Blogue-Blague

- S’up wid’jall? I thought y’all wouldn’t make it on time and you did…

I thought I was never going to make it to Sheba’s house on time…. Got there and damn… Fire was hot all right, the music was loud, and people were feeling each other out.
Sheba’s aunt, young as rose bud, came with an ox tank, two tubes up her nostrils. If the sense of smell was affected, you could not quite tell. She sat, indicating some stuff was ready. God knows what. She made the trek huffing, but soon sat as the sunset greeted our table.

Before reaching the backyard, we made the pilgrimage through the house. Five faces stared at me, debonair and en guarde as well. Heads leaning towards the ground, but raising with a half witty smile upon the first greeting gesture. All leaning against the gas stove. One shook hands, one leaned for the unmistakable hug, the other grinning. Hands outstretched pointing out to the yard, where two gray-bearded uncles were handling the charred ribs that auntie would cut with scissors bone by bone, leaving the meat hanging.

Grandma arrived and a place of honor was improvised for the Queen… The throne was the expected polystyrene chair (and table) and the faux oppressors holding court listening to a fragment of wisdom that seldom came - much to their unhappiness, mixed with a never healing guilt.

Mixed messages, mixed drinks. Hennessey on ice, cranberry and vodka with a tad of orange juice, all with high-decibel laughter oozing through the pores… The throats were soon quieted by too many in-between silences. Negroes from Connecticut, Latinos from, well, way down south. The reverie was coming to a crescendo.

- I’m from N’oleans and there – you’d be suh-prahz’d - them white folks got along fahn with us.

Jamil’s sing-song-soft voice, not boisterous but studious and quiet, also revealed – after some small talk - that he had to leave early to sing in the Church’s choir the next morning. No liquor for him. His heavyset wife sat in the backyard, her head tilting left-right sideways, one eighty, just checking the whole scene, scavenging for trouble, trying to keep Jamil away from it. No need to worry; that was a big man in many ways….

Enter the troops. Men acting like boyzz, while boyzz acting like white guys from Boise. Some short-haired sisters by then were almost napping on yard chairs. Probably knew what to expect day in and out. Ribs, burgers, salmon with green peppers on top, fried fish, seafood pasta salad, green cuts, and more. And more.