Mr. Tan

Chapter 55: Red, White & Blue

Later that night, Earl came home from work shortly after 11 o'clock. Nights were kinda cool this time of year in Mississippi, temperatures dipping as low as the upper 50's. Days ranged from warm to pretty hot, anywhere from upper 70's to upper 80's with high humidity. Earl had on a thin long sleeved dark gray t-shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows and a pair of dark grey denim jeans that were ripped at the knees. Today it had gotten into the upper 70's and now the lows were in the mid to upper 50's. Earl allowed his hair to grow out to the point where he ran a fine toothed comb through it and slicked it back with pomade every morning. It looked good on him, it even helped that he went to a barber shop and got the sides trimmed a little. Ava was already asleep, I made sure of that, plus I tired her out by making her do extra chores after dinner. I made her wash each and every pot, pan, fork, plate and glass after dinner. I made her take out the garbage, pick up Duke's crap after he went outside, fold clean laundry, all this after doing her homework and eating. For dinner I fried chicken drum sticks and made northern white beans with onion and bacon. Right now I was lounging on the couch. Duke fallowed Ava into her room when she turned in a few hours ago.

"Still haven't found a substitute for Eddie yet?", I asked.

"Nope, but it don't matter, Eddie's comin' back in da next few days", Earl replied.

It's been a couple of weeks and Earl still struggled to find someone, anyone who knew their way around a smoker and a grill. Last week, he found a middle aged woman who used to work in a soul food restaurant as a cook. Her name was Ms. Rayleighn Campbell and she only stayed for a few days. She couldn't stay much longer cause she had no one to look after her 8 year old grand daughter whom she was taking care of. After that, there was a guy, a Chet Wallace who had SOME experience. He didn't have enough so Earl had to let him go, too many people complained about under cooked chicken or tough and flavorless ribs. Since then Earl did the pit mastering and ran the place. Tyrone tried but he had to admit the only experience he had with barbecuing was at backyard grilling, not enough to be a pit master.

"Damn, I wish Ms. Campbell coulda stayed, she was almos' as good as Eddie, but I undastand she got a grand kid to raise", Earl replied. Everythang okay?

"Ava has after school detention", I said.

"What?!", he snapped.

His voice was so loud that his words seemed to echo through out the double wide trailer.

"Where is she?!", he asked angrily.

"She's in bed asleep", I replied. I made her go to bed early after I made her do a bunch of chores.

"Good", he replied. I'mma kill dat girl!