Well, of course, I did—Isabel makes her buttermilk biscuits big as bear claws and she’d sliced the salt-cured dark red ham with an equally generous hand—but somehow I dredged up the willpower to resist.
“Just finished a big breakfast,” I said, hoping they wouldn’t hear my stomach growl in protest above the music coming from the midway. “I’ll be back for some barbecue later if there’s any left.”
“We’ll save you some, honey,” Haywood promised, biting into pure succulence before getting on my case.
Even though Herman’s still in a wheelchair, there had been plenty of opportunity between catnaps and hands of gin rummy for the big twins to visit the other cookers and catch up on all the gossip around the county. Haywood’s never seen a stranger and has never been shy about asking questions or giving advice and Herman’s not far behind him.
“Heard you was the one found that boy that got hisself killed,” Haywood said disapprovingly.
“Ought you to be doing such stuff and you a judge?” asked Herman.
“You need to remember to be a little more dignified,” Haywood said. “Don’t look good for you to be messing around with trouble like that.”
“I promise you it wasn’t something I’d planned on,” I told them.
Nadine and Isabel wanted to hear every detail, and they were disappointed at how little I could tell them. I gathered there were much more interesting speculations making the rounds of the cookers—“You know what carnival people are like. All them tattoos? Steal you blind if you take your eyes off ‘em”—and they were prepared to share those speculations with me, but Seth and Minnie arrived about then just as someone with a microphone called for our attention.
“The first round of tasting has been completed,” he announced. “The final four are numbers one, four, seven, and eight.”
There were whoops and cheers from the spectators and a couple of good-natured boos from the eliminated cooks.
“We’re number seven,” Haywood confided in a bass whisper that could’ve been heard in Raleigh if the music from the merry-go-round on the other side of the fence hadn’t drowned him out.
They had placed second last year, he reminded me, and while second “won’t real shabby considering the competition, this year me and Herman’s got us a secret ingredient.”
“Oh?”
“Yes, ma’am! This year we soaked some oak chips overnight in ginger ale and we sprinkled them on the bottom to get that extra flavor in the smoke.”
But for all his pretense of complacency, he and Herman watched closely as the judges sampled the four finalists and marked their scorecards. Then, after a whispered conference, they each went back for yet another taste of numbers four and seven. I saw Haywood’s big hand clench Herman’s shoulder.
A final huddle with the judges, then the list of winners was handed to the announcer. Honorable mention went to number one, a team of Shriners from Dobbs. To everyone’s surprise (and more than a little chagrin), third place was awarded to number eight, a couple of newcomers from Michigan who’ve really taken to our style of barbecue. Last year’s winners, the men’s Sunday school class of Mt. Olive A.M.E. Zion, started high-fiving each other, confident that they were about to carry home the blue ribbon again.
The announcer milked the suspense for all it was worth, then cried, “The red ribbon goes to number four, and number seven is this year’s blue-ribbon champion! Let’s give ‘em all a big hand, folks.”
Haywood grabbed the handles of the wheelchair and pushed it so fast across the uneven ground toward the announcer that Herman said later he thought he was taking a victory lap at Rockingham rather than accepting first place at a little old barbecue contest. “The way Brother Haywood was taking them curves, I needed me a seat belt.”
The other ribbon winners crowded around to congratulate them.
“What’d you say you soaked your oak chips in?” asked one of the Michiganites.
“Grape Nehi,” Herman answered blandly.
“Now, why’d you go and tell ‘em that?” Haywood scolded when they returned with their ribbon. “That’s liable to taste real good.”
Leaving the big twins to fasten that blue rosette to their cooker and bask in their glory, Seth and Minnie walked into the Ag Hall with me for the Some Yam Thing or Other contest. Seth is five up from me and the brother who’s always cut me the most slack. Minnie is my self-appointed campaign manager and she’s the one who volunteered me to judge today. She believes in keeping me in the public eye. (At least, she believes in keeping me there as long as there are only positive things for the public eye to see.)
Since last night’s murder hadn’t come up in front of her, I could safely assume she hadn’t yet heard of my involvement. I was hoping to keep it that way for the time being.
As I glanced around In hall, I noticed other family members and looked at Minnie suspiciously. “I thought we agreed that none of the kids would enter.”
“What makes you think they have?” she parried.
“Oh, come on, Minnie. Why else are Doris and Robert here? And there’s Jess, your own daughter. And Zach’s Emma.”
“Now, don’t worry about it, honey. There’s no names on anything. You just judge it like you would if you didn’t know they were in it.”
It was a good thing that I had two colleagues to help with the judging or rumors might have started that the fix was in.
“Yoo-hoo, Deborah!” my sister-in-law Doris called. When she caught my eye, she shifted her own eyes significantly from her grandson Bert to the table that held entries for the under-sixes.
