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SOUTHSIDE BAR-B-Q PAYBACK
A tattered page from my Red Clay Diary…
I am on the last leg of the day, trying to get into and out of the Southside grocery store and make it home for some after-work peace and quiet.
As I pass the in-house buffet line en route to the dairy section, a clerk asks whether I want to pick up supper. I brusquely tell him “no” without pausing, then glance quickly at the prepared food and see that there are three small barbecue ribs left floating in their burgundy sauce. They are calling out to me.
We need to eat something fast-foody, so I say, “Uh, sir, I think I just changed my mind.” He walks over and I point to the ribs. “Can I just buy what’s left, and nothing else?” I figure that Liz and I can have a nice meal of leftover cole slaw and the ribs before collapsing into our post-long-day stupor at home.
While the clerk is weighing and pricing my order, the pleasant woman who usually works the counter walks up.
“Long day,” I say. “Yes, long day,” she says. We always exchange pleasantries. A woman and man pass behind me, heading for the produce section, and the clerk’s eyes flash. She looks at me knowingly and says something I don’t quite understand, nodding toward the couple. I ask for a repeat, she says the same thing, which I still don’t get, but it’s obvious she’s had an emotional PING and wants to share an opinion and a confession. It’s her body language that tells me this.
“Nobody’s going to do THAT to ME,” she says. I turn around but can only see the backs of the couple.
“What do you mean?”
“Her eyes all wide like that, it’s not right,” she says.
I finally figure out that she means the woman has two black eyes.
I say, “That’s terrible,” acknowledging the fact that she thinks the woman has been abused.
“No man will ever do that to me,” she confides with set jaw.
I cluck sympathetically and mouth some platitude in empathy.
She goes on.
“My ex-husband beat me up.”
“That’s terrible,” is all I can say again, and I mean it.
Her words tumble over the counter.
“He beat me with a hammer,” she continues.
“Holy Moly,” I say to myself and lean forward to learn more.
“But I got him good,” she brags.
I wonder how a small woman like this could stand up to an abusive male probably twice her size.
“I taped him up and set him on fire when he was asleep,” she says, proudly. “He’ll never do THAT to anybody again.”
I can only do what any writer might automatically do. I ask what happened next. There’s always a sequel, since no story ever really ends, you know.
“Did they do anything to you?” I ask. Both of us know who the They is I’m referring to.
“Heck, no, why would they?” she says.
I can only nod sympathetically again, mumble something about how glad I am she lived to tell me the story, and walk on over toward the dairy section for the half and half for Liz.
I pass by the couple and see the woman’s battered eyes for the first time. I know why the sight of them triggered the cook’s story. I wonder if this is what happened to her, too.
Later, writing this down for you to read, I wonder about barbecued wife-beaters and barbecue ribs and what kind of celestial relationship they might have to one another in this enormous and rather puzzling universe
© Jim Reed 2017 A.D.
