RADICAL JO
It was the first warm day of spring in the first warm year of this wild century.
Hey, if you know me you know the AUDIO is where it’s at.
This is my submission to SUM FLUX’s Waffle House prompt. I’d like to take this chance to thank Sandolore Sykes for giving me so many opportunities to stretch myself. Last round I wrote one of the most intelligent things I’ve ever put to paper. This one… Well…
It’s Wednesday, July 25, and I’m recording with my uncle Mel for my sophomore year family history project.
Hey. I’m Mel.
Not yet—wait until I signal you.
Oops.
And I wanted to record with Mel because he’s pretty quiet. My mom’s a bigger talker but he kind of keeps to himself, so I thought this would be a good way to get to know him more.
That’s…well, thanks, Sophie. I’m touched.
So, Mel. Um, the worksheet says you need to state your name and then—let’s just jump into a question, and I chose question number six. What’s the best day you can remember?
Um. Okay. I’m Mel Green, I’m forty-six and the best day I can remember…
...It was the first warm day of spring in the first warm year of this wild century. I was twenty, full of life, built like a Middle-American Jean Claude Van Damme with a faux-hawk sharp enough to cut a g-string. The wide legs of my jenkos swished about my thick legs like the skirts of a sultan and the screenprinted faces of Cartman and Kenny bulged on the pectorals of a body built by sweat, hard work, and hapkido. I was young. I was the hottest shit in Northern Kentucky.
Uncle Mel! You can’t say—
Shhh…I’m in the drift. Me and Cleveland and Other-Cleveland had just got done ripping donuts in the parking lot of a Blockbuster Video and decided it was time for some well-deserved late night Kickin’ Pancakes at the Waffle House. Back then Waffle House was trying to compete with I-Hop and they made a significant blunder with their core audience, aiming their marketing at the skateboard and Ninja Turtles crowd. For six months everything on the menu had prefixes like tubular, or heckin’. My favorite were the bitchin’ sausages. It was heaven.
Other-Cleveland’s older sister, Savannah, was the assistant manager, so we always got the back booth and all the Radical Joe—which was what they had to call coffee—we could drink. We walked in like the kings that we were, faux-hawks glistening, wallet chains rattling, strutting like Limp Bizkit on Warped Tour. We owned that Waffle House. We owned that stretch of Northern Kentucky. We were not ready for the metric ton of hurt that lay ahead.
I knew something was wrong the moment we crossed from the parking lot—lit a thick orange by the overhead floods, a world of asphalt and dust-choked amber air—into the timeless day-glow of our Waffle House away from home. The smell was wrong, the noise was wrong; there was another wolfpack in our den. Karate boys!
“Well well, fuckin’— ”
Uncle Mel!
I am in the drift, girl! “Well well, fuckin’ well. If it ain’t Milquetoast Mel and the double Clevelands.” This was Ross Crust Jr., assistant karate instructor at Upper Crust Karate of Northern Kentucky. A genuine terror and a grade-A bitch. The drift Sophie! Don’t stop me.
“This is our turf, Crust, and you’re in our back booth, drinkin’ our Radical Joe.”
I have always been a man of few words, so I said no more, but Crust, he was a talker. “Yeah, well it’s a free country, Milky, and I’m sorry, but your little hook-up went bye-bye. My daddy bought this Waffle House. You might not know, but Ross Crust Sr. is more than just the Karate King of northern Kentucky. He’s snapping up Waffle Houses like they’re trophies for most boards broken at once, highest boards broken at once, fastest board break, most expensive board break. So how ‘bout you turn around and hopkido yourself out of here?”
Well I have never before been so angry, and Sophie, let me tell you girl, when Uncle Mel is angry, Uncle Mel’s gotta spin kick. I planted my left foot and spun like the turbo charger in an American muscle car, and WHAM! A power shot right into the rips. Crust flew, his own faux-hawk slicing through a fully loaded pot of Radical Joe.
“Mel!” he bellowed. “You’re French-toast-fucked!”
“Wait!” From another booth in the back stood four men, all silent save the one who’d spoken, all with shaved heads, all in umber robes. The Greater Cincinnati Shaolin Club. Their elder, Shifu Dustin, approached the two of us and cupped his fist.
“We, the warriors from north of the river have long wanted to try our skills against Covington Hapkido and the style of the great Ross Crust. What do you say we make this interesting?”
Just then, five men ran from the parking lot, “Fort Thomas Boxers are in!”
“And Woodlawn Tai Kwon Do!” yelled a woman counting receipts.
Two tired-looking salesmen in a booth stood and cried, “South Gate Kick Boxing, ready for action!”
The whole dang waffle house was filled with warriors lusting for the trial of battle. Our blood was up, our gusts were filled with maple, or veins pumping hot, hot Radical Joe…which soon ran cold. A shadow loomed from the back of the kitchen, apron still on over brawn and fat. All sound seemed absorbed by the fluffy pancakes on the plate in his hands, all was silent save the whisper carried on the breeze of the reticulating fans:
“The Backwoods Bone Breaker. The Hillbilly Man-Hurter. Piggy Ignatius.”
“I! CRAVE! BLOOOOOD!”
WAFFLE COMBAT!!!
Don’t yell Uncle Mel, you’re peaking out the—
I’m in the drift! On the back of a kids’ menu this guy, Seth Goldfarb, who kept score for all the high school basketball games even though he was twenty-two, made a bracket. Sixteen fighters in all, every style from the Northern Kentucky, Great Cincinnati area—except for Jeet Kune Do Brian, but that was fine because he lived all the way up in Maison and he also had kids now and couldn’t do dumb shit like a last minute no holds barred martial arts tournament in a twenty-four hour breakfast restaurant on a Tuesday, which was fine, I mean we missed him a lot, and still do, honestly, all these years later, but it was fine. I still call him sometimes, you know, just to check in and see if he’s doing okay, but he’s just not the same after Leanne took the girls and the Mustang and moved to Grand Rapids. I can’t blame him, you know… for wanting his space. I would too, after something like that, you know, it’s just, we all miss him. Brian, if you’re listenin’—
This is for my school project.
Okay, but if you are, Brian, it’s fine. We all miss you, man.
Okay...
WAFFLE COMBAT!!!
Ten minutes later the center of that Waffle House was cleared out. Jeanine Rubio, the woman from Drive Time With Jeanine, was our announcer and she took the ring, bellowing out in that voice that kept the tri-state moving from 1993 to 2006 and again briefly in 2014 when she ran for senate:
“Who’s ready to see plates smash, bodies crash, and blood flow like it’s Radical Joe! Who’s ready for Waffle Cooooooooooombaaaaaaaaat!?!”
The cry that rose up in that Waffle House must have shook the doors of Valhalla wide and woke the gods of war, for the spirit moved upon us, the spirit of battle.
First up that night, Kevin the Cleaner Kline from Fort Thomas boxing vs. Jet Li Sanchez, who was neither Chinese nor Latin, but a Black man stuck with that unfortunate moniker because of his acrobatic kicks and thick mustache.
“I want a clean fight,” said Jeanine. “No eye gouges. No toe stomps. Everything else—fair game. Fight!”
In that first round there were eight fights, each a show of blood, sweat, and sausage. Bones broke, bodies hit the floor, Beth Conners-Feldstein got snap kicked so hard she died. The EMT’s brought her back and she swore she saw God. Piggy Ignatius gut-punched Shifu Dustin with such force his kneecaps broke. When Chris McGraff tried to blind me with powdered cinnamon I shoved the shaker down his throat. His coughs taste like Applejacks to this day.
Pretty soon, the first round was over and they pulled us into our own booths to sweep the floor of shattered plates and blood. Me and Cleveland had made it to the second round. Other-Cleveland was disqualified because he toe-stomped, so he became our corner man, wiping us down with paper towels and cleaning our cuts with lemon tea.
“Mel, you’re up against one of the South Gate Boxers and they won’t know what to do with your dragon sweeps. Cleveland, you’re fighting Crust.”
“I’ll take the guy down!” he yelled, but he didn’t say ‘guy’. He said another word that, all these years later and wiser, I wish he hadn’t. He used to say it a lot, that word. This was before he came out of the closet and looking back I think it was a cry for help, maybe?
We shook hands, comrades, brothers, and left each other to our own fights. Out on that fateful linoleum I dragon-swept that boxer again and again until he fell onto a ten-stack of pancakes and passed out. It was nothing to me. I was a king. Raising my arm in victory, I nearly choked. Sprawled in a booth, Cleveland lay bleeding, egg and blood dripping through his hair.
“The fuck did you do, Curst!?” I shoved his chest, leaving a sticky hand print. Never will I forget the look on his face, for I have worn it myself more times that I care to admit; the look of guilt and horror at the evil one’s own hands have wrought. I was too worked up to see his pain and his fear. I made to fight him then and there, but Jeanine Rubio got in our way. “Save it for the linoleum, boys! We have rules!”
When the EMT’s woke Cleveland he couldn’t remember anything since Warped Tour ‘99. I was furious. I ordered revenge off the midnight menu, but I was served patience instead.
My semi-final fight would not be with Curst but Jet Li Sanchez and for the first time all evening, I felt fear. My dragon-sweeps would not work on this man, for whom the air was solid ground. Yes, Sophie, I felt fear. Here was a worthy challenger, and if I were to lose, I would lose my chance for vengeance.
We locked eyes. We bowed.
Fight!
The man shot at me like a bolt, in a blink at head height, heel-whipping round to spend its heavy momentum into my skull, striking nothing but the tips of my faux-hawk. As he fell I struck for his neck, but he just kept falling, passing under my blow to drop to his knees and strike for my junk. It was an underhanded move, but was not an eye-gouge or a toe stomp, so strictly it was legal. He drove his fist into the meat of my nards with a totalizing finality. At the end of his fist, pain became a thing with weight and agenda, crawling into the whole of me. I doubled over. He stood, prepared to deliver the coup de grace, but prepared too long.
As I say, my pain became a thing with agenda and that agenda was domination. It slammed my skull into his nose, threw him by the shoulders onto a table, and as he fell, it made me grab a full Minute Maid carton and bring it down upon his face once, twice, five times until it filled his mouth, his lungs, and sent him coughing to the floor, defeated.
I had won the fight, but it was not victory I felt, only hunger. No, not hunger for waffles, but hunger for Crust’s life. Then—
Uncle Mel, time’s up.
But…but Sophie, the drift?
This is Sophie Green, thank you for listening.
"I am in the drift, girl!" is the line of the week and I won't hear otherwise. The interview format is doing so much. Sophie trying to keep it on the worksheet while Mel is already deep in the Waffle House mythology. "Built like a Middle-American Jean Claude Van Damme with a faux-hawk sharp enough to cut a g-string" is absurd and precise in exactly the right proportions. You keep switching registers on me, Alex. Every time I think I know what you do, you do something else. Really fun read.
This is a movie