Revisions

Here are the changes I would have made, or at least considered, for the piece I posted on January 22nd. I'd love to see YOUR suggestions or edits in the comments! Turnabout is fair play...

Beef and pork. Forget chicken. What you want here is fat, spicy links and tender ribs. Truly barbecued. In a brick oven. A deep, almost gruesome one, very hot and smelling of charred flesh. (I am torn about this sentence. I like it, and I wanted to convey a bit of horror, but now I think that the evocation of genocide it might imply, is too much and tone deaf. Still, I think I’d leave it.)Better if a very large man with no shirt is tending the fire and serving the orders. He will ask you how hot you want your sauce to be, and grin knowingly when you order the very hottest. Do not hesitate. You want the most fierce they’ve got, the kind that your lips and tongue will remember for hours. (I was thinking of two women doing this when I wrote it, but since I never developed that, I’d take this out.), the kind the men pride themselves on eating. Order a combination plate, too much meat, for even, for such a massive man. (Too many ‘man’/’men’, still, even with these revisions. large man as him. Hope that he reaches into the furthest recess and pulls out portions that have cooked roasted for a long, hot, smokey time. He will ladle dark mahogany black red sauce onto the paper plate and silently give you an extra slice or two of white bread. He believes he is being kind. Don’t bother to eat it. Take all the fixings. Slaw, not macaroni. And a slice of sweet potato pie, which you will take home with you afterwards and also never eat.

Company is important. Take along a friend who likes to eat. Who loves to eat. Not someone fastidious or delicate, save those people for crepes. (This last bit about the crepes might be too snarky.)You want company that understands the ravenous Paleolithic (This was written years before the Paleo Diet craze, and I don’t want that association.) urge, hedonism riding the edge of gluttony. Also someone who drinks. Stop to purchase a crowler pint or two (Two sentences from now, there is only one bottle.)of dark ale, the kind that tastes like the blood you suck when you rip your cuticle. The kind best served warm. One of you, the driver, (Safety first! ) will cradle it between your thighs on the way. The passenger other must hold the dangerously stacked plates in their lap. Take turns a little too quickly. Let some of the sauce seep through the brown paper bag. Never mind the napkins.

There should be a deserted wharf, or a ramshackle pier. One with large post posts (Just a typo.)grown fuzzy and gray, faintly reeking of dead marine life and urine. One where old men fish for nothing but time. A windy day is most suitable. You want the soft lapping of whitecaps, your hair ruffled, your voice carried off some distance. Walk far enough out that your car looks small. Far enough out to leave teenagers and anglers behind. Find a bit of wharf somewhat free of seagull droppings, where both of you can lean against the pilings and speak out over the waves.

Disregard the plastic forks, they are for amateurs. Lick sauce from your fingers as you take out the soggy, dripping plates. Hold them folded on your lap, balanced in one hand. Feast like a viking with the other. Let the heat of it make your eyes stream tears and burn your lips. Wipe them with the back of a fist. This is as close as it gets. (Most likely this line was only for that person I was thinking of when I wrote it.)