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Not the Sushi Type

By
V. Lee Parker


First off, y’all ought to know this is a true story, unlike most of what I write, which is fiction.  I was asked by the Spillway Review Editorial Board to submit a non-fiction piece for the Making Groceries Special Collection.  At first I wanted to tell them I was all tapped out what with pulling weeds and killing fire ants here on my place in Sabine Parish, plus I got a new hobby calf – I call him Dink.  My friend Christine Fitzgerald got after me, though.  She said I ought to write about my trip to visit her and our adventure at the grocery store with the three wee Fitzgeralds.  I got to thinking about it and decided to go on and write this up.  Now Christine, don’t be offended, okay?

A year or so ago, when Christine called me one Thursday night and suggested I come visit her in Baton Rouge, I wasn’t exactly surprised.  Christine is always asking me to come down.  We go back a long way.  All the way to Louisiana Girls State where we were both high-ranking state officials.  Christine got to be Secretary of State, and I was, you guessed it, Commissioner of Agriculture.  Can you believe that?  Yes, Christine and I became friends all the way back in 1981 and we still keep in touch.  She’s brought her children to visit me at my pea patch up here in Sabine Parish.  But I have steadily refused to come see her down in Baton Rouge.  The thing is – the only big city I really don’t mind driving in is Shreveport.  I’ve been going there all my life, and I know how to get in and out quick.  I go there at least once a month to visit my Aunt Gloria who I tote over to the casinos for brunch and slots.  Baton Rouge might as well be Paris, France as far as I’m concerned.  I wouldn’t know how to find Christine’s house to save my life.

I told Christine all this, like I always do, but she told me if I could get myself to Port Allen, she’d meet me there and I could follow her across the Mississippi River Bridge to her house.  When she wants to be, Christine can be quite persuasive and she finally got me to agree.  So I hung up and consulted my State of Louisiana road map.  Then I went out and started cleaning my truck.  It's a Ford F-150.  Blue, extended cab in case it's cold outside and my dogs want to ride.

I left about midmorning the next day after having instructed my neighbor Willie T. to look after Peewee and Francis (those are my dogs) and my chickens – they don’t have names.  I also asked Willie to water the garden, but he never does.  I don’t know why I keep asking.

I kept my map right next to me on the seat and as soon as I got to Alexandria, I pulled over and studied it again.  I was really nervous.  I get like a deer in the headlights when all those cars start crowding in around me.  Tense as can be.  White knuckles.

I made it to Port Allen in three hours and as soon as I pulled into the gas station where we’d arranged to meet, I could see Christine’s minivan and her and the kids slurping Icees and waiting for me.  I honked the horn and the littlest Fitzgerald dropped his drink all down the front of his shirt.  There was a lot of crying, but we finally got him cleaned up and got the show on the road.  Behind the wheel, I was tense all right.  I felt like I was being crowded off the highway.  What’s worse is those city streets.  If it weren’t for Christine leading the way nice and slow in her Dodge Caravan I would have been as lost as a chicken with its head cut off, just wandering around aimlessly, no idea where I was going.

Christine lives on a quiet tree-lined street in a well-appointed brick home.  This house would be the envy of Sabine Parish.  It gives one the impression of solidity.  As it was right around Easter, I was glad to see that Christine doesn’t go for putting those cutesy little signs in her front yard, like Easter Bunny Stop or Happy Hoppin’ Easter.  When we walked in, the first thing Christine said was, “Oh, you’ve got to meet Rudy!”

I said, “Is that your cat?”

Christine said, “Uh, no, that’s my husband, remember?”

Fact is, I forgot.  I’ve never met Rudy, and Christine never talks about him.  He’s never even been to the pea patch.  And wouldn’t you know it, he was standing right in the kitchen and heard me.

He came over with a flyswatter in one hand and a kitten in the other.  “Meow,” he said and handed me the cat.  I think Christine would agree that Rudy looks like a large leprechaun.  You know that leprechaun on the cereal box.  Well, that’s Rudy, except really big.  He must be about 6’4”.

I got settled in the guest room pretty quick.  The middle Fitzgerald child carried my cosmetic bag upstairs and told me about the room.

“This is our guest room,” she said.  “Don’t mess up the bed.”

Christine had the whole afternoon planned.  First we went to the state capital where we walked around the grounds and talked about Girls State and saw the statue of Huey Long.  I have to admit that statue brought a tear to my eye, what with my grandfather being from Colfax, which is just a skip and a jump from Winnfield where Huey was raised.  I had to pat my chest a few times and catch my breath.  Christine’s oldest, who is fourteen, just shook his head and rolled his eyes.  Who can blame him?  I’m such a softy.

Next we went to Albertson’s.  Now this is a fine grocery store.  They have everything you need.  Even some Wal-Mart type stuff, but not so much to where you can’t find anything.  They also have the liquor separate from the rest of the store.  Being from North Louisiana where the Southern Baptists rule with an iron fist, I can appreciate this compromise.  We should have an Albertson’s in Sabine Parish, I kept thinking.  I’ve had enough of that awful Brookshire’s where the milk is spoiled half the time.  And as far as Wal-Mart, don’t even get me started.  I used to work there.  And that’s why I won’t shop there.

Now watching Christine shop with her three kids is very interesting.  She kind of rushes down the aisles and everyone throws whatever they want in the basket. The youngest was going for those fruit roll-ups – you know, the things that look like inedible neon-colored pieces of plastic.  He must have tossed three or four packages in the cart before Christine was down that aisle and into the next.  Christine’s middle child was grabbing Fruit Loops and Cap’n Crunch, and the oldest was snatching Ding Dongs and Twinkies off the shelves.  They all went crazy in the soda section, everyone lunging for the bottle they wanted, even Christine.  She drinks that new lemon-flavored Diet Coke.  She says she lives off it practically.  I need to talk to her about that.  Doesn’t sound too healthy, does it?

After that, Christine said I needed to try some new things while I was visiting, and she said she had just the thing – sushi.  We walked over to the deli section and behind the glass was this little old man in a white uniform chopping and rolling and not even looking at his hands.  Now that amazed me.

Christine ordered a whole slew of sushi.  Some of it was pretty little rolls with just a tad of questionable matter in the middle, but some of it was flat-out raw fish flopped on top of a pad of rice.  Now where I come from, fish is edible only if it is deep-fried or bought prepackaged in the form of Mrs. Paul’s fish sticks.  That’s the only fish I eat.  I told Christine so, but she said I would love sushi and that I should be open to new things.  We took our sushi and all our other groceries and went to the checkout where a nice elderly woman rung us up.  Christine introduced me to Lil, the checkout lady.  She said, “Lil, this my friend Lee, and she is going to be trying sushi today.”

Lil said, “Well, I’ll be.  You sure you want to do that, hon’?”

“No,” I said.

Lil winked at Christine and said, “She don’t look like the sushi type.  Friends don’t make friends eat sushi, ya know.”

Christine just laughed like it was a big joke and said we had one more thing to do.  She made the kids sit in the van with the groceries while we cruised through the Albertson Liquor Store for sake.  Christine said I had to try that too.

I confess I’ve been in liquor stores before, and I certainly don’t turn down a free drink at the casino in Shreveport, but I was overwhelmed with the selection available at Albertson’s.  I mean how many kinds of vodka do you need?  None of it tastes like anything anyway, right?  Finally, Christine located the bottle of sake she wanted and we checked out with this over-talkative college student at the cash register.  The conversation went something like this.

“Oh.  Good stuff.  Love that sake!”

“Have you tried it?”

“Uh, no, I haven’t, but my roommate is, like Japanese, well half Japanese and half Pilipino, and his mother, like, buys this sake all the time.  I’ve been wanting to try it, though.  It’s just that it’s, like, too expensive for me.   You know how it is.  Ernie and Julio is all I can afford right now.  But I’m gonna try to get my roommate to score me some of this stuff some time.  Know what I mean?

“Sure, sure.”

Back in the minivan, the kids had opened a box of popsicles and were dripping them everywhere.  To her credit, Christine kept her cool.  She told them they’d have to get out there in the morning and clean the van up before she’d take them to soccer practice and dance class.  They all laughed, except the little one who was making pig sounds.  I have to say, I’m not sorry I’m divorced and live alone.  Kids are great but I don’t have the patience for the kind that talks back.  That’s why I’m an animal person.  Just give me a dog and I’m happy.

Back at Christine’s house, Rudy was firing up the grill.  He had the glass-top patio table set really nice.  There were big tall icy beer mugs and some nice Chinette plates all set out.  He even had a cooler set up, filled with some nice ice-cold beers if I had to guess.  I saw him put on a couple of rib-eyes and some nice juicy looking sausages.  My mouth started to water.

“When do we eat?” I asked.  I was standing at the big picture window in the den and watching Rudy cook the meat.

“Oh, we’re not eating that.  Rudy’s having his monthly poker game this evening with the guys from work.  The kids and I aren’t even allowed in the backyard until everyone leaves, which is fine with us.  It usually degenerates into a burping contest.”

I know my mouth must have been hanging open like I’d been slapped upside the head.  Christine just laughed and said, “It’s okay, Lee, we have lots of sushi.”

And that’s just what we did have.  After Christine served up some spaghetti-o’s for the kids and after they yucked it up about how gross the sushi looked, Christine ordered them to their rooms where they would watch their own televisions and snack on their Ding-Dongs and cheese puffs and whatever else they’d got at the store, and me and Christine sat down to a big platter of sushi.  I had a piece or two, and then pretended like I was full.  Lil was right.  I am not the sushi type.  I did enjoy the sake and drank a good bit of that.  I drove on back home the next morning and cooked me up a big slab of beef, fried it in butter, in fact.  Then me and the dogs laid up on the sofa and watched a whole string of old Ginger Rogers movies.