We had finished the "Lull", as Elmer called it, and was entering the “Man-Lull” a time when we’d all go inside the church and sleep, play cards and drink coffee. It was about six-thirty in the morning when we heard alarms from fire trucks and someone beating on our front door. I jumped up to see what all the fuss was about and when I opened the door, there was a fellow, wide-eyed and looking like he’d seen a ghost.
He looked at me and said: ”Do you guys know that there is a fire going on out here?” I told him yes, we were cooking BBQ and was aware that a fire was going. “No, you don’t understand...” he said nervously and out of breath, “The trees are on fire along with your pit and the logs around it”. I looked back at the sleeping throng of men laid out on the church pews and shouted “FIRE!” loud enough to wake the dead men up from their sleep plus a few from the cemetery that bordered the church and the BBQ pit. When we ran outside, I saw what must have made the door knocker guy so frightened. The trees were indeed on fire, limbs were burning and dropping hot coals on the numerous pick-up trucks our men drove to the festivities. All the trees including the Pik-nik tables were fully engulfed, where our patrons would come to pick up the food they so anxiously anticipated for the entire year prior. I noticed that the BBQ pit was also fully engulfed and the meat that had been so lovingly attended to was surely ruined. We all stood in shock at the sight we all beheld.
He looked at me and said: ”Do you guys know that there is a fire going on out here?” I told him yes, we were cooking BBQ and was aware that a fire was going. “No, you don’t understand...” he said nervously and out of breath, “The trees are on fire along with your pit and the logs around it”. I looked back at the sleeping throng of men laid out on the church pews and shouted “FIRE!” loud enough to wake the dead men up from their sleep plus a few from the cemetery that bordered the church and the BBQ pit. When we ran outside, I saw what must have made the door knocker guy so frightened. The trees were indeed on fire, limbs were burning and dropping hot coals on the numerous pick-up trucks our men drove to the festivities. All the trees including the Pik-nik tables were fully engulfed, where our patrons would come to pick up the food they so anxiously anticipated for the entire year prior. I noticed that the BBQ pit was also fully engulfed and the meat that had been so lovingly attended to was surely ruined. We all stood in shock at the sight we all beheld.
Then it occurred to us. Bryce never ever stayed over night to hang out with all the men, but there was his Lincoln Continental, parked in the lone handicapped spot in the entire parking lot. That dude was here and we all knew that somehow he was involved. When the three fire departments showed up along with the police was about the time Bryce came walking out the front door, looking as surprised as we were just to see him there. Elmer asked which one of us had stoked the fire last, not upset, but needing to find some order in the chaos. There were three shifts of men that followed Elmer’s every order to a ”T”, and the author was on the last shift before the police came. We walked over to the smoldering pit and burnt down plywood chute, and I noticed that all the stacked up wood was missing. I asked Elmer if he had moved the wood away from the chute just in case and he said no. Elmer then looked at Bryce and said “what are you doing here and what have you done?”
Bryce calmly stated that he rode by to check on things and when he pulled in, he noticed that the coals had nearly burnt out and he just decided to add more wood to help speed up the process. He had thrown every single log into the chute. It took about thirty minutes for the logs to catch fire and a few more for the plywood chute to catch fire also. The trees? Well, we figured they must have taken a good hour to fully catch ablaze. Old Bryce even tried to blame me and whomever else he didn’t like for the debacle. We dug the charred meat out of the fire, hosed it off and carried it down stairs hoping their might be a salvage mission to save the meat. We lost 60% of our meat, but all was not lost, said Elmer. In fifty-five years of BBQ-ing, this had happened a time or two. We’d give more slaw, bigger portion of stew and two slices of bread instead of one.
While we were all upstairs tending to the blaze that was our meat, Bryce had been downstairs, "tending" to the Brunswick Stew. Elmer’s recipe was laid out to perfection. You’d add so much mustard and so much vinegar when the chicken and pork had rendered, then so much tomato paste and corn, cook for a while then on to the next step. Bryce, in his infinite wisdom, looked inside the pot and when the fellows that were tending to the stew went running upstairs to see about all the commotion, they left Bryce to be the master chef. The gentlemen who were in charge of adding the ingredients had just added the right amounts of Mustard and Vinegar, but Bryce thought that if this much Mustard and Vinegar would make it good, then twice as much would make it better. And he'd be wrong. It didn't work for medicine and it sure as hell didn't work on Brunswick stew.
Of course, we only found this out when we were serving the stew on plates,"eat it there" style, the next day to our loyal annual following. I remember one lady saying, "this stew would skin the paint off a car" as she dumped hers in the trash. When Elmer took a taste, he bolted for the kitchen in the basement of our church and when I and a few others arrived shortly thereafter, Elmer had Bryce backed up against the wall with a large butcher knife in his left hand and his other around Bryce’s throat. He told Bryce that if he didn’t want to go meet with either God or the Devil within the next five minutes, he’s better fess up to what he had done to the stew. When he told him he only added Mustard and Vinegar, Elmer looked like he might go temporarily insane. Someone shouted for the pastor to please come quick and when he did, I swear I saw a grin on his face when he saw Bryce in such a Pickle. He even waited a few minutes just for the fun of it, enjoying the show. Then he finally asked Elmer to let Bryce go and Elmer did, but only under the condition that Bryce write a check for the entire amount lost including profit, so we could refund all the money back, so the loyal following we enjoyed might get some satisfaction. And, just maybe, come back next year.
Bryce began to protest at that request, but the pastor laid into him like a hungry man-eating a Christmas Ham. Seeing Bryce all wide-eyed and up on his tip-toes made all the hardship worth it for us bystanders. Things were never the same around the church after Bryce’s BBQ debacle. He had indeed gotten his revenge about not being in charge, but he paid for it in spades. He wouldn't be allowed to lead Friday night BINGO or a Hymn after that.
I didn’t see Elmer around church much after that, but he bequeathed his sacred recipes to me, to be used next year and every year after that. It was a few years later when Elmer died and I heard the story told, at his funeral, about the BBQ fiasco for the first time and it was funny. I laugh every time I think about that Bar-B-Que now and seeing the trees and woods on fire outside.
When I close my eyes I can still smell the smoke. I guess it’s true, time is the murderer of Memory. But I remember.
No comments:
Post a Comment