Hot Dog Contentment

A Mike Anvil Story: Hot Dog Contentment © 2010 Frankie Chocolate

When the heydays ran, they roared. Everybody made money back then. Everybody.

You couldn’t swing a dead cat in a crowded room without hitting some who had stock investments, apartments for rent or money to burn. Even the bums lit their cigars with $20.00 bills. Mike Anvil was no different. He had two condos, each rented for a year in advance. He had three carpet cleaning trucks and nine technicians and office support staff at his beck and call. He washed his steps in butter and the rocks poured out five-dollar bills when he walked by. Life was good and only getting better.

Don’t get me wrong, Anvil wasn’t a jerk about his cash either. He helped the poor, gave to charity and righted wrongs when he saw them. Karen Conover, when her husband went and got sick and ended up going blind, Mikey duked her on the side to the tune of $1,500.00 clams and that on the q.t. “When you duke somebody don’t do it for brags, don’t let your right hand know what your left hand is doing,” his Grandpa Anvil had told him. Gramps was a duker too.

So things were going along swimmingly. Anvil honored God and man with his cash and the future was so bright he had to wear shades. This would be a good place to end the story. On a high note but where’s the payoff in that?

The superheated housing market caught fire like a hydrogen filled zeppelin. Somewhere, somebody lost faith and called a note in. “What if things don’t get better tomorrow?” he asked his fellow bankers. They all looked at him like he was from Mars. “How could things not get better? We’re gonna make more money tomorrow than we did today, and today we made bags full. What are you goofy? This is ‘Merica dude, get your head on straight.” It was sorta like it was our manifest destiny to glom up all the ducats.

Someone else got nervous and called in their notes, then another and another. One too many rip offs and scandals and pension fund lootings happened then. People started worrying was this a trend and it became a trend. Consumer confidence eroded

Inside Anvil there were two men. The man who sought God and the natural man. Totally depraved and rotten to the core, hating the things of God, but other than that not too bad. Maybe just like you? All this doing without was like being in a furnace. The dross was burning up and a better man would come forth from the flames. It’s just that the natural man thought he was pretty much perfect and didn’t really care for the weenie roast where he was both the guest of honor and the main course.

Anvil thought about the Richard Armor poem his Sunday School teacher had taught him years ago when he was a young pup. The only one he’d ever memorized in his life. “That money talks, I'll not deny, I heard it once: It said, 'Goodbye'. He smiled at that one. Money sure had said goodbye.

On occasion God would bring to mind that it wasn’t just a global financial meltdown he was caught up in like a fish in a net, but the big guy was behind the scenes. “Bring it on God,” said spiritual Mike. In the midst of his funk, his pal Richie’s wife Sandriff told him, “Michael, never forget, you’re being refined like gold.”

Oh yeah, that’s what’s going on. It’s not a strange thing that’s come upon me. It’ s God working in me to will and to do his good pleasure. This crap I’m going through will refine me and make me more like him. But in his heart, and sometime out loud he said maybe he was refined enough and sure could go for a thick rib eye and some cash.

On any given day Anvil might have traded all his faith for a small bag of cash and a Portillo’s beef combo. It had been a long time since he had one of them. Probably wouldn’t have one again for a long time. He fell to daydreaming about one of them. So juicy, sooo good with sweet peppers, dipped in sauce, with melted mozzarella, fries and a diet coke. Maybe a slice of their killer chocolate cake as a capper. Ahh, those were the day.

Days of chocolate cake and steak dinners at Wildfire Café were like a fable or a half forgotten dream to Anvil. Did he really dine on crab stuffed mushrooms as an appetizer? His favorite restaurant, the four seasons, a Tapas bar in Wheaton had closed years ago. He thought it was a second hand store or vacant and empty now, he wasn’t sure.

So there was Anvil as low as he could go. The trucks were all gone. Sold for rent and groceries. He only had his portable now but it was okay because the phone, when he could turn pay his past due and it was turned on only rang every two weeks. Someone wanted some more free spotter or maybe their cat threw up and could he come out and clean just that spot, oh and could he hold the check till next week cuz the guy’s wife got paid as a dental assistance then. Yeah, he could do that.

Job sat in a pile of ashes, scraped his body with a piece of broken pot and cursed his day.

Anvil sat on his wooden chair before his old Mac and cursed himself. Why was he such a fool? Why had he pissed all that money away? He never regretted the charity stuff. That giving still made him feel good, poor as he was. He’d never regret that. But he thought about his lavish life style, sushi twice a week, buying comic books, and all the other crap that used to seem so important but now somehow didn’t mean anything at all. Not nearly as much as paying off one of his bills or a $50.00 bill would mean.

When things got too heavy God would send an angel down to lift his spirits. For Christmas Mona, his girl gave him an unusual gift. Four bucks in two piles. “Go to Costco and buy your self a hot dog Mikey,” she told him. Then she gave him a peck on the cheek and went off to work as a greeter at Wayne’s Mart.

Mike had never been to Costco. It was huge and always busy but he’d only driven by. He walked up to the out door and the receipt checker stopped him. He couldn’t come in without a membership card. Anvil didn’t have a stinkin membership card. Turning to walk away he said under his breath, “I just wanted a hot dog.”

“Hey, big guy, co’mer.” Why didn’t you say so? The hot dogs are over there.

“Thanks man.”

They were the biggest hotdogs in the world. Each one shoulda had its own zip code. The bun was as long as a football field, the hot dog stuck out either end at least a mile. Well, a half a mile for sure. He saw someone pick up a small clear-capped container when they grabbed their dog but couldn’t make out what was in it.

“What was in that little tub that guy picked up?” he asked the counter guy.

“Sauerkraut.”

“Perfect. Give me a dog with kraut.”

“One dog coming up,” said James, his name was James. “How would you like that dog done sir?” he asked with a decent fake British accent.

“Anvil brighten, “medium rare my good man.”

“I just put this batch in there a few minutes ago so some of them should be half frozen. That should be about medium rare.”

“Excellent. And would you decant a bottle of your best Diet Coke as well?” said Anvil.

“It’s decant yourself,” said James. He handed him a waxed cup and pointed to the soda machine.

Mike Anvil, former ruler of the world sat at a little white fixed table and doctored his hot dog. He strung out the sauerkraut across its dark red surface with his fingers then wiped them with a napkin. He found a chopped onion dispense, abandoned all caution and went in heavy. U2 had told him if he went in heavy he wouldn’t get hurt so he cranked on the handle till the dog was piled high with lovely snow white chopped onions.

Then he sat down and began to work it over. It was good. It was better than good. Most places use dog meat or something when they mass-sell hot dogs or pizza. Costco must have used champion dog meat cuz this dog was the best, it was the bomb. As he waded into it a black woman sat down at the table next to him and delicately began eating her slice of pizza. She looked at him and smiled. He smiled back.

“My name’s Deloris.”

“Mike.”

“How you doing today Mike?”

“I got no work. I lost my condos, I got no money. All’s I got is this hotdog.”

“Where’d you get that kraut?” she asked him?

“At the counter. You gotta ask for it,”

“How is it?” she asked him.

“This is the damn best hotdog I’ve ever had. This is the best hot dog in the world.

“That good?”

“Better than good. It’s great. Then he remembered Mona had given him four dollars. He’d buy a second one when he was done with this one. Mike Anvil, former carpet cleaner extraordinaire, former ruler of the world was half way through his first hotdog and he was happy. The end.