Incensed Read Free Page A

Konger cracked his knuckles and stretched his arms. Charlie rolled his jaw clockwise then counterclockwise. Only Sadao sat completely still. With his shaved head he resembled a lanky Buddha contemplating nothingness.
    I heard some terse announcements crackle through the crew’s walkie-talkies.
    A spotlight swung on to a Ryan Seacrest-wannabe at the corner of the stage, his voice booming through the PA system. “Welcome to a very special Realtime Sports presentation! Let me hear you, Chinese Taipei!” he declared.
    The crowd mostly groaned at the use of Taiwan’s international moniker, forced upon us by China, which still claims the island as a province. “You’re in Taiwan!” yelled someone in the front.
    Fake Seacrest smiled hard. Acknowledging the comment might mean no Realtime Sports broadcast deals in lucrative areas of China, including Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Macau. Instead, the man bounded downstage and began introducing the contestants, impressively pronouncing the Spanish name but blowing it on the Hong Konger’s Cantonese name. He declared that Dwayne was a “Formosan native,” which was less correct than “aborigine,” but Dwayne himself didn’t mind. After all, the guy constantly joked that someday his people were going to massacre all the “invaders” of Han Chinese descent. He didn’t look so tough now, though. He raised his arm weakly to acknowledge the crowd.
    â€œBreathe through your mouth!” Nancy yelled.
    â€œ Jia you! ” I shouted to him. “You can do it, Dwayne!” I didn’t define the “it” but winning was definitely not one of the options.
    Fake Seacrest held out a plate of stinky tofu to the camera. “Let me show you the best way to eat this sucker,” he said as he dramatically produced a spring-type clothespin and clipped it to his nose. “P-U!” he cried to the television audience, who would be watching the contest in dramatically edited form.
    â€œOf course our brave challengers aren’t allowed to cover up their noses,” the man continued. “They can’t even drink any iced beverages up here, since ice dulls the sense. This is one competitive eating contest in which winning stinks! The question is, who will win? The patient and inscrutable Sadao, or the lusty American, Chompin’ Charlie? Or maybe one of our nobodies? Are we all ready to go?”
    â€œYeah!” yelled the crowd, which was far more enthusiastic than any of the contestants.
    â€œLet’s get this challenge going! Five, four, three, two . . .”
    At the end of the countdown, Sadao transformed into a multi-armed bodhisattva, each hand delivering a lump of stinky tofu into his barely opened mouth. His bald head was the eye of calm in a furious hurricane of flailing limbs.
    Chompin’ Charlie took a plunger approach, shoving down as much food as possible with his right hand.
    The two of them were set to eat more in the first thirty seconds than the rest of the contestants would in the entire five minutes allotted for the event, although the real-estate broker was struggling to make third place look competitive. The projection screen switched from oddly serene Sadao to foam-mouthed Charlie. Suddenly, it featured Dwayne, who was a portrait of pain.
    â€œDwayne, let’s go!” I yelled. What I really meant was, “Please don’t come in last.”
    I knew that face he was putting on. Shifty eyes, pursed lips, flared nose. I revised my thought to, “Please don’t puke. Our whole country’s honor is riding on you.”
    He managed to keep down what he had eaten—half a piece of stinky tofu. Sadao won by wolfing down forty cakes. Chompin’ Charlie put away a manly thirty-two. The broker had managed to eat eleven. Everybody else ate fewer than five. Luckily, Dwayne finished second-to-last. The Spanish woman had taken one bite and spat it out. She spent the entire