“How old is she?”
“That I can’t answer with certainty.” Braydon wraps his fist around a bunch of shoots, picks up the gardening shears, and, with a swift swipe, cuts through the base of stems. While talking, he continues harvesting the bundles and handing them to me. I place the intact leaves in the basket, the more tattered ones in the compost pile.
“I’m guessing she was close to two when I found her. She wasn’t wearing a collar, so I couldn’t find her owner, much less find out her age. That was ten years ago. Two thousand five. Back then, she was full of energy, a young dog, but not a puppy. That would make her twelve now.”
“That’s old in people years, right?”
“I figure she’s sixty-two, maybe sixty-four.”
Sun Beam squints at Braydon. “That’s really old. Same age as Granny. Is she named after a candy?”
“Nope. Bon Temps means good times in French. A friend of my auntie, our next-door neighbor, speaks Creole. She suggested the name.”
“What happened to your mama and daddy?”
“Sun Beam,” I say, interrupting her inquisition. “Enough questions, honey. You’re gonna drive Braydon crazy.” Poor kid. I haven’t heard the whole story, but he did tell me he lost his parents when he was a child. I can’t imagine the pain he must feel in the retelling.
Braydon clears his throat. “That’s all right, Sam. It’s a good question.” He puts down his shears. His eyes are dreamy, half-mast, as if he were falling asleep. They wander from me to Sun Beam.
“My parents died when I was a kid. An ice storm came out of nowhere, slicking up the expressway.” A reddish-pink shine journeys across his eyes. “They were a part of a ten-car collision. I was at a sleepover.” He lifts his face to the sky. “I could have been in that car.”
Sun Beam’s chin begins to tremble, and her eyes fill with tears. Braydon looks down at her and, with his forefinger, lifts her chin to meet his eyes. “My story does have a happy ending.”
Sun Beam swallows, adjusts her glasses, and nods.
“Bon Temps saved my life as much as I saved hers. We were both orphans and needed each other.” Bon Temps, now sleeping in the grass, hears her name and looks up at her master. He pats the dog’s head.
Picturing a young boy and half-starved dog wandering under the expressway tugs at my heart. My hands are still, and I stare at the earth, biting my lips to hold back the tears.
“So here’s the happy ending,” he says, taking Sun Beam’s hands. “My aunt and uncle on my father’s side took me in. Their kids had already left home. And as long as I kept out of trouble, they said they’d let me keep Bon Temps. You’d better believe I kept my nose clean. Bad kids skip school and smoke pot. Some start stealing cars and shooting guns at thirteen. It’s not hard recognizing the kids to avoid.”
He squeezes her hands. “But, just like me, you’re going to be one of the good kids. We’ll all see to that.” He pulls at one of her ponytails, a half smile on his face. “My aunt and uncle are quiet, God-fearing Christians. But they’ve been good to me. Bon Temps, my aunt, and my uncle are the closest thing I have to a family.”
Sun Beam stares at Braydon with a timid, solemn look. “You an’ Bon Temps can be a part of our family, too. It’s just me, Mama, and Granny. I’d love having a big brother.” She presses her lips together and lowers her head as if she just confessed something profound.
She whispers into Bon Temps’s ear, to make sure the old dog hears her words. “And for sure I’d like having a dog.” The dog’s tail swishes.
Braydon is quiet, and I, embarrassed by this intimate turn of conversation, am at a loss for words. I can think only to repeat Sun Beam’s sentiments.
“She’s right. You aren’t alone, Braydon. You have your aunt and uncle, you have your dog, and now we’re your family, too.”
Sun Beam rubs Bon Temps beneath her collar and, with the other hand, scratches behind her white ears. She turns to me. “Would you let me build a doghouse next to the garden? So the dogs can have their own home?”
“What a wonderful idea, honey. Of course you can.”
She looks up at Braydon. “Will you help me?”
Pressing his lips together, he nods. Securing his shears under his armpit, Braydon runs his knuckle under his nose. Working in the garden must be healing for him—trimming, snipping, and pinching back a harvest of grief.
I place my hand on Sun Beam’s shoulder. “Why don’t you make yourself one of those fancy sandwiches while your mom breaks down the grill?”
Stretching out my arms, I pull the two of them into me, patting their backs. Then, I stoop to pick up the basket of lettuces.
Traipsing through the back door and corridor, passing Addie in the office, we cross through the swinging doors and enter the prep area. Sun Beam opens the reach-in, removes a sausage, and places the link on the flattop, which Quiche is scraping down. The woman’s hands are lashed with scars from years of manning grills, meat slicers, and bubbling fryers. Braydon wheels the mop bucket into the main area, and we move the chairs to one side of the room so that we can clean the floors.
As we work, Sun Beam busies herself by composing a sausage dog before taking a seat at the counter. Addie enters the prep area and makes a spinach salad for herself and the child. Then, she slides a chair beneath our grandmother’s portrait and climbs up to adjust the photograph, staring at the picture, as is her habit. She then hops from the chair and retreats to the office, salad in hand.
Through the side windows of the diner, I see the familiar beat-to-hell yellow Ford pickup arrive in the open cargo area that’s loaded with boxes and bags. It’s Jessie, our hot sauce and garlic vendor, on her bimonthly run.
Jessie, a heavyset African American woman in her early fifties, is a Detroit urban farmer who wears waist-length dreadlocks and frayed overalls. Her only adornments, which are as much a part of her as her mud-crusted work boots, are the beads she wears looped around her neck. Strands of gold and polished amber, and teardrops of tiny gray strung-together bones, were purchased at the African Bead Gallery on Grand River. She says they tell a story by communicating information to others who know how to read them.
Born a decade after Angela Davis, Jessie reveres the activist. She participates in one of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism, which Ms. Davis founded after her split with the Communist Party. Jessie tells us her food enterprises may be capitalist, but they’re in sync with Ms. Davis’s principles and aligned toward a green-energy future that will revitalize Detroit. I could escape a trio of knife-wielding thugs more easily than I could the wrath of Jessie if I challenged her leftist ideology or got on her bad side.
A few years back, she cashed in her savings to attend Ms. Davis’s Empowering Women of Color Conference in Berkeley. Jessie says the meetings changed her life, infusing her with African American pride and confidence. At the seminar, Ms. Davis told the participants she eschews anything causing harm to animals and, thus, is a vegan. The bacon Jessie had enjoyed at her morning breakfast was her last taste of meat.
Jessie also befriended a Native American at the seminar who introduced her to practices of traditional healing. She continued her education at Integrative Holistic Medicine in Detroit. Now, she concocts home remedies and practices in her tight-knit community of like-minded women.
Braydon holds the door for her as she enters the restaurant carrying a case of her hot sauce, Jessie’s Hell Fire and Redemption. Thanking Braydon for his chivalry, she wedges her girth sideways through the door, caked mud from her boots making tracks on the just-mopped floor. A brown paper bag resting on top of the box slides off, toppling to the ground. I stoop to pick up the dirt-crusted heads, random cloves, and scapes, and return them to the bag. Braydon sweeps up the dirt and skins.
“Sorry, baby. Jévon’s at the school and couldn’t help me on my run. I’m getting too old and too fat to be doing this by myself.”
Jévon is Jessie’s only child and teaches art classes to youth gro
ups in the city. Some condemn his public works as graffiti vandalism while others acclaim him as a street-art superstar. Jévon is the chink in Jessie’s armor; any hurt he suffers is felt tenfold by his mother.
“How’s he doing?” Braydon asks. “That mural he sprayed on Gratiot blew my mind.”
“It was somethin’, right?”
We nod, brows unmoving, in solemn agreement. Jessie has a titanic, head-turning voice, which would be a fine instrument if she were a performer. People tend to concur with whatever she says not only because of that voice but also because of her eyes. Her pupils, the inky shade of a fathomless night, are circled with a glow of cosmic energy—the color of ripe apricots, almost gold. When she casts her beams on me, I’m uncomfortable and feel undressed beneath her gaze. But when the light in her eyes dims, you’d better watch your back.
“A little boy skipping stones in the Detroit River makes you know better times are ahead,” she booms, placing the case of hot sauce on the counter with a thud. “I just hope it doesn’t get power-washed off like the one in Cass Corridor.” She hands me the receipt, crumbled and stained with dirt.
“If the building’s owner realized Jévon’s work was worth twice the cost of the building, he might have thought otherwise,” Braydon says, concurring with her son’s worth.
“You got that right. Folks call him the Picasso of Detroit,” she says, pride in her voice. “He’s instructing a group of kids at the Project today.” The Heidelberg Project is an internationally recognized art habitat—one man’s creative antidote to the scourge of his deteriorating neighborhood.
Half-moons of moisture darken Jessie’s shirt beneath her armpits. She removes a paisley bandanna from her pocket and mops her perspiring brow. “Lord have mercy, I’ve caught on fire. Will these hot flashes ever end? The change, the change. Going through the change.”
“You poor thing,” Quiche says, rinsing utensils at the prep sink. “Maybe you OD’ed on that concoction you brew. Everyone seems to love your recipe, but I can’t stomach the stuff. Don’t take offense by my words, Jess. I despise all hot sauces with equal contempt.” She looks over her shoulder toward the woman. “Lemme pour you something cold after I finish the dishes.”
“Thanks, Quiche. And loaded with ice, if you please.” Jessie takes a seat at the counter.
Braydon slides a knife down the seam of the box, opening the case. “Just in time. We sold the last bottle yesterday.”
As I busy myself returning chairs to the tables, he removes one of the bottles from the case. Smiling, he gazes at the label her son designed: a black background with orange-red flames lapping a caricature of Jessie holding a pitchfork. Another caricature depicts her as an angel, sporting wings and flying above.
“I was weaned on hot sauce myself—it was a seasoning as common as salt on our table.” He shakes a dollop of Jessie’s sauce onto his forefinger and dabs it with his tongue. “But this is different from what we used. More flavorful. Rounded.”
He reads the ingredient list: “Serrano chilies, jalapeños, canola oil, water, honey, garlic, onion, and vinegar. Hmmm. Standard stuff. What is it about your recipe that makes it so much better than the rest? There’s a taste I can’t pinpoint. Something missing on the ingredient list.”
“The ingredient, my son, is invisible,” Jessie replies, rubbing the beads in her necklace between her thumb and forefinger. “The ingredient is magic. And I’ll never disclose the full recipe. But I will tell you this.” She points her forefinger toward his face, almost touching his nose. “If you season your food with my hot sauce every day, your soul will radiate sunlight forever.”
Braydon shakes the liquid from the bottle into a pot of greens simmering on a two-burner, and stirs. He lowers a fork into the pot, then lifts a khaki mound to his mouth, taking a bite. He chews with deliberation, before batting his lips with a cloth.
“Turnip, mustard, and collard greens. Delectable. Your magic is all they needed.” He places a colander into an empty pot in the sink and strains the greens. After ladling the potlikker into shot glasses, he passes them around. Quiche pulls a face as if Braydon were offering her poison.
I swallow the brew in a gulp. Braydon tips his glass to mine. “My potlikker seasoned with Jessie’s Hell Fire and Redemption has the power to move heaven and earth.”
I would be wondering if his words held a prophecy for a long time to come.
Chapter Two
Addie
The diner’s closed for the Memorial Day holiday today. It’s the first time we’ve shuttered the place since our grand opening in March. At last we’ve a day off, the weather pitch-perfect for the picnic we’ve planned. Sunlight spreads through the living room, the sky the brilliant blues of a peacock’s feather, and I stretch on the sofa, summoning the energy to face the day. Done with the frigidity of winter, of snow and more snow, followed by weeks of howling, bitter hail.
I’d heard it on the roof, waking me in the morning, the downpour of frozen pellets pummeling our house like a machine gun. I’d heard it as I organized my backpack for work, click-clacking against the panes as I put on my fur-lined hat, as I tucked my hair into my down jacket. I’d heard the rat-a-tat against asphalt, plopping into pothole baths, as I waited for the bus that took me to the diner. And then came the rainy season. It was as if a spigot burst, and there was no way to stop the flow.
Considering all the miserable weather, the long hours, and innumerable stresses of opening a new business, it’s a wonder I survived. A Michigan winter, though lacking soul, does have one advantage over sunnier climes. How else, come spring, would you fathom what it’s like to be resuscitated after drowning?
David has a zest for the moment and doesn’t appreciate my negative attitude. But there is one thing he does appreciate.
“You were something last night,” he says, speaking from the bathroom, his voice raised so I can hear him.
I grab a Kleenex and blow my nose. Sniffling, I open my sewing kit and kneel beside the couch. “And look at me. Debbie Downer. Once again on my knees.”
I thread a needle, knot the end of the strings together, and begin mending a hole on our sofa. Sand beige, with plushy taupe accent pillows. A small rip at the seam is the only flaw on this flea market find.
“Wouldn’t you know, the first day the diner’s closed, I’m hacking away? Three months of nonstop labor, as healthy as a beast, and I get sick the minute I take a break.”
“You must have caught some weird virus from Berlin,” David responds.
“It wouldn’t surprise me. Berlin and Detroit are sharing everything these days.”
The cities have inspired each other musically, as well as culturally, for decades. Every Memorial Day weekend, the downtown streets are packed with people from Germany, and the rest of the world, for the Movement Electronic Music Festival. Known as Techno Fest, it’s been one of the world’s premier electronic music scenes, celebrating techno in the city of its birth. For the past few days, Welcome Home’s been busier than usual, with the influx of people exiting planes and coming to eat at the diner.
During the festival, the riverfront around Hart Plaza pulses with these one hundred thousand–plus visitors. The shows are performed on half a dozen stages, and the streets explode with music and streaming neon lights, participants gyrating in an electronic haze.
Techno’s not my choice of music; I’m more of a Sarah Vaughan kind of a woman. The shows, however, are more inclusive than any other cultural event of which I’m aware, and they pump millions into the city. Blacks, whites, Asians—you name it—vacation in Detroit to get high and celebrate.
Today’s the last day of the festival, and although the shows don’t begin for an hour or so, the energy seeps through the door.
Sewing task complete, I snip the thread, return the needle to the sewing box, and pat the mended segment. I fall back onto the sofa and lie prone, even the smallest of tasks exhausting me.
“There’s nothing worse than suffering through a cold the first day
of summer.”
“Official summer doesn’t begin until mid-June,” David replies.
“For me, summer begins on Memorial Day.” I pinch my nostrils to stifle another sneeze and rub my itching eyes. “It’s a miracle you didn’t catch this. Must be those kale smoothies you inhale. But I’m past day three now, the contagious stage. At least according to Google. I may sound like a frog in a paper bag, but I’m over the hump.”
He sticks his head out of the bathroom. His mild, disarming smile reminds me of a classics professor I once had—not quite sure whether I was worthy of that B plus he bestowed on my midterm.
“Forget your saltwater gargles and echinacea. Take some more Alka-Seltzer. That’s what puts you back on track.”
“On the passion track.” I manage a shadow of a wink, which never fails to turn him on. But really, can’t I ever get a break? Can’t he suppress his supercharged libido even when I’m sick?
The past year’s been insane. Sam and I purchased the diner two months after we bought our home. Sam’s eyes, unsullied by my gloomier point of view, unlocked a world of opportunities to me.
Through the prism of her vision, I came to imagine the decrepit diner as a canvas on which to revitalize the surrounding neighborhood, our decaying home as a palace of potential delight. In Greece they bulldoze the earth to begin construction on an apartment complex and discover an ancient, lavish tomb. Who knows what riches lurk beneath our home—the ruins of a royal residence from some ancient civilization?
We divided the two-story house into separate living quarters. Sam lives on the first level, and I’ve set up house on the second. Each floor is about 1,500 square feet. Enough space so we each have a kitchen, living–dining room area, and a bedroom.
Thankfully, we both have our own full baths. I delight in the elegant claw-foot tubs original to the home. When emerging from a long, hot soak, I imagine myself as Venus, rising from the sea. But I take care not to step onto the center of the floor, as the tiles are sinking. If enough weight is placed on them, a person might fall through, landing on Sam’s kitchen table. For the time being, we skirt the periphery of the room and caution our guests to do the same.
The Welcome Home Diner: A Novel Page 4
