"And thus the heart will break yet brokenly live on."
Three days after the Krystal Square Off, I was hoping to find a different Eater X than the one I'd said goodbye to at Gate 5 of the Chattanooga airport. That Eater X was demoralized and somber. His brave face, his stiffer upper lip were affectations that I knew better than to trust. They were as genuine and as fragile as the dry warpaint that flaked from his face.
Into the radio's microphone I imitated the sound of a trumpet playing Reveille because I thought that Eater X might still be asleep. "Good morning, Eater X. It's The Whaler," I shouted. "Come in Eater X. Over."
In an unfaltering tone and with neither a trace of sleep nor emotion, Eater X responded, "Hello, Whaler. It's nice to hear from you. Over."
It was strange to hear him speak that way. He sounded almost like a robot, like Hal from 2001: A Space Odyssey.
We talked for 20 minutes, Eater X and I, about football and the weather and beef jerky and finally, at last, about competitive eating. We talked about krystals and 10 lb. turkeys and meatballs and about his plans for 2006. I asked him how he thought his loss in Chattanooga would affect him.
"Whaler," he said. "I love this sport too much to let one or two contests break my resolve. I've put too much of myself into competitive eating to give up now and walk away. I've learned more about life and hard work in the past 18 months than 27 years of life and school had taught me before."
I laughed a bit at what I hoped might be hyperbole, but Eater X continued sincerely.
"I've been let down by life before, Whaler. Many times, in fact. I've had my share of setbacks. and I've watched things slip through my fingers. Before I was Eater X, when I was just Tim Janus, when things would go wrong, I'd shrug my shoulders and walk away and say, 'Fuck it!' because I thought that's how a cool person would handle defeat. But it never got me anything worth having. Everything I'd owned and done had come easily to me. I was complacent. I had stagnated."
I asked him to elaborate.
"Now I rise to the challenge," he said. "And when I see that I have to rise higher, I do. If I care about something, if I truly want it, I'll keep trying for it until it's proven to me that it's unattainable. Sometimes defeat will suck the wind from my sails, and sometimes I'll need time to recover and regroup. But I'll always come back stronger than before. There are lessons in losing. Over."
I paused for a moment to allow what he'd said to sink in.
"So you're saying that sometimes defeat is your friend?" I asked.
"Well, it's more like a coach. But yes," he answered. "Over and out."
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