The Red-Hot Chili Cook-Off

by Carolyn Brown

  Folks were excited when the tents started going up that Friday morning at nine o’clock sharp. It was always held the Saturday before Mother’s Day and folks for miles and miles around marked it on their calendars. If they weren’t coming home to Grayson County or adjoining Fannin County to see their mamas, then they loaded their mothers up in vans, trucks, and cars and brought them to the cook-off as a treat.

  Rule number one said that the city park was roped off on Friday morning at nine o’clock; the tents and tables or however the contestants wanted to display their chili could begin at that time. The displays surrounded the park, facing inward, creating a small, colorful open-air festival with picnic tables and a kiddy carnival in the middle. Contestants had their chili ready for the judges to taste at ten o’clock sharp on Saturday morning. At eleven o’clock the gate was opened to the public. At four o’clock the judges rendered their rulings and the street dance began at eight sharp.

  Rule number two stated that the seven-member teams had to work alone in setting up their work space and that no outside help could be solicited. That came about back in 1993 when a team brought in a professional service to build a structure for them.

  Number three said that every team was responsible for its site. The cook-off committee would not police the area after the tents, tables, etc., were in place. That rule was put into the contract when one team spray-painted graffiti on another’s display in 1979.

  Bless My Bloomers had a sign on the door that said “Closed for the Chili Cook-Off Friday and Saturday.” Patrice didn’t figure they’d have enough business those two days to pay them to turn on the lights anyway.

  Patrice drove her father’s flatbed truck to the site, parked as close to their assigned space as she could, and all three cousins bailed out. Tansy parked her Caddy behind the truck and the mamas and Josie crawled out of it.

  They wore jeans with matching hot-pink T-shirts that had their logo splashed across the back in black: Red-Hot Bloomers. Above the words was a printed clothesline with bikinis and thongs pinned to it. A red bowl of chili was below with red, yellow, blue, and pink flames licking upward toward the words. Those were their Friday shirts.

  The official shirt that they would wear on Saturday was similar but it sported lace around the legs of the bikinis and sequins on the thongs, enough sparkle on the flames to make them look hot, and the wording was done in red sparkly letters. And they’d be wearing them with designer jeans and hot-pink high heels. Josie refused to wear high heels but she had invested in hot-pink running shoes that lit up around the soles with every step.

  “Woo-hoo!” Agnes yelled from a lawn chair from across the street. “Lookin’ good!”

  Carlene waved at her. “Tomorrow is better. What are you doing here so early?”

  “Overseeing my investment,” Agnes said.

  The tent was in a long box that took all seven of them to tote to their site. Alma Grace whipped a box cutter out of her hip pocket and made short order of the cardboard without leaving a single gash on the hot-pink and black material. She closed the tool, put it back in her pocket, and picked up the directions.

  “I’m mechanically challenged,” Sugar said.

  “That’s what they’re all depending on so don’t say that out loud. We need for them to think we are meaner than junkyard dogs,” Gigi whispered.

  Alma Grace handed the directions to Carlene. “This woman can do anything. I have lots of faith in her.”

  “Really?” Carlene asked.

  “Oh, yes, I do.” Alma Grace smiled.

  “Well, thank you. It’s very simple. First we set it up with the back leg on the east end.”

  They all gathered round and helped her hoist the eight-foot-tall metal sticks to that corner. “Patrice, you hold this leg and I’m going to take this one to the other side.” She walked twelve feet across the back of their site. “Mama, hold this leg, while I go forward with one.”

  In a few minutes the basic tent was up with all the metal pieces locked in place to hold it together. “See, I told y’all it was worth putting out a few more dollars to get it partially assembled and not just a bunch of bolts and nuts and pieces of steel,” Josie said.

  “Now we bring in the tables,” Tansy said.

  “And then comes the big jobs,” Sugar moaned.

  They set up two picnic tables end to end at the back. Those would serve as a workstation and a place to sit and sip iced tea between customers. The eight-foot table in the front would hold the chili, bowls, corn chips, sweet tea, and condiments for sale.

  “We’ll get the freezer,” Alma Grace said when Tansy started toward the truck.

  “What do you need a freezer for?” Lenny asked.

  “What are you doing here?” Alma Grace asked right back.

  “I’m on my way back to my truck for a screwdriver. Y’all cheated. You should have to put up a real tent rather than a pop-up.”

  Carlene smiled sweetly. “Then put that in the rule book next year. Tip read the directions and said our tent was fine.”

  “You still didn’t answer my question. What do you need a freezer for?”

  “It’s a big, big surprise,” Carlene said.

  “It better not be against the rules or I’ll see to it you are thrown out and laugh the whole time you are packing up to leave,” Lenny said.

  “How’s your mother?” Tansy asked.

  Lenny gave her a go-to-hell look and strutted off toward his truck.

  “Good job,” Josie said and held up her hand for a high-five with Tansy.

  “I’m disappointed in the lace around the top,” Alma Grace said. “It should be sparkly.”

  The freezer wasn’t much bigger than a dorm-size refrigerator but it would hold two hundred Dixie ice cream cups and when they ran out, they’d send Kim back to the shop to get more. The rule book did say that the team had to stay on-site the whole time and that they could have one person to replenish supplies when needed.

  Alex told Patrice that the amendment came about back in 1987 when tent sites looked like a wrestling tag team with guys running out to get more beer or even hamburgers for lunch.

  The multi-outlet plug would be full by the next morning but the freezer was the first thing in the line. When it cooled down, they’d bring in their ice cream cups wrapped in unmarked brown paper bags and put them inside. Lenny could just wonder all night long what they had up their sleeves.

  Patrice and Carlene brought in two more boxes and set them on the picnic tables. One held the drapes to enclose the tent and tiebacks if they wanted breezes to flow through, the banner for the top, and the tablecloth and banner for the serving table. The latter wouldn’t go up until morning but all the others had to be in place that day.

  “One cooker of chili on the tables getting warmed up and ready, the other at the front being served, switch when the front one is empty.” Gigi checked off her list as she talked.

  “I like it,” Agnes hollered.

  “Doin’ good, Lenny,” Violet yelled from ten yards down the road from her.

  “Lord, what have we done?” Sugar whispered.

  “We’re winning a cook-off and making a statement for all the women who want to enter in the future. Agnes and Violet are at it like always. Hell’s bells, Aunt Sugar, if it wasn’t this, it would be something else. They love to fight so we’re making them happy,” Patrice said softly.

  ***

  Carlene stirred the last batch of chili in the big pot at her mother’s house. They’d even had Tip go over the rule book, line by line, word by word, and not one thing was there about opening gallon-size cans of chili and then adding their own special touches. It was a revelation to find out that all the years they’d had hot dog cookouts and chili suppers Gigi’s special recipe had not started with beef or venison.

  “What did you do with the empty cans?” Tansy asked.

  “I peeled the labels off and put them in a garbage bag and gave them to a dumpster last night after midnight,” Gigi said.

&nbs
p; “What dumpster? And what did you do with the labels?” Tansy asked.

  “The one behind the Chinese takeout store in Sherman and the labels went through the shredder in the office,” she said.

  “Good job,” Josie said.

  “Okay, time to add our own stuff one last time.” Carlene pulled the tab on a can of beer and slowly poured it into the chili, stirring the whole time.

  Gigi put in a half a cup of Worcestershire sauce and four tablespoons of liquid smoke.

  Tansy added two cans of chili beans and Patrice donated eight ounces of chopped jalapeño peppers. Alma Grace spooned six teaspoons each of chili powder and Cajun seasoning. Josie opened up a gallon bag of cooked hamburger meat and dumped it in the pot.

  “I know the rules didn’t say we had to start with meat but it makes me feel better knowing that it’s in there,” she said.

  “It’s boiling again,” Carlene said.

  Sugar removed the wrapper from a Hershey bar, broke it into sections, and tossed it into the pot. “Mama wouldn’t have left that candy paper in the Bible if she hadn’t meant for us to put it in the chili. It’s our biggest secret ingredient.”

  “Anyone want to taste it?” Carlene asked.

  “Hell, no!” Patrice threw up her hands. “That first night was enough for me.”

  Josie smiled and said, “You are all a bunch of pansies. A little jalapeños never hurt anyone. It might be the very reason me and Agnes have lived as long as we have.”

  “We are not pansies,” Patrice said.

  Carlene handed the spoon to her mother. “Speak for yourself. After I ate a bowl of the recipe on Tuesday night, all I could think was come on ice cream.”

  Josie nodded seriously. “Even if we don’t win, the judges won’t forget our hot chili or the ice cream that they’ll get after they taste it.”

  “Oh, we’re going to win,” Tansy said. “I know we are.”

  “Did you have a dream, Mama?” Patrice asked.

  “I did every night for a whole week. Lenny might as well tear down his stupid tent with a crown on the top and go home. His reign is over! That trophy is ours this year. And I don’t even care if we never enter again, but this year belongs to us,” Tansy said.

  Carlene sucked air. “Aunt Tansy, you did not buy off the judges, did you? I want to win this fair and square.”

  “I don’t even know who they are,” she answered.

  “I do,” Josie said. “Floy’s husband is one. Cathy’s new husband, John, is one. The Mayor, of course, is one. Y’all’s preacher Isaac is one and he says that next year he and Kim might have the first mixed team for the church so this is the only year he’s judging. Brenda Culpepper and Tip Gordon are the others.”

  “Shit!” Gigi slapped her thigh. “I should have thought about buying off the judges.”

  “I did my part in getting Isaac’s vote with the Easter egg hunt and I have been praying,” Sugar said.

  “Right now, we’ll take all the help we can get,” Carlene said. “As long as it’s legal and we win without cheating. I really, really want that trophy.”

  “Who gets to keep it?” Josie asked. “We going to farm it out to a house a month and then start all over.”

  Gigi turned off the cooker and put the lid on it. “I was thinkin’ it should go on the credenza in the foyer of Bless My Bloomers.”

  ***

  Carlene had agreed to take the first watch and stay at the tent until eleven when Alma Grace would relieve her. She’d brought a romance book and a book light to read by, but it didn’t interest her. She had five hours with nothing to do and she wasn’t good at being still. She checked everything, making sure that the sandbags were in place if a strong wind kicked up, everything was secure on the tent, and the freezer was plugged in. Heaven help them if they gave the judges melted ice cream.

  The banner with their logo shimmered in the moonlight but the lace was blah, just like Sugar had said. If she’d had time, she would have dressed it up with sequins and shimmering hot-pink beads.

  “Glitter spray!” She jumped up and pulled a box out from under the table. Patrice had thrown it in the box just in case they wanted to make the table banner sparkle. Digging around in it, she found three cans of iridescent spray. The folding step stool they’d brought with them earlier put her high enough that she only had to tiptoe a little to put the spray exactly where she wanted it.

  She worked on six feet of lace then moved the stool. When she put her foot on the bottom step the leg fell into a gopher hole and Carlene landed square on her back. She was looking at the stars one second and Lenny’s face the second.

  Holy shit! She’d died in that two-second fall and gone straight to hell.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “Am I alive?” she asked.

  “Your eyes are open,” he said.

  She sat up. Nothing hurt except her pride. “I thought I was in hell when I saw your face.”

  Lenny chuckled. “Welcome to the club.”

  “What are you doing here?” she asked.

  “Just leaving. My watch is over. I’m going to win this, Carlene. I know you want to win to make me suffer but all this fluffy shit won’t win a chili cook-off. You should stick to the jubilee and making jalapeño banana muffins rather than chili. That’s a man’s job, not a woman’s.”

  Carlene scooted away from him. “That’s sexist.”

  He yawned and stretched. “Maybe it is but you’re just making a big ass out of your whole family.”

  “Are you implying that I have a big ass?”

  He smiled but it wasn’t a bit nice. “Well, there is that, but no, I was not. I was speaking the truth. How are you going to feel when they call my name to come get the trophy and you’ve lost…again?”

  She frowned and stood up. He didn’t offer to help and if he had she would have slapped his hand away. She didn’t need anything from Lenny, not even a helping hand.

  “Again?” she asked.

  “You lost me because you just couldn’t hold on to me. You lost your marriage because of your temper. And you are going to lose this cook-off because of your anger. I’d wish you good luck but it would be wasted so I’ll just say good-bye,” he told her.

  “I kind of like that idea. Good-bye, Lenny,” she said.

  Just like that she was free of him. She wasn’t a loser. She’d won already because he was gone from her heart.

  She checked the step stool each time before she put a foot on the bottom stair and had just finished spraying all the lace when a hand came out of the shadows to help her off the stool.

  “Jack Landry, what are you doing here?” She put her hand in his and felt immediate heat from the inside flowing outward all the way to her cheeks.

  “I thought I’d come by and see if everything was quiet. Didn’t know if Tansy and Kitty might be taking the same watch.” He dropped her hand, folded the stool up, and set it behind the freezer.

  “We want the mamas fresh for tomorrow so us girls are doing the watch. I’m taking first shift. Alma Grace is going to take over at eleven and then Patrice is coming in at four in the morning.”

  “Want some company?”

  “I’d love company,” Carlene said. “Want a beer or a glass of sweet tea?”

  “I’m off duty so beer is good.”

  He wore jeans and a white T-shirt, scuffed boots, and his hair still had water droplets, proving that he’d been in the shower not long before. She inhaled and got a whiff of his aftershave, something woodsy and tantalizing that was so Jack Landry.

  She opened two beers, handed him one, and sat down at a picnic table. He took a swig and sat down across from her, his long legs stretched out and knees touching hers under the table.

  “I didn’t hear your motorcycle,” she said.

  “Came in my truck in case I had to haul Tansy and Kitty back to the jail.”

  “Why’d you come back, Jack? I always wanted to get away from north central Texas. It was my dream to live anywhere else on the
planet. You got away and saw the world but then you came back to Cadillac. Why?” she asked.

  “It’s home, and if you had left, you’d have been drawn back just like I was. It might not be perfect but it’s home. You still dream of leaving?”

  She shook her head.

  His knee put out enough heat to take care of half the planet in the dead middle of a cold winter. The night breeze was pleasantly cool but not chilly. She couldn’t imagine how it would feel if his bare skin touched hers when pure old blistering heat flowed through two pair of jeans.

  “No, I’m settled here now. I’ve got the shop and my family and I’m not leaving,” she said.

  Jack sipped his beer again. “Not even if you don’t win tomorrow?”

  “Winning will make me very happy but it’s not the end of the world if we don’t win. Of course, I’m speaking for myself, not Aunt Tansy. You might do well to bring backup to the judging announcements if she doesn’t win after what Kitty did with the cat.” She smiled.

  “Will you go to dinner with me next Friday night?” he asked.

  “Will you come to Mother’s Day dinner with me at Mama’s on Sunday?” she asked right back.

  He grinned and she wanted to kiss him so bad that she had to down a third of her beer just to keep busy. “I will if you will.”

  “Deal.” He reached across the table to shake hands.

  She put hers in his and said, “Jack, I’m not rushing into anything. I want you to know that.”

  “It’s still a deal. Thanks for the beer. I’d better make the rounds and check on everyone else.”

  “Thought you were off duty,” she said.

  “I am but…” His phone rang and he reached inside his hip pocket for it. “Jack Landry, here.”

  He was standing by the time he put it back. “Got a catfight going at the convenience store. See you later.”

  “Fannins and Lovelles?” she asked.

  “Agnes and Violet,” he hollered back at a dead run.

  ***

  Alma Grace showed up at exactly the right time.

  “The lace looks so much better! How did you do that? It even shines in the moonlight. Just wait until the sunlight hits it tomorrow. It’ll look like it’s been sprinkled with diamonds,” she beamed.