My Appetite

Abstract

My Appetite Michael Southard (bio) When I was 22, I got deeply into burgers. I couldn’t tell you why. I just know that I fell in love with the classic American hamburger. I tried every variety, I went to a hundred restaurants, I spent more money than I should’ve. Do I regret it? Absolutely not. Was it always easy? That’s harder to say. This word gets used a lot, and often pretty carelessly, but when I say it was a passion, I really do mean it was a passion. Some people get into sports, some people get into drugs, some people get into poetry and are never heard from again. But for me, for a while there, it was burgers and nothing else. For example: I once drove from DC to Atlantic City in the pelting rain just to get a burger. I’d been told of a place on the Boardwalk called Rico’s where the patties were unbeatable: flavorful, charred, a little tender, not too big. So, on a Friday afternoon, just as soon as work was over or maybe not even completely over, I got on 95 and headed north. I sped the entire way and arrived before sunset, I parked in the lot of a Trump hotel and lied to the valet about being a customer, and with my jacket raised high like a tent over my head, I bolted. I’d thought that given the rain the Boardwalk would be deserted, but it was filled with school groups and tourists. The waves were crashing on the beach and everyone was saying cheese. For a while I walked around in circles, trying to find the place and also to get my bearings, because I had never been to Atlantic City before, nor had I been to New Jersey. It all seemed pretty interesting. But then I found Rico’s. There was a long line out the door, and everyone standing in it had an umbrella except for me. I felt like an idiot. I said it out loud. I feel like an idiot. There are few words more endearing, more communicable across languages, than “I feel like an idiot.” Immediately the person in front of me included me under her umbrella. The person three spots up even offered me their parka. So kind of you, I said. But thank you, I’m fine, it’s what I get for craving a burger. It’s worth it, someone said. The fucking best, someone else said. I hope so, I said. [End Page 176] We all hoped so. If we hadn’t all driven three-and-a-half hours to get there—though who’s to say?—we were nevertheless all of us standing outside in the rain, killing time on an otherwise empty Friday evening, waiting for a hunk of meat and bread worth three times as much as the federal minimum wage. About the eventual burger, what can I tell you? I might as well describe a single grain of salt. I don’t know what you like, how you like, if you like. I’ll say that the Jersey burger was like new music from your favorite artist. At first you can’t help but compare it to everything that’s come before. You think, Alright, okay, not so very good. But then as you listen, slowly it becomes undeniable. It becomes the only rhythm you actually want to hear. There’s a savoring. There’s a bliss. You’re reminded of how little you understand about yourself. You’re reminded of the vastness of the gulf that exists between what you claim to want and what it is you actually want. Because suddenly it’s over. And you can’t have it back. Or you can, of course you can, you can “have it your way.” But it’s never quite the same. They weren’t all Jersey burgers; it wasn’t all fun and games and camaraderie in the rain. In fact it was a pretty vicious life. Not only because it depended upon the slaughter of hundreds and hundreds of cows, who are, after all, just another set...