Maybe it's because he knows what hungry feels like. Maybe he's been the person on the other side of this equation,the one who needed someone to hand him a plate and didn't have anyone. I don't know. I don't ask. But I notice.
"First we need to get Big Bertha down from the second floor," I say.
"What's a Big Bertha?"
"The smoker grill. She's a beast. She's been the centerpiece of every parking lot cookout we've done for fifteen years. She's heavy as sin and twice as mean, but she cooks like a dream. I've had three serious relationships in my life. Bertha's the longest. She's temperamental, she runs hot, and she makes me sweat in places I didn't know I had. But she's never let me down and that's more than I can say for the other two."
We wrestle Big Bertha down the stairs, which takes forty-five minutes and nearly kills both of us. She's a massive offset smoker on wheels, black steel, with a firebox the size of a garbage can and a cooking surface big enough to lay down on. Getting her down from the second floor involves a lot of swearing on my part, a lot of quiet, focused lifting on Stormy's part.
She almost rolls over my foot on the landing. "Shit! Bertha! We talked about this! You cannot just go where you want! You weigh four hundred pounds and you have no brakes and I only have ten toes and I'd like to keep all of them!"
Stormy snorts and almost laughs. Almost losing my toes was worth it. I'll get that laugh out of him if it's the last thing I ever do.
We park her in the lot and I hook up the gas generator. Stormy watches me prime the firebox and get the coals going, and then I hand him a pad of paper and a pen.
"Okay, here's what I need from you. Go to the cooler and inventory everything we've got. Every cut of meat, every package, everything. Write it down. Then sort it by what needs to be cooked first. The stuff that's closest to turning goes on the grill first. The stuff that's got a few more hours can wait. We want to keep a steady flow going all day, not cook everything at once and have it sit out in the heat."
He takes the pad and pen and heads for the cooler without a word. He's back in fifteen minutes with a list that's organized, categorized, and prioritized in a way that makes me look at it twice. He's separated everything by protein type, noted approximate weight, and ranked each item on a scale of one to three based on how urgent it needs to be cooked. He's also noted the buns, condiments, and sides that are still usable, and he's suggested a serving order.
"Where did you learn to do this?" I ask, looking at the list.
"Do what?"
"Organize like this. This is better than my inventory system and I've been running a bar for years."
He shrugs. One shoulder, quick. "It's just a list."
"I've been running this bar for years, and my inventory system is a napkin with ketchup on it. You've been here four days and you've created a spreadsheet in your head that has categories and subcategories. I'm not sure if I should be impressed or insulted. I'm going with both."
It's not just a list. It's a mind that works in systems, that sees order where other people see chaos, that solves problems before you finish explaining them. I file this away with all the other things I'm learning about Stormy, which is becoming avery thick file. A file that I run through my head every night after we go to bed because I'm always thinking about Stormy.
The ribs go on first because they need the longest cook time. Then the chicken thighs, rubbed down with the dry rub I keep in the kitchen for exactly these occasions. I save the burgers and hot dogs for later because they cook fast. People always want a burger.
By nine o'clock, the smoke is rising from Big Bertha in thick, fragrant clouds that drift down the beach road like a signal flare. Hickory smoke and spice and grilling meat, the universal language of "come eat." In a neighborhood where every kitchen is dark and every restaurant is closed, that smell is going to travel fast.
The first people show up half an hour later. A two-man power crew working on the lines a quarter mile up the road. They come walking up the beach road, hard hats on, tool belts heavy, and they stop when they see the grill and the smoke and me standing in the parking lot with tongs in one hand and a spatula in the other.
"Is that what I think it is?" one of them calls out. "You cooking out?"
"Depends on what you think it is. If you think it's free barbecue, you're right. If you think it's a mirage caused by heat exhaustion, you're also right but come on and eat anyway. Welcome to Big Tex's Roadhouse, hurricane edition. We're open. We're free. The ambiance is 'apocalyptic parking lot' and the dress code is 'whatever survived.' Our Yelp rating is currently unavailable because the internet doesn't exist anymore, but I promise you four stars minimum."
They laugh and come over. I load up two plates with ribs and chicken, then hand them across the folding table we setup. Stormy is behind the table, quiet but present, handing out napkins and plastic forks from the bar's supply.
"This is Stormy," I tell the power guys. "He's my right-hand guy. Organized this whole operation. I just push meat around on a grill."
Stormy looks up. The power crew nods at him and one of them says, "Thanks, man. We haven't had a hot meal in two days. This is great."
"You're welcome," Stormy says. His voice is steady. Not loud, not confident, but steady. Like a person talking to another person. Simple as that.
More people come. Word moves through the neighborhood the way it always does after a disaster, through word of mouth and the smell of smoke and the quiet, desperate network of people who need things finding the people who have things. By eleven o'clock, there's a line in the parking lot.
Not a long line. Maybe fifteen people at any given time, cycling through as new people arrive and others leave with full plates. But it's steady, and it doesn't stop. Power crews on their breaks. A family from the condo building that lost its wall and the county is condemning it already. Two sheriff's deputies who look like they haven't slept since before the storm. An old man on a bicycle who lives three blocks inland and lost his entire kitchen to a tree through the roof.
I work the grill. The heat and humidity are brutal. Big Bertha throws off waves of it that mix with the July sun and the humidity until the air around me feels solid.
Sweat runs down my back and my chest in rivers, and my face is so close to the grill for so long that my beard smells like hickory and my eyebrows feel singed. I don't care. This iswhat I was built for. My dad used to say the Roadhouse wasn't a bar, it was a living room with a liquor license, and today the living room is a parking lot and the liquor is ribs.
I introduce Stormy to everyone. Every single person who walks up for a plate gets the same treatment.
