Chapter 28 Tex
Saturday is chaos, and I love it.
Sixty-three riders from Thunder Roads roll into the parking lot starting at noon, fresh off a morning of clearing debris along the beach road.
They come in sunburned and loud, filling the lot with chrome, leather, and the particular energy of people who just spent four hours doing hard manual labor and now want cold beer and hot food.
Behind them come the locals, the regulars, the power crews still working in the area, and by one o'clock we've got over a hundred people in the parking lot. Big Bertha is working harder than she has since the last rally before the hurricane.
Stormy is in the kitchen running point on sides. Coleslaw, beans, potato salad, buns. He's got the system dialed in, containers labeled, serving sizes portioned, a runner carrying trays to the outdoor station every few minutes.
I can see him moving fast. He's focused, with a towel over his shoulder, and the look of total concentration he gets when he's deep in the work.
He's good at this. He runs that kitchen the way he runs everything, going at it as hard as he can.
He learned how to survive by being the best at whatever he was doing at the time.
Mama Sheila is at the outdoor bar slinging drinks, moving at a pace that would exhaust a person half her age.
Mickey showed up an hour ago in shorts and a t-shirt, off duty, blending in with the crowd.
He's at a table near the back with a beer and a plate of brisket, keeping eyes on the lot, casual but alert.
Mickey in civilian clothes is still obviously a cop the way a golden retriever in a sweater is still obviously a dog.
The posture. The eyes. The way he holds his beer like it might be evidence.
I've told him a thousand times that he sits like a man waiting to be called to the witness stand, and he says that's just how chairs work, and I say no, Mickey, that is not how chairs work, normal people slouch.
They don't sit up straight, ready to be called to the stand.
I'm at my kingdom, the grill. Big Bertha is loaded with brisket that's been smoking since yesterday afternoon, ribs that went on at six this morning, and chicken that I'm rotating every forty minutes. The smoke is thick and sweet and the heat off the grill is competing with the August sun.
I'm drenched in sweat and covered in sauce, and this is the happiest I've been in months. This is what my dad built this bar for. Exactly this right here. People, food, noise and community. That's the whole point of the thing.
Big Bertha is performing. She's in her zone.
The smoke is perfect, the temp is holding, and I swear she's showing off for the Thunder Roads guys the way a racehorse shows off for a crowd.
"That's my girl," I tell her, adjusting the vent.
A biker walking past says "that's the prettiest smoker I've ever seen" and I say "I'll tell her you said that, she's been feeling underappreciated" and the man nods like this is a completely normal exchange, which at this bar it is.
In the middle of the afternoon, a man sits down at a plastic table near the edge of the lot.
I don't notice him right away. The lot is packed, tables full, people standing in groups, bikes parked in rows.
But something catches my eye on a pass, the way a wrong note catches your ear. I glance over at him again.
He's alone. Sitting at a two-top near the street, slightly apart from the main crowd.
He's not a biker. No leather, no vest, no colors, no helmet hanging off a handlebar.
He's not a local. Locals dress like they live at the beach, flip-flops and tank tops and years of sun damage.
He's not a tourist. Tourists have cameras and are always confused about parking.
This man is wearing tan pants. Neatly pressed.
A blue button-down shirt, short sleeves, tucked in.
His hair is short and neat. Sunglasses, the kind that wrap around the sides.
He's sitting with his hands folded on the table, looking around the parking lot with unhurried attention that reminds me of the way Mickey watches a room.
Except Mickey is trained to look for trouble.
This man is looking for something or someone specific.
He's big. Not as tall as me but thick. Wide shoulders, heavy arms, the kind of build that comes from manual labor, hauling and years of working with his hands.
He's maybe late forties. His face is pleasant.
Open. The kind of face that makes people comfortable, the kind of face you'd trust at a church picnic or a PTA meeting.
My hands tighten on the grill tongs. The back of my neck prickles. Something about this man is wrong and my body knows it before my brain catches up.
He stands and walks toward the grill. His stride is easy, relaxed, the walk of a man with all the time in the world. He smiles as he approaches and it's a good smile, the kind that reaches the eyes.
Without a shadow of a doubt, I know who this motherfucker is. I have a piece of paper in my back pocket with his name and address on it.
Ron Jackson.
The fury hits me so hard and so fast that my vision narrows.
I'm looking at his hands. Those fucking hands I want to break into a million pieces.
Thick fingers, wide palms, calluses on the knuckles.
Those are the hands that held my Stormy down in a room above a salvage yard.
Those are the hands that slid up his thigh while his voice said, 'we don't have to make this difficult, do we?
' Those are the hands that gripped the back of Stormy's head and pushed him down and used his mouth.
And then called it showing appreciation for helping him.
Those are the hands that turned into fists, that beat Stormy until he pissed blood and couldn't walk and then held ice on the bruises afterward like tenderness.
Those hands were on my precious Stormy's body. That mouth was on him. Those arms that look so much like mine, big and thick and capable, held him in place while things were done to him that he couldn't stop and didn't choose.
And now those same fucking hands are folded on a picnic table in my parking lot, ten yards from the kitchen where Stormy is working, and this man is smiling.
I'm going to kill him.
The parking lot compresses to a dark tunnel with this man at the end of it and the tongs in my hand become a weapon.
I want to drive them into his throat, and for one crystalline second, I can see it all.
Me grabbing him by the collar of his pressed blue shirt.
Slamming him face-first onto Big Bertha's grill.
Holding him there while the hot metal does what my hands want to do.
Watching the smile melt off his face the way it should have melted off a long time ago.
I want to do it more than anything I've ever wanted to do in my life.
But I don't. I can't.
Because Stormy is in the kitchen, and if I kill this man in front of a hundred people, Stormy loses me. I also don't do it because my dad raised me to be better than my worst impulse, even when my worst impulse sure feels like the right one.
I smile back at the goddamn son-of-a-bitch.
"Hey there," I say in my full wattage Big Tex voice. The grill master greeting a new customer. "Welcome to Big Tex's. You hungry?"
"Starving," he says. His voice is warm. The kind of voice that puts people at ease, that makes them lean in and trust. I've heard Stormy describe this voice in horrific detail.
This is the voice that said 'no strings attached' in a Waffle House booth.
"I've been hearing about this place all the way from Alabama.
Folks say your brisket is the best in the Florida Panhandle. "
"Well, we do our best. Let me fix you a plate."
I load up a plate for him while wishing I could sprinkle rat poison on it.
Brisket, ribs, beans, slaw. I hand it to him.
My hands are steady. My face is smiling.
Inside I'm running calculations at a speed I didn't know my brain was capable of.
Where is Stormy? Where is Sheila? Where the fuck is Mickey?
"This is some operation you've got here," he says, glancing around the lot. "All these bikers. You do this every weekend?"
"Friday and Saturday nights mostly. Special events like today with the charity rally. We're still rebuilding from the hurricane but the parking lot keeps us going."
"Yeah, Hurricane Peter was bad. We felt it all the way up in Alabama too." He takes a bite of brisket. Chews. Nods appreciatively. "Lord, that is good. That is real good barbecue."
"Appreciate it."
He stands and eats. He's in no hurry. He takes another bite, wipes his mouth with a napkin, looks around the lot again with that casual, scanning attention.
Then he sets the plate down on the edge of the grill table and his face shifts.
Not dramatically. A small adjustment, a gear change, the smile dimming by one degree.
More serious and concerned. The face of a man with a problem he needs help with.
"Listen," he says, leaning closer. "I wonder if you might be able to help me. I'm looking for my nephew. My sister's boy. Matthew."
My heart is hammering. I can hear it in my ears. I lean on the grill table, taking a pull off my water bottle.
"Your nephew?"
"Yeah. He's had a rough time. I won't sugarcoat it.
The boy's got problems. Drugs, mostly. Some mental health issues on top of it.
His mama, my sister, she did the best she could, but the boy's been in and out of trouble since he was a teenager.
We found him in a shelter in Tallahassee one time, strung out so bad he couldn't even tell us his name. Broke my sister's heart that boy did."