"I'm pretty sure I saw a boiled peanuts stand back there," I tell my newfound friend Annie, a first-year MFA student at the university. She's driven me to the outskirts of town on Hwy. 82 in order to help recover my boxes I shipped out from California. Greyhound said it would take about 4 days for my boxes to arrive, but that was before they shipped one of them to Illinois by accident. Two days ago, I walked five blocks from my house in blistering heat and humidity to claim my boxes at the downtown Greyhound station only to learn they'd moved to this new location, a BP station outside of town.
When I go into the gas station, I see the Greyhound desk occupying a small area in the back. Outside, a bus is either picking up or dropping off customers, the majority of whom are black. After I claim my boxes, which aren't stored in the back but sitting right out in the open by the gas station's front door, I meet Annie outside. "This is stupid," I say. "Why the hell would they put the Greyhound station way out here? I mean, isn't the entire point is that Greyhound is for people without cars? It looks like mostly poor black people in there. The downtown location would have been much more accessible."
When we turn the car around on Hwy 82, I tell Annie I'm not sure where I saw the boiled peanuts guy. "I love, love, love boiled peanuts, "Annie says. She grew up outside of D.C. and the peanuts remind her of summer family trips down south to the Carolinas. "I think I saw him back by the gas station. I know I saw an old guy putting out several boiled peanuts signs––they said "Ralph's boiled peanuts" or something––but I can't remember where I saw him." Back by the gas station, we see the stand: "Jerry's boiled peanuts."
Jerry is a large older man, sporting a yellowish-gray-haired ponytail, a crimson colored muscle half-shirt that exposes his hairy gelatinous belly, and a pair of shorts and sandals. His blotchy skin is red from the sun, his nose bulbous from drink. His fingernails and toenails are partially split and discolored from a fungal infection. His blue eyes look squeezed together by his baggy eyelids and brow skin. In front of Jerry sit two mucky boiling pots hooked to propane tanks. A single well-used glove rests on each pot. Small Zip-lock bags of what look like dirty wet peanuts are arranged on a cooler.
Annie tells him she just loves boiled peanuts. "Well, I've got regular and Cajun," he says in a thick Alabama accent. "The Cajun ones is a little spicy but not too spicy." Annie tells him she's tried to boil some at home but with poor results. "If you try to boil the dry kind," Jerry continues, "it'll take you about eight hours. You need to get them green. And even then, it takes about two hours." We continue discussing the finer points of peanut boiling, and Jerry says, "I got the same people coming by here a couple times a week; they're eatin' a lot of peanuts. I eat––I do eat my own product, about a bag a day, I'd guess."
We tell Jerry we're new to town. "Oh you're gonna love it here. I been here, oh, about a couple years now, and I love it. I'm really looking forward to football season." I tell him that it seems safe here. "It’s a great town," he says "You could walk around any neighborhood in downtown at night and be . . . well, maybe not every neighborhood, but you could walk around down by the river and be perfectly fine. I plan on staying here.” I mention the stupidity of the Greyhound station relocation, and Jerry says, "A cab ride would cost you eighteen bucks just to get out here. You could easily of jump on a city bus when it was in downtown.”
Annie asks him what brought him from Montgomery to Tuscaloosa. "Well, it was a bit of a relocation situation," he says. He rubs his large rough hands, which look like, at one time, they could have crushed a man like a miniature origami orangutang. But now his pudgy fingers are wrinkled and bent inward with the signs of arthritis. Jerry takes a long uncomfortable pause, the kind a man takes before breaking down and sobbing or admitting something terrible happened in his past. Annie assumes it will be something about prison. "I . . . uh . . . I . . . it was an alcohol problem."
I tell him that can be tough. "When you're down," he says, "it keeps you there." He looks up, and in a tone that sounds like we need convincing, he says, "But my life has completely turned around. Been about three years sober. I don't know what y'all believe or nothin', but the man upstairs helped me out. I mean . . . I wasn’t much of a Bible thumper . . . well, I’m still not much of a Bible thumper, but I know He did this for me, because I didn’t have the power to do it myself." Jerry looks us right in the eyes and his sincerity is heartbreaking. He seems like a character out of a Johnny Cash song, perhaps the "Kneeling Drunkards Plea."
"I'm not making no excuses about drinking. I've had some physical problems, but I'm not blaming that. I was in Vietnam, and I'm not blaming that, either. Up in Montgomery, I had a great spot. Took me time to develop it, but I was making $600 a week. Clearing! Of course, I’m not makin' that kind of money here. I need to develop this spot. I've asked the landlord to move this school bus so I'll be more visible. I think he's going to do that for me." Jerry turns around and points to a mobile home behind some trees. "I live right back there in that mobile home." He used to have his stand on the other side of the BP station, but the gas station manager told him to leave after BP customers complained that he was soliciting them. "I wasn't doin' no such thing."
"You know, you'd think it'd be hard to screw up a boilin' peanuts operation," he says, talking about Montgomery, "but that's exactly what I did. One day, I woke up flat out on the ground looking up at two police officers. I had tucked a wine bottle under my head as a pillow before I passed out. A friend from AA vouched for me, and that's the only reason I didn't end up in jail."
Jerry is exactly the kind of character I was hoping to meet in Alabama, but, like many of the other residents of this area, I'm disarmed by his overwhelming kindness. In Australia, he'd be called a "battler," a guy who constantly has hard luck but battles it our for life, holding on anyway he can. And his boiled peanuts are delicious, especially the Cajun style. "Be sure to tell all your friends I'm out here," he says.
If you're ever out on Hwy. 82, south of Tuscaloosa, be sure to stop and buy some peanuts and have a chat with Jerry. Don't worry, he'll do all the boiling and talking.
You're quite the storyteller Mr Parker. Nice work!
ReplyDelete