The Last Barbecue
Andy Inverness made it to the barbecue, and everyone was happy; everyone but Andy when he saw the very person he despised the most: the man who killed his daughter over 20 years ago.
“If you forgive others their transgressions, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your transgressions.”
- Matthew 6:14-15
Whenever Maurice walked, he hummed. He hummed because it reminded him of home, of New Orleans. There, music was the rule rather than the exception. The noise of brass filled the streets and the bars, and the city folks made a tradition out of parading through the town for weddings and holidays, banging on drums and tooting on trumpets. Now, he walked by himself down a red, rural dirt road that cut through hills of grass-covered cow fields broken by patches of tall, green-needled pines.
A cluster of people walked twenty yards in front of him: a couple and two young children, the husband (presumably also the father) escorting an elderly man, perhaps his father, who, wearing a bathrobe and house shoes, dragged his feet over the chalklike dirt behind his walker. The middle-aged gentleman kept his hand on the old man's back, steadying him after each drawn-out shuffle. The woman and children lagged behind him.
Maurice would soon pass them, given the pace they were going. He would slow down and smile and nod his head, and maybe say a word or two about the stunning lukewarm atmosphere or the blue sky or the cool breeze. They would say something back, something polite. Then, he would go on his way again, never having stopped, only returning to his original pace.
But even past that one group of pedestrians were more people who made their way down the country path, some in groups, accompanied by brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, wives, husbands, children and lifelong friends, passing the time in conversation or observing the breathtaking masterpiece of creation that surrounded them. If Maurice were to turn around, he'd see the same: people, as far as he could see, strolling in the same direction with smiles and content faces.
Maurice wiped the sweat off his forehead with the back of his callused hand, then rubbed it on the damp white t-shirt he wore tucked into his blue jeans. He marched with a slight hunch in his back. The bill of his ball cap was the only thing shielding his eyes from the golden sun above. He was hot and had been walking for miles, yet none of it soured his mood. Nothing could. He was eager to arrive. He wanted nothing more but to get to the barbecue.
Passing the family with the elderly man and the walker went exactly how he thought it would go. Everyone was so kind, so much kinder than people had been to Maurice back home. Maurice was black and from a place and a time when no one could've said he'd been treated fairly. But that never made Maurice wish ill on anyone. He lived as he'd been taught to live: to treat others as he wished they'd treat him. He did this even when others treated him poorly. He often turned the other cheek.
That was how Jesus lived, his momma always said.
And though Maurice had few friends in his life, he'd always had a friend in Jesus. He'd been friends with Jesus ever since the day his momma took him to the church as a little boy, and they dunked him in a big tub and said he'd been saved from his sins. And, to this day, he took that to heart. As difficult a hand as God could've given him, Maurice still managed to walk through life exactly as he walked now: humming and smiling, ever moving forward and greeting each of his fellow human beings with a childlike disposition and honest words.
He then passed two Hispanic couples with a sum of eleven kids. With them was a black-haired and dark-skinned priest dressed in his black pants and a black shirt with a white collar around his neck. He walked beside one of the older boys, a teenager with Jesus hanging from his neck. It was a golden Jesus, nailed to a golden cross, which dangled from a thin, golden chain. They spoke in a language Maurice didn't understand. One of the men held a young child against his chest: a little girl fast asleep and sucking on her fat thumb while the other man walked side-by-side with his wife, holding hands with two more little girls, one of them skipping gleefully down the dirt path between her two parents, kicking up dirt behind her once pearl-white dress shoes, which were now tainted by light-orange clay dust.
On the other side of the road from the extended family was yet another couple. The man wore a tan seersucker suit and a Panama hat. The woman wore a sundress. They were both in their 60s, the man's hair a silver grey, and the woman's a peppered black, grayer at the roots and darker at the tips. She wore her hair in a large bun and walked step-in-step with the man, her hands around wrapped his arm.
"Beautiful afternoon, ain't it?" Maurice smiled as he shuffled past them, his eyes gleaming through the shade cast on his face from his ball cap's visor.
Both of them turned their heads and smiled back.
"Surely is," said the man. His accent sounded almost like home, a slow Southern drawl distinguishable from that of Southern Louisiana but characteristically Southern nonetheless. He freed his arm from his wife's grasp and extended his hand to Maurice. "Andy Inverness," he said.
Maurice shook and gladly introduced himself too.
The woman introduced herself as Betty Inverness. She was Andy's wife.
Maurice shook her hand as well, although he shook it in a much more delicate fashion than the way he shook Andy's, allowing her dainty fingers to rest in his palm before moving his arm slowly up and down.
She asked him if he was walking alone. Maurice told her the truth. Then, she invited him to walk alongside the two of them. Maurice politely declined and said he didn't mind walking as he'd been walking and so went ahead, leaving the Invernesses strolling behind at their own pace.
Yes, Maurice walked by himself, but he was not alone. He had his friend. And he knew his friend was there with him, whether he could see him or not.
Betty returned her hands to Andy's bicep, and they walked in silence, a beautiful silence, not one driven out of contempt or for lack of anything good to say, but out of a tranquil presence combined with a knowledge that nothing further required being said.
When they were closer to the barbecue, Andy could smell the sweet smoke from the mesquite and the grilling meat. He could hear the faint echo of live music, a lone musician playing the guitar, singing a new rendition of an old country gospel song, one he had heard on the radio many times, but never in this way. He thought he liked this version better. The music, like the aroma of the grills, seemed to float through the light breeze, past him and through him, as if he were a sponge on the ocean floor, and the sound was the ocean itself.
He looked down at Betty, for she was a foot shorter than he was, and he admired her thin pink lips, which, on her wrinkled face, curled up into a smile as she looked up at him. Yes, she looked different than the day he met her - then, they were still naive young adults, Andy a Junior at the all-boys college who thought he owned the world and Betty, fresh out of prep school, a delicate, shy freshman lady from genteel stock at the girl's college down the street - but she was just as beautiful now to Andy as she'd been then. It wasn't the kind of beauty contained in youth, in the thrill of one's first love, or in the adventurous unknowing of coming to know a new person, but it was the kind of beauty found in wisdom and fond memory, in trust and love (love properly understood). Betty was his wife, and Andy wouldn’t rather be with anyone else.
They arrived at the barbecue and found a seat at a table. There were tables everywhere draped with checkered cloths and scattered about a lush pasture that would've gone on forever if not for the forested hills surrounding it on all sides. The stage where the musician played was a blurred box, like a boat floating in the midst of a sea of people at the very place where the sea disappears into the horizon as if pouring over the edge of the world. It was so far away, yet Andy could hear the music just as if he were sitting in his living room listening to a record. It was neither too quiet nor too loud. He continued to absorb the sound, again, like a sponge.
Around them, people laughed and danced and sang along. Children chased each other and did summersaults down a nearby hill, delightfully tumbling over the soft blanket of freshly mowed grass. There were smokers and kegs of beer under a white tent, alongside food scattered about long fold-out tables: baked beans, pulled pork, cups of white and brown barbecue sauce, mac and cheese, hashbrown casserole, ribs, burgers, buns, cheese, and hotdogs. There was even a table for desserts: apple, chocolate and coconut pies, pound cake, and peach and blackberry cobbler, along with cupcakes and lemon squares. A glass dispenser of sweet tea sat at the end of the table next to a stack of cups. Lemons and ice cubes floated about in the amber liquid. Already, people were lined up to eat, each customizing their plates as they moved down the array of choices.
Andy made an effort to get small portions of almost everything. He made Betty a barbecue sandwich with pulled pork and some of the white sauce. He added a side of mac cheese and two cupcakes, one vanilla and the other chocolate. By the time he returned and set the plate down in front of her, she was already making friends with a young fellow who sat across the table. He was a war veteran and had several metals on his chest. Andy was delighted to meet him and asked if he'd like a beer. He politely declined and said he didn't drink, so Andy went and got a beer for himself. He poured Betty a glass of sweet tea.
Though alcohol was plentiful, not a single person seemed to be drunk. Everyone appeared as they should: in control, yet relaxed; awake, yet connected to the celebratory atmosphere of the barbecue.
"Take your trash?" the young veteran asked when they were all done with their meals and sat with full stomachs, allowing the food to digest.
"Oh, no," Andy said, standing up and placing Betty's empty plate on top of his. "Allow me." He took the veteran's plate and carried the pile of garbage to the large metal trash can behind the tent.
There, as he dropped the stack of plates in the can, he saw someone he knew: the wife of an old friend of his. She was sitting at another table. When he was empty-handed, he walked over to greet her.
"Lurlene, how are you?" he asked, placing his hand on her shoulder. She looked back at him and smiled. Her red lipstick matched her dress.
"Andy!" she exclaimed. "It's so nice to see you here!"
"Where is Dale?" Andy asked. "It's been near a decade since I've seen the man."
Dale was Lurlene’s husband. He was Andy's old classmate from the boy's college. They'd been in the same fraternity. Dale was a lawyer for most of his life, then became a U.S. Senator. Andy rarely saw him after that.
"He couldn't make it, unfortunately," she said.
"That's a shame."
"It is indeed. I'm still enjoying myself, though. It is such a wonderful barbecue."
Andy agreed, and then Lurlene introduced him to the people at her table.
"This is Mallory," she said, motioning to a teenage girl. Andy shook the girl's hand and politely greeted her. Then came Mallory's father, James, a clean-cut fellow who looked like he was ready to play a round of golf, dressed in a polo and a sleek pair of sunglasses. He wrapped his big hand around Andy's and shook firmly, like a man should.
"Andy, this is Anthony," Lurlene nodded to the man sitting across from her, but to James' right. He was a bearded fellow with long hair, like a hippie. He lifted his face from his plate. It was gaunt as if someone had vacuumed out all the matter between his skin and his skull. He looked at Andy with his small, dark eyes that were set deep in his face, his pronounced brow casting a shadow over them.
"Anthony," Andy muttered. He froze, then took a step back. "Anthony Deal."
"Do you know him?" Lurlene asked, then realized something was not right, as if Andy knew something about Anthony she did not know. The two men, who she once thought to be strangers, stared at each other like statues with watchful eyes, Andy still standing behind Lurlene and Anthony behind a half-eaten hotdog. "What's wrong?" Lurlene asked.
"It's him," was all Andy said. He turned away and rushed back to his wife.
Lurlene and James asked each other what in the hell was going on, not with words, but with their faces. Their tongues were tied with confusion.
Betty," we've got to go," Andy said, cutting his wife off mid-sentence in conversation with the veteran and a petite Asian woman who was standing next to where the veteran sat. Her pair of sunglasses were too large for her little face. Betty was telling them about vacationing in Italy. They'd vacationed there with their son and daughter-in-law several years ago.
"We've got to go?" Betty asked. "But we just got here."
"It's him, Betty. He's here."
"Him? Who?"
Andy swallowed. "Him," he repeated, this time speaking from the bottom of his throat.
That was all it took for Betty to understand. She forced a smile and excused herself from the rest of the table, then stepped aside with her husband.
"Anthony Deal is here?" she asked, almost in a whisper, but she could not whisper, for it was too loud. If she'd spoken any quieter, her words would've been inaudible, lost in the chit-chat of the crowd and the music, which no longer seemed as pleasant to Andy. It was now no different than the wind blowing in your ear or cars rolling over a busy street. It was background noise cluttering up his head. That was all it was. He was a rock, not a sponge. The music moved around him; pounded against him like storm-fueled waves crash into tall seaside cliffs.
"He is," Andy said. "And I'd like to leave."
"You've got to be kidding."
Andy wasn't.
"You knew he got out of prison. We both knew that. I thought we'd moved on."
Andy grabbed his wife's arm. It was thin enough for the tip of his finger to touch the tip of his thumb on the other side. "How can we be over it? She was our daughter, for goodness sake! And we know it was him. He admitted to it."
"He admitted to it and served his time. What more justice could we have asked for?"
"She could be with us now!"
"We can't change the past, Andy. Don't you know it will all be made right in the end? Isn't that what the Good Book says? Isn't that what you told me when I was struggling with it all? There's nothing we can do about him being here now."
"I said that when he was in a cell," Andy said. "Out of my sight. And there's sure as hell something we can do. We can leave right now and go on home, and we're gonna."
"I'm not leaving," Betty said, wrenching her arm from Andy's grasp. "Not after coming all this way."
"Well, I'm leaving with or without you. I can't stay here unless he leaves before I do."
"Have your way then, Andy. But you know good and well he was a boy then. And you know Patricia had a heart of gold and would've wanted nothing more but for us to forgive him and go on with our lives."
Patricia was her name; their daughter's name. She spent eight years on Earth before the incident. Then, she was gone; torn from Andy's arms by a piss-drunk fool in a pickup truck by Anthony Deal. Andy couldn’t stand to see his wife this way. Her peace offended him.
So, he cleared his throat. "I'll see you back home," was all he said, then he left the barbecue once and for all and started walking home.
At least, that's where he thought he was going. Really, he was going away, away from the barbecue, away from his wife and away from the sick feeling in his stomach that arose from the very presence of Anthony Deal. Away was all he longed for in that moment, not the attainment of something he didn't have, but rather a not wanting of something he did have, of someone he wished didn't exist, someone he wished had never existed. If Anthony Deal had never existed, Patricia would still exist. She'd be married, just like her older brother. She'd probably have several children. He would've gotten twenty-seven years of seeing her smile under her turquoise blue eyes, which, like her mother's, always seemed to glow like bioluminescence, and hearing her high-pitched, sporadic joy-driven laugh, which most certainly would've been tamed and deepened over nineteen years but would’ve been just as lovely to Andy's ears.
Away. Where was away?
He followed the dirt path through the pastures and piney hills. Birds occupied the branches of the trees, and squirrels climbed up the trunks and leaped from limb to limb while others scourged about the side of the road for acorns and walnuts. But where the path led to, Andy forgot. Of course, it had once led to the barbecue, and, in turn, it had led him to Anthony Deal. Now, Andy was going in the opposite direction, and the further he walked, the more he realized he didn't know where he was going. He had no recollection of where the path began.
Home was where he thought he was going when he set out, but when he thought about it, home was but a faded memory, like the vague recollections one has of early childhood, defined only by single vivid images or concrete noises and smells, disconnected from the string of other memories understood to have a place in relation to the present.
Home was forgotten. All he could remember was the barbecue, Patricia, his wife and Anthony Deal.
Andy's feet grew tired, and sweat accumulated under his hat, leaking into his eyes. When his calf started to cramp, he sat on the side of the road to rest for a moment. When he stood up again, he found himself in a wasteland: a desolate plain of barren, cracked earth cut through by a trodden path which seemed to be the same path that had led him through the pastures and wooded hills but was now surrounded by nothing green at all.
He didn't remember how he got there, but in either direction, the path disappeared into the place where the desert gave way to treeless, jagged mountains with ice-capped peaks, all encompassed by burgundy clouds, which glowed as if concealing a red sun. It was hot, miserably hot. But not in the same way it got hot back home, wherever that was. It wasn't humid. It was so dry, he could feel the dryness on his tongue.
Andy was alone. He wished Betty was with him. Maybe she could remember where they'd come from and how to get back. But she decided to stay. She did not let Anthony Deal drive her away, and Andy had. But Andy got exactly what he wanted. He was away.
Maurice was not away.
He sat on the surface of one of the picnic tables facing the stage. He propped his feet on the bench, and a soft breeze tickled his wrinkle-worn face, made that way by decades of 12-hour shifts and backbreaking manual labor. The breeze carried with it the music: now an instrumental soloist with a saxophone. It reminded him of the old New Orleans jazz bands. It gave him a taste of home, which he still remembered and loved.
And he sat there with a full stomach and a beer with his brother Otis next to him, the two of them reminiscing about every beautiful moment that snuck its way into their unfortunate and impoverished childhood. Maurice hadn't seen him since Otis was shipped off to Vietnam. He was glad to have him in his company once again.
As Otis reminded Maurice about the time their momma whooped them hard for hitting a baseball into a drug store window, Maurice caught a little girl staring at them: a girl with hair so blond it almost white, matching the color of her porcelain skin. She was still young enough to still have some of her baby teeth, though others were missing, including her front two. The tip of her tongue poked through the gap as she smiled. And she did smile. That was what she was doing: staring and smiling. At Maurice.
Maurice waited for his brother to finish his sentence, then smiled back. "Who is this here pretty girl blessing us with her presence?" he asked.
The girl giggled but never answered his question.
He couldn't help but notice a certain quality about her. "My, my," he continued. "Those turquoise eyes. They are such pretty eyes."
She giggled again, but this time, scrambled away as if she were playing tag and to be tagged was to be acknowledged. She ran away and disappeared into the crowd, where other kids chased each other, laughed and squealed, maneuvering through the clusters of adults and picnic tables and trashcans.
Maurice patted Otis on the back and laughed. "It has been one heck of a day," he said, shaking his head in disbelief. "I can't remember ever having a day this good. And who are we to deserve it?"
As the evening progressed, everyone lined up single-file, one behind the other. Maurice was right in the middle. Behind him, the line extended for as far as he could see, like a string of people disappearing behind the crest of a faraway hill. Otis was somewhere else in line. But Maurice was not alone. He was never alone. He waited in line as the line inched forward, never growing the least bit impatient, listening to the music, which still played just as it had played throughout the day and watching the sun begin to set over the forested hills behind the stage, the sky glowed orange around the edge of the bright sun. Purple clouds cast above their heads, and he could already see the faint edges of a full moon.
The man in front of him - a grey-headed doctor in wire-rimmed glasses and a white coat - took a step forward, and Maurice stepped forward behind him. He did this for what felt like thousands of times before reaching the front, where the line wound up the stairs to the stage. From the foot of the steps, where the only person in front of him was the old doctor, the music was louder than ever. Maurice could feel its weight. But he could not see the musician. The lighting on the stage was such that above the stairs, there was only a blur of white light. White light was the only thing he could see.
The doctor walked up the stairs, and Maurice stepped forward one last time.
And when he was ready, he walked up too. He walked up the stairs into the music and into the light. There, he arrived not on the stage but he arrived in the light - bright, white, warm light. The music still played. Perfect music, exactly as it should be.
A hand reached out for him. He heard his name.
"Maurice."
Who said it? It was Maurice's friend. It was his friend who'd been with him all this time. There was no question of what to do next. Maurice took his friend’s hand in his own.
“Welcome home," his friend said.
And he was home.
L.W. Blakely is a writer in Birmingham, Alabama. He is the author of The Wayfarer, a newsletter where he publishes literary fiction, criticism, and musings. Learn more about L.W. and The Wayfarer on the About page, or (if you’ve enjoyed what you’ve read) consider subscribing and sharing his work.