In Louisiana a friend took me to Raising Cane's.
I asked the cashier, a young woman named Kayla, for the menu.
She pointed at the board. It was short. Suspiciously short.
"Chicken fingers," she said.
I waited for the rest.
There was no rest.
I asked about beef.
"Chicken fingers."
I asked about pork.
"Still chicken fingers."
I asked whether this was a translation problem.
She said, "No, baby. We do one thing."
A short menu is not poverty.
A short menu is a vow you can taste.
I have ordered from menus with one hundred choices and felt no fear. This board knocked me down with five words.
I asked what she recommended.
"Chicken fingers."
So I did what any reasonable man would do when a path has three names.
I ordered all three.
The Box. The 3 Finger. The Caniac.
Kayla paused. "You want all three?"
"If the menu has three names," I said, "I will meet all three. A warrior does not sample honor. He answers all of it."
They arrived. They were all chicken fingers. Different counts. Same destiny. The Caniac was not a separate creature. It was simply more of the creature.
Kayla set down the sauce without ceremony.
I tasted it.
This sauce is not a side.
This sauce is the law the chicken agreed to live under.
I later learned the restaurant is named after a dog. A yellow dog. The founder wanted a place that sold only chicken fingers. Banks said no. A professor failed the plan. He opened anyway, in 1996, near a college gate in Baton Rouge.
Thirty years.
Same board.
Same five things.
I came back the next day. Kayla saw me and spoke first.
"Chicken fingers?"
I bowed. I ordered The Box. I did not ask for the rest of the menu. There is no rest of the menu. There never was.
They told him one idea was too small for America.
He kept the one idea anyway.
And America did not walk past it.
America did not ask for a second idea.
America formed a line, handed over its money, and knelt to chicken fingers like a nation recognizing its own king.
I finished every finger in that box.
I licked the salt from my thumb like a man sealing a treaty.
I looked at that short board the way my grandfather looked at a sword that had never failed him.
Raise the banner for the dog.
Raise the banner for the man who refused to add a second thought.
Raise the banner for the shortest menu in the empire.
I am not visiting anymore.
I am reporting for duty.