Apparently the man did too, because he looked at me then for the first time, and something about the way he sized me up made me feel like he wasn’t standing corrected.
Our room opened onto the pool area, and when we’d crossed the hot cement and let ourselves in, I noticed, closing the door behind us, that the man was still watching us from across the patio.
The restaurant we went to that night was decorated with wagon wheels and leather saddles and harnesses. The waitresses and the cooks, who grilled steaks over an open-pit barbecue, all wore neckerchiefs and checked shirts that looked like they’d been made out of tablecloths. You could choose the size of your steak and how you wanted it cooked, but then you were through choosing. All the steaks came with baked potatoes and beans and garlicky toast.
A little sign on every table explained that the biggest of the steaks, a T-bone called the Monster, was free if you could eat it all. And this was what the huge man in the booth next to ours had ordered. It was brought to his table with a great flourish of bells, on a platter about the size of the one my mother used for the Thanksgiving turkey. About two inches thick, the steak barely fit. Having cavorted in the pool all afternoon, I was famished, unable to imagine a steak I couldn’t eat. Yet here it was. One look convinced me. The big man seemed undaunted, though, and when the waitress set a little clock on the table and set it for half an hour, the man wordlessly dug in, sawing methodically, until the platter was a pool of blood, eating as if there were no particular hurry. Considering his task, I thought he had excellent table manners.
“Don’t stare, sweetie,” my mother whispered, but everyone else was, and pretty soon she was staring too. Paying no attention, the man devoured half of his T-bone in the first ten minutes, took a sip of water, consulted the clock and slowed down.
At this juncture, a waitress brought my mother a cocktail she hadn’t ordered, then pointed across the room at the man who’d spoken to us that afternoon by the pool. He raised his glass in a silent toast, and my mother raised hers. “Hold up your Coke, sweetie,” she told me. “Be polite.”
I didn’t, though. He hadn’t bought me my Coke, and I didn’t feel like being friendly. Besides, I was suddenly sure he had followed us to the restaurant.
At the next table the big man was eating more slowly now, and the little clock seemed to be ticking away faster. He cut the steak into small pieces and chewed them thoughtfully, beads of sweat glistening on his forehead and upper lip. With only five minutes left on the clock, he still had about a quarter of the steak to go; maybe another pound and a half. People at nearby tables began shaking their heads. He was a goner, you could tell.
But then he mopped his brow with his napkin and dug in again at nearly the same pace he’d started with, as if he had two stomachs, like a camel, and he’d just engaged the second. He didn’t panic. The large pieces of bloody beef just entered his mouth and disappeared. The last bite went in with ten seconds left on the clock, and by the time the buzzer went off, he’d balanced his knife and fork on the edge of the plate and pushed it away, brushing off his hands with the satisfied air of a man who’d just finished a laborious but not especially complex task. A cheer went up when the waiter confirmed that the big T-bone had indeed been finished within the allotted time, and thus the man’s dinner was on the house. When the applause died down, he looked over—we were still staring, I’m afraid—and said, “How do you do. I’m Clarence.”
It hadn’t occurred to either of us that a man who could eat a steak that big would be capable of speech. My mother was first to answer. “That’s some appetite you’ve got there, Clarence.”
He seemed willing to take this as a compliment, though he was not at all boastful. “I do this here about once
Our room opened onto the pool area, and when we’d crossed the hot cement and let ourselves in, I noticed, closing the door behind us, that the man was still watching us from across the patio.
The restaurant we went to that night was decorated with wagon wheels and leather saddles and harnesses. The waitresses and the cooks, who grilled steaks over an open-pit barbecue, all wore neckerchiefs and checked shirts that looked like they’d been made out of tablecloths. You could choose the size of your steak and how you wanted it cooked, but then you were through choosing. All the steaks came with baked potatoes and beans and garlicky toast.
A little sign on every table explained that the biggest of the steaks, a T-bone called the Monster, was free if you could eat it all. And this was what the huge man in the booth next to ours had ordered. It was brought to his table with a great flourish of bells, on a platter about the size of the one my mother used for the Thanksgiving turkey. About two inches thick, the steak barely fit. Having cavorted in the pool all afternoon, I was famished, unable to imagine a steak I couldn’t eat. Yet here it was. One look convinced me. The big man seemed undaunted, though, and when the waitress set a little clock on the table and set it for half an hour, the man wordlessly dug in, sawing methodically, until the platter was a pool of blood, eating as if there were no particular hurry. Considering his task, I thought he had excellent table manners.
“Don’t stare, sweetie,” my mother whispered, but everyone else was, and pretty soon she was staring too. Paying no attention, the man devoured half of his T-bone in the first ten minutes, took a sip of water, consulted the clock and slowed down.
At this juncture, a waitress brought my mother a cocktail she hadn’t ordered, then pointed across the room at the man who’d spoken to us that afternoon by the pool. He raised his glass in a silent toast, and my mother raised hers. “Hold up your Coke, sweetie,” she told me. “Be polite.”
I didn’t, though. He hadn’t bought me my Coke, and I didn’t feel like being friendly. Besides, I was suddenly sure he had followed us to the restaurant.
At the next table the big man was eating more slowly now, and the little clock seemed to be ticking away faster. He cut the steak into small pieces and chewed them thoughtfully, beads of sweat glistening on his forehead and upper lip. With only five minutes left on the clock, he still had about a quarter of the steak to go; maybe another pound and a half. People at nearby tables began shaking their heads. He was a goner, you could tell.
But then he mopped his brow with his napkin and dug in again at nearly the same pace he’d started with, as if he had two stomachs, like a camel, and he’d just engaged the second. He didn’t panic. The large pieces of bloody beef just entered his mouth and disappeared. The last bite went in with ten seconds left on the clock, and by the time the buzzer went off, he’d balanced his knife and fork on the edge of the plate and pushed it away, brushing off his hands with the satisfied air of a man who’d just finished a laborious but not especially complex task. A cheer went up when the waiter confirmed that the big T-bone had indeed been finished within the allotted time, and thus the man’s dinner was on the house. When the applause died down, he looked over—we were still staring, I’m afraid—and said, “How do you do. I’m Clarence.”
It hadn’t occurred to either of us that a man who could eat a steak that big would be capable of speech. My mother was first to answer. “That’s some appetite you’ve got there, Clarence.”
He seemed willing to take this as a compliment, though he was not at all boastful. “I do this here about once
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