NOTHING LIKE GOOD BARBECUE

Whst follows Is A Work of Fiction.

Marsellus Wallace, the owner of Bleedsloe’s Bar-B-Que on North La Brea Avenue in Compton told me to stop by around 11 a.m.

He said he’d have someone there that I’d definitely want to meet. Working general assignment for the Los Angeles Times as a reporter, and with my career in the crapper, I figured I’d take a chance.

I was no longer the flavor of the month at the Times or any place else for that matter, not even with my wife. That’s what happens when you’re 59 years old and everyone makes it clear your best years are behind you.

Marsellus had scaled down his empire as a black crime boss to strictly legitimate endeavors in the aftermath of his rape at gunpoint by two white supremacist perverts in the basement of Maynard’s pawn shop years earlier.

When I walk in, Marsellus gestures to the man sitting at a table with his back to the wall in the corner of the restaurant. Marsellus locks the doors back up. The lighting is dim. I squint and take a closer look as I approach the table.

The man has two huge black thugs on each side of him. Nine millimeters are tucked in their waistbands. They are gang bangers straight out of central casting. Doorags, mouths full of expensive gold grill work, dark sunglasses even though there is no need for the shades in here. There are men in flak jackets seated with the man of obvious importance. They have guns too.

  “You look an awful lot like him,” I say. “My name’s John Garrett with the Los Angeles Times.”

            “I am him.”

            “You’re the one they call “Barbecue, Jimmy Cherizier.”

            “Indeed I am. Have a seat, Mr. Garrett. Please join me.”

            “What are you doing here. What’s a notorious gang leader leading a revolution in Haiti, doing in a barbecue joint in Compton.”

            “Same thing as you are,” he said in a thick French Creole accent. “Enjoying some barbecue.”

What I’ve seen on the news is that you got your nickname from your mother. That she worked in a fried chicken place after your dad died and everybody started calling you barbecue.”

            “That’s bullshit man. Don’t believe everything you see on the news man. If you don’t see it on my YouTube Channel, don’t believe it.

            “What do you think of my new music video with Wyclef Jean. Not many revolutionaries can brag of shooting a music video with Wyclef.

            “Wyclef ain’t cutting no music video with you.”

“Yeah, I was just bullshittin. Wanted to see if you wuz paying attention.”

he thugs laughed. They don’t want their boss laughing alone. They want him to think that they think he’s funny especially when he’s messing with a white dude who just might mess his pants before lunch is over.

A couple of waitresses come out with a slab of beef ribs, a slab of pork ribs, slices of brisket, bowls of mac n’ cheese, collard greens, baked beans, pickles, sausage links, fried okra, hush puppies with BBQ aioli, chips and queso. It’s enough food to feed the small army of men sitting around the table in flak jackets.

            “So they call you Barbecue because you got a thing for barbecue. Not because you set people who piss you off on fire.”

            “Yup. In my country, the way things are now, I just can’t get good barbecue.”

            Cherizier explains how you can always tell good barbecue by the sheen of the fat on the brisket. I know from experience that Marsellus takes great pride in the meat he serves at Bleedsloe’s. He’s pointed out the finer points of his meat to me on many occasions. But today he is unusually quiet. Less talkative than usual.

            “Don’t you think should take it easy on the pork and the sodium,” I say to Cherizier.  “You got a revolution to lead.”

            “Since when did you become my doctor.”

            “I’m just saying…

            “I’ve shot men for less…”

Immediately the gang bangers and Barbecue’s hench men, stand up from the table. They start to move toward me for presumably upsetting their boss.

            Thank God Barbecue waves them off.

            “It’s okay. We’re good,” he says.

            They quietly sit back down.

            “Mr. Cherizier, what are you doing here in Los Angeles,” I ask.

            I pronounce his name slowly. Phonetically sounding it out. Sha-Ree-Zee-Ay. So as not to mispronounce it and have his henchmen take umbrage.

            The table remains silent. So, I try a little humor.

“Mr. Cherizier, would you pass the Devil’s Sweat barbecue sauce please. I’ll pass on the stomach full of bullet holes if you don’t mind.”

Cherizier laughs. Soon even the gang bangers are guffawing.

            “So how did you get into the U.S. unannounced. Without our government finding out,” I ask.

            “Man, the border crisis is very real. You liberals bury your head in the sand on that one. Joe Biden is a joke when it comes to border security. You can’t talk out both sides of your mouth and have a secure border.”

            “So, you snuck across the border from Mexico?”

            “I didn’t say that. You said that.

“It isn’t like the border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic. The Dominicans take border security seriously. They’re not letting any of our refugees in their country.”

            Cherizier takes a few moments to lick some Honey Gold barbecue sauce off his thumb and index finger. His men are making liberal use of the roll of white paper towels on a dispenser in the middle of the wood picnic style table.

            The Honey Gold sauce is a personal touch of Marsellus’. He named it after a porn star he knows and likes.

            Good pork is always cooked with the fat side down. That way it retains the flavor rubbed on the top side. Marsellus knows this and makes sure it happens that way.

            The table is adorned with several types of barbecue sauce. There’s Carolina Vinegar Sauce. The aforementioned Devil’s Snot. Kansas City Traditional Sauce. St. Louis Sauce. Alabama White Sauce.

            Emmanuel, who is one of Cherizier’s favorite men, squirts some of the Alabama White on his brisket. Alabama White is made with a mayonnaise base.

Cherizier’s fist pounds the table so hard, the silverware rattles.

            “Sacre bleu,” Cherizier shouts. “Holy God man! No one puts  mayo on barbecue. Emmanel, son of God, what is wrong with you. You’re lucky I like you so much.”

            Emmanuel shrugs his shoulders and goes on eating. The men around the table laugh some more. Theirs are hearty laughs that make the belly shake.

“So Barbecue… what is the end game in Haiti.” I ask.

            “Call me Jimmy C.  And tell your friends in the press to call me Jimmy C from now on.

            “I’m trying to soften my image. I don’t need the public thinking of me setting people on fire when I don’t like someone.”

            “Do you want to be president of Haiti?”

            “I don’t want to be president of my country. Too many headaches. Besides I have more power than any president will ever have. You Americans have better barbecue than us Haitians anyway.

“Have you ever heard of Famous Dave’s barbecue,” I ask.

            “Yeah, I love it. Not as good as this place. But it would be great to have Famous Dave’s open restaurants in Haiti. They could probably raise the capital to do it.”

            A waitress brings several baskets of hot cornbread and sweet butter.

            “Just out of the oven gentlemen.”

            Cherizier steers the conversation to more serious matters. I realize my life hangs in the balance.

"You are not going to write anything about my presence here today. I just want to use this opportunity to establish a line of communication with you.

"It could be mutually beneficial. Your career would benefit and so could my reputation in the United States.”

I ask Cherizier what’s up with the security who look like they are ready for next gang war in South Central.

“We already have allies among the gangs across this great nation of yours. The gangs are the communists of the new millenium.”

Is Barbecue forging alliances with gang members on the West Coast. What is going on here, is probably going on already in cities like New York, Kansas City and St. Louis, Detroit, and any place with large disgruntled black urban populations.

In Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Barbecue has formed a conglomeration of more than a dozen major gangs. It’s called Fos Revolisyone an Fanmi e Alye. It sounds so nice when spoken in Haitian Creole. It also explains why they use the abbreviation G9 when referring to it.

Barbecue has gone from being a cop in the Haiti National Police to gang leader. I ask him why.

“What better training for becoming a gang leader than becoming a police officer. In any community you go to, the police will be the biggest gang in that city.”

I don’t really disagree with what he’s saying. A lot of people talk about the blue line. I find myself saying something to Cherizier that I never thought would come out of my mouth.

“We have two major gangs here in the U.S. They’re called the Republicans and the Democrats. We also have the Bloods and the Crips. In some places they’re more influential than the Republicans and the Democrats. And they throw better parties.”

“Now you’re talking my language Mr. Garrett.

Next time we meet, perhaps it will be at the Louvre in Paris.”

“I don’t think the Times is going to pay for roundtrip plane tickets to Paris for me. I’m relegated to covering planning commission meetings and anything else that puts a reader in a coma after the first paragraph.”

“Don’t worry about the cost Mr. Garrett. My people will take care of it.

I’ve always wanted to see the Mona Lise up close and personal. I love fine art. We Haitians have a link to the French even if it reeks of colonial conquest.”

Cherizier said he also wanted to see Poussin’s “The Rape Of The Sabine Women,” while he was at the Louvre. That didn’t surprise me.

“Seems fitting,” I say.

" Careful Mr. Garrett. I want you to have a long and fruitful career.  Think of the movie Casablanca with Humphrey Bogart. You know that one.”

“I do. That’s one of my favorite movies of all time. I didn’t know you were a fan of classic American cinema.”

“Remember when Humphrey Bogart holds the police captain Louis Renault at gunpoint so Victor Laszlo, the leader of the resistant movement, can escape to fight the Nazis another day.”

            “I sure do. It’s the scene on the rainy runway at the airport.”

“Humphrey Bogart says ‘Louis, this could be the start of a beautiful friendship.’ That’s what I’m saying to you Mr. Garrett.”

“No, I get it.”

“Good then. As you Americans like to say, ‘Don’t blow it.”

My career could be out of the toilet after all.

As quickly as our meeting began, it ends. I never ask Cherizier all the questions pounding in my head.

Like why did he orchestrate the 2018 LaSaline Massacre that left 71 people and 400 homes burned to the ground.

I also want to ask him about the 2019 Bel Aire massacre in Haiti. But I don’t ask about that either. The truth is I’m too chickenshit and desperate to get my miserable career back on track. He knows it and I know it. He can smell the desperation on me.

“I have said many times Mr. Garrett that I am willing to make a deal with the devil himself if it will save Haiti. I will deliver my people from the Haitian bourgeoisie.”

I take in the measure of the man. He is not someone to be taken lightly.

He is wearing a True Religion shirt with the words “True Religion” in small black print over the entire shirt. It’s as if the shirt is making a statement about him. That’s he’s the True Religion in this world. In his revolution. For all I know he may be right.

Cherizier stands to leave. As soon as he does, so does his entourage. Marsellus gestures to me remain seated. Like a good boy, I sit and wait.