Buddy's, Part I "This is Going to Take a While"

So, here I am again, sitting in Buddy’s, waiting for somebody to show up. Seems like I’ve spent a sizable chunk of my life sitting in Buddy’s, waiting. They ought to put up a little plaque over this table--The Jackie Lish Commemorative Waiting Corner--or at the very least, they ought to name a barstool after me. That end one, there, by the jukebox. I’ve probably twirled back and forth on that stool enough to wear out the gizmo that makes it swivel a half dozen times. I know I’ve fed quarters into that damned jukebox and punched up “Jackie Blue” by Ozark Mountain Daredevils enough times to cause that record to go platinum by myself.

     Buddy’s hasn’t changed a whole lot in all these years. Well, they keep adding to the collection of stuff that hangs from the ceiling. All kinds of things, as long as they’re red.  Somebody in Buddy’s likes red. They’ve got a little red Radio Flyer wagon, Coca Cola boxes, clusters of wooden apples, a kid’s sandbox shovel and bucket, decorative tins, a shiny red tricycle. Stuff like that. A few years ago, during the chili pepper craze, they strung red chili pepper lights all over the place. Half those lights are burned out now, and the dust on the chili peppers makes them glow sorta greenish instead of red, but it doesn’t seem to occur to anybody to take them down. 

The food hasn’t changed much, either, which is good, because I don’t know what I’d do if I couldn’t come here and get my garlic fix when I need it. The Chick’s Special with meatballs and a Buddy’s salad--that’s my order, and it never changes. Rose used to say that there’s a dark, needy place inside the people who come to Buddy’s, and it must be fed, and the only food it wants is garlic salad. They bring you that salad, and it’s drenched in olive oil and so big that it falls off the bowl and stains the tablecloth, and the aroma of garlic stings your nose like ammonia. You take a bite and hit one of those big chunks of bleu cheese, and your eyes screw up tight in your head and you make a little growling noise deep in your throat.

     Where’s that goddamn waiter?

     I don’t know who this bozo is who wants to interview me. Some kinda journalist. Said it’s for a “three-part series on Idaho’s African-American citizens.” Educational channel program or something like that. I told him I didn’t know what I could tell him that he couldn’t find in the newspapers. Surely they’ve got all that over at the library. “Psychological angle,” he said. Explained that he’s got a degree in “cognitive reassemblage” as well as journalism, and he’s working on a thesis that "illustrates his technique.” Whatever. 

     Anyway, he said he wants to know about Portland Rose.  Which makes me laugh, because nobody called her Portland Rose.  She’d let you call her that one time, but then she’d give you one of her concentrating looks and say, “Knock off the Portland. It’s just Rose,” and if you forgot again, she’d act like you weren’t talking to her.
     This must be him. Looks like a “three-part series” guy: vegetarian thin, wire-rimmed glasses, turtleneck, suit jacket, and too-clean, ironed levis. Monogrammed breast-pocket handkerchief. HSM. The S in the center of the monogram is much larger than the H or M. Day Planner, also embossed with an S supported on each side by H and M. Notebook. Gold fountain pen--nice touch. 

     “Ms. Lish?”

     “Call me Jackie.”

     “I’m Henry S. Milford.” He sure is proud of that S. He bobs his head a couple of times and gives me a firm, job-interview type of handshake. “We spoke on the telephone this afternoon.”

     “Yeah, I remember,” I say. But I didn’t have to write it in my Day Planner. “Wanta eat while we talk?"

     “No, thank you. Do they have bottled water here?”

     “Well, you can ask. Try the salad if you’re hungry.” Henry S. Milford beckons a waiter and enters into a fussy dialogue about Aqua Vit and Crystal Geyser. When the beverage problem has been solved, Henry S uncaps his fountain pen, opens his notebook, and prints the date at the top of a blank page. 

     I take another bite of salad. “So, you want the ‘psychological angle’ on Rose?” I say around a mouthful of garlicky leaves.

     “Well, from your personal point of view,” he says.

     What other point of view could I have? I think.  “What, exactly, d’you want to know?”

     “I have a list of questions for you.” Henry S bobs his head again, a gesture that doesn’t seem to be in response to anything in particular. I can tell that it’s going to get on my nerves. He takes a printed sheet from a pocket in his notebook. “These are questions designed to elicit memory responses.”

     “Memory responses.”

     “Yes.” Bob-bob goes his head. “By uttering key words, memories of specific events are stimulated, and the subject begins to retrieve additional information which can then be coded.”

     What a piece of work Henry S is. I just stare at him for a few seconds, so he goes on. “For instance, the first question is: Who introduced you the first time you and the subject, Portland Rose, that is, met?”

     “Who introduced us? Nobody, I guess. At least, I mean, Rose introduced herself. I was sitting--”

     “Subject introduced self,” says Henry S, bobbing and making a check mark on his sheet in a little box next to the word, “Self.”  He prints a numeral one on the first page of his notebook and writes, “Subject introduced self,” in tiny carefully-formed letters.

     I can see that this is going to take a while.

Harris Bar-B-Cue, Part I "We Saw the Smoke"

 We saw the smoke from our third-floor window in the Fargo Arms. I thought it must be the tire store, and you said the Kwik Stop. But when we put on our coats and walked over that way, passing those places, they were okay. It was farther up Fourth Avenue, and soon we could see that it was Harris Bar-B-Cue--not only the restaurant, but Mr. Harris’ house next door. The fire trucks had arrived quickly, but those buildings were so old, and it had been so dry that summer that the firemen soon put down their axes and concentrated on spraying the African Bethel Methodist Church on the corner to keep it from burning, too. 

      We got pretty close--across the street--and we watched the fire eat up first the restaurant and then the house. Old Mr. Harris wasn’t in there, of course, and I was glad, now, that he was dead a year and didn’t have to see this. The heat wasn’t as bad as you’d think, even after we crossed the street and stood on the curb, although every once in a while there’d come a big THWACK! from inside the restaurant that made us jump back. We began to hear explosions: large, wet pops--the gallon jars of sauce bursting--and the air was redolent with the smell of barbecue. 

*  *  *  *  * * * * * * * 

      We could smell the barbecue as soon as we got out of the car. The pink neon light--“Bar-B-Q Best in the West”--was flickering, and the rip in the screen had gotten bigger since last time, but the spring was new, and the door caught Martin on the heel as we went in. Mr. Harris heard it slam and came hobbling out from the kitchen in the back of the restaurant, rubbing sauce off his dark hands with his apron.

      “Howdy, folks. What'll it be? Barbecue?”

      “Yes, Mr. Harris. It's my birthday, today.”

      “So you came down to old Harris' for a party. And who are these fine gent’emen?”

      “You remember my husband, Martin. You’ve got our picture on your board. And this is Tom.  He goes to the University and rents our apartment.”

      Tom transferred the paper bag he carried to his left hand, and the three men shook hands. “A mite sticky,” chuckled Mr. Harris.  Tom laughed, too, and wiped his fingers on his jeans. Martin stared into his palm, then shook his handkerchief out of his breast pocket and picked off the tiny glob of barbecue sauce that clung to the heel of his hand. He carefully refolded the handkerchief, soiled side in, and transferred it to his back pocket.

      “Well, c’mon in and set yourself down.” Mr. Harris led us into the dining room of the house-turned-restaurant. There was only one other customer in the place, an older, shiny-faced woman sulkily drinking beer in one of the booths that lined the front wall. The booths were upholstered in cracked red leather. Grimy tin Coca Cola trays were nailed to the wall over each booth, and above them, faded posters advertising Nabisco crackers and Pear’s soap curled away from their tacks.

      We took mismatched chairs around a painted wooden table in the center of the small room. Mr. Harris elbowed his way past Martin, pushed a chair in behind me with a courtly flourish, then pulled one up for himself. He sat with bowed legs curled around either side of his chair and leaned an elbow on the table. “Got a batch of cornbread just about ready. Barbecue’s comin' right up.”  He turned to Tom. “Best in the West. Used to cook for the Union Pacific Railroad,” he explained. “The Portland Rose. That was a great ol’ train. I cooked my way from Portland to Denver and back again for twenty-three years.”

      Tom nodded attentively. “Twenty-three years, huh? That’s a long time. How’d you wind up in Pocatello?”

      “Well, I met me a girl. On a stopover one night. She was servin’ cornbread and pourin’ coffee down at the old Yellowstone Hotel. You know, down ‘cross from the railroad depot?” Tom nodded, and Mr. Harris went on, folding his arms on his chest with the air of someone settling in for a long spell of yarning. “Sumthin’ ‘bout the way she sliced me a extra big piece of cornbread and asked if I wanted honey on it made me think I oughta hang around a little longer.” He paused and stared out the dingy glass of the dining room window. “She’s been gone, now, fifteen years.” 

      A slightly scorched smell wafted toward us from the kitchen. Mr. Harris pushed his chair back and stood up. “Speakin’ a cornbread, it’s pro’bly done by now.” He hurried back into the kitchen, his bandy legs rocking him from side to side.

      I leaned low over the table toward Tom. “The rest of the story is, he married her, they opened this restaurant, and they had a daughter they named Portland Rose.”

      “You’re kidding.”

      “Nope. ‘Course she went by Rose, not Portland. Worked for the railroad here in town, ‘til she was killed in a motorcycle accident.”

      “You never told me that,” interjected Martin. He sounded surprised and slightly injured.

      “Guess I thought you knew. I’m pretty sure it was when you were working the Emergency Room.” 

      “Sounds like kind of a tough character,” said Tom.

      “Not really. ‘Course, I didn’t know her well.”  

      Tom nodded toward the kitchen where Mr. Harris’ off-tune humming competed with the crashing of pots and pans. “He’s sure a character.”

      “Something like that,” said Martin. “By the way, are we going to have some of that champagne you brought?”

      I turned over three of the thick, scratched glasses that sat upside-down in the center of the table. “Yeah, let’s get this birthday celebration underway.” 

      Tom drew two sweating green bottles from his paper sack and held them up by their necks like trophy pheasants. Martin reached across the table and took one from him. 

      “I’ll do the honors,” he said, turning the bottle and scrutinizing the label. “Oh, a domestic brand.” He peeled the foil from the top of the bottle. “With a plastic stopper. I see we won’t be needing a corkscrew. Not that there’s likely to be one in this place.” He put his thumbs on either side of the stopper and toggled it up out of the neck of the bottle. “Kay drags me here two or three times a year,” he explained to Tom. “I’ll admit the food is good,” Martin held his glass up to the light, turning it this way and that, “but I make sure my tetanus shot is up-to-date before coming.” He chuckled at his own joke, and Tom smiled politely.