Playing by Ear (Country Roads #1) - Chapter 12

After eating at Hanna’s house again, I made my way back across the creek to the trailer to wait for Mom. Lately, I’d been so tired after a whole day of school followed by an intense workout that I was asleep before she got home, so we hadn’t gotten a lot of chances to see each other except for briefly in the morning, but I didn’t want to wait to talk to her.

There was an outside chance that she would veto my playing with Willie’s band on Saturday nights. Considering the face she made every time she saw me practicing and the regular comments about how I should focus myself on something more productive, she’d left no doubt that she wouldn’t be a fan of me following in my father's footsteps, which this definitely was a first step towards.

So I knew this would be an uphill battle. I spent the time while I waited finishing up the last of the homework that I didn’t do at Hanna’s while her mom had made dinner. I always made sure to do the math first while I was there because it was the thing I needed the most help with. I finished off the last of the readings I had to do for history and then spent the remaining time practicing the songs Willie had been teaching me, now that I knew they were actually songs he’d want me to play with them when the time came.

I wasn’t sure if he’d started teaching me these songs because it was convenient, since he knew them well, or if he’d already been planning on having me play with them, but either way, I wanted to be ready. The worst thing I could do would be to choke up. Getting this far and not being allowed to play with them a second time would have been a hit to the ego that I didn’t think I was ready to take.

At eleven, I packed up my instrument and sat waiting, since Mom could be home at any point after that. I didn’t think her seeing me staying up late practicing would help my cause very much.

I sat on the edge of the couch for about ten minutes, going over what I was going to say when I finally heard her pull up.

“Charlie, what are you still doing up?” she asked as soon as she was in the door.

“I needed to talk to you about something, and I didn’t want to wait.”

“What happened?” she asked, immediately jumping to worrying I had a problem or had done something.

“Nothing. Nothing bad, at least. Put your stuff down and come sit down for a minute, please.”

“You’re worrying me, Charlie,” she said, setting her things down and coming over to sit next to me.

“It isn’t bad, at least I don’t think so, but I wanted to get your okay on something before I accepted.”

“What is it?”

Her tone had changed to a different, non-concerned version of worry as she looked around. I was almost certain she was looking for my instrument. She knew me well and probably suspected, with how serious I was, that this had to do with music.

“I’ve been given an opportunity at the Blue Ridge, but I won’t take it if you really think I shouldn’t. Chef needs someone to come in Saturday mornings to help getting set up for the day, and he offered for me to start working the morning and lunch shifts, instead of the dinner shift. One of the reasons for this change is Willie has offered to let me sit in with his band and play on Saturday nights.”

“Charlie, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Why?”

“Charlie, you saw how that lifestyle ended for your father. I want you to have a real chance of making it. Right now, that means focusing on school.”

“Mom, I’m not letting this interfere with school. For one, the first thing that I do when I go by Chefs in the afternoon is my homework. He requires us to stay on top of it. He’s made it clear that homework comes first. I never practice or do anything else before I finish. I’m just talking about Saturday nights. I’m not saying I want to drop out of school or not go to college. If I can make something out of this, great, but I’m not counting on it.”

“Your father said a lot of the same things when we were younger.”

“Mom, am I Dad? Do I act like he did? I’m going to make mistakes, but I’m not going to make his mistakes. I love music because I love it, not because I want to follow in his footsteps. I want to be my own person and follow my own interests. I appreciate you want me to work hard and take care of my responsibilities, but I’d hope you’d also support my dreams as well. If I loved football, would you say no to joining the football teams? If I loved acting, would you forbid me for going out for theatre? Why is this any different?”

“It’s different because I’ve seen how addictive that life is. It’s easy to say you won’t let it take you over, but once you're on stage, it’s a rush that’s hard to say no to. But,” she said, stopping me from making another rebuttal. “You’re right. If this was something else, I’d support you. So, I will agree to this, with some rules attached.”

“Anything,” I said.

“One, your grades must not slip. If you start having trouble at school, you’ll be done playing there at all. Two, you don’t skip out on any of your other responsibilities. I don’t want you to tell me you can’t do something because you have to get ready to play a gig. Three, if I hear a hint of drugs or drinking, either while you’re off playing or through school, or anywhere else, you’re done. Agreed?”

“Agreed,” I said, although I wasn’t as confident as I’d been a few minutes before.

I didn’t see maintaining my responsibilities to be that big of a problem, and there was no chance I was going to touch drugs or alcohol, not after seeing how Dad had ruined his life, I’d decided a long time ago that I’d never get high or drunk.

The grades, however, were a problem. I was already struggling, and unlike history, I couldn’t blame it on the teachers or anyone else. I was still way too far behind in some subjects, and I didn’t think I was ever going to catch up. Of course, if I told her that now, she’d just say no, and that would be that. My only option was to take the deal and make sure I caught up, somehow.

I wasn’t sure how I was going to do that, but it was my only real option.

The next day after English, I walked with Rhonda to her lunch table. We didn’t talk about it, but I wanted to ease the blow of my declaration the day before that I wasn’t going to eat with her and her friends. I regretted the decision within minutes of sitting down.

“I see you traded up from the poor kid lunch,” Camille said as when she sat down, looking at the lunch Mrs. Phillips had packed for me.

“Camille …” Rhonda started to say before I interrupt her.

I was pretty sure she was feeling guilty about how I described her friends, and she felt pressured to stand up for me. While I wasn’t going to force myself to deal with them regularly, I didn’t want Rhonda to feel like she had to defend me every time either. Besides, I could handle Camille.

“It’s okay,” I said to Rhonda. “I’m sure Camille didn’t mean anything by it.”

“No,” she said with a fake smile. “I just noticed you had a little better lunch today.”

“See, she doesn’t mean to be a bitch, it just comes out that way.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she said angrily.

The rest of the table had stopped talking and started paying attention as she raised her voice.

“It’s not supposed to mean anything. I mean, I’m sure you didn’t mean to make Abigail feel bad the other day when you said she’d worn her slut outfit to school. Something about picking up cheerleader cast-offs. I wasn’t really paying attention, but see, I know you like to joke around, friends just busting on each other.”

Abigail had been late for lunch that day. Camille couldn’t seem to help herself. She seemed to take shots at the others at the table any time one of them was late. Of course, I was the only one who she took shots at to my face. Not that the rest were blameless. They all laughed and joined in the jokes. I couldn’t figure out how none of them realized they got mocked too. Did they think they were somehow immune from the shots she took at everyone else?

“Slut outfit?” Abigail demanded.

All attention was off me now as Camille tried to backpedal and make it sound like she hadn’t been a catty bitch. Having watched the group for a while, I was actually pretty sure she’d pull it off too. They were all too scared of becoming ostracized from the group to really stand up for themselves.

Of course, I’d made an enemy of Camille, but she already didn’t like me. I was pretty sure she’d made comments to Rhonda when I wasn’t around about not going out with me, but I hoped Rhonda was strong enough to make her own mind up. If she was willing to let Camille decide to not go out with me, then that was probably best in the long term.

As the rest argued, Rhonda tried to get my attention, but I played dumb and just ate. This went on for most of the lunch period until I finished my food. Rhonda was too distracted trying to get her message across to me to participate, but the rest of her friends had waded hip-deep in finger-pointing on who was a worse backstabber than the rest.

I collected my lunch and motioned Rhonda to follow me. Dumping my trash, I walked her just outside the cafeteria.

“Why did you do that?” Rhonda demanded when we were outside.

“For one, she deserved it. She insults every single one of you when your back is turned. Okay, I don’t know if she insults you, since I’m never there when you’re not, but do you really think she doesn’t?”

Rhonda didn’t say anything, but stopped walking and crossed her arms.

“Look, I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to be mean or cause problems. I promise that by tomorrow they’ll all be pretending it didn’t even happen. I’m not trying to drive a wedge between you and your friends. It’s why I decided to only sit with them sometimes because I’m not sure I can hold my tongue when Camille takes her little shots. I promise though, next time I’ll just pretend I don’t hear it and keep the peace, okay?”

“I just wish you could all get along.”

“Rhonda, I know we’ve only known each other for a few weeks, but have I ever acted like I didn’t try to get along with people? Have you ever seen me be the first person to throw an insult or say something to upset someone? Aside from how I talked to Camille today, have you seen me say anything negative to anyone?”

“No, not really.”

“I promise I’ll get along with them, but I want you to know that I’m doing it specifically for you because I like you. Now, let's change the subject. Do you think you can get a ride to the Blue Ridge at around nine? Will your parents mind if you stay out to eleven?”

“Maybe.”

“Check with them. You’ll only be at the Blue Ridge, eating dinner and listening to music. We won’t go anywhere else. If they don’t trust it, I can get the owner to vouch for us. If your sister doesn’t want to stick around and drive you home, I might be able to talk Hanna into taking you home, since she also drives me home after work.”

“I’ll ask. So is that what we’re going to do?”

“Yeah. I know it sounds a little lame, but I promise you’ll have a good time. The house band is great, the food is delicious, and I’ll try and make sure the company doesn’t suck.”

“Okay, I’ll ask her. So are you going to sit with me for the rest of the week?”

“Well, if you can get an answer from your parents, tomorrow I’ll sit with Hanna and your sister and work out details. We can eat together the next day at the bleachers if it’s nice outside.”

“I’d like that.”

The bell rang and we went our separate ways. Camille caught a glimpse of me in the hallway and stared daggers as I passed. I’d say I made an enemy, except she was already pretty hostile to me from the day I first sat with them, so it didn’t seem like I’d changed things all that much.

I did need to watch my tongue, though. I’d promised I wouldn’t get between Rhonda and her friends and if I pulled off more stunts like this again, they’d start putting some of the blame on her for bringing me around.

The rest of the week was, perhaps, one of the best I can remember. Rhonda got permission to meet me and stay out late, but I’d have to feed Jordan, who’d hang out with Hanna while Rhonda and I listened to music. I swore Hanna to secrecy about the changes at the Blue Ridge. She even promised not to tell Jordan that I’d be playing with the band, just in case Jordan let it slip to her sister.

The part that made the week so great was after school each day after I finished my training. Willie announced that the band was going to start meeting up and doing practice sessions in the late afternoons for a week or so. He swore they did these practice days from time to time, but I knew that the real reason was to give me some chances to get comfortable with the band.

He even asked me to add a more contemporary song to their setlist. He said they were starting to get a younger clientele in and they needed to update some things. People liked the classic blues, but they needed something to keep the younger families coming in. I added a pop song that I knew really well and that was reasonably popular but still had a bluesy sound. It was from a British artist who had just started getting air time in the US. Some people might not recognize it, but the sound was a lot more contemporary.

Willie said since it was my pick, I’d also sing it. We slowed it down a little bit and lowered it a half octave, but the music itself wasn’t overly complicated, not compared to some of the songs the band already played.

I’d only interacted with the rest of the band a few times before being allowed to play with them, but they all welcomed me in with open arms. They never talked down to me and treated me like an equal the whole time, even though every single one of them had been a professional musician longer than I’d even been alive.

By Saturday, I was starting to feel comfortable playing with them, at least to the point that I didn’t think I’d embarrass anyone.

Saturday morning itself came exceptionally early. When Chef pulled up to the trailer, the sky was just turning from black to a dark shade of blue. Since he was doing me a favor, I didn’t want to keep him waiting, and had been up since five am. Mom was also up in her housecoat, a smile on her face as she watched me go off to work. I think, despite her comments about me needing to focus on school, she was proud of the dedication and hard work I was putting in.

Chef was in a full-size cargo van with no windows. The back of the van was covered in scrapes and scratches and was empty besides two huge coolers strapped to metal loops screwed into the floor.

“There are a couple of large farmers markets in the area. I usually cycle through them, depending on what we need. The one up north of here gets more farmers out of Virginia with a lot of really good vegetables, while the one down towards Asheville has a couple of great meat vendors. Today, I thought we’d head south.”

The drive itself took us almost halfway to Asheville. I was surprised that Chef was driving an hour to an hour and a half round trip on weekends just to pick up some supplies.

When we pulled up, the sun was shining but it hadn’t started getting hot yet. The market was set up in a large open field not far outside of another small town that didn’t seem that different from Wellville. There were three long rows made up of dozens of stalls. Walking up, I could see smaller ones with vegetables and fruits and larger ones with coolers stacked around.

Chef seemed to know exactly where he was going, so I just followed him. He didn’t browse or go down each aisle but seemed to be heading directly to a specific booth. I could smell a combination of water and a slight fishy smell, so it wasn’t a huge surprise when we ended up at a stall with bins holding whole fish sitting on beds of ice. Large coolers were stacked on the ground behind the older man working the booth.

“Hey, Sal,” Chef said.

“Tang, how’s it going?”

After weeks of hearing Chef being referred to as nothing but ‘Chef,’ it was weird hearing someone call him by his name.

“Good, good. I want you to meet one of my new kitchen staff. This is Charlie Nelson.”

“Another lost sheep, huh?”

“Charlie’s also a good guitar player. He’s sitting in with Willie tonight.”

“Is that so? I can’t remember the last time Willie let someone new play with him,” he said before turning to address me directly. “I guess I’ll have to come out to hear you play. Pleasure to meet you, I’m Sal Knapp. I’ve been providing fish to Chef here for, what, fifteen years now?”

“Something like that. Sal owns a fish farm a few miles from here.”

“You can farm fish?” I asked.

When I thought of fishing, I always pictured the two-man commercial fishing boats you sometimes see on TV. I couldn’t imagine how someone would farm fish, especially not in the mountains. It wasn’t like there were huge rivers nearby where someone could set up some kind of an enclosed area or anything.

“Sure. We have huge tanks where we raise and breed them. It really only works for some kinds of fish, but it’s a hell of a lot easier than trawling for them. Of course, some say it affects the taste, and wild fish tastes better. In some of the stronger flavored fish, like salmon, I’ll give them that. That’s why I deal mostly in catfish. These guys don’t care where they’re living as long as they’ve got some algae to munch on.”

“Sal’s being modest. There’s more to it than that, but he knows his stuff. His catfish are never muddy, and that’s a hard feat. I’ll take sixty, Sal.”

I found out later that a ‘muddy’ catfish was one that had an off or dirt-like flavor. Since they ate algae and similar vegetation that grew at the bottom of ponds and rivers, they were affected by the chemical balance of the water their food supply lived in. Apparently, one advantage of farm raising them in tanks is that the water can be closely controlled, eliminating that flavor if the farmer knew what he was doing. Which Sal apparently did.

“Got it. Bill it like normal?”

“If you would. We’ll swing by and pick ‘em up when we’re done.”

“Sounds good.”

As we walked away from the stall, Chef explained his plan for dinner tonight.

“Sal isn’t always here; it depends on when he harvests a batch, so I like to go with a good fish special if I see him.”

“I thought you had some fish on the menu?”

“I do, but that mostly comes in flash frozen. I’m not crazy about the quality, but enough people ask for a fish option that I keep it around. It’s why you’ll find most of it in stronger sauces or done Cajun style. It helps make up for that frozen flavor. Now that that’s out of the way, let’s see if there's anything good for the meat course.”

We ended up finding a hog farmer who had a whole suckling pig that Chef picked up. He seemed a little surprised when I asked him what he planned on doing with it.

“You live in North Carolina and you don’t know what a pig pickin’ is?”

“We traveled all along the east coast. I spent as much time here as any other state, but we also didn’t eat out very much, except at fast food.”

“Well, a pig pickin’ is a North Carolina staple when you’re having a big party or large gathering. Think of it like the southern version of a luau. Now, in gatherings, we’d cook the pig on a spit or bury it in a cooking pit and let it cook all day long, then, when people were hungry, they’d come by and pull some pork off the pig.”

“So … pig picking?”

“Pickin’, no g, but yeah. That’s how it got its name. Now, clearly, I’m not letting people come through my kitchen, so we’ll do it for them, but the idea’s the same. The beauty is, you keep it warm over low coals and the pig’s own juices will keep the meat good and moist. We’ll put it on a plate with some parmesan potatoes and collard greens, and I promise you they’ll go crazy for it. The real beauty is that, whatever meat we can’t finish selling tonight, I can make into a good Brunswick stew tomorrow night. I’ll be able to sell almost every ounce of meat on this baby.”

That was one of the lessons I had started learning over the last few weeks, controlling food waste. It was weird that it wasn’t something most customers ever thought about, but the people in the kitchen never stopped thinking about it.

Since it was tough knowing how many people would be through the door on a given night, you had to guess. If you guessed short, you could just take things off the menu, but if you guessed wrong the other direction, you’d end up throwing food out, which was the same as throwing out profits.

Apparently, some restaurants dealt with this by ordering everything in frozen, which lowered the quality of their food but made it easier to control food waste. Chef hated that idea and swore he’d only bring in frozen food as a last resort.

We picked up the greens from another stall, plus a few more things he said he needed before going back to the van. We pulled around and stopped near each stall so we could load up the meat he’d ordered. I knew the restaurant was busy most nights, but this seemed like a whole lot of food, considering how heavy everything was. He reminded me that I was looking at the entire animals before it was portioned out and that a lot of it was bone, skin, and other parts that weren’t usable as food.

When I asked about the leftover parts from the pig, he said we could keep some of the fish parts to make fish stock, but since the pig would be cooking whole, its bones and whatnot would end up as waste. Even considering that, I still thought it was a lot, but Chef knew what he was doing, so who was I to say.

We got back to the Blue Ridge and unloaded everything. I found out a covered mound that I’d noticed out back when I was training was a cooking pit. Chef instructed me on how to clean it out and get it ready for use before he disappeared inside.

I was absolutely filthy by the time I was done. I swear I had soot and ash from head to toe, mostly from the one time I’d tried to take a short cut by reaching across the pit instead of going around and fell into it instead. Chef took one look at me after I reported that I’d finished the task and just shook his head, but didn’t do anything.

We then put down wood he had off to one side of the building, which he said would give the pig a good, smoked flavor, and started the fire to get the wood going. I went inside and wiped down as best I could before joining Chef. I found out that while I’d been outside cleaning out the pit and getting the big metal spit set up, he’d cut the entire belly open and hollowed out the inside of the pig.

We took a long metal rod and slid it through the pig's mouth, through the hollowed-out area, and out the other end. Once the pole was in place, we then filled the hollowed-out area with onions, carrots, celery, whole bulbs of garlic, and a bunch of whole spices before sewing the skin back together with metal wire.

The last step before taking it outside was to coat the entire outside in oil and season the skin. Chef swore the skin would be crispy when it was all done, and some people would end up asking for that part specifically. Looking at the pink thing on the counter, I couldn’t imagine eating that, but I’d be the first to admit I’d had a very limited upbringing when it came to food.

We awkwardly carried the pig out to the fire pit, my bad foot causing both of us to walk slowly, as I tried to hold my end up while still maneuvering the boot around. Eventually, we managed to get it up on the spit. He had some kind of small motor thing he said a mechanic friend of his made, with a long extension cord coming out of one end. He took something that looked like a long, wide rubber band and put it along a groove on one end of the spit and through the motor on the other. When he plugged it in, the motor started slowly turning the metal rod, which in turn made the pig rotate around. It was several feet above the fire, but the smoke was already coming up in small plumes each time some of the oil dripped down into the fire.

“Now we let it cook for eight hours. It should be done just about time for the dinner rush.”

“Won’t it dry out?”

“No. It’ll cook slow, which makes the fat slowly melt off, cooking into the meat. A lot of that fat will drip out into the fire and turn into steam before coming back up to the pig. Plus, someone will come out every little bit and put a baste on the outside, to make sure we get as much flavor into her as we can before it’s time to serve. We’ll add a drip pan in that lower bar later to catch a bunch of its drippings though, so when we bring it in we can set it down in its own juices to help it stay moist. While that’s going, we can go get started on the fish.”

I’d thought that preparing the pig had been the most work I was going to end up doing today. After Chef showed me on the first several fish how to properly fillet them, I quickly perceived how wrong I was.

To get the catfish ready, we had to filet all sixty of them and make sure they were free from all of the small bones. It wasn’t as physically taxing so much as delicate and precise. He did the first ten himself, showing me each time step by step how to do it. First, he cut along the belly and pulled out all the guts and organs. We had to be careful because we didn’t want to cut into the organs themselves. Apparently, if you let it bleed into the meat of the fish, it would change the color or flavor.

Once the guts were pulled out, he’d make an incision just by the gills that went all the way to the bone from the spine down to the belly. He then took this long flexible knife and, while holding the head, actually bent the knife so the blade was flat against the bones and then curved up as he drew it in one long pull down to the tail, where he finally pulled the knife up to cut through the skin.

After that, we had to flip the filet over and get the blade between the skin and the back of the filet. He then repeated the process of bending the knife and pulling it back along the fish to remove the skin.

When he did it, he made it look easy. The first one he let me do I mangled so badly that the meat would have to be used for a staff meal since it was too hacked up to be served to a customer. Chef swore he planned to use a couple for that anyway, but I couldn’t help feeling he was just being kind.

By my third fish, I started getting the hang of it. None of mine looked as good as his, but he said they were good enough to sell. In the end, I did about fifteen fish and he did the rest. After that step, we had to run our hands gently along the fillets and feel for bones. They were practically invisible, but if we found any we had to pull them out with tweezers. We took all the fish bodies, which were almost like what you see in cartoons with a whole fish head and tail, but just the fish skeleton in the middle, and threw them into a large plastic tub, which he covered and put in the walk-in to use later.

By the time the fish were done, the staff for lunch had started coming in. Chef put half the fish on the menu for lunch and the rest were saved for the dinner rush. The pig was only for dinner, but I swore if anyone came by, they’d be back for a second meal. By the time the first customers started coming in, the smell from out in the back was mouth-watering and filled the entire parking lot.

The best thing that happened was that Chef had me with him through the shift as he cooked the fish to order. He pan-fried them in lemon and butter with a sprig of tarragon in the pan, which was so hot that the fish cooked in just a few minutes. He even let me do a couple of the orders, although he watched me like a hawk as I did them, to make sure I didn’t overcook the fish.

By the end of the lunch rush, when I got a long break, I was more sweaty and tired than I’d ever been at the Blue Ridge, and I couldn’t have been happier. Everything I’d learned before had been interesting, but what I’d done with Chef had felt like honest to God cooking!