“Mr. Whitfield, those ribs are not his,” I said, and I laid my hand flat on the business plan. “They belong to a man named Clarence Duval. He made them for thirty years in an oil tank he welded himself, and I stood beside him and learned.” The picnic tables fell silent. Forty employees in company t shirts stopped chewing. Shawn stood frozen with a pair of tongs in his hand, his face the color of the pale pink ribs on his platter. His boss, the silver haired man in the golf shirt, put down his bone slowly. “Bernadette,” he said, “I know that name. Clarence Barbecue. On Troost Avenue. I took my wife there for our anniversary.” I said, “I know. You were a regular.”
“I was the owner,” I said. “I sold all fourteen locations in September. Twelve million, eight hundred thousand dollars.” I let it land. “I am Bernadette Duval. I did not tell my daughter, because I wanted to see what my son in law would do when he thought I was just an old cook. I am sorry to say that I found out.” Mr. Whitfield raised his eyebrows. He turned to Shawn. “Is that true? That is her smoker?” Shawn stammered, “Mr. Whitfield, it, it is a family thing. My father in law left it to us. It is an heirloom. I merely, I refurbished it.” I said, “You told my daughter you scrapped it.”
Kim had not moved. She stood beside the picnic table in a sundress, one hand pressed against her stomach. She was thirty six years old, with the broad cheekbones of her father and the quick temper of her mother, and I watched her take the whole thing in, piece by piece, like a woman reading a bad medical report. “Shawn,” she said quietly, “is it true? You told me the smoker of Daddy was rusted through. You said the scrap man gave us forty dollars.” Shawn said, “Kim, honey, not now.” She said, “Now. Right now.” Her voice was so even that Mr. Whitfield took a step backward. Somebody turned off the music on the speaker.
A custom smoker in a garage and a business plan with the wrong name on it led one widow to her ribs and her family.
Shawn broke. I have seen men break in my kitchen over an overcooked brisket, and I recognized the look. His shoulders sagged. “I needed a business,” he said, in a small cracked voice. “I have been selling insurance for eleven years and I hate every day of it. I thought, if I could just get Mr. Whitfield to invest, I could open a smokehouse. Something that was mine.” He looked at the smoker, gleaming black under the garage light. “I got the smoker of Clarence from the scrapyard before they crushed it. I paid sixty dollars. I painted it. I did not mean to steal. I just wanted so badly to be someone.”
I looked at him, this thin, anxious man with his borrowed gold logo, and the anger that I had carried for three days drained out of me, slowly, like water from a tub. I had been married forty one years to a man who made food for people. I knew the hunger in the eyes of Shawn. It was not for money. It was for meaning. I said, “Shawn, I understand. I do. I also know you lied to my daughter, and to your boss, and to me. You cannot build a restaurant on a lie. The first time somebody tastes the truth, it falls apart.” He nodded, staring at the grass.
Mr. Whitfield cleared his throat. “Bernadette, may I say something?” I nodded. He said, “I came to this picnic planning to invest a hundred thousand dollars in the Smokehouse of Shawn. I am glad I did not. But I would like to invest in something.” He gestured at the smoker. “Mrs. Duval, if you ever open another restaurant, I would be honored to be a partner.” I laughed. “Mr. Whitfield, I am sixty six. I am retired.” He grinned. “So I hear. Well. The offer stands.” Shawn and Kim exchanged a startled glance. Around us, the employees began, very quietly, to clap.
That evening, after the guests had gone, the four of us, Kim, Shawn, my grandson, and I, sat at the picnic table in the dark, with the smoker ticking as it cooled. I laid out my terms. “Shawn, the smoker comes home with me. You will not touch it. You will, however, work for me, one weekend a month, at my pit. I am going to start a small thing, a food truck. Clarence and Family. Kim will keep the books. You will learn to smoke.” His mouth fell open. “Mrs. Duval, I do not deserve it.” I said, “That is the most honest sentence you have spoken all day.”
He came the first Saturday at five in the morning, with a thermos of coffee, ten minutes early. I handed him a pair of heavy gloves and a splitting maul. He split oak for two hours. I did not speak. When he finished, his palms were blistered, and his shirt was drenched, and he stood before the smoker with his hands on his hips. I said, “Now we start.” For six months, I taught him the way Clarence had taught me. How to read the smoke by its color. How to lay a fire that burns clean. How to wait. Shawn was the worst student I ever had, and the most willing.
The truck opened in March, at the corner of Troost and Thirty First, painted a deep warm black with gold letters on the side. It read, Clarence and Family. Est. 1992. Kim ran the window. Shawn tended the smoker. On opening day the line stretched around the block. I stood to one side, in a chef coat, and watched a man in a golf shirt bite into a rib, close his eyes, and say to nobody in particular, “That is it. That is exactly it.” It was Mr. Whitfield. He saw me and raised his rib in salute. I raised my spatula.
That night, after closing, I found Shawn alone at the smoker, wiping it down with a soft cloth. He looked up. His eyes were damp. “Bernadette,” he said, using my name for the first time, “do you think Clarence would have liked me?” I considered. “Clarence liked everybody,” I said. “He liked people who were trying.” I put my hand on the black steel, which was still warm. “He would have said you are a decent pit man, and a terrible liar, and that you should marry my daughter again, and do it right.” Shawn laughed, a short helpless sound, and wiped his eyes with the cloth.
