Some
of us saw it as a chance to show the state of Texas just how good our BBQ
was. The rest saw it as a week long party. Either way, we were headed
south down I-45 to Houston in late February to hang out with two hundred and
fifty thousand other people choking on pit smoke and drinking a few adult
beverages. This was our first time to
cook in competition. Most of us didn’t
know exactly what to expect but we had some ideas. Six of us made the journey that first year. The original bow hunting group of me, Steve, Jack and Bill along with two new members, Randy and Gary. Law & (Dis)Order was the name of our
team. Half of our members were in some
type of law enforcement. One was a constable,
a locally infamous man that supposedly shot a hole in the town's water tower
while trying to apprehend a burglar, one was a state trooper and another a Texas
Ranger. Now I realize the first thing
that comes to many minds when I say Texas Ranger is Chuck Norris but this was
hardly the case. Our Ranger was cut from
a different cloth. Chiffon comes to mind. Silk or lace would be another. Our Ranger is the one who fell
20 feet from a tree stand with vertigo while bow hunting. The same guy that was bitten by a baby
squirrel. Same one who burned his hand
on the tractor muffler, fell off a ladder onto a piece of angle iron and instantly
became a Jack-sickle. The same one that
raised a T-Post driver as high as he could, missed the T-post on the way down
and hit his forehead instead. Instantly
sending a shock wave across his body, down through his toes, temporarily
paralyzing and concussing him enough to make him think he was actually going to
die, for real this time. This was our Chucky Norris and this was our (Dis)order
part of the team. The rest of us were there to babysit, keep the peace and post bail money just in case we messed up the first two.
Set
up day was the day all teams would come in and unload. Hundreds of pits all cramming in to one parking lot at the same time along with campers, wood,
dishes and tents. Our crew focused more on the essentials. Fire extinguishers, first aid kits, a designated eye wash location, burn
sprays, first aid posters, emergency exit signs, HazMat suits, MSDS sheets and
a few others things to make sure Jack returned to his wife at the end of the
week still breathing. We also set up our
pit, the camper we would all cram into at night and unloaded a few other
necessities.
It
didn’t take long for us to find trouble on day one. In the early days of the cook-off, a team
could leave one vehicle inside their designated location and Jack had decided
that his truck should be the one left in. His theory was, if something Ranger
related came up, he would need to leave in a hurry. The rest of us knew Jack had a camper shell on
the back of the truck and all the wood we needed for the entire week was piled
inside. We didn't want to unload it so we agreed. A few hours passed and before
long an inspector stopped by. “This your
truck?” the guy asked. “Yes it is.” Jack said with his chest stuck out. “You know that if it’s here tomorrow, it will
have to stay here until Sunday right?”
“Once those main gates are closed, nothing comes in or out.” Jack looked him dead in his eyes and said,
“I’m a Texas Ranger! If I need to leave,
I’m gonna leave.” We all stopped what we
were doing and looked over at the inspector figuring Jack had finally got the best of some poor soul that didn’t
know him like we did. The guy took a
step forward, almost as to get close enough to whisper to Jack. A little squint appeared in his eye as he
replied, “Wanna bet?” Of course a unison
of oh’s came from behind Jack. In
country boy terms, it meant, now what are you going to do? Jack mumbled something and nodded his
head. He claimed that he told the guy he
couldn’t stop him. Seeing that the
inspector didn’t respond made us think Jack agreed that his truck would be
staying inside the fence and remain in park through the weekend.
Our pit was nicknamed Bertha. She was a rather robust cooker mounted on a 16 foot long trailer surrounded by four walls and a roof. A large smoker on one side, cutting table,
sink and a gas stove on the other side.
Bertha had plenty of room for three people and that worked out well for
us because out of the six we had, three didn’t know how to cook. Thursday night Jack, Bill and I were cutting
up a few briskets in the pit and passing out food when Gary stumbled up. Now Gary’s not a big guy. If the six of us were cheerleaders, Gary
would be the toss man. The one we throw up in the air before failing to catch him on the way
down, giggling as he bounced off the track. He would go a solid 5’5 and weight
a dollar and some change so it didn’t take a whole lot of alcohol to get him rather toasty. It was after five so of
course he was pretty hammered. Gary
doesn’t smoke unless he’s drinking and cigars are his choice of tobacco. Most of us attribute it to his Napoleon
complex but Gary always says he just likes the way they taste. A long dog rocket stuck out of his mouth as he came
walking up to the end of the pit. “I
need to get by you guys.” Gary
mumbled. We could hardly understand him as
he tried to talk around that cigar. “What’d he say Jack?” “I think he said he
needs a good guy at night” was Jack’s reply.
Of course the cigar came out of his mouth after that. “Let me in the damn pit.” It was a little
clearer this time. Gary moved his way up
to the front of the pit close to me and started turning knobs of the
stove. “You know what you’re doing Gary?” No response.
We all knew Gary wasn’t on the team for his cooking skills so it kind of
worried us when he started jacking with the gas stove. It was soon obvious that Gary had to light
the cigar and apparently the stove was the easiest way to get that done. With
his back turned to us, he bent down toward the stove, placed the end of the cigar
close to the coil and boom! A big mushroom
cloud of smoke came up and surrounded Gary’s head as it rose to the ceiling. The
small explosion knocked me back a few feet.
After gaining my balance I started over to him. Bill and Jack didn’t know whether to grab the
fire extinguisher, burn spray or eye wash.
Gary slowly rose and turned around and by that time I was eye to eye with him. I looked at his face and the last of his eyebrows
were retreating into his head with little ambers burning on the ends. They reminded me of little fuses headed toward a firecracker. Before I could say anything they were
gone. Gary took a deep puff of that
cigar and let it out, covering my face with the nastiest smell I’ve ever been
around. It was like a mixture of dumpster fire and burnt hair. I started gagging
as I watched his mustache slowly disappear.
He had no idea. I tried to tell him but couldn’t get a word out from choking on the smoke. A big grin came across his face. He thought it was cute watching me gasp for
air. What he didn’t know was that he was
now bald from the chin up. No facial
hair whatsoever. No mustache, eyebrows or eye lashes. If even took his two day old stubble. He didn’t seem to care though.
The cigar was lit and everything was right in Gary’s world.
Friday night Jack, Bill and I were back in the
pit cooking. Bertha was popping out briskets and the three of us were slicing, dicing and handing sandwiches over to hungry souls who dared to try
it or were too drunk to know any better.
Gary and Steve were in another tent spreading the good word of our
mission and nobody knew where Randy was.
At the smoker, I was chopping BBQ, Bill was mixing it up for sandwiches
and moving them over into the pan and Jack was strategically placed at the end
away from sharp objects, fire and steps.
It was about that time I noticed a guy that we all knew (and cousin to
Gary and Randy) come up to our area.
Woody had been by to visit a few times earlier in the week but this time
was different. It was after dark and he
had been drinking. And when I say “had
been drinking”, I mean he was still drinking and was starting to speak
Russian. Woody was wobbly to put it
nicely. It took him a good ten steps to
advance three. The only thing holding
him up was the number of people he would bump into on his way down to the asphalt. I kept an eye on him the entire time as he
not so casually walked behind Jack’s truck and disappeared. Jack didn’t see him. Heck Jack couldn’t see much of anything from
all the smoke at that end of the pit where we put him, but I looked over at Bill
about the time he looked over at me and said, “You think…” and before I could
get the rest of it out, Bill said, “Yep.”
What we both realized was that Woody needed a place to exhale. A place to prevent all that beer from ending
up in his boot. Porta-Cans were in short
supply at the cook-off. The ones that
were there seemed 2 miles away if you were drunk and usually had a line about
as long of other drunks needing to get in.
Plus on top of that it was cold that night. So cold that most of us had on our insulated
coveralls. Woody, in his drunken wisdom,
found a better solution. A semi private
outlet turned outhouse minus walls. After
a couple of minutes, ole Wood came back out from behind Jack’s truck having
done the duty and headed into the camper.
I’ve been called an instigator on more than one occasion. I know it’s hard to believe but the guys will
tell you I like to poke fun and stir the pot.
I looked over at Bill and whispered, “Let’s see where this goes.” “Hey Jack, I think Woody just peed on your
truck.” Knowing the whole time that he
didn’t but also knowing it would upset Jack.
“Yeah right” Jack said. “He might
be drunk but he’s not stupid.” “No Jack
I think he did too” Bill jumped right in on the gag. We could tell that Jack didn’t want to
believe us but he was starting to have doubts.
I put my knife down and calmly started walking behind the truck. My intent the entire way there was to tell
Jack that Woody had peed all over his tire.
Just to make him mad and come over to look. What I saw when I got there made me take a
couple of steps back to get the full effect of what had happened. Woody had not in fact peed on Jack’s tire. Somehow, he missed it altogether. Woodrow instead started at the passenger side
front bumper, continued above the tire on the fender, made his way up across
the glass of the door, peaked out at the top of the camper around the half-way
point of the truck and then worked his way back down along the back fender,
over the tire and to the rear bumper. I
found myself staring in amazement. I was
actually kind of impressed. First at the
distance he had covered, second of the amount of pee, third at the pressure he must have had built
up to get that high and fourth, at the artwork of a near perfect rainbow coming
from a guy that drunk. “Bill, you’ve got
to come see this!” I yelled. “Jack, you
just stay there for a couple of minutes.”
This is something you want to let one person at a time see so you can
soak in everything that is happening.
Jack, thinking it was all part of the gag never looked up. Bill came over and also marveled at the
canvas. Pointing out the individual streams that had ran down from top to bottom like the dew on the hood of a truck once you start driving down the road. After a few minutes of pointing,
picture taking and measuring, we headed back to the smoker. Of course we started in on Jack as soon as we got there but Jack stood firm. Eventually though, after several
minutes, Jack had enough of us saying “Just go look” and headed over. Bill and
I didn’t know what to expect next. We really didn't think it out that far ahead. We looked around for Woody but by that time he had disappeared into the
camper. Why he didn’t use the bathroom
in there in the first place, at the time we didn’t know. We found out later though, at the same time
we found out where Randy had been holed up.
As Bill and I watched Jack, walk behind his truck, things went from
“haha” to “oh hell” in the blink of an eye.
Jack yelled out a string of cuss words that would make a prison guard
blush and took off walking toward the camper.
“Get him Bill.” I calmly said as
I continued to chop brisket. Jack
started coming out of his coveralls one arm at a time as he came around the
truck. “Get him Bill.” I said a little louder as Jack passed in
front of us. Bill never moved. “Bill, go get him.” I repeated a couple more times as Jack got
closer to the camper. Just at the moment
Jack walked up to the camper door, Randy happened to be on his way
outside. Now Randy is a happy-go-lucky
kind of guy. He’ll go 6’2 and at the
time was pushing 240 pounds. He’s the
kind that tries to keep the peace among people who are upset and wants everyone
to have a good time. A real gentle giant
type of person who just likes being around the group and having fun. That being said, whatever Randy saw when he
opened the door and looked Jack square in the eyes must have been something
like seeing the Devil himself for the
first time face to face. Now he’ll tell you to this day that it was just the
surprise of seeing someone there when he opened the door that made him scream
so loud that people in the next tent called 911 to assist a lady in distress.
But we all know it was from the fear that Jack put in him. As baritone Randy
was hitting the Mariah Carey G7 note, Jack was reaching out to grab the door.
Randy, either fearing for his own life or suddenly needing to visit the
bathroom again, or both, slammed the door in his face, which just made Jack
even more upset. “Bill, go get him!” I
said again. I’m not sure if it was the
high pitched squeal from Randy that changed his mind but Bill finally started
walking over. As he came in behind him,
Bill, in trying to hold him back, got credited for the assist in taking off both arms of
Jack’s coveralls. Bill grabbed him again
from behind on the shoulder this time and before I could blink, Bill had been
spun around in front of Jack and assumed the position of tightly griping Jack’s
right hand with his own throat while being shoved up against the camper door. Bill to his credit had each hand on Jack's shoulders. Jack was countering with one handful of Bill's windpipe. “Calm down Jack” is what I think I heard from
the garbled voice Bill made. Gary and Steve had heard the scream as well and
were getting there about that time to assist the lady in trouble. Bill, now turning bright red was starting to
have a look of panic. “Let him go Jack.”
Steve said. “Bill must have really done
something bad to get Jack this upset” said Gary. “He’s not after Bill. He’s after Woody. Bill just happened to get in front of his
choke hand as he was reaching for the door!” was the reply.
A
few minutes later calmer heads prevailed. Thanks in large part to hairless Gary showing up which allowed us to poke fun at him again. Jack soon returned to his coveralls and Bill’s color soon returned to his
face. Randy, who somehow snuck Woody out
the little window in the camper’s bathroom had stepped back out from the camper
after everything seemed to be normal. We all got a good laugh out of it after a
little while. Gary and Randy’s cousin
had been escorted out to the parking lot with some assistance from friends and
things slowly got back to normal. It
wasn’t until sometime just before midnight that things picked back up. Woody, as if he left bread crumbs on his way
out, found his way back to our tent. Gary spotted him first and cut him off
before Jack noticed. “You can’t come
back in here cuz” Gary said. “You’ve
worn out your welcome. You better leave
before something bad happens.” After a
little back and forth, Woody took a step back and yelled, “Well F&#@ all
you boys from Leon County.” Gary started forward. “Go get him Bill” I
whispered. “You can go to hell Tim” was
the answer I got back.
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