Dinner at Jack's

by Rick R. Reed

  “Aren’t you tired, Mom?”

  And she looked at him and smiled, grateful, he supposed, for this tiny bit of consideration. “Yeah. Wiped out. I wasn’t sleeping too good anyway when I heard you holler. And now my eyes are just burning. I think if my head hit a pillow, I’d be out like a light.”

  “Then go. Go get some rest.” He managed a smile, crooked and brief as a gust of wind, and said, “I’ll be here in the morning.”

  She squeezed his foot. “I know. And so will I.”

  She stood. “Good night, Jack. Try and sleep.”

  He nodded. She slipped out of the room. As soon as she closed the door behind her, he aimed the remote at the TV and turned it on.

  Chapter 9: Sweet Potato Chili

  Sweet Potato Chili

  A little olive oil

  1 lb. lean ground beef or turkey

  1 poblano pepper, seeded and chopped into small dice

  1 large yellow onion, chopped fine

  Three cloves fresh garlic, minced

  2 T chili powder

  2 t ground cumin

  2 cans (4 ounce) diced mild green chiles with juice

  1 can (14.5 ounce) petite diced tomatoes, fire-roasted if you can find them

  1 can (8 ounce) tomato sauce

  2 cans (10.5 ounce)beef consommé or beef broth

  1 large sweet potato, cubed

  2 bay leaves

  Salt and fresh ground pepper to taste

  Heat olive oil in a Dutch oven, add ground meat, and cook over medium-high heat until browned. Drain and remove the meat to a bowl. Add a little more oil and add the pepper and onions and sauté until soft and fragrant, about 3-4 minutes. Add your garlic and sauté for another minute.

  Throw in everything else, stir to blend, and reduce heat to low. Let chili simmer for an hour before serving. Taste and adjust seasoning, adding more salt and pepper if needed. Serve with sour cream, shredded cheese, and if you want it a little hotter, Tabasco or other hot sauce.

  Serves 6.

  * * * *

  “I’m going over there right now,” I told Mary Beth as I gave the pot of chili one final stir. It smelled so good, I was tempted to pull out a bowl right now but restrained myself. Holding back like that for others was what made me such a good cook, right? Or at least a considerate guy…Still, I held the phone between my shoulder and my ear so I could grab a quick spoonful. It was too hot, but man, was it good. If this didn’t win over Jack Rogers and his mom, I didn’t know what would. I tossed the spoon into the sink.

  “What are you doing this for, Beau? You don’t even know these people, and you’re not gonna make any money at all. Why don’t you try the Boardman Applebee’s? I hear they’re hiring.”

  I rolled my eyes. The prospect of working for an irascible shut-in who might fling my food at his wall was preferable to working at Applebee’s. I did, after all, have my standards.

  “Hey, it’s just a little something to pass my time until something better comes along.” I had told her all about the mother and son, and although their sad story elicited some sympathetic clucks from my sister, she was steadfast in thinking this was a bad idea. Mary Beth couldn’t understand why I’d want to sell out my valuable skills and time for peanuts when I could be doing better. And in my heart of hearts, I had to admit she had a point.

  But there was something about Jack, his familiarity and my perception that he needed me, that called to me, even if it was against my better judgment, against logic. I had always been a guy who followed his heart over his head. “Besides,” I told Mary Beth, “his mother is a sweetheart. And she reminds me of Mom.”

  That made Mary Beth go quiet. Mary Beth was a late-in-life baby for my parents, and no one spoiled her more than my mother. The two of them had a bond that was probably close to what twins had. When Mom was alive, I knew the two of them talked on the phone several times a day. Mary Beth, even after the years that had passed since Mom expired from cancer, still pined for our mother. I did too, but for Mary Beth, I think it was a more conscious and acute pain.

  “Well,” she said. “I guess it can’t hurt to give it a whirl.” She was quiet for a minute. “You want to come over for supper on Sunday? Dad’s coming.”

  “I suppose you’ll want me to cook?”

  She giggled. “Would you mind? Just text me a shopping list, and I’ll buy all the stuff.”

  “How sweet and considerate of you.” I smiled. “I’ll be there. Maybe if I cook something good enough, I can bring a smile to the old coot’s face.”

  “Beau…Don’t call him that.”

  “Bye, sis. See you in the funny papers.”

  “Whatever that means.” She hung up.

  It was getting toward five, and I supposed if I was going to head over to the Rogers’, I should do so. Since it was Monday, and Maisie had told me she was off on Sundays and Mondays, I was relieved that she would be home. I had a feeling I would need the buffer.

  I grabbed a package of shredded cheddar and a tub of sour cream from the fridge. I put them in the bag with the Dutch oven and headed out.

  * * * *

  Maisie held the door open. “You showed up.”

  “You didn’t think I would?” I edged by her into the living room, holding my shopping bag clutched close to my chest. I set it down for a minute to take off my coat and kick off my shoes. “Maisie! I’m not that kind of guy. If I say I’ll do something, I do it.”

  “You don’t know how rare that is these days.”

  I picked my supplies back up and headed toward the kitchen. “Okay if I heat this up a bit on the stove?”

  “You do whatever you want.” She followed me into the kitchen. She grabbed her purse from the counter and took out her wallet. “No arguments. I want to pay you for this.” She dug around inside.

  “You don’t even know if it’s any good!” I cried, smiling.

  “I can smell it. And it’s making my mouth water. So I know it’s good.” She held out a ten, which really didn’t even cover the cost of the ingredients, especially with the bottle of wine I’d picked up on the way over at the last minute.

  I took the money. “You don’t need to do this. I said this was a trial run.”

  She shook her head. “If you won’t consider it for the food, consider it hazard pay.”

  I cocked my head, the spoon held aloft above the pot. For a moment I’d forgotten the reason I was here. “How’s he doing today?”

  She groped in her purse again and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. She held it up to me. “You mind?”

  I shook my head.

  “You want one?”

  “That’s okay. Never took it up.”

  “Good for you.” Maisie sat down at the kitchen table with an ashtray and lit up. She blew smoke out of the corner of her mouth, away from me. “He’s okay, I guess. He had a bad night. Nightmares. So if you want me to be honest, he’s a little cranky. Or crankier than usual, I guess I should say. Maybe some of that chili will cheer him up.”

  I hoped so but kind of worried that it wouldn’t. I felt little stabs of trepidation in my gut. I wished she had told me Jack was in a rare and wonderful mood that day, but I supposed this was what I’d agreed to do. I knew from yesterday what the challenges would be.

  “Does he have nightmares a lot?” I stirred the chili and then moved away from the stove to uncork the wine, a Shiraz I thought would go well with it.

  “Yeah. ‘A lot’ is an understatement.”

  I didn’t look at Maisie. I could hear her smoking behind me, the quick nervous puffing.

  I sat down with her. “I have to ask. What happened to him? Is he sick?”

  “Not sick. Not physically, anyway. I suppose he has what they call PTSD these days. You’ve heard of it? It stands for—”

  I cut her off. “Post-traumatic stress disorder. I’ve heard of it.” I touched her hand lightly and then withdrew. “What was the trauma? Was he in the service? Can you tell me?”

  She took a long drag and exp
elled the smoke almost angrily. “I wish I knew! I wish he knew!”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “He woke up in a snowbank, I guess, in Seattle one morning, beaten nearly to death. He can’t remember to this day what happened to him. And even the cops out there who investigated were never able to find out exactly what happened. They guessed a mugging, but I don’t buy it. He still had his watch on, a nice Michael Kors, and his wallet full of money and credit cards in his inner coat pocket. The whole thing is a big blank. This was eight years ago. I’ve tried to get him to see somebody, to maybe unlock what happened to him, but he won’t go. He went once when he first moved back and had a bad experience, so he won’t go again. It’s ironic that what causes him all his pain is the same thing that prevents him from getting a handle on it and getting over it.”

  “Seattle?” I mumbled, and she nodded. “I told you I used to live there, didn’t I?”

  “Yeah. Were you there eight years ago?”

  I nodded. “I moved there after I finished up culinary school in Pittsburgh. I wanted a change and had just seen an old movie called Singles, and it inspired me to just pack up and move across the country. Funny the stuff you do when you’re young.”

  “Don’t talk like an old man! You’re still young. Maybe you and Jack crossed paths.” She took a long reflective drag and blew a plume of blue smoke above my head. She looked into my eyes. “I know this is a personal question, and I’ll take it back if it offends you, but are you gay?”

  I felt heat rise to my face, and I laughed. “Is it that obvious?” I thought I was a pretty butch guy, but maybe that was just wishful thinking, self-delusion.

  Maisie ground out her smoke. “No, no. It’s not like that. It’s just that Jack is, or was, and I thought being in the same city and all at the same time, maybe you might have run into each other. At a club or something? I don’t know.”

  “Wouldn’t that be somethin’?” I asked. “It’s funny you ask, because when I first saw him, I did think he looked familiar, now that you mention it. But Seattle’s a big city, and honey, you can’t swing a cat there without hitting a homosexual. So who knows? Anything’s possible.”

  Could I have met him before? He did look familiar, but then again, he didn’t, not really. Usually when the memory bell rings and you see someone you once knew again, even if it’s been a while, you’re pretty sure. It wasn’t like that with Jack. Maybe he just reminded me of someone I knew. My mind couldn’t put him in any particular time or place, as it usually did with someone I might have made the acquaintance of before. No, no, the odds were against it. And besides, even if we had crossed paths, it would have been so long ago. What would be the point of even dredging it back up now? I mean, other than comparing notes on a shared history? I guess you could say, if I did know him, that we’d both fled Seattle after traumas there.

  I got up to turn off the gas flame under the chili. “You think he’s ready to have his world rocked?” I winked at Maisie.

  “Oh! If only.” Maisie stood, moved to the cabinets above the sink, and brought out a stack of ceramic bowls in a sunny yellow color. She shifted to her right and grabbed some spoons. “You’ll have some too, yeah?”

  “I’ll die if I don’t. Seriously. This stuff has been teasing me mercilessly all day with its aroma.” I stirred the chili again. “If it doesn’t sound too conceited to say that.”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  I helped Maisie load up a big tray with all the stuff we’d need, and we headed to Jack’s room.

  Maisie knocked. There was no response, and I immediately got a foreboding feeling this would not go well.

  “Honey? Beau’s here with supper. It smells amazing! You decent?”

  No response. She looked back at me, her eyes pleading. She opened the door a crack and poked her head in. “Jack?”

  “I’m watching this.”

  I could hear gunshots being fired that I hoped were part of a TV show.

  “Just put it outside the door.”

  “No, honey,” Maisie whined, and at that moment I hated Jack a little bit, regardless of what was the matter with him, for the position he put her in. “I thought we could all eat together.”

  The volume on the TV went up a little.

  “Let me,” I said. I was beginning to lose my temper a bit and that wasn’t appropriate, but I couldn’t help it. PTSD or no, this was no way to treat me, let alone a mother who obviously had mostly given up her life to take care of him. I edged by her and entered the room. I set the tray down on the dresser opposite the bed. “Feeling chilly?” I faced Jack, my hands on my hips, grin firmly plastered on my face at my pun.

  “What the fuck?” He pointed the remote at the TV and turned the volume up even more.

  Maisie, shoulders hunched and staring down at the floor, crept in behind me. “Doesn’t that smell awesome, Jack?”

  “I’m not hungry.” He looked back at me and gave me the biggest—and fakest—smile I’d ever seen. “Thank you so much for dropping by, whatever-your-name-is. I’m sure your food is out of this world. I’ll give it a try later. Right now I want to see how this episode of SVU ends. Do you mind?”

  Rage bubbled up inside me like a herd of hornets. I tried to push it down, telling myself I was dealing with a person who was, perhaps, mentally ill. But it didn’t help much. I had inherited my temper from my Sicilian mother, who fought as big as she loved. I may not have tempered my words much, but I did succeed in tempering my tone a bit. “Yeah, Jack. I do mind. I worked all day on making that chili. I shopped, I chopped, I diced, I julienned. Then I sautéed and I stirred and I tasted and adjusted. The end result? The most perfect, most divine chili I have ever made. And you know what? No beans! So you won’t stink up this closed-up room with your farts.”

  Maisie, behind me, gasped.

  Jack shook his head, eyeing me like I was the person in the room who needed professional help. And maybe I was. But, and I took the tiniest bit of pride in this tiniest of victories, I could see a smile flickering at the corners of his lips, as though he were trying not to laugh.

  I moved to the bed and, not breaking eye contact with Jack, gently took the remote control out of his hand.

  “Hey!” he shouted. He grabbed for the remote, and I held it securely out of reach.

  I turned to Maisie. “Do you think he has this recorded?”

  “He records everything. Who watches anything when it’s actually on these days? Jack hates commercials, and this way he can fast forward through them. Right, honey?”

  Jack just glared at his mom.

  I shut the TV off and set the remote back on the nightstand.

  “You prick. How dare you!” Jack said. “Turn it back on and get the hell out of my room.” He pulled his arms out from beneath the covers to fold them across his chest.

  “I think you’ll feel much better once you try my chili, Jack. I guarantee you’ve never had anything like it.” I dished up a bowl for him, not too much because I knew from Maisie the man had little appetite. I grabbed a paper towel and a spoon and brought it to Jack in his bed.

  And what do you know? His pale face morphed, and he gave me the sweetest smile. He even held up his hands for the bowl. Maybe I was making progress. I returned the smile, pleased that his didn’t look fake at all, not like it had before.

  He took it from me and stared down at the steaming bowl of red before him. He took a big whiff and murmured, “Yum!”

  And then he flung the bowl against the wall.

  I was so stunned I let out a little gasp. Openmouthed, I looked toward the wall, back to Jack, and then to Maisie. She didn’t look horrified, as I might have expected, but resigned.

  “Really?” I asked. I started to move toward the mess.

  Maisie grabbed my arm with more force than I thought she had in her. She steered me to the door. Before we even made it there, the TV was back on, volume blaring. Christopher Meloni was calling someone a dirtbag, and for a moment I thought the TV star
was yelling at Jack.

  “C’mon,” Maisie said.

  I tried to pull away, but she held fast.

  “Don’t you want me to help clean up?”

  “I got it,” she said.

  She tugged me from the room. I glanced over at Jack, who stared at the TV screen, a smirk on his face. I wanted to call him a dick but held my temper in check and tried to reason that he couldn’t help himself. He was a wounded person, with scars I had no idea about.

  Once in the kitchen, Maisie nervously lit up again. She blew the smoke at the ceiling and then regarded me warily. She didn’t say anything for several minutes, and then she whispered, “Thanks for everything.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, even though I wasn’t stupid. I knew when I was being dismissed. And truth be told, I was relieved. This whole situation was crazy, fucked up six ways to Sunday, and after what I’d just gone through in Seattle, I knew I didn’t need the stress or the anxiety. I had a beautiful little place to hole up in, where I could heal from my lost love and think about ways to rekindle my real family relations. What would I make for Dad on Sunday?

  “Oh, come on, Beau. You’re not gonna come back.”

  It wasn’t a question. And no, I wasn’t. I felt sorry for them, her more than him, and for this little house that was effectively a prison for both of them. But I had to admit, much as it was in my nature to want to fix everything, this mess was really not mine to clean up. And I wasn’t referring to the chili splattered on the bedroom wall.

  “I mean, shit, even if I could pay you a ton of money, what kind of idiot would you be to subject yourself to that?”

  She gestured toward Jack’s room with the hand holding her cigarette. She moved closer to me, and I could see her eyes were wet with tears, and it caused a lump to grow in my own throat.

  “You seem like a very nice man. And I’m sorry I wasted your time.”

  Impulsively, I held out my arms, and she came into them. I held her close. I barely knew her, but I could feel her pain, immense, and wished there was something I could do to make things better. But sometimes things are beyond our power, no matter how much we wish they weren’t.