Thin Blue Smoke: A Novel About Music, Food, and Love

by Doug Worgul

  When Morty Pavlich and his crew sat down, A.B. scurried back to the office to tell LaVerne.

  “It’s Morty Pavlich!” he whispered loudly to his boss, who was counting boxes of paper napkins, and making notes on a clipboard.

  “It’s what?” said LaVerne vaguely, without looking up.

  “It’s Morty Pavlich! He’s here! He’s out front eating.”

  “Morty Pavlich, the guy on TV, is here?” LaVerne asked, half smiling.

  A.B. restated the facts and the two men went out to have a look. There was Morty Pavlich, gnawing contently on a rib bone.

  LaVerne went over and introduced himself. Morty Pavlich was gracious and seemed delighted to meet LaVerne, but inasmuch as his fingers were covered in sauce, he didn’t shake hands. The soundman wanted to know if LaVerne had in fact played for the Athletics. When LaVerne confirmed this, the soundman asked for an autograph.

  LaVerne wouldn’t let Morty Pavlich and his crew pay for lunch. As the group was leaving, A.B. rounded up the other employees and they applauded from behind the counter as if they were an audience at an actual Morty Pavlich Show.

  A.B. watched The Morty Pavlich Show every night after that. On a Wednesday two weeks after his visit to the restaurant, Morty Pavlich mentioned the visit during the broadcast, specifically saying how good the sauce was. A.B was so excited when he told LaVerne about it he got choked up.

  LaVerne had previously contemplated bottling and retailing his barbecue sauce, and this latest development seemed to present a perfect marketing opportunity. A few weeks later he signed a contract with a bottler in St. Louis to distribute LaVerne Williams’ Genuine BBQ Sauce KANSAS CITY STYLE as featured on The Morty Pavlich Show. When the first shipment arrived at the restaurant, LaVerne right away sent a bottle to Morty Pavlich with a thank you note.

  Three months later, LaVerne received in the mail an autographed photo of Morty Pavlich. No note. Just the picture.

  About a week after that, LaVerne received a certified letter from a law firm representing The Morty Pavlich Show, informing LaVerne that he must cease and desist the distribution and/or sale of any and all products using the name Morty Pavlich in packaging or promotion, and that all existing such products must be immediately destroyed.

  A.B. swore and cursed continuously as he and LaVerne heaved crates of the barbecue sauce into the dumpster behind the restaurant. In his rage, A.B. miscalculated the distance to the top of the dumpster and one of the crates bounced off the edge and landed on his foot. He couldn’t work the next day and hobbled around for a week after that. Whenever anybody asked him about his foot he snorted and mumbled, “Damn that Morty Pavlich.”

  LaVerne didn’t say much about the whole affair, so it was hard to tell if he was angry or embarrassed.

  In spite of this disappointment, on the wall of the restaurant, opposite the wall where Raymond’s obituary is displayed, and among photographs of Kansas City Chiefs, and Royals, local politicians, and radio personalities, is the autographed photo of Morty Pavlich.

  3

  Lone Star

  LaVerne Williams was born and raised in Plum Grove, Texas, north of Houston. Like all Texans he is inordinately proud to be a Texan, as if it is somehow a crowning achievement, not a simple accident of birth. So when LaVerne first got the idea to bottle and sell his barbecue sauce, which was well before the Morty Pavlich incident, he wanted to call it “LaVerne Williams’s Genuine TexiKan BBQ Sauce”.

  “It combines ‘Texas’ and ‘Kansas City’,” he said, explaining his idea to A.B. “And it sounds like the word ‘Mexican’. TexiKan. Mexican.”

  A.B. looked at his boss, expecting further explanation. When none was offered, A.B. nodded vigorously and told LaVerne it was a great name for a barbecue sauce. LaVerne took his idea, along with A.B.’s endorsement, to Angela.

  “TexiKan is not a word,” she said. She was quite sure LaVerne already knew this but thought a reminder might help.

  “I know it’s not a word,” he said. “We’ll make it a word. It combines ‘Texas’ and ‘Kansas City’. It’s the best of both worlds. The best of Texas barbecue and Kansas City barbecue in one bottle. And it sounds like Mexican.”

  “Will the sauce be Mexican?” asked Angela.

  LaVerne was exasperated with his wife’s failure to perceive the cleverness and marketing savvy of the TexiKan concept and concluded that he needed to explain it a few more times.

  “No, the sauce won’t be Mexican. It’ll be TexiKan,” LaVerne said with exaggerated patience. “It’ll be Texas and Kansas City.”

  “But LaVerne,” said Angela. “You’ve never promoted your sauce or your barbecue as having anything to do with Texas. We don’t have any signs in the restaurant saying ‘We serve genuine Texas barbecue.’ None of your customers even know you’re from Texas. If you start selling sauce that’s TexiKan, people won’t know what that means. It’ll just confuse people.”

  “But everybody knows Texas barbecue is the best,” LaVerne said, as if the point was so obvious it hardly need be made.

  “Well, that’s just silly,” Angela laughed derisively. Angela was born and raised in Kansas City. “There’s not a single person in this town, not a one, who would agree with you on that. Kansas City is the barbecue capital. And in case you’ve forgotten, our restaurant is in Kansas City, not Texas. TexiKan is a horrible name for a barbecue sauce. Especially if you want people in Kansas City to buy it.”

  LaVerne always got mad when Angela was right and he was wrong, a circumstance that was all too common as far as he was concerned. He grabbed a beer from the refrigerator and stomped out of the house slamming the door behind him.

  *

  If Angela Newton had known the specifics of what “for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health” actually meant in the case of her marriage to LaVerne Williams she might have reconsidered marrying him. Loving LaVerne had been easy. Living with him had only recently become, if not exactly easy, at least less difficult.

  The marriage got off to a bad start. Angela’s father, the Rev. Dr. Clarence E. Newton, senior pastor of New Jerusalem Baptist Church, strongly disapproved of LaVerne, who he felt had an unsavory past and a questionable future. Both of Angela’s older brothers had gone into the ministry and, without ever expressly saying so, it was expected that Angela would marry a minister, which LaVerne definitely was not.

  Angela’s mother, Alberta H. Newton, was only a little more accepting of LaVerne, but this was more strategic than heartfelt on her part. Mrs. Newton feared she would incite her strong-willed daughter to all-out rebellion if she joined her husband in opposing LaVerne.

  LaVerne naturally resented his in-laws negativity towards him and rightly felt that it undermined his relationship with Angela.

  Things improved slightly in late 1966 when the Athletics offered LaVerne a contract. The Rev. Dr. Newton was a dedicated fan and learned scholar of baseball and it was hard to deny that his son-in-law was a talented ballplayer. However, when LaVerne blew out his shoulder in spring training in 1968, and was subsequently waived by the Athletics, Rev. Newton’s support began to wane. It further eroded when LaVerne stopped attending church services and his moods darkened.

  Angela, however, did not love LaVerne because he was a baseball player or even because he went to church. She didn’t really care that much about baseball. Angela loved LaVerne for what he was, a sweet and soulful man. She loves him still for the same reasons. And when LaVerne had finished his beer and came sulking back into the house she reminded him of that.

  “I love you LaVerne. There’s nothing you can say or do that will ever change that. But TexiKan is a lame-ass idea. And there’s nothing you can say or do that will ever change that.”

  4

  Vinegar Pie

  Smoke Meat is a small place, but it’s not what you would call cozy. The building is about a hundred yea
rs old. And though it is located in what is now Kansas City’s hip and increasingly upscale arts district, its décor is decidedly pre-hip. The interior walls are not exposed brick. They are cinder block, painted with a heavy white enamel. The ceiling is not exposed heating and ventilation ductwork painted flat black. It’s a 1970s-era dropped ceiling of once-white acoustic tiles now stained yellow. The floor is black industrial-grade linoleum tile worn down in spots to the wood underneath.

  When encouraged by friends and well-meaning customers to redecorate or restore the building, so as to bring it in line with other recently rehabilitated buildings in the neighborhood, LaVerne takes the opportunity to expound on his barbecue philosophy.

  “Barbecue is not fancy food. It’s plain and it’s simple. And that’s how it should be served—plain and simple. If you’re selling barbecue you serve it up in a barbecue joint. If you’re selling fancy food then it’s fine to serve it in a fancy place. The only thing fancy about this place is the damn rent.”

  There are nine tables with mismatched chairs that seat a total of 44 customers in LaVerne’s plain and simple place. In the winter it is usually too warm inside. In the summer it’s too cold.

  And it’s clean. Cleanliness being LaVerne Williams’ big bugaboo.

  “White folks assume that black people are not as clean and neat as they are,” he says. “In spite of the fact that we’ve been cleaning their houses for the last 300 years. So we always have to go the extra mile just to make sure our places are spotless.”

  LaVerne keeps one employee on every shift busy clearing and wiping tables, sweeping and mopping floors, and scouring the washrooms.

  Cleanliness is also a part of LaVerne’s overall effort to set his restaurant apart from other barbecue establishments in town. “Other joints are greasy and proud of it. I never understood that.”

  The primary element of LaVerne’s differentiation strategy, however, is his menu.

  Smoke Meat is at least as well known in the neighborhood for the food it does not serve as for the food it serves. This is a source of mild irritation for LaVerne in that he would rather his restaurant be known for its fine smoked meats. But his strongly held and quite specific opinions regarding the kinds of food—especially side dishes—that ought and ought not be served in a barbecue joint have positioned his menu somewhat outside the mainstream of Kansas City barbecue tradition. LaVerne understands this and steadfastly refuses to do anything about it.

  This intransigence has been a source of irritation for LaVerne’s right-hand man, A.B. Clayton.

  When groups of workers in nearby office buildings discuss where to go for lunch, and someone suggests Smoke Meat, someone else will inevitably ask “Is that the place that doesn’t serve fries?”

  Smoke Meat does not serve fries. Neither does it serve onion rings, coleslaw, potato salad, or any kind of chicken—reliable standbys at almost all other Kansas City barbecue joints.

  There are more than 120 barbecue joints in the greater Kansas City metropolitan region, and once in awhile you’ll come across one that doesn’t have one or another of these items on its menu. But only Smoke Meat doesn’t offer any of them.

  Smoke Meat does serve beans, but not barbecue beans the way most people think of them, which is navy beans, baked in brown sugar and barbecue sauce, with bits of brisket tossed in. For that reason, LaVerne doesn’t call his beans “barbecue beans.” He calls them “beans”. The recipe is straightforward: pinto beans cooked with chopped onions and jalapeno peppers, enormous amounts of garlic, way too much salt, and a pinch of cumin. Just the way LaVerne’s grandmother made them down in Plum Grove, Texas. But not the way most customers expect when they order beans. When A.B. or one of the other employees puts a bowl of beans on a patron’s tray it’s not unusual for the customer to say “Excuse me, I ordered the beans.” At which point the employee is obliged to explain, “These are the beans. They’re Texas beans.” This is what annoys A.B.

  “Why don’t we just give people what they want, boss?” A.B. has pleaded on numerous occasions.

  “Because they only want it because they’re used to it,” LaVerne says. “Kansas City beans are too sweet and too rich. They compete with the meat and the meat ought to be the star of the show. Once people get used to our beans, they’ll start asking the other joints to make ‘em our way.”

  A.B. remains skeptical of this possibility. “Well, boss, we’ve been open since 1982 and we’re still the only place in town serving your Grandma’s beans.”

  LaVerne will then explain that in order for a barbecue joint to compete successfully in a crowded marketplace it needs a unique personality, an identity all its own, which is why Smoke Meat has, in LaVerne’s words, “steered its own course” with regard to its menu.

  “Our side dishes all taste good with barbecue meat,” he says. “If people want the ‘same old, same old’ they can go somewhere else.”

  At which point A.B. sighs, shakes his head and returns to his work mumbling something on the order of “Yeah, but you’re not the one who has to explain a hundred times a day why we don’t have fries.”

  Once A.B. put up a sign next to the menu letterboard that said “If you don’t see it here, don’t order it and don’t ask for it, because we don’t serve it.”

  LaVerne made him take it down.

  The items on Smoke Meat’s menu are as follows, listed as they appear on the letterboard:

  SMOKED MEATS

  Brisket, sliced thick

  Pulled chuck

  Burnt Ends

  Sausage

  Pulled pork

  Turkey breast

  Reg. sandwich $3.95 Lg. $5.25

  By the pound 11.00

  Ribs

  Full slab $17.95

  Long end 10.50

  Short end 11.50

  SIDE DISHES

  Greens $2.50

  Red potatoes 2.50

  Onions and cabbage 2.50

  Beans 2.50

  Applesauce 1.25

  DESSERT

  Sweet potato pie $2.25

  Peach cobbler 2.25

  Vinegar pie 225

  BEVERAGE

  Reg. 1.79 Lg. 2.25

  Ice Tea

  Coke product

  Lone Star longneck 2.50

  Boulevard Wheat 3.25

  The vinegar pie doesn’t actually cost 225 dollars per slice. The little letterboard dot used for a decimal point fell off during a spring cleaning and was never found. This is the kind of thing Cochran Rooney would make a big deal out of, but he’s only been to Smoke Meat that one time.

  Smoke Meat’s sandwiches are served disassembled, which is to say that the raw materials of a sandwich are supplied—a mound of meat on a piece of red butcher paper with four slices of white bread on top. It’s the customer’s responsibility to construct the actual sandwich. This is the same way sandwiches are served at Arthur Bryant’s—Kansas City’s most famous barbecue joint—located a few miles east. But LaVerne makes a point of saying that this is not “Bryant’s style,” but is, in fact, Texas-style. “The Bryants came from Texas, just like me,” he says. “And that’s the way barbecue is served down there. They didn’t invent it. They just brought it with them.”

  A thick slice of white onion and a dill pickle are also provided. And the meat is served without sauce, though sauce is available at the table. LaVerne explains that these, too, are Texas traditions and cites them as further evidence that he is not imitating Bryant’s in any way.

  Though he won’t admit it to his boss, A.B. has slowly, quietly, and grudgingly accepted that the eccentricities of Smoke Meat’s menu do give the place a distinct character. When it comes to vinegar pie, however, he remains defiant. Knowing that it is another one of LaVerne’s grandmother’s recipes has not altered his opinion. “It’s just weird,” he says. “People don’t even know what vi
negar pie is. We should at least change the name.”

  LaVerne dismisses all such criticism, especially from A.B. “Boy, you’d have a lot more credibility on the subject of vinegar pie if you’d just once try some.”

  5

  A Good Saver

  Another thing you won’t find on Smoke Meat’s menu is any dish made with rice. “I had enough rice in the first 17 years of my life to last me the entire rest of my life,” LaVerne says. “I don’t care if I never have rice pudding, beans and rice, Mexican rice, fried rice or any other kind of rice ever again.”

  This aversion stems from the fact that LaVerne was raised by his grandmother, Rose Williams, in Liberty County, Texas, which, before it was oil and cattle country, was rice country.

  Rose Williams worked for Raylon Rice and Milling Enterprises for 30 years and was paid for her labors in part with a weekly bag of rice, which she put to good use feeding her grandson who came to live with her when his mother, Rose’s daughter Loretta, gave him up. LaVerne was six months old.

  Rose tried her best to prepare the rice in interesting new ways, but after long hours at the mill, it was hard to gather up the gumption to get fancy with her cooking. LaVerne was a good boy and didn’t complain much, but the day he boarded the bus for Birmingham to join the Athletics’ farm club was the last day he ever ate rice.

  Rose paid for LaVerne’s bus ticket and the suitcase full of new clothes he took with him to Birmingham. She had always been a good saver. Every two weeks after standing in line at the payroll window for her paycheck she’d walk into town and stand in line at the bank to put some of her money away. She had tried to be a good Christian and a good mother. So, when Loretta fell in with a bad bunch, started skipping school and stopped going to church, Rose felt that she had failed both God and her daughter. But she would not fail her grandson. When LaVerne’s baseball coach told her that some scouts from Kansas City had been watching LaVerne play Rose understood that baseball could be her grandson’s chance to better his lot. When the Athletics offered him a minor league contract later that year she was determined he would go.