Archetypal Tales; Hot Chili
"For the children, you know?"
Another old Florida gas station/restaurant, another Pop story. This one may or may not have included the Parrish brothers, Lem and Mark, but those names will do as they featured in so many of Pop's backroad and palmetto scrub stories. I need Mark Parrish to play the brash one in this telling and based on other tales attributed to him, he wouldn't mind even if it was another of his Kathleen contemporaries. Pop and his buddies roll up at a rural diner in the old Dodge Power Wagon, or maybe his Willys, the first or one of the first WW2 Army surplus Jeeps tagged for civilian use in Polk County. Upon entering said establishment, the loud-mouthed one of the bunch announced to the waitress, and the rest of the dining room, "We're hungry and I'll have a bowl of chili. The hotter the better. You can't make it too hot for me." He glanced and motioned at his quiet companions, "How about you guys? Hot chili?" Nods and "sounds good" all around. The matron, probably owner, of the place replied sweetly, "We do have homemade chili and we do have the ingredients to make it hot. We don't cook it that way though. We prepare it for the children, you know?" The gang of outdoorsmen and their outspoken leader agreed to this arrangement.
Very shortly, steaming bowls full of chili begin to arrive and line up on the counter in front of the men. In describing the next few seconds Pop had ample opportunity to wax colorful, to embellish. He may, at various times, have described the immediate effect of tarnish appearing on his spoon as he dipped it in the chili; the curling of hairs in his nostrils as he raised the first bite near his face; the itch of the scalp; the tears brought to tough men and combat veterans' eyes; the sweat of the brow, not from heavy labor but as though exposed to fire. This chili was hot!
After the first bite, the breathless men looked at their fearless leader only to find him suddenly silent. Pop took a second bite, as the first one had already cauterized his tastebuds. The men put on a good face and continued to dig in, sweat, tears and noses being dabbed with napkins between bites. "Careful!" muttered the first man to recover his voice. "Don't touch your eyes." It was good advice.
At about this moment of resignation the lady proprietress reappeared from the back shaking a bottle of hot sauce daintily in the air for all to see.
To the man, the group held up halting hands and shook heads vigorously in unison, as if to say, "That won't be necessary, ma'am."
Gradually they finished their bowls of molten lava, fumes rising as from a kerosene slick, declined refills, except for water, and settled their bill.
Stepping out into the parking lot and the fresh air, someone was lectured to keep his mouth shut!
Pop reflected that, at that moment, a stifled chuckle must have gone up back inside the diner. He figured the lady had told the cook something along the lines of, "We got a tough guy out here says you can't make it hot enough for him. Light 'em up!" And thus proceeded to light them up.
I admire this woman. My father admired this woman. She had gotten the best of an obnoxious blowhard, even if she had to take down all his buddies with him.
For the next 60 years that woman's famous line was quoted any time something with a little spice crossed Pop's plate.
"For the children, you know?"