So we’re clear, what follows is a fictional story.

Methamphetamine Chili

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Chili goes down fast and easy when it’s negative five degrees outside. And in the Midwest, chili is methamphetamine, sardonic soup composed of everything from battery acid to cough syrup to gasoline to freshly extracted kitten intestines. And a thousand freezing souls will file through any given diner, slide in and out of crayon-red booths in front of cracked, pearl tables and order steaming bowls of purring red narcotics and never think twice to question the composition of ingredients slurping from spoon to esophagus to stomach, everyone thawed and satisfied with the digestion of dusty, red cayenne and burnt, brown paprika particles.

For breakfast, corrosive egg sandwiches loaded with chili and pepper jack cheese, red kidney beans spewing over the edge of white bread. For lunch, a wintergreen infused brat special splattered with chili, guaranteed to cure that drippy December cold. And for dinner, bowls of chili loaded with more lethal ingredients than any bowl should ever be forced to hold.

From this back-bending, crayon-red bar stool, my eyes follow an orange, slippery-maroon path of chunky, sloshed-off sauce across the checkered tile floor from the kitchen to the tables lined against the windowed diner wall, trailing up onto each booth, into each bowl rimmed with dry tomato sauce and garlic residue, onto every greasy napkin painted with finger prints and lip impressions, and up onto the shirts of each patron, their bellies and chests speckled with ground beef, kitty intestines and gasoline. The chili cocktail, a combination of all things brutal, goes down fast and easy and feels so beautiful when the snow’s blowing sideways outside.

An overweight gentleman, sleeves rolled past his bruised, white elbows, gristle resembling colon tissue caught between his teeth, declares to the rest of the diner in his finest Midwestern drawl, “If this chili is wrong I don’t wanna be right!” And purple and black saliva specks sail onto his wife’s face, and she wipes them away with the cleanest portion of her napkin, a trail of bean and blood smeared across her wrinkled, pasty forehead. The other patrons nod approvingly without lifting their eyes or mouths from the bowls in front of them.

Drip. Drip. Slurp. Slurp. Drip. Drip. Cough and Clank and Ah and I’ll have another please from each booth in turn.

And what I hear are hairy tongues and blistered lips, ravenous, with little minds of their own, slopping moisture from spoons, licking the base of ceramic bowls, oral cavities making love to silverware over and over and over again, in and out, in and out, each time, every spoonful, better than the last, sucking every molecule of sauce and spice from their plates till the dinnerware sparkles and the patrons wild eyes reflect upon there surfaces.

I can hear the kitchen working, silver pots and pans clanging together like fighting children, wrenches loosening rusty battery bolts, the twirl of gasoline canisters being unscrewed, the drizzle of cough syrup flub-glub-glubbing into a viscous pot of pure damage. And I can hear the cook and waitresses sneering and quipping and pointing their fingers at different patrons, laughing at customers with heads so low in their bowls it seems they’ve overdosed and died, faces permanently plastered to the cracked, faux-pearl tables in front of them. And I say to myself, “They’re not getting a tip from me,” and, “Thank God I just ordered coffee.”

I can see the cook, an obese pig of a man standing over his gigantic pot, fire burning neatly beneath, his thick, hairy hands gently caressing his giant ladle around and around the rim of the pot. And every once in a while a kitty screams, and a little blood splatters onto the wall behind him and there’s the sound of hairy hands squeezing a handful of saturated, seeping large intestine as the boiling contents pop and sizzle with welcome delight.

Methamphetamine in the Midwest, a bigger problem than this diner cares to admit, and it goes down easy when it’s cold outside. And in Indiana, it’s cold most of the time.

The happy customers, full of brine and meat and gnarly, black armpit hair discarded by our careless chef, shift cautiously in their crayon-red seats not wanting to move for fear of internal combustion, dazed out of their minds and as psycho-altered as methamphetamine-chili can make a person. I can nearly hear their delirious brain cells pop and fizzle, puddles of orange and maroon drool forming at the corners of their mouths, slowly sliding down their first and second chins, pooling at the base of their necks in oblong circles just touching the fringe of their collars and undershirts. From what I can tell, I go unnoticed by the obese chef and his waitress comrades as they slink out from the kitchen like snakes slithering out of their holes in search of mice and blood and bone. The chef has a quiver of a smile across his face, just revealing his left, front incisor, chipped and green from years of wear and tobacco abuse. The waitresses both wear wigs, neon yellow and jet black mixed upon their anorexic skulls, clowns of the restaurant world hiding behind thick layers of foundation and mascara and sky-blue uniforms and fire-engine-red lipstick smeared carelessly from cheek to cheek. Faces buffered and upholstered with sunken clouds of blush and powder, they look like moving, walking, middle-aged dolls designed for death, ready to tamper, ready to pounce on the first thing that moves and suck the blood from it before it knows what hit it. The three of them, smirking and slithering from the kitchen, a gang of pythons, fat and conniving, past the service area and into the diner, eyes wide, tongues on lips, breathing heavily from their mouths, approach each table of victims and sneer, “How was the chili Sir? Ma’am? I hope your time here has been enjoyable,” and, “Ya’ll have a great evening, ya hear! Come back and see us!” And they laugh simultaneously like a possessed choir singing aloud for the devil himself, their hot breath wafting through the diner air.

The chefs sloppy white apron, stained the color of baby-brown puke all over his chest and belly, is damp with sweat, grease, battery acid and gasoline, beans and pepper flakes peeling off the cotton hem, his belly bulging through the seems. His apron rubs against the sides of patrons faces as he combs through their pockets and purses collecting goods, money and jewelry, leaving smears of sweat and oil, babies puking all over their faces, the acne pustules already bulging through their flesh before he smiles wickedly and moves on to another table to collect the next round of valuables. The waitresses, likewise, go about snapping off necklaces from their former customers who are so high they have no idea what’s happening, caught in some chili fantasy world, floating in lard and spice never to return. Somewhere inside their heads, they’re warm and safe and 17 again and sitting in front of a fire surrounded by family and friends. But here, slumped over, drowning in their own drool and chili run-off, they’re just victims of drug abuse and drug induced robbery, innocent, hungry bystanders just looking for an escape from the negative five degree temps of the Indiana tundra, so cold only the suicidal venture outside.

In the early 80’s, here in the Midwest, people got sick of the cold really fast, but they couldn’t leave because this was home and everything they knew was here. Family, factory, future, it was all here in the antarctic, middle of America, and they weren’t going anywhere. And the middle class, the black and blue machine of expanding American economy, kept getting richer and richer working the line, and before long they were making more money than they ever dreamed possible. They bought boats, parked them in their driveways, and watched each winter as their expensive mini-yachts got covered in snow. A third foreign car, a pair of jet skis, an extended motor home, a fancy plane even, all lost to the ice and wind every winter. Like people had so much money to burn they could buy anything for the summer and afford to watch it rot in the snow of winter. But then, someone got wise and built a three car garage, and the concept spread like drugs across all of suburbia. People built garages as big as houses, and every winter they’d move all of their expensive toys inside, and at least then they could look at their valuables and keep them warm and rest easy knowing they weren’t being destroyed in the Indiana snow. And people just kept buying and buying and building bigger and bigger garages to put more and more stuff in.

And the chef and his two waitressing assistants make out pretty well today. I watch as they steal pearl necklaces passed down from great grandma to grandma to mom to this poor daughter with her face flopped in a pool of ketchup and oyster crackers. And the clown waitress strings the stolen family heirlooms around her flabby, sweaty neck. And the chef takes off watch after watch once belonging to grandpas who fought wars. And they pull off diamond earrings bought during the great depression by paper boys selling the daily news. They slide off wedding rings poor Irish immigrants saved for for years to buy and marry the women of their dreams. It’s all gone in a flash, one meth-infused, chili flash. And I watch them slither away, bells chiming above the door to signal their departure, and I reach behind the counter and pour myself another cup of black-as-the-night black coffee.

But we haven’t given up hope that some day soon the sun will show itself, the cold will depart from our barren land, and the good people of Indiana will once again be able to spend time outside! We will leave our houses of hibernation and venture into the fresh air. We will spend time with loved ones underneath the stars at night. We will rise early in the morning to catch the day’s first light. We will grill. We will camp. We will stroll. We will run and frolic and smile and wave at each other as we pass. We will sweat, and we will love it. We will smoke cigars in the evening and walk around the canal during lunch. We’ll trade our heavy coats for t-shirts and flip flops, our wool hats for baseball caps, hot cocoa for cold beer, and our TV time for real life adventure. We will be free from the burden of 10″ sheets of ice covering our roads, snow days and overcast weekends. We will be free from the cold which has gripped us for nearly 6 months. We will be free!

Quinn and I are dreaming of the days to come when we will eat fresh pineapple, cut from the core, while lounging outside in our bathing suits; the sunshine burning our post-winter faces. But for now we eat canned pineapple within our heated apartment. Dreaming hard. I hope you’re doing the same.

Another beautiful Christmas and early winter shared with family and friends has come and gone. From building a snowman in Indiana to snowboarding in 18″ of fresh powder in North Carolina, this winter has been filled with joy and memorable moments spent with loved ones.

For the past five years, dentists in Kokomo, Indiana, have been partnering with Dentistry From The Heart to give away free dental care to hundreds of local residents.

Eager patients, having camped out the night before, were treated throughout the day. A multitude of dentists, hygienists, assistants, office administrators and local volunteers worked tirelessly to welcome and care for those gathered. A unique outpouring of generosity, Dentistry From The Heart was perfectly timed for many who otherwise would have gone without dental care.

Their stories all unique yet bound together by a common need for relief, the Kokomo residents expressed their discomforts, worries, hardships, gratitude and smiles throughout the morning. I met laborers and single moms; laid off business men and high school students; line workers and school teachers. I met a man who had, the previous night, pulled two of his own teeth with a pair of pliers. I met workers disgruntled over insurance policies and two high school friends who hadn’t seen each other since 1978. I met dads who used vacation days to get their teeth cleaned, Vietnam veterans, and a family of six that waited nearly 10 hours to get through. I met many who were simply grateful for the free care, happy to be with people, talking and sharing the day together.

Overall, it was a spectacular event. I was touched by the stories and portraits of the patients and dentists, alike. A portion of the Kokomo community was transformed, if only for a day, by the willingness of many to use their talents, skills and time to help others in need.

Around 200 local residents were treated in a matter of 9 hours. Approximately $50,000 worth of dental care was given away for free. Over 50 volunteers from the community showed up to help in a myriad of ways.

All images were taken and are being used here with the participants full consent.

A personal compilation of early morning, cascading, sliding, juxtaposing skyline entries from here in Indianapolis.