Thin Blue Smoke: A Novel About Music, Food, and Love

by Doug Worgul

  Plus he was hungry. At the last truck stop in Colorado he had bought a can opener and had eaten the chicken noodle soup and SpaghettiOs out of the can with a plastic spoon. He still had the box of Kraft macaroni and cheese, but couldn’t bring himself to eat the uncooked macaroni. He thought about mixing the envelope of powdered cheese with some water and drinking it. But he didn’t have any water. The hot dogs and Wonder bread were long gone.

  Around Carson City, it began to dawn on LaVerne that in a matter of hours he was going to be in Oakland, California, and that he had no firm plan of action.

  *

  It was late in the morning of Wednesday, April 24, 1968, when LaVerne Williams arrived at Oakland Alameda County Coliseum to do whatever it was that he had come to do. A marquee at the main gate announced that the Athletics would play the Yankees that afternoon. It was the last of an eight game home stand. LaVerne drove around until he found what looked like the players’ entrance, parked his car and fell asleep.

  A knock on the car window woke him up two hours later. An Alameda County sheriff’s deputy was outside, motioning for LaVerne to roll the window down, which he did.

  “You here for the game? Or you here to take a nap?” The deputy bent down and peered into the car.

  LaVerne sat up straight. “For the game, officer. Thank you.”

  The deputy walked on into the stadium.

  LaVerne saw Sal Bando and Bert Campaneris getting out of their cars. They followed the deputy through the gate. LaVerne got out of his car and went in behind them. He stopped inside the gate and breathed in the smell of grass, peanuts, cotton candy, and beer. Bando and Campaneris headed down a hallway tunnel off to the right. LaVerne watched them go. As he stood there, wondering if Charlie O. Finley was down at the end of that tunnel, somebody called him by name.

  “Hey, LaVerne Williams! That you?” It was Blue Moon Odom, on his way in. He put down a large duffel he was carrying, went over and gave LaVerne a hug.

  “Damn, man! You’re a sight!” He grinned and slapped LaVerne on the back. LaVerne winced. At the entrance to the tunnel the deputy lit a cigarette and watched.

  “Hey, Moon,” LaVerne said. “It’s good to see you, too.” He tried to smile.

  “It’s a shame about your shoulder, man,” Odom said. “A real shame. I didn’t think they’d cut you loose though. I thought they’d maybe send you down to play a little double-A ball or something, until you healed up. What’d the doctors say?”

  LaVerne shrugged. “They said my shoulder’s messed up good. But I’m thinkin’ with some time and rest and some good exercise, maybe next year, I might be able to come back and play. You know. If I took things slow.”

  Blue Moon Odom nodded. It sounded like a good plan to him. He and LaVerne had been pretty good friends in Kansas City.

  “So, here you are in California. Your pretty wife and baby with you?”

  A commotion down in the tunnel interrupted them and they turned to look. Charlie O. Finley and some other men in suits were on their way up. In front was a short thick man in a blue windbreaker that said SECURITY across the chest.

  As Finley and his entourage approached, LaVerne stepped away from Blue Moon and toward the group.

  He yelled. “Mr. Finley! It’s me, LaVerne Williams! Your centerfielder back in Kansas City!”

  Charlie Finley glanced over at LaVerne, but didn’t seem to recognize him. He turned to continue an animated monologue he was delivering to a sweaty reporter who was frantically scribbling in a notebook. LaVerne moved closer.

  “It’s LaVerne Williams! I played for you just last season! Don’t turn your back on me! Talk to me! Hear me out!”

  The man in the blue windbreaker stepped toward LaVerne with his arms extended, palms out.

  “Keep your distance,” he barked. “Move back.”

  The deputy took notice of these goings on and came up around behind LaVerne. Blue Moon took hold of LaVerne’s arm to pull him back.

  “LaVerne, don’t,” he said. “It won’t do any good.”

  LaVerne yanked his arm away, and stumbled toward the man in the windbreaker, who grabbed him by the shoulders and turned him away from Finley and his men.

  LaVerne yowled in pain. The security man wasn’t finished. He shoved LaVerne in the back, propelling him toward the deputy. The deputy instinctively raised his arms up in front of his chest like an offensive tackle protecting a quarterback, clipping LaVerne in the chin.

  LaVerne stood upright and held his chin. His shoulder throbbed and he realized he’d bitten his lip. Blood was dripping out of the corner of his mouth onto his hand. The deputy grabbed LaVerne’s shirt and pulled him in close.

  “Boy, let’s you and I go back outside for a little chat.”

  LaVerne heard Charlie Finley laughing. Maybe at him. Maybe not. But Charlie Finley was enjoying himself, and that felt to LaVerne like a mockery of his pain. He wrenched himself free from the deputy’s grip, and the deputy fell backward. Backward and down. The deputy’s head hit the concrete floor. His hat flipped up into the air and fell back down over his face. LaVerne saw the deputy lying there on the concrete floor, still and not moving. The deputy was not moving at all.

  *

  By the time the door of the holding cell at the Alameda County sheriff’s department slammed shut; locking LaVerne deep inside himself, the Alameda County sheriff’s deputy was home with an ice pack on his head and a cold beer in his hand.

  LaVerne used his allotted phone call to call Angela. He guessed that she would be at her parents’ place, and she was. She cried a lot. Then she screamed at him and cried some more.

  “I know I’ve ruined everything,” he said. “I don’t deserve you, Angela. If you don’t come see me, if you just want to forget me, I don’t blame you. I won’t be mad. I just hope you know that I love you and I love Raymond. I’m so sorry I hurt you and let you down. They say that they’re going to appoint a lawyer for me. A defender, they call it. So you don’t need to worry.”

  He waited. He could hear Angela sniffling and moaning softly.

  “Will you please call Delbert for me?” he asked. “I only have this one call. But he needs to know.”

  *

  Delbert was assigned a window seat, which he was glad for, inasmuch as this was the first time he had ever been on an airplane and he guessed it was likely to be the last. He hoped that they would fly over the Grand Canyon.

  He thought about LaVerne. He wondered if he and Madeleine had had a son if he might have been like LaVerne. He hoped so.

  He had only one memory of LaVerne ever fighting anybody. LaVerne was twelve-years-old, and his best friend Junebug moved with his family to Detroit where Junebug’s father was going to work making Fords at the River Rouge plant.

  The Whalens left Plum Grove early on a Friday morning. They needed to be in Detroit by Sunday night so Mr. Whalen could start his new job on Monday. LaVerne went to Junebug’s house before school to say goodbye.

  Later that morning, Esther Jones’s big brother, Nate, saw LaVerne crying as they were all walking to school. Nate began to tease, calling LaVerne a sissy and advising him to wear a dress to school if he was going to cry like a girl. LaVerne endured this torment for several minutes before demanding Nate stop, which Nate declined to do.

  Delbert was on his way to his job at Raylon Rice and Milling and happened to pass by the group of children just in time to see LaVerne land a roundhouse on Nate’s left ear, at which point Nate delivered a swift punch to LaVerne’s nose. LaVerne fell like a sack of rice falling off the back of a pickup.

  Delbert stopped, scooped his nephew up, drove him back home, and left him with Rose.

  On approach to the San Francisco airport Delbert looked out and saw Candlestick Park.

  33

  There Am I

  The second thing Ferguson Glen did, when he got back from Memph
is, was to Google Periwinkle Brown.

  The first Web site in the search results belonged to Eye Max, the bestselling pure pigment eye shadow. Here, Ferguson learned that, because of its loose pigment form, Eye Max eye shadow is more dynamic and longer lasting than any of its leading competitors. Eye Max offers the same colors used by professionals and leading cosmetologists! Periwinkle Brown is one of Eye Max’s line of metallic colors, along with Golden Sun, Peacock, Iced Brown, and Burgundy Boom.

  The second site Google found was an eBay listing:

  “Nine skeins of Brown Sheep Lamb’s Pride 85% wool/15% mohair worsted weight single-ply. The color is a gorgeous periwinkle. These yarns come from an estate. I have plenty of other yarns listed, so please check them out.”

  The third page was the official Web site for General Bar-B-Q Ribs Wet N Dry, which identified Peri as the proprietor. There was also a history of the restaurant, a reverent biography of founder General Brown, a menu, a Yahoo map link, and links to favorable reviews of the restaurant posted online by the Commercial Appeal, and the local television stations WHBQ and WPTY. Tyrell Davis was listed as the Webmaster.

  There were two more Google results. One was a Dutch language site devoted to purebred field spaniels, one of which was named Periwinkle’s Brown Babbler. Another was a review of a meal prepared by the 29-year-old executive chef, Fabio Trabocchi, of Maestro, the restaurant in the Ritz-Carlton in McLean, Virginia. Ferguson had to look hard for the words “periwinkle” and “brown.” He found them in a paragraph that made him laugh out loud.

  A recent dinner began with pan-fried Cape Cod scallops wrapped in crisp focaccia with Nova Scotia chanterelle mushrooms and salsa verde. It proceeded to liquid-center ravioli with organic egg yolk and monkfish liver with a periwinkle-brown-butter glaze and a Champagne sabayon. The fish course was wild Brittany Coast sea bass dusted with fennel pollen cooked en cocotte with sautéed fennel confit in a fennel-anise sauce. The meat course was Australian pasture-fed beef tenderloin Rossini. Maestro’s cheese selection is one of the best in the region. The warm peppermint-chocolate soufflé is wonderful.

  “Organic egg yolk,” “dusted with fennel pollen cooked en cocotte,” and “Australian pasture-fed beef” were the specific phrases that amused him. He smiled at the thought of the scornful and colorful things LaVerne would have to say about Australian pasture-fed beef.

  The phrase “periwinkle-brown-butter glaze” made him sigh.

  *

  The first thing Ferguson Glen did when he got back from Memphis was to call Periwinkle Brown. She answered the phone after one ring and Ferguson allowed himself to imagine that she was waiting for him to call.

  “Okay,” he said. “I was just calling to confirm that what I think happened actually did happen.”

  “I can confirm no such thing,” Peri said. “Because I don’t know for sure myself what happened.”

  “I think I asked you if you want go steady with me,” Ferguson said.

  “That’s what I thought,” Peri said.

  Ferguson thought maybe she would laugh at his “go steady” line. She didn’t.

  “I don’t think it will work, Reverend,” she said.

  “Maybe,” said Ferguson. “’Might be fun to try, though.”

  “Oh, we’re going to try,” said Peri. “I just don’t think it’ll work. But we are going to try.”

  Ferguson said “Whew!” and this time Peri did laugh.

  “So here’s my list of reasons why it won’t work. One, we don’t really know each other. We’re attracted to one another. I’d say it was hormones workin’, except I’m not sure I got any hormones left, and those I got don’t seem to work all that well.

  “Two, I don’t have a real good track record with relationships. I suspect the same is true of you. So, we could just end up as failures on each other’s long list of failures.

  “Three, you better treat me nice or I’ll kick your Episcopal ass. I know that’s not technically a reason why it won’t work. It’s more a promise of what’ll I do to you if you’re being mean is the reason it doesn’t.

  “All my relationships ended poorly because men can’t seem to treat me like a human being. There was one man who was nice to me. One. But it turns out he was being nice to three or four other women at the same time. Which is a shame because I really liked him. All the other men either wanted my money more than they wanted me or they didn’t like having Wren around and didn’t like that she was my main priority. There was one even raised his hand to hit me. But Jackson Reynolds, our cook at the time, stopped him. Jackson was about six-feet-ten-inches tall and about 320 pounds. He just picked up this man and put him out back by the dumpster and told him never come back. And he didn’t.

  “Four, we don’t really even know each other. And what I do know about you and what I know about me, well, it wouldn’t appear that we match up all that well. You’re famous and rich and educated, and I’m not. Most of my own customers don’t even know my name. I own the two restaurants, so I got enough money to retire if I don’t live too long. And I went to community college for two years.

  “Five, but I really truly am attracted to you, Reverend. I can tell you have a big heart. I can just tell. A big lonely heart. You’re smart. And I like smart. You’re funny and you seem to care about the right things. You still got most of your hair. You’re not fat. And you’re a man of God.

  “Six, those are the reasons I don’t think it will work.”

  Ferguson held his breath before speaking.

  There was never any shortage of people who had flattering things to say to him about his writing, or his lecturing, or his preaching. But it had been a long time since anyone had mentioned anything about his heart.

  “Well, one, most of those things aren’t really reasons why it won’t work,” he said. “Except maybe that we don’t really know each other all that well yet. Which you mentioned twice, so that’s not really six reasons anyway. Just five. And, two, now that you’ve told me all those things, I already know you better. So we’re already making progress on that. Three, I’m really attracted to you, too, Peri. Seriously attracted. You’re tough, but not hard. You’re smart. And I like smart. And I’m actually only a semi-famous has-been. And my guess is that you’ve put your education to better use than I have mine.

  “Plus, there’s something in you, Peri, that’s still and steady and easy. I’m at rest when I’m with you. And I can’t imagine ever getting tired of looking at you.”

  Ferguson could hear Periwinkle breathe in deep.

  “You going to be nice to me?” she asked quietly.

  “I will,” said Ferguson. “I’ve never been mean to anybody or anything except myself. And I have lots of money, so I don’t need yours.”

  Peri said “Whew!”

  “Then there’s really only one remaining problem,” she said. “That’s the issue of barbecue. I’m led to believe that folks in Kansas City are of the opinion that Kansas City is the barbecue capital of America. I want you to know that’s crazy talk, Reverend.”

  Ferguson cleared his throat.

  “Actually, ma’am, Kansas City is the barbecue capital of the world.”

  “Well, then,” said Periwinkle Brown. “Why don’t you invite me out there so I can see for myself?”

  *

  After finishing his second venti cup of coffee, each with a shot of espresso added, and after reading the entire contents—minus the business sections—of The New York Times, USA Today, and The Kansas City Star, and after downing two cranberry orange scones from Starbucks, and after making six trips to the men’s room, it occurred to Ferguson that perhaps he needn’t have come to the airport an hour-and-a-half early to wait for Peri’s flight. He walked over to the monitor displaying flight arrival information. It said Peri’s flight from Memphis was on schedule. Just as it had each of the previous dozen or so times he had checked.

>   One gate over, a flight had arrived and its passengers were emerging from the jetway. First came an elderly woman in a wheelchair; delicate and brittle, pushed by a younger man, perhaps her son, or maybe her nurse. Her eyes were bright and knowing. She wore a cream-colored pant suit and a mink stole around her shoulders. Her escort was attentive and solicitous. He wore a light blue seersucker suit, with a yellow polo shirt and flip-flops.

  Next came a hurried parade of business-suited execs, wide-striding and swift, tense and puffy-eyed, insisting into the cell phones clamped to their ears that they would be home as soon as possible.

  Then two soldiers. The first, a stout middle-aged woman in desert fatigues, instantly swarmed by her children, twin adolescent girls and a boy who looked like he was maybe five years old. Their father stood back a bit and watched for a moment, then stepped forward, threw his arms around his wife’s neck and wept into her shoulder.

  Next, a slender youth, perhaps 19 years old, in an olive green Army dress uniform. He was greeted by an older couple and a pimply-faced girl about eight-months pregnant. The girl hugged the boy fiercely, as the older woman reached out and touched the top of his head and cried. As they moved away from the gate, the older man put his arm around the soldier’s shoulders.

  They were followed by a young woman in torn jeans and a faux vintage T-shirt carrying a guitar case. She stormed past, her lips pressed so tightly together they were white. A young man in torn jeans and a faux vintage T-shirt carrying a guitar case scurried after her insisting he’d been misunderstood, pleading for a second chance.

  Ferguson’s contemplation of the varieties of love was interrupted by an announcement over the public address system that American flight 4468 from Memphis had arrived.

  *

  She saw that he wanted to kiss her. But she knew him well enough already to know he was too much the gentleman to act on this impulse. She put her hand on the side of his face, leaned in close and whispered. “Isn’t it wonderful to be this scared?” He put his hand over hers and nodded.