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

by Doug Worgul

  M.Z. Owen didn’t like the feel of the situation. In one stride, he closed the distance between himself and the man from the shadows. He thrust his arm out and stopped the man’s forward progress with his fingertips, which he placed gently and non-negotiably against the man’s chest.

  “Back up,” he said.

  Typically, when Mike Owen suggested someone change course, they responded promptly, without protest or question, and with quite a lot of stammering and rapid blinking. This man was different. He just stood there, looking up at Mike through heavy-rimmed glasses perched on an over-sized nose. He was skeleton-thin, except for a protruding beer belly. His hair was oily and slicked back.

  “Is that A.B. Clayton?” he asked. “I’ve been waiting for him out here. I’m his stepfather.”

  “He says he’s your stepfather, A.B.,” said Mike, keeping his eyes fixed on the man’s eyes.

  “Well, I’ve had more than one of those,” said A.B. coming around to see who it was. Jen had come and was standing behind A.B.

  “It’s Rudy,” she said. “Rudy, from your mother’s funeral.”

  A.B. nodded. “I thought you said you and my mom weren’t married.”

  Rudy shrugged. “Well, technically we wasn’t married. But we was together for a long time. Like what they call a ‘common law’ marriage. Anyways, like we was saying—you and me—after Mona’s funeral, I was thinking maybe we could get together once in awhile. Get to know one another. Maybe go up to the boats. You know, have a good time. I think your ma would like that. You ever go to the boats?”

  A.B. frowned. “No. I never have. Angela told me it’s a sin to gamble away your hard-earned pay. Besides, why were you waiting for me here outside the restaurant?”

  Rudy smiled and tried to take a step closer to A.B., which Mike prevented.

  “Like I said, you and I had talked about maybe gettin’ to know one another. And so I came over here, but the place was closed and I saw that you was cleaning up, so I just waited.”

  It wasn’t clear to A.B. what he should do or say. He turned to Jen.

  “Rudy, my band is playing at the Blue Room tonight,” she said. “We’re on our way over there right now. You’re welcome to meet us there.”

  Rudy shook his head. “That’s alright. I don’t mean to barge in. I’ll catch up with you another time, A.B.”

  He backed away from Mike, then turned and walked north on Walnut.

  In the Defender, on the way to the club, A.B. held Jen’s hand and stared out the window.

  “This has been some kind of day, Jen,” he said. “I didn’t like it much.”

  Warren fidgeted in the seat next to Mike. “That guy? He wasn’t afraid of M.Z. Most people are.”

  40

  Feeling Something Slide

  Sammy Merzeti was given his new name three days after he slid a knife into the heart of the one they called the Rabbi.

  The knife he used was an eight-inch piece of cyclone fencing, straightened, sharpened, and wrapped at one end with duct tape for a handle.

  Sammy’s naming rite took place in a corner of the prison yard claimed and protected by the Fellowship of the Sword and the Fire. The corner was called Zorn’s Church by most of the inmate population, but Zorn himself called it the Altar of the Almighty.

  Zorn was the name convicted murderer Harold Pickle gave himself when he anointed himself High Evangelist of the Fellowship of the Sword and the Fire, which he founded “in order to purify the True Peoples of the Almighty’s Last Nation.” Which were, in Zorn’s words, “the Caucasoids of North America.”

  “Zorn is the Aryan word for rage,” said Harold Pickle at his self-conducted naming ceremony. “The Almighty has given me this name because he is enraged at the corrupted seed of his True Peoples.”

  Later, one of the guards who had witnessed the ceremony said to another guard, “Yeah, Zorn is enraged alright. He’s enraged that his real name is Harold Pickle.”

  The name Zorn gave Sammy was Degen, which Zorn said was the Aryan word for sword.

  “For you shall be the Sword of the Almighty’s Wrath,” he proclaimed as the four other members of the Fellowship used the knife that Sammy killed the Rabbi with to carve the letters of his new name into the flesh of his right shoulder.

  *

  Sammy was surprised by how easily the knife had glided up under the Rabbi’s ribcage. “Just like pushing an ice pick into a watermelon,” he told Zorn afterward.

  Zorn put his hand on Sammy’s shoulder. “The Almighty quickens the hand of the righteous,” he said solemnly.

  Sammy was also surprised that killing the Rabbi had resulted in nothing more than his initiation into the Fellowship. When Sammy stabbed him, the Rabbi opened his mouth as if to speak and looked at Sammy like he was trying to remember something. When Sammy pulled the knife out, the Rabbi took a few steps forward. Then he fell, first to his knees, then slowly onto his face. By then Sammy had casually moved far enough away that when the guards and inmates began yelling that a man was down, he was able to join the crowd that had gathered to see what all the commotion was about without raising suspicions. He had expected that he would be charged with the Rabbi’s murder, found guilty, and sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison. But nothing happened at all.

  Though he was in the seventh year of a ten-year sentence for aggravated assault, and, technically, eligible for parole in eight months, Sammy hadn’t really thought much about what he would do once he was out of prison. After he fell in with Zorn and the Fellowship he began to wonder if prison was maybe where he was supposed to be. That maybe he was finally home. Which is why, when Zorn told him that killing the Rabbi would be the price of admission into the Fellowship, Sammy didn’t consider the price too high, even if it kept him in prison for the rest of his life. Life inside wasn’t much different than life outside, as far as Sammy was concerned. Except maybe inside was safer.

  Zorn was 48 years old and serving a life sentence, without chance of parole, for killing his wife and his wife’s parents with a tire iron. He had a bushy gray goatee and a shaved head. He had lifted weights in the exercise yard nearly every day of the 28 years of his incarceration, and his body was as bulked up as a professional wrestler’s. On his chest was tattooed the image of a black wolf that appeared to be eating its way out of his body, his heart in the wolf’s mouth, dangling arteries dripping blood. Sammy wanted a tattoo like Zorn’s.

  Other than purifying the True Peoples of the Almighty’s Last Nation, Zorn’s main interest was playing guitar, at which he was reasonably good. Though prisoners were prohibited from owning guitars—because the strings could be removed and used as garrotes—Zorn was allowed to play a guitar in the recreation center under close supervision. He liked Merle Haggard, Waylon Jennings, and Willie Nelson, but his favorite was Kris Kristofferson. Zorn had a nice strong baritone, and he could make it purr or growl as the song required. Once, Sammy cried while listening to Zorn sing “For the Good Times.”

  “I feel stupid cryin’ like that,” he told Zorn. “It’s not like I ever had a woman, like in the song. It just made me feel things, that’s all.”

  *

  Sammy worked in the prison laundry, mostly sorting and folding. Sometimes, if other inmates who worked there didn’t show up because they had been paroled or punished or were sick, he would have to stay late to get all the work done himself. Usually he didn’t mind. There was nowhere else to go and nothing else to do. But if he knew that Zorn was going to be playing guitar, he wanted to be there and didn’t like being late. Which is what happened when Jah-nel Greene missed his shift in the laundry due to a scheduled conjugal visit with his wife.

  Sammy hurried across the yard and through the door to the rec center. He could see Zorn over by the ping pong tables sitting by himself with his back to the door, guitar in his lap. Other inmates were playing cards and dominoes, or watching TV.<
br />
  Sammy walked over to Zorn and sat down and felt his foot slide on something slick on the floor and looked and saw that it was blood and that there was blood all over the floor all the way under the ping-pong tables. Goddamn, Zorn, he said, what the hell? And he looked at Zorn and saw that the blood was coming from a long black slit that ran across Zorn’s throat and that the razor thin strip of plastic milk jug that had been used to make the slit was still there. In Zorn’s throat.

  When Sammy started screaming, some of the other prisoners turned to look. Most just kept playing cards and dominoes, or watching TV.

  41

  When Love Came to Town

  LaVerne’s customers tell him all the time how much they love his barbecue, and, as much as any other restaurant owner, he appreciates knowing that people like his food. But he gets uncomfortable when people go on and on, as they often do. That’s because he didn’t get into the barbecue business because he loves barbecue, though he does still, even after all this time. That was never the point of it. Or the purpose. He got into the barbecue business to save his life. It was what he had to do, and it was something he could do. Delbert and Hartholz and Mrs. Betty Lester, they taught him how. So, though he’s proud of his product, he doesn’t provide much encouragement to his customers when they lay the flattery on thick. “It’s not about the barbecue,” he told Angela once. “This place is about making something good out of something bad. It was about turning things around. But that’s not really something you can explain to folks when they just want to tell you how much they like the brisket they just ate.”

  It is something he has given considerable thought to.

  A.B. left work early one night to go with Jen to the grand opening of a new Harley dealership north of the river, Vicki Fuentes had a class, and Leon had the day off, so LaVerne was stuck doing the closing chores by himself. Ferguson stopped in to say goodnight as he sometimes does when he teaches late classes at the seminary, and saw that LaVerne was alone, so he offered to help. LaVerne told him to go ahead and put the chairs up on the tables and he would start the mopping.

  They worked in silence for a time, then LaVerne said, “It’s interesting how the things that make barbecue taste so good are things that by themselves are so bitter.”

  He let this observation hang there, as if the truth of it was self-evident and required no elaboration.

  Ferguson found the statement interesting, but more interesting was that LaVerne offered it up out of the blue as he did. LaVerne was not one who regularly volunteered random philosophical contemplations.

  “Please explain.”

  LaVerne obliged.

  “Take smoke for example. It’s a product of fire. Which only happens when something is being consumed. Destroyed. If you breathe in too much smoke it can choke or even kill you. And there’s nothing that stings your eyes worse than smoke. Same with salt. You get salt in your eyes, you’ll be cryin’ until your tears wash it away. A little salt tastes good, but too much of it will ruin your food.

  “Then there’s vinegar. Even just a little sip of vinegar makes your teeth tighten up and your eyes come out of your head.

  “But you can’t have barbecue without those three things—smoke, salt, and vinegar. Those are what make barbecue, barbecue. Without ‘em it’s just plain old cooked meat.

  “How can that be? How can things so bitter make something so sweet? I’ll tell you how. Patience and faith. That’s how. You have to learn how much salt to put on the meat before you put it in the cooker, and how much to put on after it comes out. You have to learn how to control the fire, to manage it so it produces the kind of smoke and the amount of smoke you need. Then you have to learn how much vinegar to use in your sauce. Some parts of the country use only vinegar. Other parts, like here in Kansas City, we use it with other ingredients. Either way it’s not barbecue sauce without it. Vinegar is what gives it its zest, its kick.

  “But too much of any of these things, or not enough, and it’s ruined. I’ve always thought that’s interesting.”

  Ferguson had never heard LaVerne talk so long or with as much reflection about anything. “Thank you for sharing that…” he started to say.

  LaVerne shot him a look.

  “Damn it. I wasn’t ‘sharing.’ I was just saying things that occurred to me. If you’re going to make it into ‘sharing’ then shut up.”

  Ferguson obliged.

  *

  LaVerne and A.B. were out back stacking wood, when Mike Owen came out into the alley from the back door.

  “Leon said I’d find you back here. I have something for each of you.”

  He handed each an envelope embossed in gold foil with the logo of the R.L. Dunleavy Construction Co.

  A.B. held it in his hands as if it was a consecrated offering to be laid at an altar. LaVerne ripped his open. It was an invitation, which LaVerne read aloud.

  It is our sincerest wish that you will honor us

  By joining us for an evening of festivities, food and entertainment

  At 8:00 p.m., 4 December 2007

  In celebration of the opening of Sprint Center

  Downtown Kansas City, Missouri

  Dress is semi-formal

  R.L. Dunleavy

  Ferguson and Pug also received invitations, and so on the night of the event LaVerne and Angela, A.B. and Jen, Pug and Mother Mary Weaver, and Ferguson and Peri, who flew in from Memphis for the occasion, joined Bob Dunleavy and his wife Marge in one of the two Dunleavy skybox suites at the arena. Six other couples were there, mostly Bob’s associates at the construction firm. In the other suite were another dozen or so Dunleavy employees and their guests.

  “Warren gets anxious at things like this,” Bob explained to A.B. and Jen. “He and M.Z. went to a movie tonight.”

  A.B had worried to the point of hiccups about not having any semi-formal clothes, but Ferguson told him that, for men, semi-formal meant a dark business suit.

  “Is a dark church suit okay?” A.B. asked. Ferguson assured him it was.

  LaVerne had been secretly worried about the same thing, and was also relieved when he overheard Ferguson explaining things to A.B.

  The men all looked sharp in their suits and the women lovely in their dresses. When Ferguson saw Peri in her little black number he suggested that maybe there were better ways to spend the evening than a social event in an arena with a bunch of people from a construction company.

  Dinner in the Dunleavy suites was catered by Stroud’s, Lidia’s, and The American. A.B. went back through the buffet line so many times Jen finally felt it necessary to comment.

  “You act like you haven’t eaten in a month,” she whispered in his ear. “Save some for the others.”

  A.B.’s face reddened. “I’ve never had food that tastes this good before. And I may never again. This is the fanciest thing I’ve ever been to.”

  The night’s entertainment featured several opening acts, all local, including Willie Arthur Smith’s world famous Marching Cobras youth drill team; a roping, riding, and barrel racing exhibition by the Flying DX Kansas Junior Rodeo; and performances by honkytonkers Rex Hobart and the Misery Boys; and hip-hop artist Tech N9ne.

  Then the arena went dark, while the stage was set for the main act.

  In the Dunleavy suite, the laughing and animated chitchat that had carried the evening forward slowed. Drinks were refilled and second helpings of dessert were had.

  A.B. gave Jen an anxious look. She smiled and nodded. A.B. stood.

  “Folks. We have an announcement to make, Jen and me. So. Well. You all have known for a while now that we, Jen and me, have been, well, you know dating. But it’s more than that, really. At least now it is. Now it’s serious. Not like sad, serious. Good serious. Anyways.”

  Jen put her hand on A.B.’s back. He cleared his throat.

  “Well. You’re our best fri
ends,” he said. “And we wanted you to be the first to know that we’re getting married. Jen and me. We thought a special night like this would be a good time to tell you. Hope you don’t mind, Bob.”

  A.B.’s and Jen’s friends crowded around them, dispensing hugs, handshakes, and backslaps.

  “Young man, I’m delighted you picked this night to make your announcement,” said Bob Dunleavy. “Warren will be thrilled.”

  Ferguson embraced A.B. and whispered in his ear. “Peace be with you, A.B. God’s peace be with you both.”

  Pug winked at Periwinkle, nodded in Ferguson’s direction and asked “So? You two next?”

  Angela smothered A.B. and Jen with kisses. LaVerne stood behind her waiting his turn to extend his good wishes. But, when Angela stepped aside, LaVerne didn’t move. He looked at A.B.

  A.B. tried to smile. “Boss,” he said.

  LaVerne nodded.

  “Do you think Raymond would be happy?” A.B. said in a voice nobody heard but LaVerne.

  LaVerne nodded again. “I’m happy, son.” he said, quietly. “I’m happy.”

  Bob raised his glass and proposed a toast to the couple. There was a glow about the place and A.B. and Jen basked in it.

  *

  The main act was blues master B.B. King, a crowd-pleaser in Kansas City and, especially, the Dunleavy suite. Mother Mary, Periwinkle Brown, A.B., and Jen sang along with several songs, including the final encore, “When Love Comes to Town,” which Ferguson said was his favorite song of all time.

  *

  Outside the arena, when it was over, they were all quiet and content, their hearts and bellies full. Bob and Marge Dunleavy thanked their guests for coming and their guests thanked them for the invitations. They shook hands, hugged some more, and departed.

  In the car, A.B. and Jen lit cigarettes.