The World's Greatest Chocolate-Covered Pork Chops

by Ryan K. Sager

  While chemistry did its thing in the pan, Zoey checked the grinder. The nibs were now a smooth, velvety liquid. Zoey poured the liquor into a running conche machine. She added cocoa butter (imported from Holland), white cane sugar (from Madagascar), milk conche (from Stockton), two vanilla pods (from India), one cinnamon stick (from Brazil), and a dash of ground nutmeg (from Indonesia). She set the timer for five minutes (most conche machines took ten or more hours to create a smooth, balanced chocolate texture, but Zoey had calibrated her conche to do the job in a fraction of the time).

  Still mindful of the Cranberry Apple Sauté, Zoey gave the pan a quick stir-toss.

  Dallin came to the windows. “How’re those chops coming?”

  “Almost ready. Have other customers ordered yet?”

  “Nah. Their heads are still spinning from the fight.”

  “Perfect.”

  For the drink, she poured a bag of ice cubes and three club sodas into a blender. Running the blender on low speed, she added a pound of chopped cucumbers, one lime (peel and all), a fistful of mint leaves, and a half cup of Indian sugar. She fitted a lid on the blender, ran the blades on high for fifteen seconds, then poured the frothy green contents into a tall glass.

  She set a plate on the counter. She placed a scoop of gooey Cranberry Apple Sauté at the center of the plate. Next, Zoey opened the smoker. Savory smells of charred pork and apple wood chips caressed her nostrils. Reaching into the smoker, she withdrew a double rack of tender pork (in the smoker since noon). Juices dripped from the dark pink meat. Steam whirled from the ashy spinal column and rib bones.

  Zoey plopped the double rack onto the cutting board. With her wicked-awesome Santoku, she whacked off two pork chops. She stacked these pork chops atop the cranberry apple bed on the plate.

  The timer on the conche dinged. Zoey opened the machine, dipped her pinkie in the chocolate sauce, and licked her fingertip. Silky. Creamy. Delectable. She ladled the chocolate sauce onto the pork chops, smothering them enchilada-style.

  As a final touch, Zoey placed a jumbo marshmallow atop each stack of chocolate-covered pork chops. The bottom half of each marshmallow melted into goo. The top half remained firm and flat. On this flat top she placed a mint leaf. This mint would serve as a palatal bridge between entrée and beverage.

  Zoey allowed herself three seconds to marvel at her work. If the meal tasted as toothsome as it looked (Zoey was certain it did), then the Golden Toque was as good as won.

  With the plates and drinks on a silver platter, Zoey waited for Zoeylicious to stop at a red light, then hopped over to Trolley 2. Chin up, shoulders back, Zoey approached the judge’s table.

  Boarhead laid his napkin on his lap. “Ah, here it comes.”

  The trolley made a fast, sharp left turn. The momentum pushed Zoey forward. She stumbled. Her fingers lost their grip on the platter. She dropped to one knee. She reached out. Her fingers caught the platter, saving the plate and drink, preventing what could have been a disastrous spill.

  Boarhead plucked a pen and notepad from his breast pocket. “Close call,” he said, poising to write. “How many spills do you see on a given night?”

  “None.” Zoey regained her feet. “Usually the starts and stops are as smooth as applesauce.”

  Zoey served Royston Basil Boarhead his Chocolate-Covered Pork Chops and Cucumber Lime Delight, then tucked the platter under one arm. “Thank you for this opportunity, sir. Bon appétit.”

  Boarhead smelled his dish. He made an Mmmmm face. (If you’ve ever bitten into a hot, fluffy Krispy Kreme donut, you’ve made that face too.) With his fork and knife, he sawed off a piece of goopy pork chop. He set down the knife. He switched the fork from his left hand to his right. He stabbed the tender, juicy meat. Chocolate dripped onto the plate as he raised the fork to his mouth. Careful not to soil his immaculate mustache, he placed the forked tines in his mouth. He closed his lips and withdrew the fork. The tines emerged shiny and clean.

  He chewed, eyes fixed on his plate. In time, he swallowed. He peered through the serving windows into Trolley 1. Then he looked at Zoey. His face emanated awe and wonder. “Who else is in the kitchen?”

  “Just moi.”

  “Who taught you to cook like this?”

  “I taught myself.”

  “You have no formal training?”

  “I wanted to develop my own style. I never saw how that was possible if someone else was teaching me.”

  Gobsmacked, Boarhead sipped his Cucumber Lime Delight. Setting down the glass, he stared at his plate again. He treated himself to another hearty, chocolatey bite of pork chop. “You’re a prodigy, like Mozart. I should write that down.”

  Zoey watched Boarhead doodle on his notepad. She wanted to say something gracious like “You’re too kind” or “Merci beaucoup,” but no words came out. She was so overwhelmingly happy—so dizzy with glee—she couldn’t even form a coherent sardine. (See? Nothing.)

  The floor shook like a jackhammer. The chandeliers whipped back and forth like punching bags. Plates and utensils skidded off of tables. Boarhead clutched his table. Zoey clasped his plate and drink so they wouldn’t spill. In Trolley 3, the band hit a sour note and stopped playing.

  “It’s an earthquake!” someone shouted.

  The shaking stopped.

  Boarhead tidied his slick mustache. “What in the name of P.F. Chang was that?”

  “I beg your pardon,” Zoey said. “I’ll have a word with the driver.”

  Before Zoey could step away, Zoeylicious made a fast, hard left turn. Zoey flew forward, landing facedown on the judge’s table. She heard gasps. She felt hot, sticky gooeyness in her eyes and on her cheeks and stomach. She felt hands grab her arms and lift her off the table, back onto her feet.

  Zoey wiped bits of pork and cranberry from her stinging eyes and surveyed the judge’s table. Both dinners were ruined, the plates cracked in half, the drinks overturned. Cucumber Lime Delight sloshed off the table onto Boarhead’s lap.

  Zoey wiped a tear from her apple-smeared cheek. “I’m so sorry. I’ll make you new dishes.”

  As Dallin rushed to Boarhead’s table to clean up the mess, Zoey jumped over to Trolley 1. Devastated and furious, she sprinted to the driver’s box and jerked open the door.

  “You cost me the Golden Toque, you maniac! Why’d you take that corner so fast?”

  Knuckles’s face was paler than pad thai rice noodles. Sweat dripped from his bare arms and hands. “Sumthin’s wrong wi’ the trolleys, Chef.”

  Only then did Zoey notice the trolleys were moving faster than usual. Much faster.

  “Knuckles, slow down.”

  “Can’t. Gears ’r jammed. Brakes ain’t workin’. Look.” Knuckles joggled a series of levers. Nothing happened. “I can’t stop! I can’t even slow down!”

  Zoeylicious ran a red light. Cars honked and swerved to avoid collision. A yellow taxi crashed into a fire hydrant, and water exploded into the air.

  Zoey swallowed the lump in her throat. “How did this happen?”

  “Dunno,” Knuckles said. “Everythin’ worked fine last night.”

  “Can you fix it?”

  “If I coulda, I woulda. Ya have t’ get t’ the emergency brake in Three, otherwise we’ll all be…” Knuckles’s jaw dropped. “…Uh-oh.”

  Zoey peered ahead and saw the cause for Knuckles’s “Uh-oh.”

  Zoeylicious was careening down Lombard Street toward Russian Hill, the steepest, twistiest stretch of road in San Francisco. Parallel rows of towering town houses created a sort of urban canyon, down the middle of which the road snaked back and forth at thirty-degree angles, like switchbacks on a mountain trail. Pedestrians walked up and down stairways on both sides of the road, posing for selfies and discussing the city planner’s chemical imbalance.

  Knuckles gripped the steering wheel at nine and six. “Hold on tight, Zoey. There’s only one way to do this.”

  Zoey pressed her palms against the insides of the doorway, bracing herself. Zo
eylicious hit the Russian Hill ridge and went airborne. Screams of terror erupted from Trolleys 2 and 3. Zoeylicious landed half on the road, half on the flower beds between the switchbacks, sparks spewing from the undercarriages.

  The trolleys barreled down the lane like a wrecking ball, smashing through curbs, trees and lampposts. Debris flew in every direction, pelting row houses, denting doors and smashing windows. Pedestrians scattered like ants in a flood, taking refuge in doorways.

  Zoeylicious arrived at the bottom of Russian Hill, colliding with a yellow Volkswagen bus on the cross street. The bus spun away like a boomerang, its front smashed, its bumper ripped to pieces. Zoey wondered if the people inside the bus were okay. She doubted it. The hit was so fast and so hard, she’d be relieved to hear the passengers were still alive.

  Lombard Street became straight again, but was still quite steep.

  Knuckles swiped his palm over his bald scalp, raking back a helmet of hot sweat. “Emergency brake, Chef. Go!”

  Heart racing, Zoey raced to the back of Trolley 1 and flung open the door. It flew off its hinges, grazed Zoey’s head and crashed into the stove behind her. Stepping into the doorway, the rushing wind slapped the toque off her head. Her cheesecake-colored hair whipped her face like a flag in a storm. Four feet below, the street blurred past at eighty miles per hour. The wheels spat sparks and black smoke, and a metallic burning smell pricked Zoey’s nose.

  Across the gap, Trolley 2’s door swung open and shut, open and shut.

  Zoey readied herself in the doorway. Left foot back. Right foot forward.

  Open and shut.

  On the balls of her feet now.

  Open.

  She leapt. Trolley 2 consumed her like a swooping hawk.

  Closed.

  On her hands and knees, Zoey gazed with horror upon overturned tables, broken chairs, rolling plates, and shattered glasses. Frightened customers clung to tables, walls, and each other.

  Dallin was in the corner, arms raised like a boxer, legs in a kung fu stance. A plate came flying toward him like a Frisbee. He made no effort to deflect the plate. It smacked him in the chest and broke into pieces. Then he shrieked like a ninja—“WAH-aaaah-AHHH!”—and jump-kicked the air, accomplishing nothing but looking proud of himself anyway.

  On her feet again, Zoey hurtled across Trolley 2, dodging sliding chairs and spinning tables. Passing Boarhead (he was under the table again, this time in the fetal position), she remarked, “I hope this doesn’t negatively affect your evaluation of my restaurant.”

  Zoey jumped over to Trolley 3, landing on her hands and knees again. The scene in Trolley 3 was as bad as the scene in 2.

  Monk’s upright piano had tipped over, keys down, broken wires protruding from its open top.

  Bird was huddled in a corner, hugging his saxophone, saying, “Don’t be scared, darling. I won’t let anything bad happen to you.”

  Gershwin was in the same corner, clutching Zoey’s mom, who was clutching her trumpet.

  Four was in another corner, comforting two frightened young women and doing his darnedest to not look so happy about it.

  Fat Jo was seated at his drum kit, his calves and knees pressed against the sides of his kick drum, his left hand holding the hi-hat, his right holding the floor tom, his massive belly and chest securing the snare and hi-tom, his teeth clenched on the crash cymbal. Like a mama bear protecting her cubs.

  Gershwin called out to Zoey, “What the sassafras is going on?”

  “The brake!” Zoey answered, regaining her feet and running for the emergency-brake room in the rear corner.

  She got to the door, grasped the doorknob, and turned.

  At least, she tried to turn it. It wouldn’t budge. Not even a little.

  She shook the doorknob. Jiggled it. Pulled it.

  It wouldn’t turn.

  She tried kicking the door while working the knob with both hands.

  Nuthin’.

  Gershwin came to her side. “Zoey, what are you doing?”

  “On the other side of this door is the emergency brake.”

  “Is that what the lever thing is? I was looking at it last night, wondering.”

  “Wait, last night you were able to open this door?”

  “I don’t think it has a lock. Look, no keyhole.”

  Zoey inspected the brass doorknob. It was round and smooth. Gershwin was right. No keyhole. The door wasn’t made to lock. So why wouldn’t it open?

  The speeding trolleys made an abrupt lane change, sending Fat Jo and his drum kit tumbling to the ground. The crash cymbal landed on its side and rolled toward Zoey like a spinning blade. Zoey dove out of its way. Grazing the soles of her boots, the cymbal lodged itself in the wall like a swung ax.

  The restaurant continued to gain speed. Cars honked and swerved. Dogs barked. Pedestrians shrieked. How long is Lombard Street, anyway?

  Zoey rose up and stuck her head out the window. Two-, three-, and four-story row houses lined both sides of the street. At the end of this alley, some three hundred yards ahead, the street crooked right, a hard right, a turn the trolleys could not and would not make. As far as Zoeylicious was concerned, this turn was the end of the road. And beyond that end?

  A thousand-foot drop.

  And at the bottom of that drop? A private residential drive winding between the sheer, rocky cliff and a luxury condo complex. In other words: concrete.

  Things were about to get real.

  Back in Trolley 3, Monk, the fittest dude in Valentine & the Night Owls, was ramming the door with his meaty shoulder. He gave the door a royal beating, but the door still did not budge.

  “We’ll get more power with our legs,” Zoey said. “We kick on three. Ready? One. Two. Three.”

  Gershwin and Monk delivered a mighty kick, with simultaneous impact, but the door stayed shut.

  “Again!” Gershwin said. “One. Two…”

  As Monk raised his leg to kick the door, Zoeylicious hit a bump in the road, knocking him off-balance. He fell backward, cuffing the back of his head on the rim of Fat Jo’s kick drum.

  “Sweet Duke Ellington, that smarts!” he cried, wincing, his hands clutching his cranium, blood seeping through the cracks between his musical fingers.

  Zoey looked out the window. Thirty seconds, maybe less, before Zoeylicious would reach the cliff. “We’re dead meat!”

  “Not yet, we’re not!” Dallin Caraway appeared at the head of Trolley 3, his chest puffed out, his arms flexed. “Make way for Hurricane Dallin.”

  “No way!” Zoey said. “Monk couldn’t do it, and he’s three times your size. Let someone else try.”

  “Shhhh. I got this.” Dallin bent his knees, stooped forward, and parked three fingers on the ground.

  Twenty-five seconds until the cliff.

  “Help me,” Monk said, too dizzy to crawl out of the way.

  Zoey and Gershwin helped Monk scoot aside, clearing a path between Dallin and the emergency-brake-room door.

  Twenty seconds.

  Zoey screamed, “Hurry, Dal!”

  Dallin’s eyes focused on the door. He snarled and gritted his teeth. “You are a machine. You are unstoppable like a train. Your bones are rock. Your blood is fire.”

  He appeared to be reciting a Gatorade commercial.

  Fifteen seconds.

  “DAL, WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?”

  Dallin placed one foot behind the other, his heels raised. “You are a force of nature. You’ve trained for this. You were born for this. This is your moment of glory. Take it.”

  Ten seconds.

  Zoey shouted, “GO, DAL!”

  Fat Jo, who sat on the floor holding his snare drum on his lap, called out, “Hut, hut, hike!”

  Dallin charged toward the door, screaming like a warrior entering a fierce battle. He flung his whole body at the door. It burst off the hinges in an explosion of wood and metal. Dallin landed facedown on the floor, next to the emergency brake. He didn’t move.

  Eight seconds. />
  Lurching over shards of timber and metal—and Dallin—Zoey entered the tiny room. She clenched the lever with both hands.

  Five seconds.

  With all her might, she pulled the lever. A shrill, grinding SCREEEEEEEEECH sounded below her feet. The floor rumbled. Sparks shot from the undercarriage like fireworks. The trolleys shrieked to a halt.

  Everyone in Trolley 3 lurched forward, landing on tables and dishes and each other.

  Zoey rose to her knees and shook Dallin. “Dal, are you all right?”

  Dallin’s eyes were closed. He didn’t move.

  Zoey shook him harder. “Dal, wake up!”

  Dallin’s eyes opened halfway. He coughed. “Are we dead, Z?”

  “No, Dal. We’re alive. Everyone’s alive thanks to you.”

  Dallin’s chest heaved. “I wish my coach had seen that.”

  “He can’t say you don’t hit hard enough.”

  Dallin closed his eyes. “I’m a hurricane.”

  “Can you sit up?”

  “No, I think I’ll…” Dallin coughed. “…lay here…a while.”

  “Don’t die before help gets here, ’kay?”

  Dallin cleared his throat. It sounded like a clogged garbage disposal burping up scraps of lettuce and corn. “Ix-nay on the ie-day.”

  Zoey rose to her feet. She felt foggy, like a cloud had moved into the space between her brain and her eyeballs. Bits of wood and dust clung to the smears of gooey, sticky chocolate on her sleeves and the front of her jacket and skirt. She looked like she’d stepped on a land mine in a cocoa field. Felt like it too.

  Through the windows she saw Boarhead stumbling out of Trolley 2. The ends of his handlebar mustache were lopsided. One end curved upward up like an antler. The other end sagged like an elephant’s trunk. His clothes were as tattered and filthy as Zoey’s.

  “You stupid girl!” Boarhead shook his fists at her. “You could have killed us all! You’re a menace to society! Your restaurant belongs in a scrapyard, and you belong in prison!”

  Gershwin rushed to Zoey’s side, stuck his head out the window. “Yo, Mustache! You throw one more insult at my daughter, I come out swinging. Got it?”