Street Metals

One thing’s for certain;two things for sho, Malik was not about to eat at no chain restaurant no matter good they claimed their pancakes was. He always was on the lookout for those illuminated roadside sandwich board signs with the arrow that stopped blinking years ago. The kind of place that still made their lemonade and sweet tea in those large, plastic, igloo containers with the red button on the spout worn away from being pushed so much.

On a warm summer Sunday while still wearing church shoes, one would delicately balance teetering on the gravel walkway inhaling the aroma of the crushed lemons and hot fish grease. Then one’s mouth would water as the ladies in hair nets would fill a styrofoam container full of food. Everyone got the same unless you ain’t eat pork; and you better had made those preferences perfectly clear at the window when you placed your order.

Otherwise your greens had ham in it. Like the sign say over the grill: You want turkey meat, come back in November. Knowing good and damn well no shanty shack worth its weight in platters stayed open past Labor Day.

The popping of the stones under the truck’s tires made him wince slightly as Malik pulled around to the back of the shack. He got out of the truck then crouched down to check that there wasn’t any glass or other foreign debris sticking out of the seam of the tires near the air valves. Cuz not for nothin, as big as those tires are, they’re still susceptible to blowing if the right parameters were in place.

And Malik ain’t have time for that.

Lately, Malik was always on the go or getting ready to go so he ain’t have time for much. And although he was tired of eating out of to go bags, he couldn’t help but smile when the little girl came from around the back of the truck with a couple of bags and a cardboard tray box of drinks.

“Two for twenty five. Drinks two for twenty if you want em with octane. Two for ten unleaded.”

Malik kinda chuckled but left the scowl on his face to deter shenanigans, “I’m drivin shorty. Two unleaded platters.”

The little girl had the audacity to suck her teeth as if she were disappointed with his selection until Malik handed her a fifty dollar bill and said, “Make sure I have extra hot & tartar sauce.”

“Ok mister I will, thank ya.” She grabbed his money, disappeared into the shack but came back out with different bags full of platters and two gallons of sweet tea. She tapped the hood of the truck and Malik lowered the window so he could grab the food from her.

“Mama said the tea keep better than the juice in this heat and she wrapped up some lemon cake and stuck it tween the bread and the greens. And I put the hot sauce and the tartar sauce in small juice cups and I even mixed them together and put it in a separate cup for ya. With extra napkins.”

Then she winked with the wisdom of someone’s grandmother before disappearing back behind the shack to help with whatever else needed helpin with.

Malik nodded his reply which was the unspoken acknowledgment that if he wanted to eat back there, he had about fifteen minutes before the sheriff come through for his supper. And if there was anything that was definite in that neck of the woods was that no one named Malik needed to make acquaintance with a sheriff at supper time.