Luckily, that made Sam grin, his hands went from my neck to become arms wrapped loosely around me and he kept grinning down at me when he replied, “You can point it out but you’re still gettin’ a Cherokee.”
This was when my brows drew together.
“Sam! I have to drive it.”
“Yeah, and it’s safe, if you don’t drive reckless and roll it. Someone hits you and you’re in a Cherokee, they may not come out breathin’ but you will.”
This point held merit so I didn’t debate it.
Sam finished with, “But you can pick the color if you want.”
Well, that was something.
I glanced through the lot and, I had to admit, the green was really cool. It was so dark, it was nearly black. And since Sam’s truck was black, they’d kind of match.
I looked back and told him, “I like the green.”
“Right,” he muttered, grinning again.
Then, I didn’t know what came over me, I blurted, “You have a garlic press.”
This only got me a head c**k for which I was relieved.
“Come again?”
I said it; I had to go with it.
“You have a garlic press.”
“Yeah,” Sam agreed.
“I find that surprising,” I shared.
“Why?”
Hmm. How to traverse this?
Luckily, as my mind whizzed from thought to thought Sam spoke.
“I like to cook but while doin’ it I don’t like to f**k around with shit that takes ten minutes when I can spend twenty-five dollars on something that’ll make it take ten seconds.”
Whoa. There was a lot there.
I started with the easy part.
“You spent twenty-five dollars on a garlic press?”
He grinned again and asked, “Are you not gettin’ that I like the best?”
This was true.
So I kept going, “You cook?”
His grin got bigger and he replied, “I’m thirty-five, I’m a bachelor, I’ve always been a bachelor and I was an athlete then a soldier. No one’s gonna take care of my body but me so I do but I like food. You wanna take care of your body and you like food, you learn to be creative. I learned. Before that, I was a kid with a Mom who worked full-time, sometimes she had a part-time job on top of that and I had a little brother. She put me in charge and part of bein’ in charge was gettin’ both of us fed. Canned soup and TV dinners get old real quick. You want better, you learn to make better. So, again, I learned.”
I thought this was cool and sweet.
Before I could share that with Sam, he kept talking as his loose arms got tighter, “You don’t race back to Indiana, I’ll show you what I can do in the kitchen.”
“Will it include carbs?” I asked.
That got me a full-fledged smile and a soft, “I can do carbs.”
I melted into him and replied softly back, “Then I won’t race back to Indiana.”
Yes, that was what I said. I might not have a hit out on me anymore but my entire life was still up in the air. Even so, I promised to increase my indeterminate stay in North Carolina an indeterminate amount just so Sam would have the opportunity to cook for me.
This was my dedication to my mission. I’d do anything.
“Good,” he muttered and it was then I realized I’d scored.
It wasn’t huge. But he talked about his brother, his mother and himself. He’d shared. And he’d made it clear I was going to be around awhile and back often, enough to lease a vehicle.
And that was what he did. He leased me a deep, forest green Cherokee. I drove it back to his place and even though I wasn’t used to that big of a car, I still thought it was the shit.
That evening, Sam did not thrill me with his culinary brilliance and spoil me with carbs.
He took me to Skippy’s Crab Shack.
And it was just that, a shack out in the middle of nowhere surrounded by nothing but dense trees accessed by a single-lane, dirt road. It was so dilapidated, how it stayed standing was anyone’s guess. The only part of it that had walls was the kitchen. The rest of it was a long, cement porch covered in a rickety roof that drunkenly slanted.
I also met Skippy who was the antithesis of Patrizio. And not just because Patrizio was an older man who clearly enjoyed his food but neither of these things hid he was once very good-looking and still had it and Skippy looked like his mother birthed him in the blazing hot sun and, although that blessed day was apparently one hundred and fifty years ago, he’d never been indoors since such was the weathered look of his skin, the complete absence of his hair and brawny, bulldogedness of his frame.
No, it was also because Patrizio was warm and funny and Skippy was so hard and surly, he was crusty.
I learned this immediately.
As we made it to the edge of the patio under his censorious glower, he took one look at Sam then he looked at me then he declared, “You call me Skippy even once, I’ll piss in your beer.”
I decided not to reply and spent my energy focusing on not looking freaked out or offended by this greeting.
“His mother named him that, as in, put it on his birth certificate,” Sam explained to me while grinning at Skippy. “But everyone calls him Skip.”
I could see a brown-skinned, leathery-faced, burly old guy with a serious attitude wishing to lose the “py” on his name. It was clear he’d never been a boy even when he was a boy so he’d not want a boy’s name when he was most definitely all man.
“I’ve never tried urine but I’m also relatively certain I don’t want to so you have my word you’re only Skip to me,” I assured him.
He didn’t give any indication he heard me speak when he continued laying down the law.
“I also don’t do substitutions and if you got a lactose intolerance, a nut allergy, you need gluten-free, you’re on some stupid-ass diet that means you can’t have ketchup or whatever, I don’t give a shit. The menu is the menu. You order, you get what it says you’ll get and you’re happy with it since I also don’t do complaints.”
“So noted,” I replied.
“And I got beer, Coke, Sprite and Diet Coke. You’re on an asinine diet, you order Diet Coke. I do not do light beer. I do not serve water. You want light beer or you wanna do something moronic like drink water with fried food, you can find another crab shack,” he announced.
“Message received,” I assured him.
Skip wasn’t done.
“You’re with Sam and you feel like tyin’ one on, I’ll pull out the bourbon. You’re with Luci, I’ll bring out the vodka. You become a regular and don’t get up my nose, I’ll keep a bottle a’ whatever you like in the Shack. You ever bring Hap back here; you’re eight-sixed for life, just like him. Got me?”