twenty dollar bills. Will that do it? I mouthed to the server above the horrible din. Eyes wide, they nodded.

I picked my way through the rubble of the demolished restaurant, toward the exit, and finding my way outside, stepped lightly onto the sidewalk, where the sun beat down hotly and the air was heavy and sour in the summer afternoon.