Secret Recipe

A short story

Jesse couldn't tell if it was sweat rolling down his back or if he just hadn't dried off well after his shower. His trailer had no air conditioning, and in this Mississippi humidity it was almost unbearable. It was only 8:30 in the morning and already so muggy that the birds seemed to fly with one wing, just to fan themselves with the other. He finished dressing and headed out. Third week on the job.

Walking the three miles to work on State Highway 42 was flat, easy ground, but in this heat it felt like three hundred. He was the sole cook at Hog Wild Hickory Smoked BBQ in Bergenville, Mississippi, the winner of Best BBQ in the State every year since it opened in 2006. Annie Pearl, the owner, was a Katrina transplant who'd had her fill of flooding and chaos in New Orleans and decided, at forty-four, to start over. She'd bought the place with her FEMA money, added a two-bedroom apartment upstairs, and lived there three years with her sister Talia before business got good enough to buy a house in town.

His shift started at nine, entering through the back to pull pork and beef off the ribs fresh from the smokehouse. Doors opened at ten-thirty, and there was rarely a day it wasn't packed to the gills by eleven. Everybody in town ate there, the only other competition was Red's, a mediocre steakhouse on the road toward Hattiesburg. Hog Wild closed at seven, and Frank stayed til eight most nights, cleaning and restocking while Annie Pearl and Talia counted the drawer and made the deposit.

The sisters guarded their seasoning rub the way Coca-Cola guarded its formula. They were the only two people alive who knew the mixture, and Jesse had never once set foot in the meat prep room. Annie Pearl made sure of that, joking that she wasn't about to let some line cook run off and sell her recipe to the chains in Jackson or Hattiesburg. He used to think it was funny, how serious she got about it. Lately he wasn't so sure it was a joke.

There was a padlock on the smokehouse door that hadn't been there his first week, and once, reaching for a rag, he'd found the back room's second freezer locked too, though nobody ever said why. He figured it was an ice cream stash or maybe even emergency cash.

The day went like any other: lunch rush till two, an hour's lull, then the early-supper crowd and takeout orders. They closed at seven and Frank started his cleanup.

"Jesse!” Miss Annie Pearl called out. "Go on and take that last half of ribs and pull the meat off tonight. Got a big order in the morning, and I don't want us gettin' behind."

"Yes ma'am, Miss Annie,” he answered, more tired than annoyed. He didn't have anywhere else to be, not since Terri left him for community college in Hattiesburg. Her words still stung like it was yesterday.

“I'm leavin' your sorry, no-good ass. You got no ambition. You love this shithole town with no future. I don't care your momma left you this trailer — I ain't stayin' another day.”

“What did I do?” Jesse asked.

“Nothin'. That's the point. I want more outta life than growin' old and dyin' in a mobile home with no A/C. Things ain’t gonna magically change because your butt moved to town!”

She'd been packed and gone in fifteen minutes flat, out the door with a suitcase and a Piggly Wiggly bag of odds and ends before he'd even found the words to stop her. He still didn't know how she'd managed it so fast.

Tears came easy whenever he let himself think about it. He'd landed this job two months after the hardware store folded, grateful Miss Annie Pearl gave a nobody like him a shot. Nine dollars an hour wasn't much, but with overtime he cleared four hundred a week. *No ambition.* He hoped she flunked out and came crawling back.

He had a stubborn chunk of meat that wouldn't pull clean off the bone, so he wheeled the slicer over, set the blade to an eighth of an inch, and flipped the switch. It roared to life, the tray rocking back and forth in its rhythm.

Something moved.

A scrape of claws across the tile, quick and low, brushing his boot.

He flinched before he even registered what it was…a rat, gone before he could curse at it. His balance tipped sideways. His arm shot out on instinct, looking for anything solid to grab.

There was nothing solid. There was the slicer.

He didn't feel it so much as he heard it -a wet, mechanical *chunk* that didn't belong in a kitchen- and by the time the sound caught up to his brain, he was staring at his own hand like it belonged to someone else. Two fingers gone. Blood came fast, hot, impossible, and he was screaming before he understood he'd started.

Miss Talia rounded the corner first, Miss Annie Pearl right behind her.

"I cut off my fingers!" he screamed, sliding down the wall with a dish towel pressed to the wound.

Talia killed the switch. Her eyes went, just for a second, to the tray — to his fingers sitting there among the meat — and something crossed her face that wasn't quite shock.

“Okay, just calm down, Jesse.” Her voice was steady in a way that struck him, even then, as strange. "Annie Pearl, bring the car around back. Ain't got time to wait on an ambulance, we'll have to get him to the ER ourselves."

The nearest hospital was sixty miles off. Bergenville didn't even have its own fire department. Annie Pearl was out the door before he finished processing the words, gravel crunching under tires, the screen door banging, the floor humming faintly under her footsteps as she came back in.

His vision tunneled. Sound went soft and far away.

"Here's the fingers," Talia said. "They look pretty good!"

"Lemme see." A pause. "Mmhm — they're good."

What are they…he needed to get to the…

The world went dark.

Jesse woke up on his back, on something cold and metal.

Thank God, he thought. I’m at the hospital.

Voices murmured somewhere close. His hand throbbed.

Couldn't they give him something for the pain? Would they be able to sew his fingers back on?

The voices stopped.

"He's awake." The voice was familiar in a way that made the hair rise on his arms before he even understood why. He forced his eyes open and turned his head, and the dread hit him a full second before the sight did. Hog carcasses hanging on hooks.

He was in a slaughterhouse.

"You sure you made it look like he just left?" a voice asked.

"I'm sure. How many times did I take care of us in Nawlins and they never even looked at us sideways?”

His stomach heaved.

The voices were Talia's and Annie Pearl's. He tried to sit up and found leather straps across his chest and his legs, just below the knee.

Footsteps. Talia leaned over him from the right, Annie Pearl from the left, both smiling.

"What the FUCK is going on?" he shouted. "Where am I?"

"Watch that mouth, or I'll scrub it out with lye soap," Talia said, and laughed like he'd told a joke.

"Boy, you're gonna win me that award again this year," Annie Pearl said, beaming.

“We were fixin' to have to drive out of town again to find a youngun' to bring home, and here your clumsy self just fell right into our laps."

"People know I work for you. They'll come asking."

"Actually, baby, they won't." Her smile didn't move.“

You get here before we open. Don't own a car, so there's never one of yours in the lot. You come and go through the back. Customers at the front counter ain’t never once laid eyes on you. So tell me. Who exactly knows you work here?"

"Why me?"

"Oh, sugar, it ain't that we chose you." She patted his cheek. "

“The Voodoo gods just saved us the gas money, deliverin' you right to our door. No family lookin' for you. No friends. Don't even own a cell phone."

He vomited, choked on it, his body wracked with dry heaves until his breath came back and some color returned to his face.

"There we go," Talia said, almost gentle.

"Now hold tight, baby — I need my extension cord." She walked off, a door opening somewhere out of sight.

He began to cry. All he wanted, suddenly and desperately, was to leave to find Terri and tell her she'd been right about all of it.

The straps held. He thrashed against them anyway, some animal part of him refusing to just lie still for it.

"Fuck you, you crazy bitch!”

"Whoo! Look who dropped the Boy Scout charade!” Annie Pearl cackled.

She leaned down, her breath hot against his ear. "Didn't know you had it for me, baby." Her hand slid down to his crotch and squeezed .He winced, and she smiled wider. "But I'm about to send you straight to hell."

He fought harder against the straps, teeth bared, chest heaving.

"Alright, I'm set up," Talia announced, back in a blue plastic apron and a face shield, a circular saw humming in her gloved hands, its teeth catching the light. She gave him a mock thumbs-up, waiting for an answer he wasn't going to give.

"Just hold still. Won't take long."

The blade met his arm at the elbow and went through muscle and tendon like a butcher knife through jello. Frank's scream tore through the building and did not stop until, all at once, it did.

There was no light waiting for him on the other side.

No warmth.

Just cold, and then nothing at all.

Sheriff O'Dell was the first customer the next morning. He stepped into the cool air-conditioning like walking into a waterfall, every muscle in his back letting go at once. Someone was singing in the kitchen.

“Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, zip-a-dee-ay, my oh my what a wonderful day..." Miss Annie Pearl rounded the corner, cutting herself off mid-lyric.

"Oh! Mornin', Sheriff, didn't hear you come in. Want the usual? Got a fresh slab in and it’s been smokin' all night. Tryin' to get this catering order together for the Y over in Yazoo City, kids start swim lessons today."

"Usual's fine. Never heard you sing like that before. You're in a good mood."

"Baby, when the Lord blesses you with meat this good, you can't help but be happy as a pig in mud. Judges come round next week for the contest, and I got it locked up again this year."

She turned toward the kitchen.

“Talia! Pork platter, baked beans, okra, mac and cheese — use that fresh batch. Sheriff's gonna be the first to try it."

"Comin' right up!"

"That'll be four-fifty with your discount, sugar."

He slid four ones and two quarters across the counter. "Already got it counted out."

"Well, thank you, sir. Sweet tea's over yonder, help yourself."

"Yes ma'am. Though I doubt it's half as sweet as you two."

"Aw, you know how to talk to a woman." She winked and swept off toward the kitchen.

He filled his cup, drank most of it standing at the station, and had just sat down when the plate landed in front of him, steam curling off it. He was nearly drooling before the first bite.

The sisters settled in across from him, watching.

"Let's see what all the fuss is about." He took a big bite.

“Lord have mercy! Best damn barbecue I've ever put in my mouth." He was already loading up the next forkful before he'd swallowed the first. “You gotta give me that recipe sometime. I won't tell a soul."

"Wish I could," Talia said, flat as ever, mischief in her eyes. "But it's our secret. If we ever decide to share it, you'll be the first to know.”

"Fair enough. Say, I saw your help wanted sign out front. What happened to your cook?"

"Oh, he flew the coop." Annie Pearl waved a hand. "Wasn't reliable anyway. Young and flighty."

"You hear of anybody lookin', you send 'em our way," Talia said. "We'll even throw in a pound of that good meat as thanks. But don't go askin' for the recipe again, some things stay in the family."

"I know, I know! Secret recipe.”, he said around a mouthful of fried okra.

The sisters smiled at each other.

“That's right, best white meat in the state! Holler if you need anything! Got an order to finish."

And with that, they disappeared back into the kitchen, leaving him shaking his head at just how lucky little old Bergenville was to have two fine ladies like them.