CHITLIN CIRCUIT

Santos ate the chitlins before him with gusto. They had sat on the plate, staring up at him for a good three minutes before he dove into them. This was Santos’ pre-eating marathon ritual that garnished him the official first place, blue ribbon at the Cayuga County Eat-Off 14 years running. The competition this year was to be his last, however. Santos was getting out. He’d taken the prize money over the years and invested in his own brand of patented chitlin sauce, a mixture of red peppers, mustard seed oil and ground-up cashews. He would take the condiment world by storm as he’d taken the eating marathon world; slow and calculated. By year’s end, he hoped to have his affordable "Toe-Up" chitlin dressing in every rib joint and shotgun shack table in the Dirty South. It was a reasonable goal, he thought.

Santos licked the plate clean, another ritual which had kept him in buttons and bows over the years. He waddled off his chair, tucked his bib into his back pocket, set the table ablaze with a generous amount of kerosene and shuffled his way down the long, creaking floorboards to the event table as the flashbulbs popped from the dozens of paparazzi that swarmed him. A cocky smile split the bottom of his face.

"Santos! Any words for the New Yorker?" a nearby journalist screamed.

Santos sat down on his over-padded, gaudy throne and placed the silver crown onto his high-top fade.

"This one’s for Mama Jo," he whispered.




-SLL