Long time no see our old Americana, friends, but this time teuinited for a peaceful BBQ after that disastrous Marty's daughter weeding, things "seemed" to go normal again...

I was expecting Manuel with a trailing Little Manuelito on his heels (and if you have forgotten the young man is a 370 pounds 6.4 footer with nothing “little” on him); Joe our only Barolo wine drinker, and still with daughter’s wedding’s blues…Marty, the ex Marine with a body refusing to age normally like the rest of our going south bodies with proud bellies like those of gestating young mothers.

As I said, I waited for the company to arrive, Barolo wine breathing (Joe won’t drink if it the bottle hadn’t said goodbye to the cork and with room temperature, something he learned from the father of a girl in Italy that dreamed of an “Americani” son in law; but, looking at the sky the “room temperature” on my porch was better to chill white wine).
The rest of the gang would polish Coors beer like they were the last ones before
the country’s foreclosure, without being challenged to do it, and if one filled their plate with morsels and no less than two inches thick juicy T-bone steak, they will be not raising their butts even to see a man about a horse.

Tiger, Willard’s dog, my next-door neighbor, was already by the fence his long massive body stretched, head resting on the dirt between the front paws with eyes kind of sad looking, patiently waiting for the grill to get going.
On the other side, on a tree by Grumpy Benson’s side, also next door neighbor but opposite of Willard, a gang of hoarse crows were making their daily racket until they saw me taking up the shotgun and kind of aiming their direction, probably someone else had take a poke to their rear feathers, because the sight of that mean twin barrel’s end invited them to fly away with, I am sure, a few cursing of the worst kind my direction with that unspeakable gargle of theirs.

Summer not gone yet, but autumn sure was in a hurry to come by, even if uninvited, to mess with the lungs and noses of few and make the pharmacist a little more richer.
I done my wool parka for the occasion with the collar up to fend that mean cold breeze that insisted of blowing in my ear some kind of weather secrets.
Apart from the waiting Tiger dog and the clown crows no other creature was in sight but my missus giving me a baleful evil eye, women are like elephants, they have a memory that will not let it go, like my performance in our “church” on Marty’s daughter wedding.
But what I can say, it is not my fault if we have a daughter to marry, and what a feast would have been for the missus (her day, not the daughters I suppose) but that Korean sweet Madame Butterfly or whatever they call them there got a bum in the oven because I wasn’t shooting blanks.
The missus never got wind of it but the little boy is the spitting image of his father even if he says dad to a man that reach with the top of his head just above my belt. (From time to time I get, via Marty, photos of the boy)
Weddings? Ain’t the father of the bride to foot the bill? Anybody around didn’t get yet that my name ain’t Rockafellow?
As I was daydreaming my sniper trained ear, old or not, caught the almost inaudible, and I say almost in a mathematical possibility, the soft paws of a cat carefully hiding its claws as not to give itself away, trying the cheeky one to go through between my rocking chair and the wall coming from behind.
At first I thought that it was the black cat, but a sharp look in the direction of Tiger-dog told me it wasn’t, because that black bully had landed on the sleeping dog belly and started the Great Picasso Scandal of the Bouncing Lilies.
So, if it wasn’t the dungeons shadows…whom? But of course! There went like a moving last stroke of paint on the wall the orange cat with his jewels still intact.
I let a soft heeee-hem and the cat froze for a couple of seconds and slowly, like a mountain puma would do when interrupted by a nincompoop tourist, he turned his head and looked at me with those deceptive somnolent eyes of his like telling me that what he was doing wasn’t nothing of my business and proceeded to the end of the porch were he sat and started slicking all over himself, I suppose to work on another fur ball.
I was surprised, because he always kept its distance, ten feet or so, with plenty of room to shot from the start blocks before any harm started coming its way.
I left him alone; he had got my respect after chasing that black bully trice his size and making the black a clown which everyone took a poke at it.

Manuel and “little” Manuelito were the first to arrive, with Manuelito going directly to the grill to start the fire, in the kitchen table he would find piled up all the meat, sausages and what you have (Slaughter’s courtesy).
Looking at the chubby fingers of Manuelito you wouldn’t think that he wouldn’t need a bottle opener, but he didn’t, just strangled the soda bottle with one hand and popped the metallic cork with the tip of the thumb, you wouldn’t like if he poked your in the eye with that tire-iron of a finger.
Manuel sat down next to me and extended his hand expecting a beer to miraculously appear on it.
“I you valet or som’tin’? the cooler’s between us…”
He looked me with surprise, “you pissed off or som’tin?” (our grammatical academics are worth of an illiterate trucker not from this country)
“Damn Marty’s daughter trying to git marry, now my missus blame me for no git her a daughter to marry…”
“If I remember well, in Korea you git three or four of that ladies your sniper’s certificate of accuracy…even you got one alive to prove it…”
“ Hush!!! Are you nuts? Want me to wake up dead one morning after the missus open my head like a piñata?”
“She doesn’t know?”
“I am still here, don’t I, drink your beer before you get me in trouble?”
By this time Manuelito had the big grill going like Hell’s waiting room and previous grill greases fumes were taken by the breeze in the waiting dog direction which had suddenly got periscope nostrils taking all inn with the anticipation of a fat lady in front a cheesecake after saying goodbye to a diet of lettuce and raw carrots.

As the flames died down and the coals where ready to start grilling, Manuelito went to the kitchen and came back with a big plate with the spoils of a wedding going sour, and expertly, after dipping each piece in a bowl with a marinade strong enough to make a hole in a car battery, diligently started to set in rows the steaks, the sausages, the tomatoes with oil/garlic/oregano, the red peppers….
when round the corner Joe and Marty appeared.
Joe aiming at the Barolo bottle to take a swig, Marty stopping in front of the porch steps pointing with his head back us, in the direction of my Grumpy neighbor saying, “Junior’s coming without touching the ground, like a space walk on the Milky Way”
Manuel and I turned around and saw that Grumpy was plucking the last of his green tomatoes that had survived the crows and God knows what, when his beloved son appeared with a cretin smile and eyes looking far beyond his father, going with that gait people under anesthesia would or sleepwalkers do.
Junior didn’t go into the house, no, he was visiting another planet, and on that planet one goes right ahead.
When he was abreast his father, the enraged progenitor throw his arm way back and launched a tomato to the head of his son, which going on autopilot his radar said duck!…and he did it.
The green tomato sailed pass above Junior’s head like a missile that we all look at mesmerized, the vegetable or fruit (anything you wish to call it) hit the grill surface which such a force that a heavy steak went sailing like a Frisbee over Willard’s fence and elegantly caught by Tiger the dog six feet up in the air for such a lazy dog.
A few sausages, pepper and tomatoes went wham to the ground as well as the started Manuelito turning the head and saw my neighbor with the other arm raised holding another green tomato ready to launch.
Before anybody could react, Manuelito had taken off from the starting blocks like a berserk Sherman tank barreling on my next neighbor that reacted too late to escape inside the house to his left leaving him his garden and the forest way back; after seeing Manuelito splinting the picket fence like it was made of Styrofoam and not of sturdy hard wood, he took off in the direction of the dark forest with World War Three on his heels as well as Manuel too far away to do anything and too slow to catch anybody.
Manuelito’s roars must have scared away the few bears, stray dogs and wild cats around for sure.
Marty sitting on the steps, bended over and grabbed a long sausage hitting the wooden floor with it a couple of times and dipping it in the beer, “just to wash the dirt” he said to nobody and down his chute went the half of it.
Joe took another swig from his Barolo wine and with a heavy sigh went to rearrange the grill, turn around the done sides and recover a few pieces worth to save, they could be washed up with beer or wine, your choice.
The orange cat had descended from the porch and was on the side of the grill where the breeze was blowing warm (smart cat), down on its belly as he methodically inch by inch demolished a long weenie stranded out of reach.
“Cheers” said Marty with his Coors up, “cheers for a well done bouncing grill”


© Copyright of Georg Edvard Mateos 2008