The Ten Pepper Man
By: Matt Suwak
Tags: Transformation, Thai, Life Goals, Fiction, Flash Fiction

“Yes. Ten peppers,” said Kurtis, “Ten red peppers,” he clarified and mirrored the Thai boy’s gesture. Ten fingers. Ten peppers.

Dang hesitated. He’d moved from Bangkok only six months ago to work in America for his uncle Veera cooking truly authentic Thai food. These were the recipes his grandmother’s family had made their own in the kitchen and, while they had enough of the menu Americanized to grab casual diners, this place was that rare and truly real Thai restaurant.

“Okay, right away, one minute,” he said with an uncomfortable smile, “I get my uncle.”

Dang’s English wasn’t the best, and he knew it. That’s why he had to make sure he’d heard the disheveled customer correctly. When it was confirmed he still doubted his grasp of the language.

The customer waited patiently and nodded, “Go right ahead.” His composure told Dang this wasn’t the first time he’d been asked to wait for clarification.

Dang walked to the back, past the poster on the wall asking customers how spicy they wanted their food. It was a chart with pictures of how many chili peppers would be added to a meal, zero through four: no peppers for those who lacked any capacity to deal with spicy foods, one pepper for those with a mild tolerance and two for the customer who enjoyed to sweat while eating their meal.

Three for the daring and those tasting to expand their palette and tolerance.

And four peppers.

Four peppers for those who had achieved mastery over their reaction to inferno-level heat in their foods, or maybe those idiot customers who wanted to impress their friends.

But ten pepper? It must have been a joke. It might’ve been suicidal for those with a weak stomach. Dang had to be sure.

“Uncle,” he called to Veera, “Uncle, a man wants ten peppers.”

Veera looked up from his puzzle and narrowed his eyes, “Ten pepper. We don’t do ten pepper. Maybe you heard him wrong.” Veera had mastered English and sounded almost like a native in the US.

“No,” Dang held up his fingers, “Ten peppers.”

Veera pushed back his chair and stood, “Okay, I’ll tell him we don’t do ten pepper,” Veera leaned back in his chair and looked at the man at the counter, at the idiot daredevil who wanted ten peppers in his meal.

And Veera saw the bearded man standing patiently at the counter. Calm and composed, a bedraggled outfit born upon a dignified posture. “Oh,” he said, his volume low, “Him.”

The customer saw Veera and offered a polite wave, and Veera returned it. He looked at his nephew, “Give him the ten pepper.”

Dang knew better than to question his uncle, so he turned around and went to work on the meal. The ten pepper meal. Ten. Pepper.

…

At the counter the customer relaxed when he saw Dang get to work. He was used to this hesitation and had developed a focused calm when ordering his food.

Veera came to the counter, a little nervous. He’d learned the man’s name a few visits ago but didn’t speak it. “Ten pepper, huh?”

The man nodded his head.

“Last time it was nine. That not enough?”

The man shook his head.

Veera grit his teeth, “Yes, yes, not enough,” his eyes were watering from the capsaicin wafting in the air from the ten peppers. He looked over a shoulder to see Dang’s eyes watering profusely, starting to turn puffy and red as the meal finished cooking.

A customer opened the door (the bell rang announcing their entrance) and immediately balked at the burning air, turned to run away (the bell rang announcing their exit), and Veera stumbled past the counter and to the door, kicked over a chair in his blindness and tripped on the floor mat so he could lock the door.

No God fearing person should be witness to this event.

A young couple approached on the sidewalk, but Veera’s pained and sweating complexion shaking his head made them turn away.

And through it all, the bearded customer stood calmly. A bead of sweat had formed on the tip of his nose.

Dang served the meal and immediately ran to the back door, kicked it open and gasped for fresh air.

“Enjoy,” Veera choked to the customer. He ran half-blind to join his nephew.

…

The man set the plate down. He took out the chop sticks from their paper wrapper and cracked his neck, first to the left and then to the right.

His lips were dry in anticipation so he licked them, took a deep breath and let the aromas dance inside his nose.

He ate.

…

Outside Veera and Dang had started to recover from the intensity of cooking the chilis.

“Uncle, what the hell? What happen in there?”

Veera shook his head, “He came here two year ago and order six pepper. I shake my head and laugh at him, but I make it, and he eat it. Not a single drop.”

“A single drop? Drop of what?”

“Of sweat. He ate six pepper curry like it was rice milk. He pay, and he leave.”

Inside the restaurant the customer started shouting. Dang stood up straight and his surprise turned to fear as the shouting turned into a shrieking. Veera put a hand on his nephew’s shoulder, “It is okay, Dang. It is his way.”

Veera continued as the customer’s shrieking turned to a raging roar, “Then he come again, few weeks later, and ask for seven pepper. And he eat it, and he leave. Then eight pepper. He eat it, he leave. And six month ago, before you come to America, he order nine pepper.”

The customer’s roaring continued, and the sound of overturned tables and kicked chairs echoed from the restaurant. Dang was afraid.

“He is destroying your restaurant!”

Veera pursed his lips and was silent, then said, “Yes, but it is what it is. It always is for this man.”

The roaring, the smashing, the violence and the rage reached its climax and almost immediately grew silent. Dang wasn’t sure but he thought he heard the customer sobbing inside. Like a child missing their mother.

Dang looked to his uncle who stood firmly in place, a subtle shaking of his head telling his nephew ‘not yet’.

Silence, now, for a few moments, (the bell rang announcing the customer’s exit), and Veera walked in first followed closely by his nephew.

They found the kicked over chairs and the toppled tables were all righted, no visible damage done to any of them. The customer’s plate was empty, licked clean by the looks of it, a puddle of tears and sweat collected on the floor beneath his chair.

Five hundred-dollar bills were on the table, crisp and perfectly aligned.

Dang guffawed, ‘unbelievable!’, he thought, and he opened the door (the bell rang to announce the nephew’s inspection) to see that the customer walking away halfway down the block, head hung dejectedly, a visible trail of sweat and (maybe) tears in his wake.

Dang was scared, but Veera sighed heavily.

He looked to his nephew, eyes tinged red and laden with grief, and he said, “Look like ten pepper not enough. Here,” he handed his nephew one of the hundred-dollar bills, which Dang accepted without hesitation.

“Who was that man?,” Dang asked.

“His name,” Veera started and paused, wondering if he’d suffer some karmic retribution for saying it, “His name is Kurtis Bloom. I had a different name for him, but now it looks like I need change it… now, we call him the Ten Pepper Man.”