The Whore's Child

glistening on his forehead and upper lip. With only five minutes left on the clock, he still had about a quarter of the steak to go; maybe another pound and a half. People at nearby tables began shaking their heads. He was a goner, you could tell.
    But then he mopped his brow with his napkin and dug in again at nearly the same pace he’d started with, as if he had two stomachs, like a camel, and he’d just engaged the second. He didn’t panic. The large pieces of bloody beef just entered his mouth and disappeared. The last bite went in with ten seconds left on the clock, and by the time the buzzer went off, he’d balanced his knife and fork on the edge of the plate and pushed it away, brushing off his hands with the satisfied air of a man who’d just finished a laborious but not especially complex task. A cheer went up when the waiter confirmed that the big T-bone had indeed been finished within the allotted time, and thus the man’s dinner was on the house. When the applause died down, he looked over—we were still staring, I’m afraid—and said, “How do you do. I’m Clarence.”
    It hadn’t occurred to either of us that a man who could eat a steak that big would be capable of speech. My mother was first to answer. “That’s some appetite you’ve got there, Clarence.”
    He seemed willing to take this as a compliment, though he was not at all boastful. “I do this here about once a month,” he explained. “It’s good for business, and the owner is a friend of mine.”
    â€œGiving away five pounds of free steak is good for business?” my mother said.
    â€œYou bet,” Clarence explained. “When people see it can be done, they want to try.”
    Right then, on cue, there was another flourish of bells as one of the massive T-bones was delivered to a man several tables away.
    â€œThey’ll sell another four or five of those tonight and not one of ’em will be free. Plus everybody has such a good time watching that they’ll tell the story to everyone from California to Maine.”
    â€œWe’re from Maine,” I offered.
    â€œLong way from home,” Clarence observed. “You didn’t come that far just to watch me eat a steak, I hope.”
    My mother and I introduced ourselves then, Clarence shaking hands with me first, then my mother. “Nice to meet you, pretty lady,” he said.
    â€œAnd I’m Bill,” said the man from the pool, who’d materialized just then at my elbow. He was wearing tight blue jeans, and his cowboy boots, with ornate stitching and pointed toes, reminded me of the motel’s neon sign. My mother introduced the two of us, then added, “And this is Clarence.”
    Bill did not deign to look at Clarence or me. “Me and Clarence go way back—don’t we, Clarence?”
    â€œWe sure do, friend,” he said, though it didn’t seem to me that Bill was acting very friendly.
    Still looking at my mother, Bill said, “You get enough to eat tonight, big fella, or are you still hungry?”
    â€œI’m contemplating dessert, Bill. Dessert and some soothing conversation with my new friends here. They came about two thousand miles to watch me have my dinner.” He grinned at me when he said this, and winked as if to suggest that we both knew all there was to know about this character and weren’t all that impressed. “You could pull up a chair and join us, Bill. Take a load off.”
    Bill was standing there rather awkwardly, in fact. There was plenty of room in Clarence’s booth, but Bill seemed to be waiting for an invitation to slide into ours. I couldn’t tell if my mother hadn’t asked him to because she didn’t want him to feel that familiar, or because she hadn’t extended any such invitation to Clarence, who wouldn’t have fit.
    â€œNo,” Bill said. “I just come over to see if this lady would dance one with me. That is, if she’s up to it with all them injuries.” He smiled then, and my mother must have liked it better than I did because she said she would, provided Clarence didn’t mind keeping me company for a minute. Clarence agreed as if he’d been hoping to anyway, so Bill and my mother disappeared through a wide doorway into a large back room where a band had begun to play.
    â€œWhat injuries?” Clarence wanted to know, sliding into my mother’s