Memphis
Cool was cruising along Curve-Nankipoo Road in Lauderdale County in West
Tennessee when he ran head-on into a romance driven by Fontaine Trueblue.
His apathy was killed instantly, her distrust died soon after, and there
began their odd little love story that, as far as we know, is still unfolding.
Fontaine Trueblue
was traveling at high speed from that wreck she liked to call her matrimonial
Gehenna that was made of two parts good intentions, three parts irrational
hope and four parts defective marriage counseling, the main contributing
factor being that her ex was, in fact, a marriage counselor. He just couldn't
dispense it very well and he especially couldn't apply his learning to
himself.
But she was exceptionally
skilled at fixing things, or, when called for, tidying them up after they
were irretrievably broken. She'd arranged for her one-time not-quite soul
mate to engage in an endless loop of therapy (his only real commitment
ever). Then she got a divorce and packed her manuals. The morning before
she went nose-to-nose with Memphis Cool along Curve-Nankipoo Road, she
got into her cherry 1981 GMC Fall Guy replica pickup truck at her soon-to-be
ex-home in one of the Dakotas, cranked it up and commanded it to go anywhere,
as long as it was south.
That, she believed,
was her destiny.
As this was going
on in one of the Dakotas, Memphis Cool was trying to figure out what had
gone cockeyed in his own life. Normally quick on the quip, shrewd in business,
reliable in friendship and possessed of a formula for the indisputably
most sublime barbecue sauce ever, he lately had lost his spontaneity,
made boneheaded investments, blew off his buddies and misplaced the recipe.
He blamed his fog
on several things. Depending on the time of day and his state of sobriety,
he would indict global warming (or cooling -- he could never keep them
straight), the passing of the ancient musicians of the Delta, the Democrats,
the Republicans, the decline of UFO sightings, and the increase in commercialization
of university research. Being an adept although not ardent conspiracist,
he even managed to link them together.
He did not, however,
have any notions about destiny. All he knew was that he was lonely.
When their respective
vehicles started on their inevitable collision course, it was the hand
of Providence at work. Fontaine Trueblue was as hardheaded and practical
as any adaptive creature, but she was a firm believer in the hand of Providence
guiding her destiny.
Memphis Cool neither
believed nor disavowed Providence or the hand of Providence or any other
part of Providence, but he thought that from what life had taught him,
if it did exist, it surely had an underrated sense of humor.
On the fateful
day, Memphis Cool figured to take a long drive to clear out whatever was
in his head. He left Memphis headed north. As he zipped along Curve-Nankipoo
Road in his modified Lincoln Mark 5, Fontaine Trueblue's Fall Guy replica
pickup was speeding south, just as she had instructed it to do.
Then, with the
elegance of Divine computation, the event began. They first saw one another
as they each crested a hill. Halfway between, in the middle of the road,
in a dip, in a state of perfect nonchalance, stood a mule deer. Memphis
Cool and Fontaine Trueblue mashed their brakes at the same instant and
squealed and spun and smoked, hurtling closer to the deer and each other.
At the last possible moment, the mule deer calmly took off into the trees,
leaving nothing between Memphis Cool and Fontaine Trueblue but rapidly
diminishing space and a fair bit of momentum. When the careening had stopped,
the two impacted at exactly 3 mph. It was just enough to lock bumpers.
They sat very still
for awhile.
Then Memphis Cool
got out of his Lincoln Mark 5 and, elated at being quick rather than dead,
did a little boogie over to Fontaine Trueblue. Her hands were still tightly
gripping the Fall Guy replica pickup's steering wheel. He glanced behind
her truck and noted the very long rubber tracks she left.
"Here's looking
at you skid," he said, doing his dance.
She looked balefully
at him. "I'm shocked, shocked to find that gamboling is going on here."
Then she got out
of her truck and went to inspect the locked bumpers.
"How about you
bring me my tool box," she said, pointing to the back of her pickup. She
never let anyone handle her stuff and wondered what possessed her to change
her rule with this guy. There was something about him that, despite bad
jokes and goofy footwork, bespoke noble crusades and historic destiny.
Oh, dear, she thought.
Memphis Cool saw
that Fontaine Trueblue knew what she was doing when it came to untangling
bumpers, so he followed orders and provided muscle when asked. Neither
had any major damage and when they were done, he said, "Very nice. I have
a recording contract I'd like to get out of. Can you do that too?"
Ignoring that,
she said, "I could use a latte. No foam, no puns."
"Well, I happen
to know the only barista along Curve-Nankipoo Road," he said. "She's maniacal
about good coffee. A regular caffiend."
Fontaine Trueblue
rolled her eyes again, but grinned. And
so it started.
Memphis
Cool found Fontaine Trueblue fascinating. Over coffee, he demanded to
know all about both of the Dakotas even though he'd never had the slightest
interest in either. She was exceptionally conversant in 1980s-era pickup
trucks and several other arcane automotive areas. It began to dawn on
Memphis Cool that those manuals she had boxed up in the back of her 1981
GMC Fall Guy replica pickup truck constituted an impressive reference
library. Inquiring further, he found that she could build kites and catamarans,
she could repair bones and bicycles, she could restore Old Masters and
operating systems. And he could not explain why, but he felt that she
knew something about him that he didn't even know. The thing that really
got his attention, however, was when she said she had the recipe for the
indisputably most sublime barbecue sauce ever.
For Fontaine Trueblue,
it seemed that this guy with the improbable name had many virtues. He
was witty and personable. He knew the only barista along Curve-Nankipoo
Road plus a couple of heart-stoppingly fine barbecue eateries in the countryside.
It turned out he could also pick a guitar and not embarrass himself even
though she sometimes felt as if she were in an Elvis movie and was supposed
to gaze adoringly at the crooner. She was not one to gaze adoringly at
crooners or anyone else, but Memphis Cool was, at least, capable of engaging
conversation and horrible puns. Not only that, but he took orders well.
Plus there was that noble crusades and historic destiny thing that she
still couldn't quite get a fix on.
So when he suggested
she drive on down to Memphis and have dinner with him at his home, she
figured, oh, what the hell. If it didn't work out, she could catch a show
and keep on driving.
He
invited her in to his abode, and it was her first Neo-Southern Gothic
experience. Old family heirlooms, sculptures by self-taught Delta artists,
everything by the North Mississippi Allstars, an alarmingly large number
of books on the Civil War, signed photos by Eudora Welty and a piece of
goalpost from the 1996 Memphis-UT game. "I grew up in this house," he
said as he prepared a catfish dinner with hush puppies and boiled okra
(which, he said, inspired the song "As Slime Goes By," causing her to
again roll her eyes). And there was a pecan pie he told her was delivered
the day before by his beloved mute maiden aunt Bonita Clyde Mandeville
Slape, who always dropped in unannounced.
But
that evening, Bonita Clyde Mandeville Slape did not drop in and that gave
Memphis Cool and Fontaine Trueblue an opportunity to relax in his ancestral
home and discuss the ticklish subject that each felt had to be broached
as a matter of destiny. And that was barbecue sauce.
It is part of the
Southern catechism that someone from one of the Dakotas could not possibly
have a decent recipe for barbecue sauce. A camel would do the Funky Chicken
through the eye of a needle before that happened. A good and proper barbecue
sauce could only be constructed with a Southern sensibility, propaganda
to the contrary notwithstanding.
Fontaine Trueblue
was about to flabbergast Memphis Cool.
First,
she produced the recipe for him the moment he inquired about it. He figured
it couldn't be much of a recipe if she didn't act coy and decline to reveal
any but the most obvious ingredients. That was just the way it was done.
But the most startling
thing for Memphis Cool wasn't that she didn't keep the formula a secret,
but that Fontaine Trueblue's recipe for barbecue sauce was the same as
his lost recipe. Exactly the same.
"Nobody knows about
this indisputably most sublime barbecue sauce ever recipe except me,"
said Memphis Cool. "And my beloved mute maiden aunt Bonita Clyde Mandeville
Slape."
"And yet here I
am," said Fontaine Trueblue, "unless you're calling me nobody."
Flustered as well
as flabbergasted, Memphis Cool said, "No, no, not at all. But this is
a recipe that's been in our family forever. In fact, my beloved mute maiden
aunt Bonita Clyde Mandeville Slape gave it to me when I first expressed
an interest in the art of basting a whole hog. And she said it was never
to be revealed except to my descendants. Yet here you possess it, fresh
from one of the Dakotas, and while you are utterly fascinating and attractive
if I may be allowed to say, you are also woefully unversed in the barbecue
sciences."
Fontaine Trueblue
smiled. "It's the hand of Providence," she said, realizing which way this
destiny rocket was headed. "Plus there's a rousing good shaggy mutt tale
that comes with it."
Memphis Cool narrowed
his eyes.
"Really," she said.
"And here it is: In 1865, a duplicitous European count infiltrated the
Knights Templar, stole the Holy Grail from a monastery in Corsica and
took off for New Orleans. How's that for starters?"
Memphis Cool blinked.
"I am powerless to stop you," he said.
She continued:
"He hooked up with a post-Civil War secret society of Confederate sympathizers
whose mission was to steal federal gold and guns and supplies and stash
them in various locations around Dixie in the event that the South would,
indeed, rise again. Just before the Yankee invaders took the Crescent
City, the count was murdered by treacherous agents of the secret society.
They took the Holy Grail up the Mississippi to Memphis where it was to
be put with some of the booty hidden to supply the insurgent South's resurrection."
"We're still talking
about a barbecue recipe, right?" asked Memphis Cool. "And this has nothing
to do with Indiana Jones?"
"Correct," said
Fontaine Trueblue. "Now hush and listen."
She went on: "The
Knights Templar, even more secretive than the secret Confederate sympathizers
and considerably more clever, weren't about to let the Holy Grail slip
away. A team of the knights came to Memphis disguised as wealthy merchants
and sporting English accents. They made a big show of promising the city
fathers that they'd finance a splendid new municipal auditorium that would
draw visitors from far away. In gaining the trust of the influential locals,
they were able to discover the cache with the Holy Grail in a pyramid-shaped
stable on the Mississippi River bank. They stole it back."
Memphis Cool had
nothing to say to that.
"The odd thing,"
said Fontaine Trueblue, "is that two copies of a barbecue recipe were
folded neatly inside the bowl of the Holy Grail. No one knows who created
them and no one knows who put them there. The Knights Templar spent their
last night in Memphis at the Peabody Hotel where they threw a huge party,
ostensibly to toast the deal for the new municipal auditorium. As they
had no use for the recipes of the indisputably most sublime barbecue sauce
ever -- reaffirming why English cuisine lacks imagination -- they gave
them to the two prettiest girls at their shindig as an act of Christian
charity."
Memphis Cool blew
out a long breath and said, "And one was named DaVinci and the other Monty
Python, yes?"
"No, you goof,"
said Fontaine Trueblue. "The prettiest girls at the shindig were Lulu
Mandeville, your great-great-great grandmother, and her best friend, Bonita
Mashburn, who was my great-great-great grandmother. The recipes were passed
down through generations until, um, one of the guardians lost his copy."
Memphis Cool looked
sheepish. "So, destiny brought you here to restore the recipe?"
"No," said Fontaine
Trueblue, "it was my 1981 GMC Fall Guy replica pickup truck. But I do
suspect one thing."
"You mean …?" said
Memphis Cool.
"Yes," said Fontaine
Trueblue. "I think this might be the beginning of a beautiful friendship."
"Actually," Memphis
Cool said, "I suspect that the friendship is just the beginning of something
beautiful."
