Not long ago I spent an afternoon like a situational comedy unemployed father figure, sitting in the office amongst my miscellany and looking at things 
that traditionally only receive the occasional dusting or replacement on the shelf when bumped. I pulled out an old video camera I had purchased many-a-moon ago and with it, eleven two-hour tapes. The majority of these videos were shot by either me or someone in proximity – at the time a friend or handsy stranger, and while the footage wasn’t too terribly long ago (i.e. – eight or nine years, as opposed to “when I married your mother, fifty years ago”) the people on the little view-screen, your humble author included, look like foreign peoples from other places – the Matthew on these tapes always seemed to have something very strange resting on his crown, I think it might have been… hair.
The tapes are full of peoples whom I can barely remember, as I hardly knew them at the time of the filming. For some reason, however, we were together often – like this twenty-something cadre that relied on one another as a source of entertainment and companionship. Those big groups of frightening and loud young people you always see walking down the street in your direction, destined to do something loud and young right at you? I suppose this was our group. A phone call was all it took to gather a crowd, and gather crowds we did. As with most crowds for those of a geek-laden childhood as the royal we, intimate companionship was of limited choosing, and before our atom was complete the finer of the species were claimed. I feel like a song lyric of some sort is appropriate here, so I’ll let you pick your own. Might I recommend a selection from the compendium of REO Speedwagon? Okay, okay, pick your own.
I was far from the nucleus of such an organization, more so a traveling electron somewhere in the middle distance – with the distinctions of actually paying all of my own bills, and actually having to don a button-up and go to a full-time job every day wholly my own. In the whirligig of twenty one, twenty two, twenty three year old peoples, there was a husky gentleman named Geoff. Now, I know what you’re thinking – his name is “Jeff” – but, that’s not how it’s spelled. His name, is “Gee-off”, or, at least – that’s what I called him. So, for the purpose of this story, you will hear about a man named “Gee-off”. Large, you could say chunky, but not fat, with normal and semi-curly wafted brown hair over his brow – as well as a reddish beard that encompassed only his chin, and the two inches of space directly below it. He wore glasses, spoke as though he was destined for cartoon voiceovers (the big lovable oaf-protector of the forest creatures) and seemed entirely nonplussed about the stresses of life and living with empty pockets. Maybe he was high. I’ve learned over time that Geoff was rather unreliable as a roommate but was every bit the lovable humorist I came to barely know. I hadn’t met anyone in person named Geoff before, so when I asked him if his name was pronounced “Geoff” or “Jeff” – he simply looked at me and shrugged. Maybe he was high. Nevertheless, I then dubbed him “Geoffjeff” and for some reason it stuck. Of my limited super powers, I’ve always been able to introduce deprecating nicknames into groups of strangers that they then adopt as gospel. I’m not saying I’m proud of this, but it’s part of me you Smegmatuna. Ah, still got it.
…
There’s a little pub in downtown Lincoln, Nebraska sandwiched between a jewelry store and an I can’t remember store, and this pub is called “The Watering Hole.” An unimaginative name, yes, it’s not too dissimilar from most of the bars I’ve never frequented in downtown Lincoln, but at The Watering Hole there are two things I used to always love. One: You could actually go there without having to suffer the angry stare of a blueballed fraternity gentleman from the local university, looking for an old fashioned fist fight to cool off his roid rage from an inevitable lifetime of selling gym memberships. Two: The Watering Hole, as far as I know, makes the best buffalo wings on the entire planet. I’m talking three or four times a week delicious. Today, I believe you must order them grilled and either “extra crispy” or “Jamal style” – Jamal one of the famous cooks wearing a kerchief on his head and possibly sweating directly into the wing sauce – which let me be clear, doesn’t matter one bit, may his personal additives continue doing God’s work. The place was nasty, the ceiling tiles almost a perfect tobacco-smoke yellow, and even in our baby-twenties we knew enough to put on our “Watering Hole clothes” before going there, for as soon as you entered your clothes were immediately infused with the pub’s special brand of stink.
One of my tapes begins with Geoff, myself, and another gentleman driving to the bar. I lean over the passenger seat to face the camera to where Geoff is sitting with a hungry grin on his face, and I ask him to give me his “scary face”. He does. I then ask him to give me his “party trick face”, and he does as well. I feel I need to illustrate what I was referencing when I asked about the (now infamous) “party trick face” a whole seven seconds ago. At the house Geoff resided in with three other male renters, there were many a party, many a party that I was present at somewhere in the background, occasionally brandishing a small video camera that was outdated three days even before I bought it. At many a party was many a booze, and this booze chemically combined with young men would create from it’s thick miasma a single vapor – the Geoffjeff “party trick”. Performed only on special occasion, Geoff would announce to the crowd that it was time for the party trick, and all attention was to be brought to him. It was. Extending both hands outward as he backed into a corner of the room – he would bend his knees into a combination of a Chris Farley rant preparation, and a martial arts horse stance. Geoff began his bark.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I would like your attention. It is on rare occasion that I’m given such a privilege, and tonight is one of those nights. For you, I would like to display – the party trick.”
Geoff raises his right hand, balled into a fist, a foot above his head. “As you can see, I have made my right hand into a fist.”
Geoff straightens the four fingers on his left hand and moves them to his crotch, his balls now accentuated by the taught cloth over them, a result of the horse stance. He rubs gently in a circular motion. “And here, are my testicles. On the count of three I will punch myself in the testicles for your amusement, and its contact will be audible. Let us count together.”
Geoff counts. One. Two. Three. The crowd screams and winces. On three, he makes contact, though it seems as though he was holding back, a movie-style ball-punch if you will. Geoff knew this would happen however, and has prepared for it.
“Ladies and gentlemen you may have noticed that on my first attempt I hesitated, and this is natural, as it always occurs during the party trick as a result of my nerves. However, with my second attempt, contact is a guarantee.”
He doesn’t give the crowd time to think, he moves his fist slowly to his crotch twice, counting the one and two within a fraction of a second he yells “Three!” – punching himself right in the speed-bags. You can see and hear the contact, and almost immediately his entire face turns red, and Geoff crumples to the floor holding his crotch in agony. An evening of booze can only prepare you for this to a certain degree, and every man in the room can see, from experience in one way or another, that the strained look on his face is one hundred percent real. The last time I saw this trick performed was on my friend Allen’s twenty-first birthday, roughly seven years ago – where Geoff performed the trick three times in a row. I actually captured the entire event on video, and for those of you who are listening to this as opposed to reading, I’ll play an audio clip from that party for you now. It might seem a a little strange in the audio levels, and this was on purpose as the crowd got pretty loud in some points.
Here we go:
…
We arrived at the Watering Hole and immediately sat down wherever we pleased, as is custom, and as soon as the waitress approached and saw the camera she looked at me as if she knew her afternoon just became more stressful than she had originally anticipated. She was your stereotypical afternoon-bar-staff waitress, thin, blond, tall, her gray tank-top stained from delivering bar food, and probably in her early thirties but with eye-bags that betrayed that her last shift break was likely sometime during the Carter administration. Now, this is only seven or so years ago, but the differences are quite stark. For one, our cell phones on camera were enormous by today’s standards, and texting was something we did not even know how to do, let alone know if it existed. I was carrying a video camera, but there was no such thing as YouTube. Also, Geoff immediately lit a cigarette as soon as we sat down, something that had me wonder how long it was until the police would arrive. Yeah, you could smoke in bars way back in 2002, you know, back in ancient times – before second hand smoke gave you insta-cancer.
You may be wondering why we were video taping this particular trip to the bar, and possibly a more talented writer might have mentioned this three paragraphs ago. Well, daddy wouldn’t throw nice things if you didn’t ask so many questions. In the entrance to the Watering Hole, there’s a plaque with twelve or so little metal plates slotted for several names, like an employee of the month thing or what-have-you, but there’s only one name on one of the tiny name plates – and only one photo on the plaque. The photo had a name written on it, but I can’t recall what it was – something like “Big Tony” or “Eatums Macgus” or “Wayne-Tits-Bigguns the Wingery Machinery”. In the photo is a rather corpulent bibbed gentleman, open armed ala the last supper showing off the madness he had just partaken in, his table covered in nothing but the remnants of his slovenly eaten buffalo wings. Geoff had ridden with us to dethrone this man’s braggart gluttony.
The wing challenge wasn’t something that you just show up, six guns loaded, and announce that you can best, but that’s just what we did. Our waitress tried to explain that you have to plan ahead, the manger and someone from the local paper will come out and witness first hand, just to prove how much his boss hates him. This news was defeating, and so we placed our wing orders and lamented the lack of challenge this day would provide. But! Turn! Alas! While our wings were cooking on their ancient and likely poisonous grill, our waitress, possibly out of boredom, had been making phone calls. She summoned the bar’s owner, and came back to let us know that Geoff was going to be allowed to climb his mountain. Quickly, she ran over the rules with us:
1.) Geoff must be seated at a table a few feet from us.
2.) Geoff and our entire table will be watched carefully.
3.) If we so much as touch his plate, he’s out.
4.) He can take small breaks, but must eat them all in one sitting.
5.) Finally, to break the record, he needed to eat seventy three buffalo wings.
…
Running through these old tapes drummed up a range of emotions, some good, some bad, some simply uncomfortable. I talked with Allen about these times, and he agreed that it was simply a strange area in past life – that in the span of seven years we can go through our second-puberty, and become new people. It’s as if the friend-pan has been sifting for all these years, and here and there one or two of the group would fall out and move on to other things. Eventually everyone just lost touch, but there wasn’t much touch to begin with as I remember it. Geoffjeff’s wing challenge was a rare delight. An afternoon of simple fun watching a husky young man try to cram enough chicken into his body to get his photo taken. He didn’t come unprepared, let this be known – the man showed up with a hunger. Geoff loaded (or unloaded, however you see it) his shotgun and kicked the bar door in, his spurs clang as he steps forward and he issues a demand: “Who’s the fat chicken lover on the wall here? Who’s this greasy wing-munch that’s about to get run out of town?” He racks a round into the chamber. “His name dudes, someone utter speech ‘fore I riddle this place porous!”
Our party grew by three with a quick phone call, and the surrounding tables in the bar began to turn heads our direction with quizzical looks, prairie dogs popping up their little heads with a squeak – suspicious that a child somewhere has dropped a candy wrapper. Geoff applied his napkin to his shirt, and moments later the waitress appeared on camera with his first plate of eighteen grilled buffalo wings. Water to his left, extra napkins to his right, wings at his center. The camera is positioned at the far end of the booth we were all sitting in so its aim was directly at the table a few feet away where Geoff began his rite of passage. With a deep breath, he began.
The first few wings were nearly an afterthought. The majority of the footage on the tape was of Geoff sitting, eating, occasionally sipping from his water glass, and watching a television lofted in a corner of the bar. When reviewing this old footage, I kept my hand on the little fast forward button, only lifting it when I saw Geoff turn to the camera to answer a question or make a statement. After his first nine wings, we requested a status report. Geoff shrugged toward the camera as though this question was an insult – “I’m only half-a-plate in,” (which is about nine wings) – “this is nothing.” More fast forwarding. The fast-forward button on this old camera doesn’t go very fast, it only condenses about four seconds into the space of one, so I’ve become intimately familiar with how Geoffjeff chews and de-meats a chicken bone, more than I’d ever thought I’d know about the man.
The footage in fast-forward pans out thus: Geoff continues to eat without regard for his body, and occasionally he’ll glance over at our table to laugh – but he’s largely focused on the television near him, and the task at hand. The plate in front of him heaped with little grilled foods becomes less and less of a mountain, while the one with pale bones directly in front grows. A waitress will appear briefly in the shot from the neck down, refreshing his water, and replacing his plates with fresh ones – wings, and a tray for bones. The manager who was called into work sits behind the bar and eyes our table and Geoff’s like a mother hawk, careful to ensure we won’t be cheating – even though we were long ago full from our own plates of wings, us completely full, a stage Geoff might simply refer to as “a warm up”. Wings are chewed, chewed, and chewed, fast, fast, fast. Another plate down, another plate replaced. The waitress from the neck-down can be seen encouraging Geoff using a maneuver he taught her an hour before – the “settle to the bottom” – a technique Geoff claimed would compress existing food mid-digestion and free up space for more. The technique: You place your palms down, thumbs near the top of the rib cage. Next, you shimmy your abdomen side-to-side, as your palms slide down to the waist in a shimmy – all while saying, “A-settle-to-tha-bottom. A-settle-to-tha-bottom.”
The camera pans over the back of our booth – our waitress engaged in a demonstration to two other tables across the bar where the crowd has become curious as to what’s going on. Her hand gestures are wild and there is much pointing in his direction – but Geoff sees none of this, he is a focused machine, his mighty switch has only two positions – “off” and “consume”. I hold down the fast-forward button. Slowly, as the minutes pass, the happy look on Geoff’s face turns somber. His face becomes more red, his sweating increases, and the pace at which he’s eating slows. He starts to look over each wing carefully now before tearing it apart in his maw. He needs a break. “What number Geoffjeff?” someone off camera asks. Geoff sighs deeply, puts his hands on the table, and looks to the camera. “That was number forty seven.” Another person asks how he’s doing, and he simply says he needs to pause. The game looks grim, I fast forward through at least five full minutes of Geoff breathing heavily, patting his brow with a napkin, and looking with dismay at his remaining wings. Our waitress returns, concerned. She places another plate of wings in front of the contender, and then a tiny plate at the end of his table. On it she places one buffalo wing. “The seventy-third.” she says. Geoff rolls up his sleeves, belches, and returns to work.
I continue the fast forward. These last wings are are a chore, and the burden of such undertaking shows strained on Geoff’s face. He is more red, sweaty, and exhausted than before – but the wings arrive near his mouth and only leave when they’ve been dutifully murdered, stripped of all edible material and deposited with their kindred in the mass grave Geoff forms in a paper tray.
Suddenly, he stops.
Geoff looks forward, then purses his lips and heaves forward. His cheeks are about to fill, but he manages to hold the enormous vomit back. He sighs. Another heave, this one was too close. Geoff looks to the camera, as ashamed as I’ve ever seen him. Geoff sighs deeply and we all remain silent to hear word from our champion. Geoff utters one word, and one word only…
“Can’t.”
Our silence remains as he calmly stands up, and heads to the bathroom in the back. As this was pre-YouTube, it hadn’t really occurred to anyone to follow him back there to capture on film whatever gruesome event he was about to unfurl in-or-at the dirty pub toilet. Whomever was filming stands up, and runs to the end of the bar. Geoff appears from the long hallway where the bathroom is located, and approaches the camera. Our waitress is on the phone, her notepad placed over her other ear in order to confirm with the manager, who’d trusted us enough to leave earlier, that if the wings leave your body from the same door they came in – the contest was over. She’s talking on the phone while looking at us and laughing – asking the group if Geoff went back there to vomit or simply use the mirror to strengthen his resolve. The camera turns to Geoff, who’s standing now and looking far more relieved. Someone asks if he’s “purged”. He confirms this, and utters his first statement since the declaration of failure.
“Ah, man. It was like I pooped out my mouth. It was all solid. It was disgusting.”
Our waitress places the phone down, looks to the group who’s gathered near the back of the bar, and waves her hands across in the air, “Eliminated,” she says, “he’s done.” The camera returns to our group, and they’re all informed that the challenge is over, Geoff has failed. On recount, he had eaten fifty-eight wings, fifteen away from victory. Had he beaten the wing-eating record, all of his wings would’ve been free, instead the camera pans to our group pulling together the few dollars we had between us to pay for the entirety of the ticket. The remaining wings on his plate, the failure wings, were bagged up, and we quickly left the pub in an aura of group-shame. All of our braggadocio and righteous attitude was put back in it’s high-chair, and the camera pans one last time to the door where Geoff is walking out with his remaining wings in a to-go box, the failure ones. Before leaving entirely, he looks to the wall with the photo of the still-champion, performs a respectful Namaste, and leaves.
…
Reports conflict and there was much argument on what would’ve prepared Geoff better for victory. Some say that he should’ve eaten more in the previous days to stretch his stomach. Some say that drinking water only in an attempt to leave himself hungry but keep his stomach stretched was the problem. I’m sure the cigarette he had before the challenge didn’t help. Granted, he only ever puffed on cigarettes as opposed to inhaling, a very “twenty-something look at me be cool” thing to do, but there was certainly still nicotine absorption, and that aids in curbing or repressing pains and urges related to hunger. World champion eater Takeru Kobayashi sometimes starves himself for days before a competition. With a modicum of training, Geoff could’ve, and likely still could dethrone the local wing hero, but fifty eight wings isn’t anything to sneeze at, were you in the mood to, you know, sneeze at wings. With a little more preparation, it is the opinion of your humble author that Geoffjeff could still be the record setting eater of buffalo wings in a dirty bar in downtown Lincoln, Nebraska – where the ceiling tiles are yellow, and the stench of the place climbs into your pores. He could be the next hero, the next wing-slinger, the next and maybe last man to ever give a greasy thumbs up to a polaroid camera in front of seventy or so chicken bones at the Watering Hole.