Bo's Café Read online

  But Andy’s at my side again. “Bo, this is my friend Steven. He has an anger issue.”

  “Like I don’t?” Bo says, fixing me with a devastating stare.

  “We need a bucket of clams,” Andy says. “I’ll have the jambalaya and a glass of ice. My friend needs your shrimp cocktail.”

  “We got us none of dat,” Bo bellows. “We got us carp. You git you some six-day-old carp, and you’ll like it.”

  With that Bo disappears back into the restaurant, barking out orders, insults, and greetings in every direction.

  “He says that almost every time, no matter what I order. One day I’m gonna order six-day-old carp and see what he does.”

  I shake my head a little. “The guy’s pretty intimidating. I guess he’s kidding, but he sure doesn’t look like it.”

  “He’s a pussycat, trust me,” Andy says, grinning. “He came out here about twelve years ago from New Orleans with two thousand dollars and a headful of recipes. And he’s done well.”

  “Yeah, Cajun was catching on about then. Who ever heard of the stuff before that? He caught a good wave apparently.”

  “Not just a wave,” he says. “A guy like Bo will do well no matter what the current rage is. Sorry about the word rage,” he mumbles under his breath. “I know it’s a sensitive area for you.”

  I smile. “Good one,” I say.

  “But really,” he continues, “he loves what he does and loves seeing people smile when they taste his food. He’s the kind of guy who takes care of his customers. When you do the job for the love of it, it’s hard to go wrong.”

  “So where does a name like Bo come from?” I ask.

  “Bodinet LaCombe,” a booming voice returns just behind my ear. I about jump out of my skin. Bo is there with a glass of water and a glass of ice. “Now who gonna go around with a name like Bo-din-day?” he says, mocking the pronunciation. “Not dis Creole!”

  Bo disappears again and Andy leans in toward me. “Steven, a lot of my friends come here on Thursdays. Sort of a regularly scheduled meeting you don’t have to show up for. So usually everybody does. I wanted to introduce you to some of my world. There’s someone here I’d really like you to meet. The person who helped me through a lot.”

  Over the next fifteen minutes or so, the deck begins to fill with dozens of people who all seem to know Andy. The interactions are so fast and fun, I’m almost afraid to speak. Andy smiles and whispers, “Relax. Just be you. They’re all mostly harmless.”

  I’m so overwhelmed at first that I fail to notice that the deck is in front of an ocean. And the restaurant marks the entrance to a pier. I suddenly know exactly where we are. This used to be my world. We’re at Washington between Marina del Rey and Venice Beach. This cul-de-sac has been home to impromptu farmers markets all the way back to my childhood. There’s nothing like this stretch. The pier has always separated Southern California wealth and opulence from maybe the most bizarre strand of post-hippie culture anywhere in the world.

  Wow! I haven’t been here in a long time.

  As Andy works the deck, I replay memories of riding bikes down here with childhood friends.

  My gaze is interrupted as I notice a striking and stylishly dressed middle-aged woman at the table next to me. She is beautiful in the way all women should be when they get to their fifties. Her hair is as wild as her colorfully flowing peasant dress. On both arms she wears a bundle of thin silver bracelets, which make light clinking sounds as she moves. She isn’t trying to hide the gray that has crept in, which makes her even more cool and beautiful. I want to take a picture and tell Lindsey, “Remember this. This is what you must look like twenty years from now.”

  Maybe I’ll wait on that for a bit.

  She looks so totally at peace and comfortable with herself in the midst of a noticeably younger crowd. She is tapping away at a laptop. She glances over and gives me a kind smile and nod. Andy notices my staring as he returns to the table.

  “That’s Cynthia. I wanted you to meet her first. She’s working on a book. Something about first-generation immigrants in America.”

  “Working, as in laboring, as in plodding… ,” she adds, drifting effortlessly from her table to ours. “Forgive my rudeness, but I have a flair for overhearing conversations.”

  Andy stands. “Cynthia, this is—”

  “Steven,” she finishes without missing a beat.

  Great. Another mind reader.

  She reaches for my hand, her bracelets making that jingling sound. Cynthia looks as if she could be my sixty-two-year-old mother—if my mother were a lot hipper, flamboyant, and attractive.

  Cynthia is at once incredibly disarming and overwhelming. She’s one of those rare people who can sit too closely (as she is at this moment), without you minding much. She seems to be studying your eyes, reading your personal history while casually mulling among any of seven different thoughts that might come out of her mouth.

  Andy interrupts. “I’ve got to wash up. I’ll be back in a minute.”

  Suddenly the moment is broken. What have I gotten myself into? I’ve got to get back to work.

  There is an awkward silence for a few moments. Cynthia is very content to just smile and stare at me.

  “So you’re writing a book?” I ask, mostly to stop the silence and the staring.

  She rolls her eyes. “Ohh!” she says. “I’m never going to survive it.”

  “It’s about immigrants?”

  “Refugees, mostly. Dear, there are rather consistent characteristics to every people group that most easily adapt into a new culture. Did you know that?”

  Before I can answer she continues, “Of course you didn’t. That’s why I’m writing the book, isn’t it? Somehow I convinced the publisher there’s a market.” Her eyes twinkle a little. “Who knows? Maybe I’ll get rich. More likely they’ll make nice Christmas gifts. It’s really just something I enjoy doing.”

  More silence…

  “My dear, have you noticed you’re not saying anything? One of the primary requisites for a conversation is the back-and-forth part. I can’t do that on my own. I would if I could, as my husband will tell you. But right now you’re going to have to step to the plate.”

  “Right,” I mutter. “Sorry, I’m a little new here.”

  She laughs out loud and jumps up to smother me in a hug. “Well, if you aren’t the most precious thing in the world. ‘I’m a little new here.’ Honey, that’s like being a little engulfed in flames. No, you’re completely and utterly new here. And in a ridiculously nice suit, I might add!”

  She laughs some more. Then she sits back down, gathers herself, and looks into my eyes again with great sincerity. “Steven, you were new seconds ago. But now you’ve been willing to let a silly old woman laugh at you and hug you. From this moment on you are no longer new. You’re a regular. Welcome to Bo’s, young man.” She hugs me again, jingling all over.

  I mumble something back to her, but I am stunned. Less than an hour ago, I was trying to end the ride that brought me here. Now I’m taking in ocean air fused with the smell of shrimp and corn on the cob, smiling at this woman who is completely delighted at my awkwardness. She’s staring again, contentedly waiting for me to catch up. I’m not used to catching up. I’m also not used to noticing the way the waves crash against pylons on the pier. But that’s what I’m doing.

  “Steven,” she eventually calls out.

  My eyes come back into focus. “I’m sorry, Cynthia. I grew up around here. I’m just taking it all in.”

  She pats my hand. “Forgive me, Steven. I can be a little much all at once. You don’t know me and I don’t know you. But my friend Andy… he cares about you. So now you’re important to me. It’s kind of that simple. I don’t know if what I’m about to say will make any sense, but here goes.”

  She is sitting too close again as she says, “Don’t miss what is being offered to you. It would be easy for you to miss it. You’ve got deadlines and quotas. When life is moving fast and in a straight
line, it’s easy to discount anything slow and circular.”

  “Miss what?” I ask.

  “Forgive me again. I’m rushing ahead. It’s just that I wanted to get this out while Andy wasn’t at the table.” Cynthia’s smile and the way she puts her hand on my arm is reassuring.

  “Let me back up a little,” she says. “I was Andy’s wife’s best friend—”

  “Excuse me,” I interrupt. “Was Andy’s wife’s best friend?”

  “My wife died, Steven,” Andy answers as he returns to the table. He turns his chair backward and sits, his arms folded across its top. “She contracted a quick-moving form of cancer. She fought courageously, but the cancer won.”

  I blink once. Twice. “I’m sorry, Andy. How long ago did this happen?”

  “It was about six years ago.” He stops. His mouth starts moving like he’s going to speak, but nothing comes out. He looks over at Cynthia.

  I interrupt my own question. “We don’t have to talk about this right now.”

  Andy continues as if I haven’t spoken. “When Laura died, I was a mess. I drifted away from almost everyone. People reached out, but I just wanted to be alone. Somehow I managed the bills and continued to work. But I was walking around like I was wearing several heavy winter coats. Each day my goal was just to make it back home and to bed.

  “One night, about four months after her death, I was alone in that big house where all our life had happened. I was just overcome with grief. Blackness. I heard a knock at the door. It was Cynthia and her husband, Keith. They had takeout from a favorite Mexican place where the four of us used to go.”

  Andy’s words lock up again. Tears come into his eyes. After a few moments he sighs and is able to speak again.

  “We all sat down, and I started pouring out how depressed I was and how much I missed Laura.”

  “Then I broke down,” Cynthia adds. “Oh, honey, we were basket cases, the three of us.”

  Andy looks at me. “Steven, I didn’t plan on bringing this up.”

  “No, go on. Please,” I say. This is the first info I’m getting on Andy apart from what I found on the Internet.

  “I told Cyn and Keith that Laura had been my strength. I was the successful one out in the world, but now I was completely undone without her.

  “Cynthia began walking me through some painfully good stuff that night. In the middle of wrestling with her own grief, she took the risk to tell me some hard things about myself that I’d avoided for a long time.”

  “Wait,” I say. “Cynthia is the friend you were talking about who helped you?”

  “Yeah,” he says, wiping his eyes. “She and Keith. But mostly Cyn.”

  Before I can stop my words I say, “I didn’t think you were talking about a…”

  “A woman?” the two of them say in unison, then laugh out loud.

  I’m embarrassed, but I start laughing too.

  “Oh, yes! A woman!” Cynthia says. She smiles at me—a smile that tells me she can see right through me and is fully prepared to enjoy me anyway.

  At that moment two men appear and sprawl out at our table as though they’ve been there for days and just got up to use the restroom. One is a dark Hispanic man. Strikingly handsome, he has a big, beaming smile. He has on an old sport coat over a T-shirt tucked into jeans. He wears canvas shoes with no socks. Most can’t get away with this look, but this guy doesn’t really seem to care, which kind of makes it work. The other man is sturdy and bald with a forehead that could stop a truck. A linebacker’s forehead. His clothes have the rumpled look of a refrigerator salesman who does his own deliveries. The Hispanic guy is bantering with almost everyone—part English, part Spanish slang. I have yet to make out much of what he’s saying by the time they’ve settled in at our table. It’s all motion, jargon, and fun.

  The handsome one extends a hand. “My man! You must be Steven. I am Carlos Badillo, at your service. And the Cro-Magnon–looking gentleman to my right is Hank.”

  I’m half-tempted to look down to see if I’m wearing a name tag again. Carlos leans in, points at Hank, and under his breath warns, “Careful with him, man. He just got out from a stint in the slammer for a number of violent crimes against the elderly.”

  Hank grunts back without smiling. “I was innocent on most of them charges, I swear.”

  Carlos has thick jet-black hair, combed straight back. He looks to be thirty-something. Hank, easily ten years older than Carlos, appears fully capable of what his friend has accused him of. His piercing eyes and heftiness match his apparent intensity. He looks like a cage fighter on a lunch break.

  “So talk,” Hank commands, gesturing to me.

  Carlos nods in agreement. “I’m with him, man. Spill.”

  They both sit there, staring at me, fiddling with packets of soup crackers as though they can’t go on with their routine unless I give some kind of response.

  Andy rescues me. “Steven, these are two of my close friends. We’ve been meeting here on Thursdays, at this table, for a long time now.”

  Like a kid, Carlos jabs me in the shoulder. “Hey, man, has he fed you the ‘bumping into furniture’ speech yet? It’s one of our favorites.”

  Hank joins in. “Yeah, I love that one. Show him, Carlos. Show him. You do it best.”

  Sheepishly, Carlos stands. “You think so?”

  Both Cynthia and Hank nod in agreement.

  He shakes out his hands like he’s about to perform a platform dive. “All right, this is my impersonation of Andy doing the ‘bumping into furniture’ speech.” He clears his throat. “ ‘It’s like you’re stumbling around in a dark room, bumping into furniture.’ ” Carlos leans over to me. “Then he’ll wait a few seconds, just to add drama, before he asks you—”

  Carlos and Hank say in unison, “So how am I doing?”

  With that, Carlos and Hank start slapping each other’s hands, laughing and wheezing. Several people on the deck seem to be enjoying the bit as well.

  He was just guessing that night, I think, unsure whether it makes me feel better or worse.

  Almost involuntarily, I ask, “Has he ever used the ‘pound of coffee’ thing on any of you?”

  Carlos moans. “No way, man! You’re kidding me, right? He’s used that on you? Andy, I’m hurt, dude! I thought that was only for me. What, man? You stealing this stuff off the Internet?”

  “I told you I was,” Andy protests.

  More laughter rises from the deck.

  The next several minutes are all aimed at Andy’s expense. He doesn’t even try to stop the barrage, laughing along at the ribbing. The waiters and busboys are joining in too. The deck is definitely out of control.

  Sitting here amid the laughter, I realize I’m watching something pretty uncommon. It’s obvious that everyone on this deck deeply respects Andy. Their humor seems more of a way of honoring him. It’s very different from the kind of mocking humor at work. There’s no hard, cynical edge. Nothing competitive. They aren’t really ridiculing him at all. Quite the opposite, actually.

  Not long after I down the last bites of a truly great shrimp cocktail, Andy, Cynthia, and Hank excuse themselves, promising to be back in a few minutes. I am left at the table with Carlos. He appears in no hurry to go anywhere.

  “So, where do you think they’ve gone off to?” I ask.

  “Hank, he sells drugs and munitions out of the back of his car,” Carlos says, not looking up from his food. “I’ve tried to steer Andy right, but he can’t resist. It’s a deadly combination, man.”

  I laugh by myself. “So, Carlos, how long have you known Andy?”

  “A few years now. Maybe five. We met down at the marina. I was checking out a place to keep this little boat I have. The place was way too expensive for this Mexican.”

  “He owns a boat?”

  “No. He works there.”

  “Andy works at a dock?”

  “Yeah. Just down the street, on Tahiti Way. Why?”

  “Nothing, really. I guess I just thought
that, well…”

  He leans back. “That my man would have a more impressive career?”

  “Well, yeah, maybe.”

  “Well, suit, you’ve stumbled into a long story. You in a hurry?”

  “I was about a half hour ago,” I say. “It’s starting to look like today’s going to be a wash at work. And Andy’s driving, so until he gets back… you think you could stop calling me ‘suit’?”

  He chuckles. “I don’t think so, but I’ll try.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “You see the people around this deck?” he asks, leaning back in his chair to point at various people. “Most of them know each other. You got your doctors and lawyers. There’s a sheet metal guy, a city council member, a couple of plumbers. Tech nerds chillin’ with hospital workers. Shop owners, students from Loyola. See the woman in the purple top? She was on the Olympic volleyball team at Seoul. Now she runs a physical training center in Newport Beach.” He turns back to the table. “See that? We’ve got, like, celebrities here, man. And then there’s Hank. You wouldn’t know it, but he’s an environmental detective for the state attorney general.” He laughs hard. “That single fact alone should keep you up at night.”

  “I think it will from now on,” I say.

  “So most of us have, like, at least a couple things in common: One, we can’t live without Bo’s cooking. Two, most of us believe in God, or at least aren’t hating that the others do. It’s all word of mouth. And your new friend Andy, he’s kind of at the center of it. The whole shindig never probably would’ve happened without him. He’s had a pretty stinkin’ huge impact on a lot of lives.”

  “I’m starting to catch on to that.”

  Carlos slides his chair closer. “I think he figures most people don’t have someone safe enough when things go south. So the dude kind of watches for people who might be discovering they need something like that.”

  “Kind of like me?” I ask.

  Carlos ignores my question. “Everyone needs it. Everyone, man. Most just don’t see it. He’s always watching for it. May not seem like it. The cat sometimes seems like he’s listening to music in some other town. He doesn’t always seem…”