A Good American

by Alex George

  Jette had invited Mathias Becker to be the guest of honor. The doctor was never one to turn down the offer of food, and he happily accepted. Joseph led him to the best table in the room. “This is quite delightful,” he said to my father as he sat down. “I can’t wait to see the menu!”

  “Actually, there is no menu,” said Joseph.

  “No menu? How can you have a restaurant without a menu?”

  “You’ve got two choices,” explained Joseph.

  “Just two?” pouted Dr. Becker.

  “We’ve got either pork chops and sauerkraut or jambalaya and jalapeño corn muffins.”

  The doctor stared at him. “What did you say?”

  “Pork chops—”

  “No, no. The other one.”

  “Oh. Jambalaya and jalapeño corn muffins.”

  “Goodness. That sounds like an illness, not something you eat,” said Dr. Becker.

  “Oh no, it’s delicious. It’s got smoked sausage, chicken, rice, and tomatoes in it. And lots of spices.”

  The doctor’s nose wrinkled. “Spices?” He stared long and hard at Joseph, who smiled affably back. Finally the doctor came to a decision. “Pork chops,” he harrumphed.

  It had been Jette’s idea to offer only two items a day. She knew her limitations as a cook. In addition, she wanted to be in the dining room while the restaurant was open, so the food needed to be prepared in advance. Lomax was stationed in the kitchen, ready to plate up orders from the bubbling pots. Each day there would be one traditional German dish, bland and monumental, and one more exotic. As that opening sitting progressed, however, Jette began to wonder whether she might have miscalculated. Joseph was carrying plate after plate of pork chops across the room. Not one person ordered the jambalaya. Finally Joseph came out of the kitchen, looking worried.

  “We’ve run out of pork chops,” he told her.

  Jette let out a deep breath. “All right, then,” she said.

  The next people waiting to be served were Bucky and Minnie Rohrbacker. Bucky was the best cattle auctioneer in the county. He’d been known to knock back a drink or two at the Nick-Nack in his time, and he was gazing around the room with an astonished look on his face as he lowered himself into his chair.

  “Sure looks different in here now,” he said, a little wistfully.

  Minnie Rohrbacker beamed at Joseph. “And look at you, all grown up!”

  “The thing is, we’ve run out of pork chops,” said Joseph.

  “That’s all right,” said Minnie kindly. “What else do you have?”

  Joseph stood on one foot. “Jambalaya and jalapeño corn muffins.”

  Minnie Rohrbacker’s smile slipped a little. “Jamba—?”

  “Jambalaya. And jalapeño corn muffins.”

  “That sounds interesting,” she said uncertainly.

  “It’s better than the pork chops.”

  Neither of the Rohrbackers looked convinced. “Don’t you have anything else?” asked Bucky.

  Joseph shook his head.

  Bucky looked at his wife. “Well, we’re here,” he said, sighing. “We may as well try the—What was it again?”

  “I’ll bring it right out,” said Joseph.

  A few minutes later he delivered two steaming plates of jambalaya to the table. The Rohrbackers sniffed and prodded cautiously at their food. Finally Bucky shoveled a forkful of rice and sausage into his mouth. He chewed thoughtfully for a moment. Then he took another bite. And another. Then he took a small bite of a corn muffin.

  Jette watched all this from across the room until she couldn’t help herself any longer. She went up to the table. “How is everything?” she asked.

  By then small beads of sweat had begun to appear on Bucky Rohrbacker’s forehead. “Good God, Jette,” he gasped. “What’s in this? My throat feels like it’s on fire.”

  “Don’t you like it?”

  Bucky shook his head. “My head may be about to blow off, but I believe it’s the best goddamned thing I’ve ever put in my mouth.” He wiped his napkin across his brow. “Could I have another glass of water?”

  You don’t become the most successful cattle auctioneer in Caitlin County by being a shy and retiring type. Bucky Rohrbacker was used to making himself heard over the agricultural ruckus of a busy auction yard and a crowd of squabbling farmers. He was blessed with a very loud voice, and his profane opinion was heard by everyone in the restaurant.

  Thirty minutes later there was no food left in the kitchen.

  The following day Jette prepared Wienerschnitzel with pan-fried potatoes and a devilish chicken gumbo. Reports of the new restaurant’s unorthodox menu had spread quickly through the town, and although there were still many diners (including Dr. Becker) who chose the more familiar fare, this time orders for both dishes were evenly matched. Jette had to turn disappointed customers away when the food ran out.

  That night she and Lomax planned out a schedule of menus. There were two dishes for each day of the week—fourteen recipes in total, before the cycle began again.

  By the end of the first week, people had begun to wait in line thirty minutes before the restaurant opened, just to be sure to get a table. It did not take long for many of the Nick-Nack’s old customers to return to their old haunt, albeit for more sober communion.

  Joseph enjoyed taking orders and clearing plates. He developed a knack for describing Lomax’s culinary creations in particularly mouthwatering terms, so that even the most cautious of the town’s eaters were unable to resist them. He ferried plates back and forth between the dining room and the kitchen while Jette took the money and poured gallons of iced tea. She bought a till, which gave a satisfyingly heavy ching every time the drawer slid open. In that metallic chime she heard the echo of promise and hope.

  Jette was bombarded by pleas from customers to open for dinner in the evening, but she always refused. Frederick’s opened at eleven o’clock each morning, and was always closed by two. Jette and Lomax spent the afternoon preparing the next day’s food, while Joseph and Rosa washed dishes and swept the floors. By six o’clock the work for the day was done. After supper with Lomax at a small table in the kitchen, Jette took her children home.

  While the restaurant was open Lomax stayed in the kitchen, hidden from view. He was well aware of the unease that his presence might cause. He was used to the fear of strangers. It was as familiar to him as the sound of his own voice. He knew that this town was not for him.

  But days and weeks passed, and still he did not go.

  The fact was, Lomax couldn’t leave. He found himself skewered in place like a butterfly wing pinned to a collector’s board. The fierce love of Jette’s family kept him there long after he should have been on his way.

  EIGHTEEN

  At about the time that Joseph began work at the restaurant, Stefan started to help his father on the farm. As a result, the two friends saw less and less of each other, but every so often they would still escape up to Tillman’s Wood with Johann Kliever’s rifle. They hid in the undergrowth and waited for unsuspecting wildlife to wander into their path. Their aims gradually improved. Stefan in particular had a good eye and was able to hit his target more often than not. They often walked back to Joseph’s house with a collection of dead animals in a sack, but not all outings were so successful. One hot afternoon in early summer, the boys had bickered at each other the whole time they lay hidden, and as a result they had missed everything they shot at. After two hours they trooped back down the hill, their bag still empty, both in foul moods. Each blamed the other for his misses. Stefan stormed through the forest with his father’s gun over his shoulder. Joseph hung back, seething in silent fury. He wanted no more to do with Stefan that day. As he made his way down the hill toward the house, Joseph realized that he now preferred Lomax’s company to Stefan’s.

 
When they approached the bottom of the hill, Stefan was so far ahead of Joseph that he was only just visible through the trees. Suddenly Stefan stopped moving. After a moment, he reached for the gun. “Oh, boy. Just wait until you see this!” he shouted. “Sitting target!”

  “What is it?” called Joseph.

  “Fat little beast,” said Stefan. “I think he’s sunbathing.” He raised the shotgun to his shoulder.

  “Wait,” said Joseph, quickening his pace. Stefan appeared to be aiming directly into his backyard. “Don’t shoot anything until I—”

  But Stefan did not wait.

  The shot cracked through the air. Stefan lowered the weapon and yelled in delight. “Got him!”

  By now Joseph was running as fast as he could. “What did you do?” he gasped.

  “Down there on the roof,” said Stefan triumphantly.

  My father squinted through the trees, cold dread clawing at his gut. On top of the old outhouse lay a familiar gray ball of fur. There was a dark stain on Mr. Jim’s exposed belly where Stefan’s bullet had scored a direct hit.

  For three days Rosa would not leave her bedroom. The little house echoed with her grief. That fat little raccoon was the best friend she’d ever had, and now he was gone. My aunt wept and wept, inconsolable in her loss.

  In the end, it was Lomax who rescued her.

  One afternoon he knocked on the door of the bedroom and peered inside. As usual, Rosa was sitting on the bed, her face stained with tears.

  “I got something for you,” he said. Under his arm he was carrying a flat piece of wood with black and white squares painted on it. He laid it down in the middle of the floor. “You know what this is?”

  Rosa shook her head.

  “This here is a chessboard. You ever heard of chess?”

  Rosa shook her head again.

  “It’s the greatest game in the world.” From his pocket Lomax produced a small bag. Inside were thirty-two tiny chess pieces. He tipped them onto the board and began arranging them in their starting positions. Rosa watched closely, not saying a word. “I carved these myself,” he said. “Want me to show you how to play?”

  Rosa wiped her eyes, nodded, and clambered off the bed.

  For the rest of the afternoon, Lomax showed her how each piece moved. My aunt did not blink as his long fingers glided across the board, pushing the two armies into war.

  Finally Lomax groaned a little and stretched his arms above his head. “I tell you what. Sitting on the floor all afternoon is hard work when you’ve got bones as old as mine.” He looked out the window at the approaching twilight, and then back at my aunt. “I have to go now.”

  For the first time in hours, Rosa moved. She reached out and grabbed his wrist. “Come back tomorrow,” she begged.

  Lomax’s eyes twinkled. “I’ll be here.”

  Every day after that Lomax sat on the floor and explained a new technique—the pin, the fork, the sacrifice. Rosa listened and watched. He never had to explain anything twice. Chess made complete sense to my aunt. She was hypnotized by the tapestry of patterns that could be spun by those wooden pieces. Within the game’s limitless permutations she found a means of expressing herself. She improved with mesmerizing speed, fueled by natural flair and ferocious determination.

  Chess was always more than just a game to Rosa. She waged war over that board. After a while Lomax stopped giving her lessons and they just played. As kindly as he could, he thrashed Rosa day after day, but each loss just made her more determined to win the next time. She spent hours alone with her chess set, learning the secrets hidden within those sixty-four squares.

  With his homemade chessboard Lomax opened up a whole new world for Rosa. There she could escape the sadness of her loss. Little by little, the light returned to her eyes.

  After the shooting, Joseph and Stefan did not go hunting again.

  Perhaps it was inevitable that the boys’ friendship would not survive the incident undamaged. Joseph was angry with Stefan for what he had done, even though his friend hadn’t known that Mr. Jim was Rosa’s pet. It didn’t help that Stefan was unrepentant about what had happened. To him the episode was nothing more than a fine piece of marksmanship. When Joseph explained about Rosa’s attachment to the raccoon, Stefan laughed in his face and then marched down the hill, the gun slung over his shoulder. Joseph stood there and watched him go.

  They did not see each other for several weeks after that. When Stefan finally appeared and shrugged a lazy apology, Joseph knew that things would never be the same again. He could still hear the harsh bark of his friend’s mockery in his head. Perhaps inevitably, he turned more and more to Lomax for comfort and advice. Whether Lomax was qualified to dispense the kind of wisdom that Joseph was hoping for is perhaps questionable; but he was there, and he was willing. Joseph sought Lomax’s opinion on a wide variety of topics, but in the end his questions would always circle back toward Cora Leftkemeyer.

  Joseph and Lomax now found themselves disagreeing about what should be done about Cora. Lomax maintained that further theorizing was useless. It was time for Joseph to put all that talk into practice. Joseph knew that Lomax was right, but by then his infatuation was so all-consuming that the prospect of rejection was unthinkable.

  Lomax saw the despair in his young friend’s eyes, but he was losing patience. “You think that girl’s gonna wait for you?” he asked. “You think she’s tellin’ all them other fellas to skit, ’cause she’s waiting for her little neighbor to summon up the courage to talk to her?” He shook his head. “She don’t even know you exist, Joseph. Every time you see her comin’, you start off in the other direction as fast as you can go.”

  This was true enough. Cora and her father had visited the restaurant the previous week and Joseph had been so terrified that he hid in the kitchen and begged Jette to take their order.

  “I’m just not ready,” he told Lomax.

  Lomax sighed. “You keep this up and you won’t need to worry about being ready.”

  Every night Joseph tossed and turned in his bed, miserably awake, unable to escape his tortured thoughts of his beautiful neighbor. One evening, as he stared into the darkness, unable to sleep, he decided to go and see Lomax. Even his friend’s grouchy disapproval had to be better than this. He quietly pulled on his clothes and slipped out of the house.

  The streets were quiet. An almost full moon bathed the town in a ghostly light. As he approached the restaurant, Joseph heard Lomax’s cornet floating through the still night air, cushioned on a soft piano chord. He stopped and listened. It was difficult to imagine a life without Lomax now.

  Just then Joseph heard approaching footsteps. Not wanting to be caught out so late, he stepped into the shadows cast by the restaurant wall. A moment later a trio of dark silhouettes appeared, moving stealthily and with purpose. The men walked right past him, unaware of his presence, and vanished around the corner of the building. Joseph stood frozen. There was no reason for these men to be here, so late at night.

  He heard a soft knock at the back door, three brisk raps and then two slower ones. The music stopped. A moment later there was a low murmur of voices, but Joseph couldn’t make out what was being said. He remained hidden in the darkness, his stomach a churning pit of apprehension. Finally Lomax’s mysterious visitors began to walk back down the alleyway. My father held his breath as they passed by him for a second time, walking more quickly now. After a moment Lomax resumed his quiet music-making at the piano.

  Joseph stood in the shadows, lost in thought. Then he crept down the alleyway, took a deep breath, and knocked on the door—three quick thumps, two slow. Moments later the door opened. He heard Lomax before he saw him.

  “You folks must be thirsty tonight if you already—Aw, shit.”

  They looked at each other in silence.

  Finally Joseph found some words. “What are you
doing, Lomax?”

  Lomax crossed his arms. “I might ask you the same question. Why aren’t you in bed?”

  “I couldn’t sleep, so I came to see you. Who were those men?”

  Lomax blinked. “What men?”

  “The ones who just knocked on your door. The ones you thought were thirsty.”

  The word hung between them. Lomax studied Joseph for a moment and then shrugged his shoulders. “Man’s gotta make a living,” he said.

  “A living?”

  “People can’t buy liquor anymore, but they’re still thirsty.”

  Joseph frowned. “So you’re—”

  “Making a little moonshine, that’s right. Little trick I learned long time ago.” Lomax gestured behind him. “There’s a whole kitchen back here,” he explained. “Seemed a shame not to use it.”

  “But what if you get caught?” asked Joseph, fretful.

  “Caught by who?” Lomax asked. “The chief of police, that Mr. Scott, he’s my best customer. He already drunk the rest of the town dry, and now he got himself a little taste for it.” Lomax laughed softly. “I ain’t worried about him.” He paused. “You know who I am worried about?”

  “Who?”

  “Your mother. If she hears about this, she’ll whup my behind and send me packing so fast my head’ll spin.” He eyed Joseph. “You gonna tell her?”

  More than anything, Joseph didn’t want Lomax to leave. He shook his head.

  And so Lomax continued to operate his clandestine business from the back door of the restaurant under cover of darkness. The diners seemed oblivious to all that illicit late-night trade, but they weren’t, of course. Many of them would quietly return at night, skulking down the dark alleyway in search of a bottle of Lomax’s fearful brew.

  Since Frederick’s departure for the war in Europe, Jette and her children had struggled through each uncertain day. Lomax became a new sun around which to orbit, and their unsettled existence finally came to an end. Joseph was learning to be a man. Rosa had found solace and reward at the chessboard. Jette’s new business was under way. She was finally able to imagine a new future for them all.