"Hell if I know," he admits, because honestly, most of how Alabama operates is a mystery to him, and maybe always will be. He'd be just fine if that ends up being the case.

God, he swears he can smell the sugar steaming off the thing, and the weird little "toast" shudders puffs of powdered sugar free, shedded from the mass like flakes of snow. He pinches a fragment of the fried dough free with a tweak of his fingers, and it's precisely as rich as it smells.

"...damn," he says, swallowing. "I feel like I've already gotten a cavity."

But...hell with it. You only live five times.

He's gonna have more.