Joey Chestnut Visits Lair of Slain Protestors Ahead of Contest

For 16 time Glizzy Throat Goat, Joey Chestnut, the eve of the Nathan's Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest is not a time for rest or quiet contemplation. It is a pilgrimage into the dark abyss of his own past.

July 3rd this year began, as it always did… With a breakfast of 37 glizzies, swallowed with the determination of a man condemned.

Then he said a desperate prayer for a forgiveness he knew he’d never receive. The words catching in his throat like undigested meat. Then, clutching a single, flickering candle, he would descend.

Down, down, down the cold, metal spiral staircase of his sprawling, wiener funded mansion he went. Into the deep, damp lair that lies beneath. This was his confessional, his mausoleum, the final resting place for his victims...

The animal rights protestors, the dietary crusaders, the simply unlucky who had dared to stand between a man and his destiny of competitive mastication.

“How many lives, Joey?” he whispered to the darkness, his voice a dry rasp. The great iron door, cold and impossibly heavy, swung open with a groan that echoed the sighs of the damned.

“How many families must be destroyed before the feast is finished, Joe?” He said to himself, stepping into the darkness.

He stood on the precipice of his own personal hell, a fifty foot chasm of concrete and bone beneath the monument to his gluttony.

For a long moment, he allowed the frigid air to caress his skin, the scent of decay and forgotten dreams filling his lungs. Then, with a pull of a cord, a single, bare lightbulb sputtered to life, swinging lazily on its cord, each oscillation revealing a new tableau of horror.

The light played across the skeletal remains of his victims, a grotesque tapestry of his reign.

There, propped against a damp wall, was the skull of a 2022 protestor, a young man who had attempted to upstage Joey during his finest moment on live television.

In the ensuing struggle, a stray, mustard-slicked hand had found the man’s throat before snuffing out his final breath. The Darth Vader mask he had been wearing was still attached to the bone.

Another corner held a jumble of skeletons, still clad in the tattered remains of "Meat is Murder" t-shirts, their bony fingers intertwined as if in a final, futile act of solidarity.

Tears, hot and shameful, welled in Joey’s eyes. A bead of sweat, thick with the grease of his morning wieners, traced a path down his temple. This was the true cost of his championship titles.

He had considered it, of course. A final, cleansing fire. Destroying this place forever. But some masochistic compulsion drew him back here, year after year. He needed to feel the weight of his sins, to marinate in the consequences of his choices before the dawn of his big day.

He sank onto the lone wooden stool that sat directly beneath the swinging light, the cellar’s chill seeping into his bones. He wasn't always this… this monster.

He had been a man once. A man with aspirations that didn't involve the rapid, televised swallowing of processed meat.

He had once dreamed of being an engineer. He dreamed of building structures that would make human lives easier. Now, his legacy was measured in the amount of meats he could stuff in his stretched stomach. He remembered dates, the awkward charm of getting to know someone, the simple pleasure of a shared beer with friends who didn't see him as a national wiener icon.

This year, the weight felt different. Crushing. The tears came not as a trickle, but as a torrent. The ghosts of his past were no longer content to whisper… they screamed. He doubled over, the phantom taste of a thousand hot dogs rising in his throat. He couldn't do it. Not again.

Suddenly, an idea struck him with the force of a divine thunderbolt.

It was so simple.

He would feign illness. A sudden, debilitating case of…gout. Yes. He would issue a statement, expressing his profound regret. And then, he would vanish. Fade into a quiet, comfortable obscurity. No more wieners. No more deaths. Enough was, at long last, enough.

As the first glimmer of hope began to warm his frozen heart, his phone buzzed in his pocket. He fumbled for it, his hands slick with sweat. An unknown number. He answered.

Silence. Then, a voice, smooth and cold as polished steel. “You’ve been down there for a while, Joey… Is everything… OK?”

Joey’s blood ran cold. It was Eric Gatoff, the CEO of Nathan’s Famous.

“How…how do you know where I am?” Joey stammered, his voice barely a whisper.

A low chuckle echoed through the phone. “We’re always watching, Joey. You know that. To protect our investment. To protect you…from yourself.”

Gatoff’s voice dropped, the feigned concern evaporating, replaced by a chillingly flat authority. “You aren’t having second thoughts, are you, champ? You aren’t considering…a breach of contract? We both remember what happened when you entertained that little 2024 flirtation with vegan dogs, and Impossible Foods?”

Joey’s mind reeled. The "unfortunate" kitchen fire at the vegan corporation's HQ. The lead "scientist" of their food innovation team "accidentally" falling into a meat grinder. Of course… Why didn’t he think about it until now?

“The world needs you, Joey,” Gatoff continued, his voice now a purr of patriotic fervor.

“America needs you. In these trying, divided times, what else do they have? What other tradition unites these poor fools, Joe?"

"For ten minutes, every 4th of July, the entire nation holds its breath. They aren’t watching a man eat, Joey. They’re watching a hero. They’re watching the embodiment of the American dream. The relentless pursuit of more. The beautiful, unadulterated excess that makes this country great. You are a symbol, Joey. A beacon of hope in a world choking on carbon emissions and self doubt.”

The words, as twisted and perverse as they were, began to resonate in his mind.

He looked around the dungeon, at the silent, accusing faces of the dead. They were sacrifices, weren't they?

Necessary casualties in a war for the very soul of the nation. He wasn’t a monster. He was a Hero. A patriot.

A slow, grim smile spread across his face, the tears on his cheeks drying in the cold, stagnant air. He stood up, the stool clattering to the floor. His voice, when he finally spoke, was steady, resolute.

“I’m fine, Eric,” he said into the phone, his gaze falling upon the Darth Vader mask. “Just… clearing my head.” He reached out and straightened the Darth Vader helmet on the protestor's skull.

“I’ll see you tomorrow. And I’ll be hungry.”

He turned and walked towards the iron door, the single lightbulb still swinging, casting his long, dark shadow against the horrors of his past. The ghosts would have to wait. America was hungry. And Joey Chestnut, the 16 time Glizzy Throat Goat, was ready to feed the beast.