A Feast of Friends

Chunk was walking along the shore with his head down, looking for lost things that he might be able to sell. But he wasn’t having any luck. Chunk found a cracked tin cup, a busted flip flop, and a waterlogged fashion magazine. The page was open to an advertisement for Miami Beach. It pictured a girl standing on a coastline with sand like sugar, and sapphire blue water. He was staring at the page when Zippy came along. 

“Hey, Chunk. How’s it going?”

“Terrible. I haven’t had a job in weeks and nobody will give me any food.”

“Don’t worry,” said Zippy. “I know where we can get some free hot dogs.”

“Let’s go!” 

So Chunk followed Zippy through the woods to Monsanto Farms. The fields were surrounded by tall, chain link fence topped with barb wire. Atop one post was a camera. On the other side of the fence, the rows of hot dog trees stretched out long, lush and green beneath the blue sky. 

They walked for some time. The sun was hot, and there was no shade.

“How much farther is it?” said Chunk. 

“Quit ‘yer bellyaching,” said Zippy. “It’s just up yonder.”

Before long, they came to a hole in the fence and crawled through. 

“Alright, let’s start digging,” said Zippy.

“Digging?” said Chunk. “I thought we came here to eat.” 

“I ain’t risking my neck for a few lousy hot dogs! Now, come on. Pick a tree and start digging before the guards arrive.”

“Guards?” said Chunk. 

“Yeah!” said Zippy. “You do not want to be here when they show up.” 

The boys each picked a hot dog tree and started digging. In the distance, a siren began to wail.

“Here they come!” said Zippy, dragging his hot dog tree over to the fence with his dirty hands. "Hurry!"

Chunk began to yank at his hot dog tree in a panic. When it ripped from the ground, Chunk tumbled backwards onto the dirt. “I hate this!” he shouted, then scrambled to his feet and dragged his hot dog tree towards the hole in the fence. 

The boys slipped into the woods before the guards arrived, carrying the hot dog trees over their shoulders. 

“You know...which way...?” said Chunk.

“Sure,” said Zippy. “I know these woods like the back of my hand. Come on!” 

Chunk followed Zippy down a narrow path through a dense section of forest. Behind them, Chunk heard a popping sound over the rustling leaves of the hot dog tree. 

“Holy crap,” said Chunk. “They’re shooting at us!”

“Hurry up!” said Zippy, picking up speed. “It’s just around the bend.” Soon the gunfire subsided. 

If Chunk thought he was hungry before, now he was plum famished. “I can’t take another step.”

“This here’s good enough,” said Zippy. 

“Let’s eat,” said Chunk, inspecting the tiny hot dogs on the tree he risked his life to steal. 

“Naw, naw,” said Zippy. “You can’t eat ‘em dum-dum. They ain’t ripe yet.”

“But you said…free hot dogs…those men…shot at us…” Chunk was so hungry and exasperated he couldn’t even talk. 

“We gotta hide the trees and come back later when they’re full grown,” said Zippy. 

“I’m going to kill you,” said Chunk. 

“Come on,” said Zippy, and then he climbed a tree and planted his hot dog tree on a branch. “These things are genetically modified to survive in any environment.”

Chunk couldn’t climb. He was so famished he could barely stand up, so he dug a hole where he sat and planted his hot dog tree. As he dug he daydreamed about beach buffets, immaculate white sand beaches, and blue water.  

As they walked through the woods, Zippy was talking out loud about what he would do with his crop of hot dogs. “I’m gonna make me a sign, paint a big ‘ol hot dog with ketchup and mustard, and I’m gonna sell ‘em on the roadside for a quarter apiece. What about you Chunk? What’re you gonna do with your hot dogs?”  

“I’m going to sit down on the shore and eat every last one of them.”

“All of them? Shoot, I guess you really are hungry!”

A week later Zippy and Chunk went back to check on their trees. Zippy’s tree was dead, but Chunk’s tree was as tall as a house, with thick branches full of plump, savory hot dogs.

“I’ll climb up and collect the hot dogs,” Zippy said, and he shimmied up the tree, leaving Chunk alone on the ground. 

“Throw me down a couple,” Chunk said. But, what with all the walking and climbing, Zippy realized that he was very hungry and began to eat. “What are you doing up there?” 

Before he knew it, Zippy had eaten all of the plump hot dogs himself. 

Feeling full and content, Zippy stretched out on a branch and took a nap. Chunk was so hungry and angry—hangry!—he decided to teach Zippy a lesson. So he gathered some sharp sticks, and stuck them into the ground beneath the tree. Then he shouted: “Hey, Zippy! The cops are coming! 5-O! 5-O! Let’s get out of here!” 

Zippy was so startled that he fell from the tree onto the sharp sticks and was killed. Then Chunk cut Zippy into pieces, salted them, and dried them in the sun. The next day he made a sign and walked up and down the beach. He sold his jerky to a group of kids who were friends of Zippy, and made a good profit. 

As he was leaving the beach, Chunk called out, “Stupid punks! You just ate your friend, Zippy! How’s he taste?”

Chunk tried to run, but Zippy’s friends caught him and dragged him to a nearby shack. 

“Let’s cut off his arms and legs with this saw,” said one of them.

Chunk laughed and said, “That’s a great idea! I’ve tried so many ways to lose weight, you’d be doing me a favor.” 

Then one of them said, “Let’s throw him into the ocean.”

Chunk couldn’t swim, so he cried and begged them to let him go, but the gang carried him to the end of the pier. One of them said, “Guess where you’re going, fat boy.” Thirty feet below, the dark green water churned. Chunk couldn’t see the bottom, just fish and candy wrappers and dead jellyfish bobbing in the rolling waves. 

“If you let me go, I’ll give you a hot dog tree,” said Chunk. 

“Hot dogs?” said a boy. “You know what they put in those things?”

And with that, the gang threw Chunk over the side of the fishing pier. Ker-Plunk! Chunk made a huge splash before sinking to the bottom of the ocean. The gang was lined up, peering down from the railing, seeing only foamy yellow bubbles, and then none. 

They figured he was dead, and were about to leave, but then someone said, “Hey, look!” Below, a large, white object began to emerge from the green water. It was Chunk. But that wasn’t all—as his body rose to the surface, they could see that he was straddled on the back of a dolphin. 

“Whoa!” 

Zippy’s friends were surprised and delighted by this, and begged Chunk to teach them how to speak to dolphins. 

Chunk called out, “I told him that I was a lost manatee!" and as he was riding away, "See ‘ya later, losers!” The dolphin carried Chunk far away, all the way down to Miami Beach, where he would go on to live a long and fruitful life.