Robert Woods was best described as the “town drunk”. He was a small man, about 5′4″, and no more than 120 lbs. His erratic, poofy afro was grey on the sides and his facial hair was always in various stages of growth. His skin was shoe polish black.
I knew Robert because he was frequently at my dad’s BBQ restaurant. My dad owned a 13 table restaurant in a small West Tennessee town, across the street from a seemingly ancient Town & Country grocery store. The grocery store was at the corner of a ’strip’ next to the hairdresser, pharmacy, “dime store” and church – all housed under a common roof. Detached from the strip and little further off the street was a tiny, cinder block beer hall with one pool table and a “real” slot machine in the back.
Next door to the restaurant on the eastern side was a car wash and laundry mat; on the western side, a steel warehouse. We were at the southeast corner of a 4 way red light. Diagonal to us was a gas station adjacent to Big Al’s liquor store.
Don’t be fooled. There were several factories within 1 mile of the restaurant, including a massive Procter & Gamble – so the restaurant did quite well. The neighborhood was mixed, at least overtly. Three blocks away, just northwest of the gas station was a government housing community we knew as “the projects”. Robert Woods stumbled out of there, somewhere, and kept it real with me for all the years I spent cooking and serving at the South’s Finest BBQ restaurant.
If you have never waited tables, you wouldn’t know the expression, “in the weeds”. Maybe you would. But the rush of serving dozens of people, simultaneously, in a concise, regimented time frame – there’s nothing like the anxiety of a hungry person. And if things don’t go right, and on time, hungry people can be very unpolite.
Robert Woods was sitting at table #13 when I was in the weeds one day, smoking a cigarette through his missing front teeth, laughing his ass off. As usual, he was giddy drunk and nothing entertained him more than me running around, frantically, while burly factory workers waited anxiously for their food, tea, coffee, side of beans, coffee creamer or their pack of matches. Every time I passed by he would let out with, “It’ll come to ya…heh-heh…it’ll sho come to ya alright!” Asshole.
I almost punched him one day when I was 16. I was an All State football player and he was a skinny, semi-homeless man that was certainly drunk at the time. But I didn’t do it. If I did, he would have probably scratched my eyes out. But my dad would have pulverized him and he knew it. So he just looked at me and said, “Hmmph! It’s gonna come to ya”.
No one ever touched me at the restaurant. Never. My dad was about 5′ 7″” tall with the forearms of Popeye. No one messed with him. One jerk stood up in my face one evening and, within 2 seconds, my dad came from the kitchen, grabbed the man, and tossed him like a cabbage patch doll against the dining room wall. I have never seen anyone move so quickly to get out the door. When Robert heard about it he would say, “It came to him!”
Robert Woods did odd jobs for my dad when he was sober, which was not often. There always seemed to be an issue with the plumbing and Robert was the man who worked “the snake”. He chopped wood sometimes, did some painting, carpentry and light cleaning. Of course my dad usually did most of the work after the first hour or so. If they didn’t get finished by 10:00 am, Robert would be too drunk to do anymore. It was a vicious cycle. Ultimately, my dad took care of him and kept him fed.
My dad always fed a lot of people “under the table”. No one really ever knew but him. He kept it from my brothers and me, or so I imagine. He didn’t want us feeding our friends. He wasn’t the softest person in the world, but he took care of the poorest among us. And he still does.
Robert drank hard liquor. He loved whiskey. He wasn’t a bad man either; he was just human. Humans turn into assholes when they drink whiskey. I always thought Robert was an asshole and he made me nervous. I never knew what to expect from him. But he always ended any discourse with, “It will come to you”, in his own special, raspy way. So far, he’s been right.
I really never knew why my dad tolerated Robert. Sometimes I think he didn’t have a choice. He came with the territory. But somehow he was needed. He was the asterisk, the pimple, the laughter in a rainstorm and he always gave me a little ’spark’ when I saw him, even if it was a nervous spark. There was only the present when Robert was around.
He could be pleasant, “they call me ‘Country’ – the ‘Country Gentleman’!”, he would declare, “heeehhhee…” Robert spoke a different language, had a different set of rules. When everyone was taking themselves too seriously, Robert would be laughing. “It’ll sho come to ya alright!” He had a poignant delivery.
Once I moved away and went to college, I didn’t see much of Robert. I didn’t ever stick around very long once I left. Robert kept getting sick. He had an ulcer. Finally he had surgery. The doctor told him he couldn’t drink anymore.
But he told my dad he was ok to drink and he was determined to give it a try. “If you drink, Robert, I can’t see you again. It’s going to kill you and I’m not going to watch”, my dad told him. Robert was dead 2 days later. Dad said he “still had that stuck-up look on his face”, even in the casket.
I miss Robert.
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