SO LONG

Third grade. Spring quarter. Sometime before Easter. Dad had just spent more money on a fixer-upper than he should've. It was at least three times the size of my birth-home and had a pool and carport, outdoor fireplace and stonework grill. The house was old and had been the birth-home to two boys and two girls. They had either moved on to college or had graduated and married and started families of their own. The house was a mile from my school. A white Georgian-style home on a hill surrounded by azaleas and dogwoods already in bloom. Dad and I spent our free time pulling up the shag carpet and stripping wall paper and dislodging nails and tacks and staples. We buffed floors. We painted walls. We hung drapes. He acted like I was helping him. I acted like I was helping him.

Up the street and across from school was a Shoney's Big Boy. When the house was rehabed and moved into, we went at least twice a week. All American Burger with the paper US Flag flying from the sesame seed bun. Slim Jim sandwich. Italian Feast. Liver & Onions. Salad Bar. Hot Fudge Cake. Strawberry pie with whipped topping. Waitresses in blue leather wallabees. They smelled like cigarettes and rosewater perfume. The last night we worked on the house before moving in Dad drove us up to Shoney's in the cutlass and got two pieces of strawberry pie to go. We sat on the brown booth seat waiting while a muzak version of "Stairway to Heaven" played. He drove us back to the house and plugged in a small black and white set and we watched Saturday Night Live while we ate the pie with plasticware from Styrofoam containers.

Jane Curtain and Chevy Chase doing the news. Dad laughed at a lot at jokes I didn't understand. I acted like I understood them and laughed along with him. He acted like I understood them and smiled at me. When he finished his pie he lit a cigarette and smoked it and put it out in a tit of whipped topping. Our footsteps echoed throughout the empty house. Our voices carried. It was dark. I'd never been up this late before. He pointed out Orion in the sky. His belt. His bow. We walked to the car and he backed down the long meandering drive and we looked up at the house, lit oddly by the moon, and then drove home to a house slowly emptying, growing larger, darker. I thought of the Shoney's Big Boy and his blood slit mouth, the colored flood lit face anguished in sterile compliance.

STINKY PINKIE

WHAT'LL YA HAVE?

MILK FROM MARY'S NIP

Jim Collins reminds me of Sears. Folks that go to Sears go there because they know Sears has what they are looking for. They know they won't pay that much. They know they won't get hassled. They know they can get what they came for and get back on with their lives in mere minutes. You're not going to buy a blower at Jim Collins, but if you sat on one of their stools for more than three hours at a time, it's likely you ended up on this couch. Beer was cheap. Juke played real records. Yard sale musical instruments hanging on the wall were taken down often and blown into, plucked, strummed, shaken. Pool table in the back served poker table, dance floor, crash pad.

Last time I was there Carli told me the whole strip was gonna get a makeover. Pottery Barn. Banana Republic. Baby Gap. Trading staggering crackers for jogging strollers and latte sipping trophy moms. It happens everywhere, I told her. Wish it didn't have to. All five reeking sots at the bar drank to that. Another dollar and a half Coors please. REM's "Radio Free Europe" plays. SCAD coeds with shaved heads and jailhouse tatts chainsmoke. An ancient retriever clicks across the floor, pacing, panting. Smoke billows up and out and hangs a few feet below the low ceiling. SCAD coed offers reeking sot at the bar a pull on her Southern Comfort half pint. Milk from the Mary's nip, he says. Retriever starts barking. There's a lanky drunk sonofabitch passed out on the couch. He's been passed out since happy hour that happened as soon as the goddamn bar opened, eight p.m.. One of the coeds pulls her cutoff jeans off, squats over the sonofabitch's face, and pisses him awake.

MORE LATER

DOUBLEWIDE DINNER_01

First potroast I had came out of an ancient crockpot and was cooked in Coca-Cola and Knorr Onion Soup mix. It was tender as room temp butter and I would've just rubbed my body down with it had it not tasted so fantastic. I'd only known large cuts of beef before as things I chewed and chewed and chewed. Not something that melted and tasted so savory to have been boiled down in something so sweet. So here's my gift to you. One of many to come, folks. Yes, my tribute to honest cooking. A few ingredients for a few bucks. Something that takes a while or only a few minutes and feeds the family for two or three days. What we're all looking for right? And keep in mind all of these recipes are fluid. They change. If you have RC Cola in the fridge and not Coke, that's fine. But no Pepsi. Absolutely no fucking Pepsi.

This recipe calls for four things: A chuck roast, Coca-Cola, Knorr Onion Soup mix, and a crock pot. If you live in a trailer, you've got a crockpot. If you don't, you probably have a "dutch oven." I'm not going to go into the "dutch oven" directions; you can get those from Bobby Flay. If you can't find Knorr soup mix, there will be other brands, McCormick or something. Maybe even a grocer's brand--Kroger, Publix, etc. That's fine. Just don't use canned broth. You need the dry mix. That's all that will do.

Plug the crockpot in. Slip the roast off its Styrofoam raft. Cover with Coke. Shake the soup mix over it. Turn on high. Cook until the chuck roast is nearly falling apart. You can cut up some potatoes, onions, and carrots during the last half-hour of cooking and add them if you want. But don't add them at the beginning. Otherwise they turn to mush. You can serve with rice or egg noodles, but I just get a bowl and ladle the meat and veg and juice into it. Crack a beer and dinner's done. Little cleanup makes for more rasslin watchin on TV. Off the top ropes.