Page 177 of Levi

The Roadhouse is closed to the public on Monday afternoons. That’s when it shows you what it really is.

At night it’s noise, beer, Big Bertha’s smoke, a hundred people Tex half-knows. But in the slow gold hours before he flips the sign, it’s just a house where an extended family lives. Chairs still up on two of the tables. The Gulf bright past the deck rail. A big rambling house that happens to serve liquor, where the people who belong to it gather at a long table out back and eat before the work starts.

I learned this table in Benji’s worst year. When Mickey was first hurt and everything was coming apart, this was where we ended up, every few days. The odd crew of us. Fed by Sheila, hollered at by Tex, put back together and healing without anyone calling it that.

You don’t get invited to this table. You just look up one day and you’re at it. That’s how Tex makes family. He doesn’t announce it. He sets a plate down in front of you and that’s the ceremony.

Today the crew’s here.

Sheila and Stormy have spent the afternoon ferrying platters out of the kitchen. The long table’s half-buried in food. Tex comes through the screen door with a bowl of tomatoes he grows himself against the south wall of the building. Fat ugly heirlooms he’s prouder of than anything he owns. Sliced thick, salted. He sets them down in the middle of the table like the deed to the place.

Sheila looks at the bowl. “You oversalted them again.”

“You can’t oversalt a good tomato.”

“You can, you just did, and you do it every single time. I tell you every single time. You never once hear me.”

“I hear you fine,” Tex says. “I disagree with you.”

They’ve been running this same argument for years. Neither of them has the slightest interest in winning it. The arguing is the point.

“Deck rail’s got a soft spot by the steps,” Stormy says, to Tex, around a mouthful. “I’ll get at it in a few minutes.”

“You’ll get at it after you eat. The rail will stand a few more hours.”

Stormy’s at the table already, wedged in between Tex’s chair and Benji’s. He and Benji have their heads bent over Benji’s phone, snorting at whatever’s on it, thick as thieves.

“Phones off the table,” Tex says, to no effect whatsoever.

“We’re looking at tomatoes,” Benji says. “There’s an account that rates heirlooms. I’m submitting yours. You could be a very big deal in a very small world, Tex.”

“You’re not putting my tomatoes on the internet,” Tex says, and puts two more slices on Benji’s plate.

Down at the end, Levi’s got a plate in front of him that Sheila filled without asking. She reaches over now and drops another spoonful of potato salad on it.

“Eat, baby,” she tells him. “We’re going to fatten you up.”

Benji is deep in wedding logistics today, which means we all are. He’s got the binder that he smacks down beside his plate and flips through between bites.

“Okay. I need rulings,” he announces to the table. “The florist says magnolia blossoms in October are ‘not a thing.’ Magnolias. On the Gulf Coast. It’s like being told the Gulf is out of salt water.” He looks around for outrage and finds Stormy, who nods loyally. “Thank you, Stormy. So we are doing magnolias anyway, because I refuse to be lectured on what’s possible by a woman who tried to put carnations in my wedding. Which brings me to Tuesday. Stormy is driving me out to a grower past Pensacola with a field of everbloomers that don’t read calendars. And if that carnation florist calls this bar asking questions, nobody here has ever heard of me.”

“Never heard of you,” Stormy repeats, loyal to the end.

“Ruling two. Tex. Big Bertha does the reception, obviously, that was never a question, but I need her lit by noon and I need a number from you. How many briskets for a hundred and forty people, half of them Mickey’s relatives, who I have personally watched eat?”

“Four briskets, two shoulders, and don’t you worry about Bertha,” Tex says. “Bertha’s been ready for this wedding longer than you have.”

“Ruling three. Mickey has two jobs for this event. Show up, and stay unbelievably handsome. He has already succeeded at one of them and the other one isn’t due till October.”

Mickey, without looking up from his plate: “Which one have I succeeded at?”

“Being handsome, babe.”

Then he rounds on Levi, who has the misfortune of being the newest one here and therefore not yet wise enough to keep his head down.

“Levi. You need to help me. You’ve got an eye, I can tell.” He flips to a tab and spins the binder around so it faces down the table. “Dante’s standing up with me. Best man. Which means he’s in the black tux, deep lapel, the bit. And I’m the groom, so I’m in white. But here is the entire question of my life right now. What color do I put the rest of the party in so that when Dante’s up there next to me, he looks like the second-most important man at my wedding, which he is, and not like he came to park the cars? What’s his color?”

Levi sets his fork down and thinks seriously about it, which delights Benji past the point of speech.