Dad and I have been in the kettle corn business for about three years. We cater food truck festivals, flea markets, and fundraisers (as the tagline goes). It’s a pretty solid gig, but the worst thing about it is the heat. The ‘kettle’ is a one hundred and sixty quart drum with a gas burner underneath, and a steel tray set up next to it to catch the kettle corn when it’s popped. Someone has to stand in front of the kettle while it cooks, stirring the kernels with an oversized wooden paddle. Sure, they make self-stirring kettles, but there's something about a guy in what looks like a welding mask whisking something around in a pot the size of a washing machine that really draws in customers. 

     But, of course, it also draws in spectators. They tend to ignore the ‘Caution HOT’ sign we put out on the sidewalk, trying to get a peek inside the kettle. Usually it’s children. Usually. 

     What they don’t realize is that when the popping reaches its crescendo, the kettle spits a rain of oil and hot kernels on anything in a six foot radius. I’ve gotten my share of oil burns while serving customers, but I can’t imagine what it’s like for Dad. He stands right in front of it with only the mask and a pair of elbow-length gloves for protection. I assume it's a little like standing over a campfire, frantically stirring embers in the dead of July. We’d come home from a gig and he’d have these awful red welts all over his upper arms.     

     Our last job was at the Redwood Food Truck Festival. Arriving two hours before the event began, Dad parked the trailer beside site 42 and we began hauling our equipment into place. I grabbed two buckets, cringing at the sticky feeling of the handles. The words ‘corn’ and ‘sugar’ were just visible through the layer of sugary grime on the lids. 

     Walking down the ramp with the buckets in hand, I spotted a guy leaning against a taco truck, breathing heavily and beating a fistful of shirt against his chest. That was when I noticed it. Even for summer it was abnormally hot, and however hot it was now, it’d be double by the time we got the first batch going; the kettle cooker would make sure of that.

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     We were up and running half an hour before the show started, so we took a quick break. I grabbed a sweet tea out of the cooler. Dad sat beside me smoking a cigarette. By the time it burned down to the filter, festival-goers had already begun to crowd the streets. He turned to look at me.

     “What'd ya say we get some corn popped up?”

     I grinned and nodded.

     He set the pilot light under the kettle. The gas made a sound like an exhaust pipe before the fire caught, then it roared.

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     Dad tipped the third batch into the metal tray. It was caramel—the easiest one to cook. It didn’t harden up in clumps like the others. I moved to the adjacent side of the tray and started mixing. Dad stood across from me doing the same. Since I was facing the front of the booth, it was my job to keep an eye out for customers. On one of my cursory glances up from the tray, I noticed the thermos on the table.

     My God, has he been drinking coffee this whole time? In this heat?

     I looked back at him, standing across from me, scooping caramel corn into the bag. Fresh off the kettle, still scalding, threatening to melt the plastic. He didn’t notice my stare. He just twisted the top of the bag with a dull concentration.

     “You oughta drink some water, Dad.” 

     “I’ll guzzle one down just as soon as we finish cooking.”

     That meant two more batches. We always made five batches at the start of a show—two original, one caramel, one cherry, and one blue raspberry. If he hadn’t drank any water (and I was sure he hadn’t) or had any breakfast, not to mention whatever water he did have in his system being eaten away by caffeine… Well. I didn’t like it. 

     He shot me a reassuring smile before turning to place the last two bags of caramel on the table. I didn’t say anything. He fired up the kettle.

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     I’d taken my place back at the makeshift cash register, absently munching on a box of garlic-parmesan fries while Dad started a batch of cherry. 

     “You should be eating kettle corn, not french fries.”

     I jumped, turning towards the voice to my left. It was a grinning old man. Kinda looked like Clint Eastwood in The Mule, but his hair was longer, swirling out from under his Stetson safari hat. Not only was he wearing a safari hat in downtown Redwood, but the most neon orange T-shirt I’ve ever seen. He looked out at me through prescription glasses with sunglass shades clipped to the rims. 

     Alright, nevermind the confusing joke; this guy was cool. 

     I offered a courteous laugh and asked what I could do for him. He looked over our supply.

     “Do you have any Cherry flavor?”

     “Not yet, Dad’s popping up a batch right now.”

     “Oh, perfect. I’ll pay you now and wait ‘til it’s ready.”

     He handed me six dollars and went to the sidewalk to wait in the shade, granting him a better view of the kettle and its masked operator. I was relieved to see him standing at a safe distance, and turned back to tend to the cash register. Right on, Clint. Dinner and a show.

     There was another ebb in the flow of customers, so I waited, listening to the quiet swish of the kernels being shifted in the oil behind me. They wouldn’t pop yet. Not for another—

     CLANK

     The handle hit the stainless steel rim as Dad stumbled forward. 

      Eyes snapped towards our booth. Heads popped out of food truck windows to see what the noise was about, and some of them screamed, but none louder than Dad. 

     I didn’t need to turn around. I could see it on all their faces. God knows I didn’t want to, but when I turned around I saw his legs thrashing out from the maw of the kettle and his old tennis shoes clawing in the dust trying to find a hold. Clint Eastwood was still standing there on the sidewalk with one hand over his mouth and the other gripping at the wall. 

     And somehow I heard it, quick reports from within the kettle. A few pops here and there and then it rumbled like it always did, and all I could do was stand there wondering how it cooked the same with a man fallen headlong into the machinery.

     I could see the corn rising in the kettle like a crackling red tongue, leaving the screams almost mute underneath it. The sound consumed all others. Not screams, not shoes scuffing in the dirt, just snapping kernels going off against the stainless-steel jaw of the beast.

     An unpopped kernel struck me above the eyebrow, staining red candy-mix on my forehead. My eyes closed on reflex, and when I forced them open there was no beast. There was no tongue. The screaming lungs little more than a propane tank hooked up to an industrial machine. Clint Eastwood was standing next to me, yelling something. Whatever it was he said, I agreed, and I followed him when he sprinted for the kettle.

     The smell was stronger here, like sick-sweet burning. With Clint on one side and I on the other, we pulled Dad out by the shoulders with oil blistering our fists. He cried out again as skin sloughed off his arms and sizzled against the walls of the kettle, almost camouflaged on the blackening-red mass. Clint sat him down at the folding chair by the money box. The plastic mask was melted around the edges, but it managed to protect his face. Charred blood ran down his shaking arms, held away from his body so the raw skin wouldn’t touch.

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     We were pressing water bottles from the ice box to the burns, but we weren’t sure what to do about his arms. Me and Clint decided we’d leave that to the professionals. 

     He’s in the hospital now, and his arms are mending well. He told me later that before he fell, his vision went dark for a minute and he got dizzy. He kept blinking trying to bring it back and just lost his balance. Sounds like dehydration to me. I hate to say I told you so, but…