Maybelle’s Cook Room

CW: Mature themes and mild sexual content

It was hot in the cab with the plastic covering over the back seat here in the tropics. I guess I can’t really call it the tropics since there were only a few trees around outside of those in the all inclusive holiday hotel I was at, and the only wildlife was a donkey staring at me as we bumped our way past. The taxi driver was a kind man and after receiving my fare, told me softly, ‘Mabelle’s is the best food anybody can get… in the whole world, Mate.’

He leaned over and opened my door from the inside and pushed it with two thick fingers. It squeaked open and I stepped out in more of a daze than my hangover could ever have come up with.

I must have walked into Maybelle’s because I was in there looking at people looking at me. A big woman rushed to me and pulled me into a hug that threw me into her bosom.

‘When you get here, boiy? You looks just like yo’ pappa, damn, forgive me Jesus, but what a wonder we have here… Sit down, boiy, you looks like you need food…’ She was feeling my rib cage and shoulders and hips and buttocks, ‘Nobody feeding you? You ain’t hitched and ain’t got no gal I can see that. Well, we gots some fine ones here and you know what they say about Sebastian girls.’ She was enjoying my visit and I was still trying to get a grip. I was also wondering what they said about Sebastian girls?

‘Sorry, you know my… I mean what is the name of the man you think is my father?’

‘Hunh? Sit down, boiy.’ She was guiding me by my arm and placing me in an armed white rattan chair at a small table. ‘Now, what you want to eat, we gots rice and peas of course, an today at this time we gots a new pot of oxtail with plenty of heat and okra, surrounded with greens and green bean. We gots fish, fried Red Snapper, Grouper, sprat an’ that with a fishcake start with greens, rice and white bean. We gots stone crab with rice and peas and salads. We gots fresh Green Tortle steak or thick callipee soup with rice and peas.’

‘Turtle?’

‘Green. We ain’t got no Hawksbill but that for them Saint Vincent people anyways. Nobody eats Hawksbill who is civilized anyhow.’

‘I would like to try the turtle, never had it before.’

‘You never had no tortle? Damn, forgive me Lord, bout time for you to regain yo’ blood, boiy. How long you been away?’

‘I have never been here before.’

‘Yo mama didn’t want you to be here?’

‘My mama, my mother never mentioned the San Sebastians before…’ I wondered if he was my father and if my mother knew more than she had said before she died.

The smells of the place were sensual to the point that demanded one to bite the air. I was slightly fogged in a mixture of mixtures in this enclosed space where those few who were seated had had enough of my intrusion and resumed munching, crunching and slurping. A platform turning fan circulated its addition of strong and weak bouquets. It made me sad not to be immediately eating.

Maybelle appreciated my confusion and with another Damn, forgive me Lord she gently pulled me up again and guided me to the kitchen… and Jesus Christ.

Black pots bubbled on a blackened six burner commercial stove watched over by the moving eyes from a gold framed picture of the Christ. He was pale, sad and had long brown, clean hippy hair. A typical radiating aura softly blessed us from behind his head. A radio preacher was telling forcefully a congregation who gave amens about the sins of something in a deep baritone with alto piercing emotions.

She lifted a lid and sweetly fragrant steam rose up to Christ bringing a cringe of excitement to my jaw muscles and appetite. Maybelle was smiling brightly exacting love toward my appreciation of her work. She put down the lid before I looked in and moved a side step to lift another black heavy lid. Steam rose and I was at sea. I nodded and put my hand on her shoulder looking into this pot to see a beige clouded broth with smooth chunks of a dark white rubbery meat floating in vibrations of secret tastes.

‘I know dis is the one fer ya, boiy.’ She was looking into her magic potion and called it, ‘Stewed Green Sea Tortle.’

I didn’t care about being politically correct, I just wanted it dished up. ‘Yes, please.’, is all I could manage to come up with.

She smiled an even brighter smile and softly pushed me out of the kitchen, and Christ followed me with approval.

When the turtle stew appeared it was on a bed of white rice with a stiff macaroni ball to the side of an immense platter. She left, as I looked at all that food, to return quickly with utensils wrapped in a paper towel and a heaping bowl of kidney beans. Everything was steaming and the only bouquet in the restaurant was now on my table. A pitcher of water, five slices of white bread on a small plate and a clean glass completed her service, so she moved to lean against the kitchen doorpost and watch me. I started eating with a fork and spoon in each hand and ate and ate and ate…

Time went by and I was sweating. There were flies in the restaurant that seemed to be watching me eat from the table top and whichever plate or bowl I was not attacking. They were not irritating flies and were very patient. I hadn’t noticed any flies when I came in but could not think about it now. I could only see that I was coming to the end of the meal and did not want that to happen but did not want to slow down tasting delicious oddities and feeling textures unknown and smelling wonder and health. I had been full about half way through the meal but as the last of the rice with brown turtle juices were sopped up with the last corner of crust from the white bread, I looked around greedily to see if anything was left on anybody else’s plates. I caught myself before leaning over to snatch a torn piece of bread with sauce on it from the next table. I was the only person in the restaurant now, so I could have gotten it but I felt that was going a bit far.

I felt Maybelle’s bosoms on my back before I knew she was there though her powder, tangy perfume and body smells could cut through the delicious bouquets of this place. I thought as I put my hands on her arms that were around my neck, god, would I like to work here all day long.

‘You can eat, boiy.’

‘It was the best meal I ever had, Miss Maybelle.’

‘Boiy, I been married four times and outbedded all dem, so I sho ain’t no Miss. You just call me Maybelle.’ She squeezed me strongly, almost strangling me, then let go. I secretly liked the feel of her round, firm breasts but was embarrassed thinking such lewd thoughts about a wonderful, much older woman. Then I started thinking, why am I thinking an older woman doesn’t look at a younger man that way and why am I looking at an older woman like I shouldn’t see her as a woman? Especially one who can give such love through cooking to me.

‘Now, you be good, like yo’ pappa… God, he was a good lay, dat man. He know’d what a woman likes. But, dem days past on now and I got tha memories to keep me happy.’

I was a bit confused, thinking that maybe I had said what I was thinking out loud while listening to the exploits of a man who could very well have been my father. I frowned and smiled at the same time.

‘Now dis foist meal I am a-treating you on your coming home. It so sad you ain’t been here ta grow up though. That’s a shame, boiy. A young man should always have the whole community around him to show him da ways of the world and the ways of God, the most merciful. It da way it should be.’

She took a clean, white and very small handkerchief out from between her bosoms and dabbed at actual tears coming down her cheeks and up to the inner corners of her elliptical eyes.

‘You should have been raised with your brothers and sisters here in San Sebastian, boiy. It make me so so damn, forgive me Lord, sad, it do.’ She was shaking her head now and the tears were flowing with strong sobs of her shoulders.

I stood up, trying to re-taste the food I had just eaten, and comfort her by embracing her large body with my arms and patting her on the back, ever mindful of the hard breasts against my chest and the sobbing of her stomach moulding itself onto mine. I moved a bit back and moved a little bit around her, as the crying started to stop, to lightly pick up the piece of bread on the forgotten plate. I leaned forward past her shoulder and stuffed it in my mouth. It tasted wonderful.