We take our usual spot in the corner
and even though the lacquered picnic
table’s the same, we know something’s off.
The waitress hasn’t noticed us,
which is hard to imagine since we’re the only
patrons inside right now.
April 1992 playmate Cady Cantrell’s picture is still up,
flanked by a black and white,
shotgun-toting Duke and the
overtly hairy, “every-hombre” glamour
headshot of Joe Perez – his enormous
handlebar moustache intact.
They’ve built a deck outside
with greenish lumber, a DJ’s booth,
tables, chairs and populated it with leather-clad,
Latino, cigar-chomping bikers;
The jackets read Matanzas Hellfire Club.
One of them, particularly overweight,
works a pair of Technics 1200s and a microphone.
He’s a heavily accented parody of the ride announcer
at the Youth Fair – we half expect a chomped
do you wanna go faster? to burst out.
I’m hoping these changes have not
made their way into the vats
of the delicious, family recipe sauce.
The waitress plops a pair of spiral-bound,
laminated menus on the table
as the mayor of Coral Gables, a Vietnam vet,
walks in wearing, what I’m told,
is the same outfit he wears every day.
Uncle Tom’s barbecue pit was built way before
the neighboring car dealerships,
back when Rita Hayworth and Mae West
were the feverish wrinkles in every man’s dreams.
By his wrinkles and gray hair,
I’m guessing the mayor must’ve been an
ankle-biter the day the first coals were fired.
Nobody’s ordered any food yet and the wait staff
has only delivered drafts
to our table, the mayor, and the bikers.
What I take to be a hooker,
fresh from Calle Ocho earnings,
sits across from us checking herself in a compact,
and I’m jabbed violently in the ribs
for staring at the triangle of freckled flesh
in her V-neck blouse – and I’m asked
if I’m going to keep looking at the peroxide
or order because the table’s starving,
and truth be told, I’m terrified to order –
what if the sauce has been bungled like some
of the surroundings? I mean, that’s why we’re all here:
constituents of that semi-sweet, sienna-toned,
molasses-thick juice; the tiniest hints of hickory
and cayenne injecting life to fire-cooked meats…
Will we be met with a palatal vestige of Miami?
