Urban Thought Collective

“World famous fried chicken?” scoffed the captain of my personal chariot for the moment, otherwise known as a Memphis Yellow Cab. “I’ve never even heard of Gus’,” he continued. “Was it any good?”

Feeling halfway ashamed and fearing that I had indeed been exposed as a Yankee or whatever Southern folk refer to all of the rest of us as that aren’t from down their way. Actually, can Californians be Yankees? That’s food for thought for another day and another discussion perhaps. I tried to pull it together and muster up a response that would simultaneously convey my own incredulity as well as restore my good name in the eyes of this cabby that I would never see again after the 10 minute ride back to the Northwest Terminal at the Memphis International Airport.

“It was iiight…,” I said, putting a little extra “down-home” on it in hopes that the condescending gaze being laid upon me through the rear view mirror would ease up a bit. “Wasn’t the best fried chicken I’ve ever had, but it was better than eating another burger or something at the airport. The chess pie was pretty good though,” I reported, having no reference point as this was my first experience with this Southern specialty. I was getting a little more comfortable now, feeling like I had restored the balance in the vehicle back to respectable levels. Why had I allowed Tony, with his gold-toothed sneer, in his musty little taxi with torn upholstery in the back seat where I sat, to so severely put me on the defensive and make me feel so small? Was it really that serious? Actually, it was.

Fried chicken is serious business at my house and always has been. My kids look forward to my fried chicken the way I look forward to sinking my teeth into a heavenly serving of guava crème brulee whenever my itinerary finds me in the Caribbean. Again, a story for another time, but suffice it to say that I not only was not a crème brulee fan previously, I can’t order the stuff anywhere else on the planet because I am convinced that all non-guava varieties will pale in comparison. But we were talking about chicken. My kids brag about it to their friends and beg me to make it whenever they catch me wondering about what to cook for dinner. Were it not for my health consciousness and weariness of a diet that allows for fried food any more than occasionally, they might get their wish. I was the same way about the chicken that my dad fried and especially that of my Uncle Levi (my dad’s next eldest sibling among 9). So irresistible was my Uncle Levi’s (he insists that you address him as “Uncle”) chicken that I once nearly ate myself out of the starting line-up of one of my high school basketball games. Even right now, I can almost taste the blend of 33 herbs and spices that soaked into the best golden brown skin your lips will ever touch. Okay, so it’s probably not 33, but it’s at least 3 times better than what the Colonel does with his 11.

My cousin Billy (Levi’s son) and I played on the same team and he had invited a group of us over to hang out and relax as was our ritual at some team member’s house before every game. Billy’s decision to heat up some of last night’s leftover chicken proved to almost cost us an important game as myself and another of our big men were way past lethargic during the first half. At one point midway through the second quarter, I begged the coach to remove me, running right past our bench and straight for the locker room latrine. I am happy to report that while it didn’t taste nearly as good on the way up as it had on the way down, we did rally for victory late in the game.

The awkward silence following my last statement to ol’ Tony was becoming deafening. It was bearable for the few moments while I was recollecting all of the monumental fried chicken experiences I’ve ever had, trying to quickly rank them as if Tony were the supervisor and I the grunt worker having been given the task as an action item on a deadline. His occasional check of the rear view mirror with what my paranoia deemed a disapproving glance, as Johnny “Guitar” Watson wailed through the static of the FM radio dial on this rainy evening, told me that time was up.

“I was just at the Lorraine Hotel,” I said, trying to break the ice that had formed since that initial exchange, trying to inform him that I had worked up my fried chicken appetite walking around at the Lorraine Hotel, infamous site of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and now home to the National Civil Rights Museum. His eyes didn’t seem to leave the rainy roadway as he drove up Front Street and headed toward the freeway.
“I said I was just at the Lorraine Hotel,” I repeated, a little louder this time. This at least made him look up and nod. Just when I was about to sink back into the seat of his mid-80s model Caprice Classic sedan and give up, Tony spoke.

“Now Jack Parrrrr-deez has got some chicken!” his eyes off in some distant euphoric place now, perhaps recounting his last experience the way I did with Uncle Levi’s above, but more like he was remembering the prettiest, pig-tailed, bobby-sox wearing co-ed in all of Central High School’s class of 1963.

“Oh yeah?” I said, leaning forward again.

“Yeah their homemade biscuits and that chicken…whoooooooooo!”

Whoooooooo needed no translation. In fact, my Ph.D in slang linguistics tells me that there are degrees of whooooooooo and that this one was surely of the head shaking, exhaling and thigh slapping variety. We rode in silence for the last couple of minutes as he pulled off the freeway and into the airport, both sporting contented smiles as if we had collaborated in polishing off a bucket of Jack Pirtle’s Fried Chicken (take out only on Jackson Avenue in Memphis. I had some trouble finding it online going by Tony’s pronunciation, but managed). “Yeah…Jack Parrrrrr-deez,” Tony mumbled again as I paid the fare and got out of the cab.

Destah Owens is a single father of two from Northern California and proud UCLA Bruin who travels the world for his job as a computer engineer. His blog, “Soufflés in Saigon,” is exclusive to Urban Thought Collective.