He hauled my Thursday regular off the bench by the COLLAR and threw him in the GRAVEL — and his two buddies in pastel polo shirts laughed with their mouths full of my brisket.
The man on the ground was pushing seventy. The one standing over him was Colby Garrity, whose daddy sits on the county board that renews my permit every March.
His cane lay in the gravel, out of reach.
“I said this table was ours, grandpa.”
The stand was my dad’s before his back gave out. One smoker trailer, six red tables, and Route 83 past the fence.
The old man had come EVERY Thursday since the summer before last. He pointed at the chalkboard, shook his head at the sauce and laid down exact change.
Fourteen months, and I’d never heard his voice. From the firebox I see every car that pulls off 83. Never his. He’d walk out from behind the woodpile, helmet under his arm.
He set it on the table like a second plate and ate facing the highway.
The bulb over table two had buzzed all week.
I put my tongs down on the firebox and walked over.
“Hey. Back off him.”
Colby turned slow and bent down until his face was four inches from mine.
“Or what, sweetheart? Go back to your smoker.”
His vest was almost touching my apron.
I’ve stood closer to fire.
“Three of you on one old man. Real tough.”
One of the polo shirts quit laughing. Colby didn’t.
“You know who my father is?”
I knew. His father signed the permit in my cash box.
“I know what his son is.”
Behind him, the old man hadn’t gotten up. He sat where he’d landed, dust all down his leather jacket, and turned his head toward the highway like somebody had called his name.
Nobody had.
Then lights came up out of the flat, in the last of the orange. HEADLIGHTS, SEVEN ACROSS. TWENTY MOTORCYCLES filling the northbound lane.
Colby heard them before he turned.
The grin went off his face. His mouth stayed open on whatever he’d been about to say next.
The old man stayed right where he was and let them come.
Seven Across
They didn’t ride past.
The front row rolled off the blacktop onto my gravel and the rest came in behind them, filling the lot from the fence to the woodpile until my pickup sat in the middle like an island. Twenty bikes. Then the keys went off from the front row back, and with each one I could hear a little more of the smoker ticking.
Kickstands. Helmets on the mirrors. They stood beside their bikes with their hands out of their pockets.
Every one of them took a long look at Colby. Not one of them spoke to him.
A heavy man with a gray beard down to his second button came across the lot first. He went around Colby the long way, the way you’d step around a puddle, got down on one knee and picked the cane up out of the gravel.
“Arlen,” he said. “You hurt?”
The old man shook his head once.
“We ride this road every Thursday,” the gray beard said, to me, because I was the one standing there with my mouth open. “Thirty-four years. He’s the one that started it. He waves, we honk. Tonight he didn’t wave.”
Arlen. I’d been calling him Thursday in my head for fourteen months.
Before he’d take the hand, Arlen reached up and fixed his collar. Pulled it back up tight around his throat where Colby had yanked it open. Then he let the gray beard lift him onto the bench.
Something had come out of his jacket when he landed. Black plastic, about the size of a flashlight. I picked it up, wiped the dust off on my apron and put it in my pocket to give back.
Colby found his voice.
“He fell. Y’all saw him fall.”
Nobody answered him. Twenty people stood by twenty motorcycles and looked at him. One of them was eating a peppermint.
The gray beard looked over at me.
“Ma’am, you’ll want to call that in. We’ll be right here.”
So I did. I told the dispatcher a man in his late sixties had been thrown on the ground at the barbecue stand on 83, and yes, the man who did it was still here.
The mint polo put his fork down.
Colby looked at the fence line, then at his truck, then at the fence line again. Then he took out his own phone.
“Dad. Yeah. The barbecue place on 83.”
Exact Change
The county is big and the deputies are few. It was twenty-five minutes before we saw the light bar.
My dad bought that smoker trailer at an auction in 2012 and welded the firebox door himself. He painted the six tables red. He taught me to cook on it when I was twelve, and to keep books the same year, in a green ledger he still has on a shelf at the house. Every dollar in, every dollar out, in pencil. “If it’s not in the book,” he’d say, “it didn’t happen.”
His back went two years ago, stacking a cord of hickory. Now he sits in a recliner in town with a brace on, and I run it.
Every March he used to drive into town “to take care of the permit.” He’d come home and say, “We’re good for another year, Chey.” I never asked what that meant. When I took over, he still handled March.
Route 83 has a few of us. The fireworks tent at the junction. Nestor Zamora, who sells peaches off a flatbed a mile south when they’re in, and buys a sandwich off me every Friday of the season.
And Arlen. Brisket, no sauce, pointed at on the chalkboard. The exact change stacked on the table, quarters on the bottom, dimes on top.
Once I ran out of burnt ends. He took a pen out of his jacket and wrote on a napkin. PLAIN IS FINE. Block capitals, straight as a ruler.
He’d watch me make change for other people. When I opened the cash box, his eyes went to the lid, where the permit’s taped. One afternoon last winter he reached over while I had it open and tapped the bottom corner of that paper with one finger. Twice.
I figured he was telling me it was almost March.
And every Thursday at dusk a pack of bikes went by northbound and leaned on their horns passing the stand. I took it for my sign, the pig with the chef’s hat, or just bikers being bikers. Arlen ate with his back to the firebox. If he ever waved, I never saw it.
Deputy Vang was a short woman with a clipboard and no patience for Colby. He told her Arlen fell. The pink polo said he didn’t see anything. The mint polo looked at his shoes for a long time and said, “He grabbed him by the shirt.”
Vang asked Arlen what happened. He touched his throat and shook his head, and the gray beard said, “He can’t do it out loud, ma’am. He’s got a buzzer thing he holds to his neck since the surgery, and he hates the sound of it in front of people. He’ll write before he’ll use it. Give him your pen.” My hand went to my apron pocket, where the black plastic thing was, and stayed there.
She gave him her clipboard. He wrote for a while. She read it and asked him if he wanted to press charges.
He wrote YES and underlined it twice.
Colby left in the back of the cruiser. The riders didn’t move until the taillights were gone. Then they put their helmets on and rode north, and Arlen stood up with his cane and walked out behind the woodpile the way he always did.
He was behind the woodpile before I got it out of my apron. It was still in there when I got home.
At seven the next morning a silver Tahoe was parked on my gravel.
A Hundred-Dollar Plate
Lloyd Garrity got out in pressed jeans and a pale blue golf shirt with the county seal on the chest. He shook my hand.
“You’re Butch’s girl,” he said. “I’ve known your daddy twenty years. How’s his back?”
“Same.”
“Hell of a thing.”
The fire was an hour from ready. He said he’d take yesterday’s brisket cold, and he laid a hundred-dollar bill on table two.
“Keep it,” he said. “I owe you that and more.”
He sat down on the same bench.
“Colby’s got a temper. That’s his mother’s side. I’m not making excuses for him, I’m telling you I know. He’s going to apologize to that gentleman. I’ll see to it.”
“Here’s a thing you ought to hear from me and not from a letter,” he said.
He wiped his fingers on a napkin.
“The board’s doing a review of the roadside vendors on 83 next month. Setbacks from the road. Fire code on these smoker trailers. It’s been coming a while. And with the sheriff out here last night, your address is on a call log now, and that’s the kind of thing that comes up.”
“Nobody here did anything.”
“I know that. You know that.” He smiled at me. “And Mr. Haskett, he’s an old gentleman. Colby’s lawyer is going to ask him a lot of questions about his memory, in front of a lot of people. A man can change his mind about pressing charges. You see him every week. You might mention it.”
“Tell him yourself.”
“I’m telling you.”
He nodded like I’d said something reasonable and slid the hundred an inch closer to my side of the table.
He walked to the Tahoe and had the door open before he turned around.
“Tell Butch the envelope’s the same as always.”
The Green Book
My dad was in the recliner with the brace on and the TV going with the sound off. A man on the screen was holding up a catfish.
He’d heard about Thursday already. It’s a small county. I told him about the Tahoe.
When I got to the envelope he looked at the catfish.
“Dad.”
“It’s five hundred dollars, Chey.”
“What is?”
“Every March. Cash. Behind the feed store, in the lot. He parks by the propane tanks and you hand it through the window.” He said it the way he’d tell me where the spare key is. “The permit’s a hundred seventy-five to the county. That goes by check. The envelope’s so it goes through.”
“So what goes through?”
“The permit.”
“You pay the fee, the fire marshal looks at the trailer, you get the sticker.”
He shook his head at me like I was twelve again.
“Nestor pays. The fireworks people pay. Everybody on 83 pays Lloyd. You want to be the one that doesn’t, that’s the stand. That’s the road.” He shifted in the chair and the brace creaked. “Call that deputy. Tell her you didn’t see it start. That old man’s got friends. He’ll be fine.”
“He threw him on the ground, Dad.”
“And Lloyd can throw us off it.”
I got up. The green book was on the shelf over the TV, where it’s always been. He said, “Put that back,” and I didn’t.
2012 was the auction, the trailer, the hickory, the red paint. 2013, 2014 and 2015 had one line each in March.
County permit — 175 (ck).
2016 had two.
County permit — 175 (ck).
L.G. — 500.
I turned the pages. He didn’t say anything else. The man on the TV let the catfish go.
Then 2017, 2018, all the way to this spring. Same two lines, same pencil.
Eleven Marches. Every line in my father’s handwriting.
The Stamp Line
The letter came Wednesday. County letterhead, one paragraph. Review of roadside vendor permit, Tunstall’s Barbecue, Route 83. Tuesday at six in the county building. Public comment, three minutes a person, sign in by 5:45.
I called Nestor Zamora that night. I asked him if he’d ever been behind the feed store in March.
He said, “I’m not talking about that on the phone, mija,” and hung up.
Thursday I lit the fire at noon like always. At a quarter to five Arlen walked out from behind the woodpile with the helmet under his arm. He pointed at the chalkboard. He stacked the quarters and then the dimes.
At dusk the ride came up the flat, and this time they pulled in and ordered. Twenty plates. The gray beard, whose name was Gordie Kuehn, paid for all of them with a fold of twenties and wouldn’t take change.
I set the letter next to his plate. Then the green book, open to March.
He read the letter, then the green book. He put his finger on the first L.G. and left it there.
Then he pointed at the cash box.
I brought it. He turned it around so the lid faced him and bent down close to the permit. The paper is the one Dad got in 2012, with a renewal sticker for every year stuck down the side and a signature line under each. The last line is Lloyd’s.
Arlen tapped the bottom corner. The same place as last winter. Twice.
There’s a round stamp there, faded purple, that I’d looked at a thousand times and never read. Office of the County Clerk. A date in June of 2012. Two initials in ink in the middle of it.
A.H.
He took the napkin out from under his plate and wrote.
I ISSUED THIS.
Then, under it: FEE + FIRE INSPECTION. BOARD SIGNS THE BATCH. NO ONE MAN CAN PULL IT.
Then he turned the green book around and tapped the L.G. again and wrote one more line.
THERE WAS NEVER AN ENVELOPE.
Gordie read it upside down over my shoulder.
“He ran that office twenty-five years,” he said. “Retired the winter Lloyd got sworn in. Wouldn’t take a cup of coffee off a contractor.”
Arlen folded the napkin and pushed it at me. I put it in the cash box, on top of the permit.
“Will you be there Tuesday?”
He nodded.
“We’ll all be there,” Gordie said. “We’ll sit in the back.”
I reached in my apron and held out the black plastic thing. Arlen looked at it a while. Then he pulled the napkin back and wrote under the rest.
KEEP IT TILL TUESDAY. HAND IT TO ME THERE. OR IT STAYS IN A DRAWER.
When he got up I walked him out behind the woodpile. I’d never been back there with him.
There’s a dirt section road back there, between my lot and the bean field. The smoker hides it from the firebox. A tan Oldsmobile with a dented back fender was pulled off in the grass.
He opened the passenger door, not the driver’s. He set the black helmet on the seat.
Then he reached across and buckled it in.
Public Comment
The board room has five chairs up on a riser. Lloyd sat in the middle one, behind a nameplate that said CHAIRMAN. The county clerk sat at a little table off to the side with a laptop, taking the minutes.
I signed in third.
At 5:50 the back door opened and they came in. Twenty of them, in no hurry, one of them in a Hawaiian shirt. They filled the last two rows. They set their helmets on their laps. Gordie took off his cap. Nobody said anything.
Arlen came in on his cane and sat in the front row, collar buttoned to the top.
My dad didn’t come. I’d asked him. He’d looked at the TV.
Nestor Zamora came in at 5:58 in a feed cap and stood by the door with his arms folded, and didn’t look at me.
“We’d ask the gallery to keep the aisle clear,” Lloyd said, to the back rows. They were already keeping it clear.
My item was fourth. Lloyd read it into the record himself.
“This is a routine review,” he said. “Setback from a state route. A wood-fired trailer under fire code. And I’ll be honest with the board, law enforcement was called to this location a week ago Thursday, and we’ve had reports of large gatherings of motorcycles at that site.” He didn’t look at the back rows. “I’d recommend we suspend the renewal pending an inspection. That’s all this is. Public comment?”
The clerk read my name.
I walked up to the little podium. I had the green book. I didn’t have a speech.
“March 2016,” I said. “Five hundred dollars. Cash. L.G.”
Lloyd sat forward.
“March 2017. Five hundred dollars. Cash. L.G.”
“Miss Tunstall, public comment is for the item on the agenda.”
“March 2018. Five hundred—”
“This is the item? Your family’s personal finances?” He laughed, and looked down the riser for somebody to laugh with him. “I don’t know what that is. Butch Tunstall keeps a lot of notes. Butch Tunstall is also on a lot of pain medication, and I say that as his friend.”
“March 2019.”
“You want to talk about 2019? In 2019 your daddy’s trailer failed a fire inspection, and who do you think called the fire marshal and asked him to come back out on a Saturday? That’s what friends do out here. I don’t expect a girl your age to understand how this county runs.”
The woman in the chair at the end of the riser had turned all the way around to look at him.
“Lloyd,” she said. “What is the five hundred?”
“It’s a gift. It’s the Fourth of July fund. It’s for the fireworks on the square, ask anybody.”
“There’s no Fourth of July fund.”
“There’s an informal one.”
“March 2020,” I said.
He put his hand flat on the table hard enough to jump the water glasses.
“Your daddy came to me crying in 2016 that they’d shut him down. And I kept him open every year since. Every year. Five hundred dollars. You think you get to sit on 83 for free?”
The woman at the end of the riser looked at the clerk. The clerk was already typing.
By the door, Nestor Zamora unfolded his arms.
“Behind the feed store,” he said. He had to say it louder the second time. “By the propane. Three hundred, every March. Since ’16.”
Lloyd opened his mouth and nothing came.
Arlen stood up.
He came to the podium on his cane. I stepped aside. He held his hand out to me, open, and I put the black plastic thing in it. He pressed the end of it to his throat, under the collar.
The sound it made was flat and buzzing, like a voice coming through a fan.
“Arlen Haskett. County clerk. 1990 to 2015.”
He waited while the room took that.
“Madam Clerk. Make sure that’s in the minutes.”
March
Lloyd Garrity was off the board before Christmas. Somebody from the state made copies of the green book in November and gave it back in a zip bag. Colby took a plea in January. Arlen went to the courthouse with a notepad and didn’t need it.
My dad didn’t talk to me from October to Thanksgiving. His name was in the county paper under the fire marshal story, with the word cash next to it. He folded it into quarters and put it in the trash.
Then at Thanksgiving he asked me how the hickory was holding out, and that was that.
The first Thursday in March I stood at the clerk’s window in the county building and wrote a check for a hundred seventy-five dollars. The fire marshal had been out the week before. The trailer passed. The woman at the window stuck the new sticker on the old paper. The signature under it was the new chairman’s, from the batch the board signed that Monday.
Nobody met me behind the feed store.
I taped it back into the lid of the cash box and drove out to 83 and lit the fire.
Dad came out that afternoon. He hadn’t set foot on the gravel since the hickory. He sat on a stool by the smoker with the brace on and told me the fire was running hot.
At a quarter to five Arlen walked out from behind the woodpile with the helmet under his arm. Dad got up before I could. He picked up Arlen’s plate off the counter and carried it to table two himself, and waited while Arlen sat down on the bench and set the helmet across from him like a second plate.
They didn’t talk. Dad pushed the napkin holder over to Arlen’s side of the table.
Then the lights came up out of the flat, in the last of the orange. Seven across.
Arlen lifted two fingers off the table. The front row honked.
My dad looked at him, and then he lifted two of his.
If there’s somebody who sits at the next table every week and has never once spoken to you, go say hello this Thursday.
For more stories about unlikely heroes and the people who need them, check out My 8-Year-Old Kept Her Hoodie On in 89-Degree Heat, His Lawyer Wanted the Supervised Visits Ended by Noon, and Her Father Was Waiting on the Steps Forty Minutes Early.
