Chapter 9: To the Rizzo Go the Spoils
For a fellow who had spent most of the day submersed in a vat of lime green jello, Gonzo looked pretty natty. His lime-and-coral-striped pants were neatly creased and his butter-yellow shirt had been impeccably ironed. He did take the precaution of tucking his shamrock and daisy embroidered necktie inside said shirt while he waited for the start bell.
Next to him, Rizzo sat in his lime-Jell-o-splattered t-shirt and slicked back his hair, ready for anything. Sweetums cast an impressive shadow over both hopefuls, and dwarfed the two men on his other side. One had his long hair pulled back into a neat pony-tail beneath a baseball cap that had been turned backwards and the other had shouldered out of a green watch-plaid jacket and handed it off to his girlfriend.
“Hey,” said Rizzo. “Where are all the womenfolk?”
Gonzo looked at him sadly. “Don’t you know anything?” he said. “If women eat pie like this, they do it after everyone else has gone to bed.”
Rizzo shrugged, then sniffed the air appreciatively. “More for me,” he said. “But if Miss Piggy had entered, we’d all be toast.”
Gonzo gave a small snort. “I think Piggy’s too busy for pie, today,” he said, and Rizzo cleared his throat and nodded.
A young man approached the microphone and tapped it a couple of times with his finger. “Is this on?” he asked, then jumped back as it screeched in protest. When the wail had died away, he approached it again cautiously. “Testing,” he muttered. “One, two, three—and hi, folks! Welcome to the St. Patrick’s Day pie-eating contest. Some of Hensonville’s best bakers have been working hard all week to provide the pies for this year’s contest. Let’s hear it for them, okay?”
People clapped politely, and a couple of kids yelled, “You go, Mom!” The young man laughed.
“Okay. You know the rules, right fellas? No throwing, no fighting and—oh, that’s right—there’s a new rule for this year’s contest—no hands.” The contestants all blinked in surprise, then the man at the end of the row took off his necktie and unbuttoned his collar with a determined air. People cheered. Not to be outdone, Gonzo took off his necktie and threw it over his shoulder. It landed on the young man with the microphone, who removed it from his shoulder and laid it on a table behind him. More cheering, and then Kermit stepped up to the mike.
“Okay, guys,” he said. “We want a fair contest. On your mark, get set—eat pies!”
They were off, face first into whatever sort of pie had been laid in front of them. Rizzo made short work of his apple pie, and Gonzo slurped up his lemon meringue with alacrity. Sweetums grasped the whole pie tin between his teeth and flipped it down his enormous maw. The two men on the end had tackled their treats with equal gusto and in less than a minute, five new pies were on the table.
Kermit watched with pleasure, liking the old-fashioned holiday feel. What a great day of wholesome entertainment this was turning out to be! Runners removed empty pie tins, replaced them with fresh pies and kept counting their fingers with obsessive attention to detail. The stack of pies behind the table decreased, and so did the speed with which the pies on the table were being consumed.
The man with the baseball cap had been presented with a pistachio pie, which was obviously not his favorite, but he chewed gamely. Still, he lost enough time to see the writing on the wall—even if it was in meringue. He held up his hand in resignation and was greeted with polite clapping and a steaming hot towel to clean up with.
Sweetums was having a little trouble with the no-hands rule, but he was having even more trouble with the don’t-eat-the-tins rule. Eventually he, too, resigned from the contest to pick the aluminum foil out of his big teeth, and was handed a steaming hot towl of his own. He groomed his face and hands carefully and ate the towel thoughtfully.
“That’s okay, buddy,” said Beauregard. “You did great.”
Gonzo and Rizzo and the man in what had once been a snowy shirtfront were eating with dogged determination now, mouths working with furious force to subdue and consume the flaky crusts and sweet fillings.
This contest always drew a big crowd because once the winner had been declared the spectators were invited to line up for pie. Kermit watched, hoping for a little sweetness himself.
Things were pretty even until, halfway through a key-lime pie, Gonzo began to falter.
“Too much,” he muttered dazedly, slipping sideways in his chair. “Too much lime….”
“Hang in there buddy!” said Rizzo around a mouthful of cherry cobbler. At least, Kermit assumed that was what he said, for the actual words came out rather mushy.
“Can’t…hold on,” said Gonzo. “Too much…going—“
“Don’t give up now!” Rizzo said. “We’re just hitting our stride!”
But Gonzo was indeed showing signs of giving up.
“Go…on…without me!” he panted. “Save yourself!” He fell with a thunk beneath the table.
The man at the end of the table looked relieved. A pretty little brunette at the end was holding his jacket and cheering him on, but he was obviously slowing down. Rizzo spared a glance of concern for Gonzo, then looked his last competitor in the eye and dived, face-first into a coconut cream.
“I luff conconuth cremf!” he moaned happily, and set himself to the task.
Three-quarters of the way through a luscious-looking blackberry pie, the man at the end of the table looked up at his pretty girlfriend with a hangdog expression.
“Oh!” she squealed. “It’s okay, Jakey-poo! You’re gonna get a ribbon and a big kiss anyway!”
Jakey-poo threw in the towel, toweled off and collected his reward—from the judges, and then from his girlfriend. Only Rizzo remained.
It took them a couple of minutes to find the little rat in the deep swells of coconut cream, but he emerged triumphantly to collect his ribbon—before diving back in to finish his pie.
Kermit laughed, patted him on the back and got in line for a piece of pie. He watched the man with the blue ribbon walk away with his little lady’s dark head on his shoulder and thought about Piggy. Maybe he would get two pieces of pie, he thought, and go and find his girl.
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