BAKED-STUFFED PIG

                                                      by Jan Evan Whitford (c) 2007                                           

 I HAD PROSTRATED myself on a colossal Homer Simpson towel at Salty Brine Beach, along with my old college roommate, Otis Wonie, and our wives. Otis hailed from Alabama this was his first visit to The Ocean State. The August sun felt like warm, melted butter on my skin and weird, amoebic squiggles danced their way across the muted vermilion backdrop of my eyelids. The air smelled of salt, exposed seaweed and cocoa-butter tanning products. Meanwhile, my stomach made noises like it was consuming itself.

            “I’m starved!” I cried out, rolling over and sitting up.

Otis cocked an eyebrow. “You got a hollow leg or whut? Why, just an hour ago, you porked half a dozen clam cakes and an order of fish n’ chips o’vair at George’s.”

I squinted while my pupils contracted into pinpoints. Clear, azure water spanked the solid granite breachway and kids with colorful swimsuits cavorted in the sand at the water’s edge. In the distance, the Block Island ferry steamed toward home.

“Clam cakes,” I said, remembering. “M-mm, my favorite. Say, pass me that bottle of oil, will you?”

I was referring to our time-tested mix of baby oil and iodine. Screw sun block and screw pesky UVs¾I was going for that Onassis, Broiled-in-Olive-Oil kind of look.

Otis tossed me the oil, saying, “Tell you whut: If you’ll buy, I’ll go back and pick us up a couple a them monster sammiches whut y’all call grinders. Okay?”

            I started rubbing oil on my chest, scowling at the gray hair that had, all too soon, displaced the black. “Deal,” I said, “Get me a large turkey with everything and a bag of salt n’ vinegar chips. While you’re at it, snag us some Del’s lemonades.”

Our wives ignored our gastronomic ruminations, simply looked out to sea and slathered on SPF-45. By the trowelful.

Otis heaved himself up, showering me with sand. When I complained, he said, “Y’all Yankees are wusses. It’s a wonder y’all won the war.”

I rolled my eyes and snorted. “Pul-eeez. You keep talking like that and we’ll have to go down there and kick your butts . . . again.”

FORTY MINUTES LATER, Otis returned. Not only did he tote grinders, chips, and Del’s lemonade, but he’d also scrounged another greasy bag full of artery-clogging clam cakes from George’s. Damn tasty, too. And ice water in hell couldn’t be more refreshing than that slushy frozen lemonade. I chugged mine down way too fast, giving myself a viscous headache spike.    

To our credit, we gallantly offered to share with our wives but, to our relief, they politely declined and went back to munching on their rice cakes and reading their novels. And once the last bite of grinder and morsel of clam cake were gone and we’d tapped the remaining bits of slush from our cups, I grew silent while I mindfully recorded the experience. After failing to snag any of our clam cakes, a raucous gull complained and flapped away

Otis burped wheezily.

I sat content, cleaning sand out from between my toes, and staring out to sea. When that became tedious, I started rubbing more oil and iodine onto my basketball belly and that was when a bronzed, high-breasted goddess in a fuscia bikini sashayed by.

Otis and I sucked in our guts. Otis smoothed back the few remaining wisps of his once-magnificent pompadour and I . . . well, forget it. Slyly, we ogled the sexy nymphet, relying on our finely- honed powers of peripheral observation while our wives read their novels and pretended we had them buffaloed.

After the fuscia bikini had slinked out of range, Otis cleared his throat. “Boy, howdy,” he said. “Tell you whut!”

We shared a high-five, then flopped down on our towels to trap a few more UV rays. In moments, I was asleep and dreaming of the girl in the fuscia bikini. Pouting her sensuous lips and hunching her shoulders forward to present maximum cleavage, she pulled me along by the hand into a room.

Then she disappeared.

In her place, hulked a hooded executioner the size of Shaquille O’Neil. Pushing me to my knees, he stretched my neck across the chopping block. I looked up to a heavily muscled, burly chest. And a bulging, fuscia Speedo. But then, instead of raising his axe, he pulled off his hood, winked and shot me a toothless, lascivious grin right out of “Deliverance”.

Uh-oh.

THAT’S WHEN MY wife, mercifully, woke me up.

“We'd better go now,” she said. “You’re getting burnt. Besides, we’re stopping for some Brickley’s Ice Cream before we go home, remember?”

I salivated, recalling Brickley’s legendary portions. “M-mm, my favorite,” I said. “And maybe we could pick up some lobsters for later?”

She thumped my considerable belly; it sounded like a ripe watermelon.

“My hero,” she said. “Gastroman.”

“Well, at least some pizza? Another grinder? Hot wieners?”

We gathered our stuff and joined the heavy beach traffic on Scenic 1A; everyone was headed to the best ice cream joint in the Western Hemisphere where the scoops of rich, homemade ice cream look like they’ve been served up with a backhoe and stuffed into aromatic waffle cones.

“Y’all remember,” warned Otis. “Be sure to get the heavyset guy.”

“What heavyset guy?” asked my wife. “I didn’t see any heavyset guy. Some anorexic little feeb with forearms like chopsticks served me last time.”

       “I tole y’all . . . get the heavyset guy.”

       “What heavyset guy?” she cried. “I think my server used a melon ball scooper.”

       Otis wagged his finger. “Tell you whut, make sure y’all wait for the heavyset guy. The guy’s servings’re hee-mongous.”

       “What heavy set guy?”

AFTER THE ICE CREAM, we headed home. Pooped and sunburned, I sprawled across the couch, saying, "I need a nap."

Two hours later, I woke up. The house was dark and everyone had gone to bed. My eyes were just about swollen shut from the sunburn and I felt like a giant Red Hot. Groggy, I made my way to the kitchen, snacked on three stuffed quahogs, some lobster salad, and a microwaved NY System wiener—all washed down with a tall glass of milk and coffee syrup. Then, burping and walking bowlegged so my burnt thighs wouldn’t chafe, I headed for a cold shower, coated myself in aloe lotion, and slipped between the cool, cool sheets.

“Ow!” I said, recoiling.

That woke my wife. She purred contentment and, feeling amorous, ran her fingers lightly across my blistered chest.

“Ow!” I said, recoiling.

“What’s the matter?” she said, giggling. “Are we too hot to trot?”

I mumbled something unintelligible and lifted the sheet off my radiating body. I felt like a whale-sized ingot.

She laughed, rolled over. “Too bad I’m not wearing a fuscia bikini, huh?”  

Uh-oh. Busted.

Once I fell asleep, I had an especially vivid dream but this time, fuscia bikinis weren’t involved. No, sprawled across some kid’s boogie board, I was floating out into the Atlantic. We’re talking way out here, past sight of land. Suddenly, about ten yards from me sliced the unmistakeable dorsal fin of a Great White shark!

       The shark turned slowly; it homed in and bore down . . .

          Horrified, my eyes bulged and my mouth formed a perfect “O” for a scream that never sounded; as the monster broke the water, I could only muster a few small, birdlike cries.

The shark’s eyes rolled back.

Its deadly jaws gaped opened to a myriad of serrated dagger-teeth-of-death!

“M-mm, my favorite,” it said. “Baked-stuffed Pig.”

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