LITMIR.BIZ

      Chapter One

       November

      My first Sunday back from South Beach I was greeted by our customers at Daniels’ Family Buffet as if I were a long-lost prodigal son. He’s returned to God’s country, it seemed they were saying. I was met with good wishes from many of our regular customers: welcome back. We’ve missed you. The place wasn’t the same with you gone.

      Our restaurant stood next to the Walmart Supercenter on a three-acre commercial out-lot in a thirteen-thousand-square-foot building with seating for 430 patrons. It had a main dining room where each of the three buffets—hot bar, salad bar, and dessert bar—was located near the kitchen, with an additional banquet room for private parties. On Sundays both rooms were packed. The line to enter wrapped around the north perimeter of the main dining room from the front entrance to the cashier’s desk. Customers paid before they entered. Oftentimes the line extended out the door and around the corner. On Sundays it was not uncommon for customers to experience an hour’s wait. Daniels’ Family Buffet was a well-oiled machine cranking out fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and green beans, along with other meats, vegetables, casseroles, soups, various salads, and desserts, not to mention homemade pies and cobblers topped with ice cream. Our restaurant was the epitome of southern Indiana home cooking and hospitality; waitresses in black slacks, black aprons, and burgundy polo shirts served up smiles and the occasional sarcastic remark in response to randy old men. Most importantly, they dished out platefuls of Midwestern charm complimented by tall glasses of sweet iced tea or ice-cold Coca-Colas.

      Managing the restaurant had fallen upon me. Dad’s health was declining, Mom was consumed with his care, and my little brother Cameron was attending the University of Southern Indiana. Growing up, Cam had bussed tables and run the cash register, but he never managed the entire operation. He didn’t understand it, and he didn’t particularly want the job. Neither did I, but I didn’t feel I had a choice. Dad had undergone surgery on his left lung only a year earlier, after having been diagnosed with asbestosis, a result of his naval service during the Vietnam War. I felt obligated to stay in Fort Sackville and manage the restaurant for him. Our financial well-being and the fate of the restaurant now rested on me.

      * * *

      A customer I did not expect to see my first day back—one who’d never been a regular, ever—was Daryl Stone. Daryl and his family must have arrived in Fort Sackville while I was on vacation. I hadn’t seen him since high school. Now he was sitting in my restaurant with a wife and two kids at a four-top on the opposite end of the expansive dining room. Over the years, I’d heard Daryl had become a born-again Christian while studying theology at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia. I’d heard somewhere that he’d married and had children. I’d also heard he was returning to Fort Sackville with his family to take the position of youth pastor for the Wabash Valley Baptist Church. Apparently he’d become aware of the position during a Christian musical theater conference conducted at Liberty—the same conference one of our bussers, Trace Thompson, had attended. Daryl applied and got the job. Trace, who’d only met Daryl the one time, was thrilled.

      A youth pastor at Wabash Valley Church? It didn’t seem possible. He was male-model handsome, as if lifted by the Falwellian Empire from the centerfold of a glossy men’s magazine and primed for his own Christian television network. Beneath his pomade and polish, however, I could see the athletic teenager I’d once fallen head over heels for—the one that had come to my basement window in the middle of the night. He’d matured from black Ray-Bans, a bare chest, and board shorts to stylish silver spectacles, a turtleneck, and a taupe tweed sports jacket with corduroys. I headed toward his table.

      “Daryl!” I said, somewhat startling him. “I heard you were moving back. I haven’t seen you in ages. How’ve you been?”

      “Hey, Grey.” He stood to shake my hand. “Grey, I’d like you to meet my wife, Rebecca. Rebecca, this is Grey. Grey and I were classmates at Harrison.”

       Classmates?

      Daryl sat down and placed his hand on the back of the chair next to him. “This is Isaac. Over there is Jacob.”

       Did he really just say classmates?

      “Nice to meet you, Grey,” Rebecca said. She had plain features, wore little makeup, and was dressed in a conservative consignment shop kind of style. She reminded me of that girl in every high school classroom who blends in with her surroundings. The kind of girl, years later at the class reunion, one never remembers. Their twin boys looked seven or eight years old. They were unresponsive to the introduction. Each had his teeth sunk deep into the dark meat of a fried chicken leg.

      “Looks like the boys are enjoying themselves,” I said, trying to clear the word classmates from my mind. He could have said, “We were best friends at Harrison,” or, “We were best friends once.”

      “Oh yes. Chicken legs and noodles are their favorite,” Rebecca said.

      “So, last I heard, you were living in Virginia,” I said to his wife. “Have you adjusted to Fort Sackville? Must be quite a change.”

      “It’s lovely. Everyone’s so friendly. The church welcomed us with open arms,” she said, taking a napkin from the table to wipe pieces of fried chicken from her twin boys’ cheeks.

      Our conversation was interrupted by the restaurant’s public address intercom telling me I was needed in the kitchen.

      “Excuse me. It’s the same old grind here. This place keeps me hopping.”

      Once in the kitchen, I got stuck helping the cooks catch up on frying chicken. The vegetable oil in one of the fryers had burned, which required that the fryer be boiled out and replenished with fresh oil. Boiling out a fryer was a process and often forced the fry cook to fall behind. He did. I was unable to return to the dining room for some time. When I did, Daryl and his family had finished their meal. He was waiting near the front door for Rebecca and the boys to come out of the restrooms, facing the wall of photographs.

      When Dad bought the restaurant from Grandpa Collin, he and Mom began framing and hanging pictures that captured the fifty-plus years my family had been in the restaurant business. Because the restaurant was a prominent patron of the Harrison High School Athletic Society, there were many pictures of high school heroes and local sports moments. Daryl seemed to be gazing at a photograph of Robbie Palmer and himself, both seventeen years old, at a county high school golf tournament sponsored by the restaurant. In the photograph, Daryl and Robbie stood side by side, Robbie’s left hand propped upon his golf club, Daryl’s left forearm resting on Robbie’s right shoulder. Both wore big smiles. The photograph date: July 1985.

      Robbie had been in my accounting class at Harrison High. I was a junior; he was a senior, skinny and always smiling. We weren’t friends, but we were friendly. Daryl’s girlfriend Shanni sat behind Robbie in the row next to mine. She was blonde, with ’80s MTV hair and shoulder pads under her bold print sweaters. She was a curious girl, always asking him questions. One spring day she asked Robbie about the necklace he was wearing. He’d turned in his chair to face her.

      “Shhh. Come here,” he said. Shanni leaned closer to Robbie. “It’s from this guy I’m dating.”

      “A guy? You’re dating a guy? Really?” Shanni asked. Talking about homosexuality in the 1980s was a frightening and potentially dangerous prospect—especially at school. In October, Rock Hudson had died from an AIDS-related illness after disclosing he was a homosexual, and Rock Hudson AIDS jokes were rampant in our school’s hallways and locker rooms. The nation was swept up in AIDS panic, and local folks referred to it in a barely audible whisper as

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