The Same Sky(32)

The drive to Lockhart took about forty-five minutes. For the first twenty, Jake had been clarifying terms. A “sugar cookie” was the caramelized edge of the meat, a sublime bite of salt and fat. The “bark” was the black crust; Jake wrapped the brisket in butcher paper as soon as it came off the smoker to preserve every inch. And the “smoke ring”—Christ, Jake could talk for an hour about that reddish-pink line, the pit master’s holy grail, a chemical reaction that occurred when the perfect moisture level in the meat was sustained at the perfect (low) temperature.

“So essentially, the meat is basting itself,” said Lainey rapturously. She turned to me. “It’s impossible, how juicy his meat is. It’s … transcendental.” She turned her worshipful gaze back to Jake, who looked pleased. I was not sure how to respond to this statement.

“Yup,” I managed.

“He just keeps that fire at such a consistent temperature,” Lainey mused. “The collagen and fat break down in the meat, and Jake just watches the fire, moving the wood, gauging the smoke. All night, he keeps the temperature low, letting that wet goodness soak in.…”

“Low and slow,” drawled Jake, “that’s how we do it.” I wondered if, in his imagination, he was the star of some porn project. I saw him peek at his own face in the rearview mirror as he repeated, “Looow and slooow.” He was not an arrogant man; it was actually pretty wonderful to watch him bask in well-deserved attention. God, I loved him.

“His meat sure is moist,” I voiced.

“Like … a dishrag, but that’s not the right word,” Lainey continued. “Like a …”

Jake and I waited, expectant. She was the writer, after all.

“A sponge?” she said questioningly.

“There doesn’t have to be a metaphor,” I said.

“The point is, if the heat’s too high, the brisket wrings out all its water. Hence the need for sauce,” noted Jake. Jake prided himself on not needing any sauce to hide imperfections or dryness.

“But you serve sauce,” said Lainey. “Now, I know your father doesn’t allow sauce,” she said impishly. “But you and your uncle …”

Oh, now she was getting into it, hinting at Jake’s famous family feud. I saw his shoulders tense and his brow furrow, and Lainey must have noticed, for she deftly changed the subject. “We’ll get back into the sauce later,” she said suggestively. Jake loosened, and they chuckled together. I sighed. Lainey hooked her left arm around the seat and angled her microphone toward me, in the back. “What was it like the first time you visited Lockhart, Alice?” she asked.

“It was something,” I said, unsure of how to describe the utter dislocation I’d felt upon arriving in Texas. For one thing, it was hard for me to understand how seriously people took barbecue. In Colorado, we sometimes had sloppy joes (hamburger mixed with a packet of seasoning and served on a white-bread bun), and we grilled hot dogs on occasion, and of course venison or whatever my dad shot. I’m sure the nearby ski town, Telluride, had serious barbecue—they had sushi flown in daily, for God’s sake—but in Ouray we used a Weber grill, some charcoal with lighter fluid, a match, and maybe a bottle of Heinz 57. How different, I’d wondered when I first visited Jake’s family, could “real barbecue” be?

Our first stop in Lockhart had been Jake’s family’s restaurant. Harrison’s BBQ was housed in a brick building located right on the town square. We parked the U-Haul with all our belongings in front of the Caldwell County Courthouse, a looming limestone structure with a four-way clock reaching toward the blue Texas sky, a clock that reminded me of the one in Grand Central Station. Jake climbed out and stretched—we’d stayed in New Orleans the night before, and had been driving for eight hours. He pointed to Raymond’s Barbershop, where he’d had his first haircut. Jake waved to the elderly barber waiting for a customer. We passed the Ruiz Dance Studio. “Never seen that before,” said Jake, peering into the jam-packed room, where a Zumba class was under way, pouring waves of salsa beats into Main Street.

You entered Harrison’s BBQ through a dark doorway, walking down a hall stained black from decades of barbecue smoke. If you peered into a display case on your right (as I had), you’d see pictures of Jake’s family over the generations. The smell of rich smoke grew stronger as you approached the pits, brick behemoths with steel tops and wood fires burning hot, feeding smoke to the meat. Piles of oak lay next to crates of Big Red. (Across the street was an entire lot filled with stacked wood.)

You placed your order, then took the hot meat wrapped in butcher paper into a bright, large room filled with long tables and folding chairs. The place was packed with locals and “barbecue tourists” from 10:00 a.m. until closing, as it had been for decades.


“Alice?” prompted Lainey.

“Oh, Lockhart!” I screeched. “It’s really beautiful there, and I was so happy to meet Jake’s family, they’re just so great, you know?”

My words appeared in my mind in an elegant font: They’re just so great, you know? I grimaced. Lainey looked at me, unblinking. Surely she knew the story of Jake’s family, which was a long and bitter one.

Harrison’s had been established as a grocery store along the Chisholm Trail in 1900 by Jake’s great-great-grandfather Harrison Conroe. It stayed in the family, eventually transforming into a BBQ restaurant. (The grocery still existed but sold mainly Harrison’s caps and T-shirts … and beer to go with the BBQ.)