Over the Hill by Pep Macadoo
“Tart, Crisp and Sweet”
So there I was, minding my own business, being my own conservative self, when I got caught smack dab in one of the biggest controversies of our time. I ended up losing a friend over this issue, and it all started over pear cobbler.
I was out of state; I won’t bother to say which one out of fear of stirring up a hornet’s nest again, and turned into my favorite roadside café. I have been rolling up and down this particular highway for 30 years in the cattle business and always found an excuse to stop by this favorite café for breakfast, lunch or just because. The because usually centered on fresh ground coffee and the most impossibly perfect fruit cobblers on the planet. The café should be in the Cowboy Hall of Fame. On any given morning, except Sunday when the doors were closed for church, the counter was lined with cowboys wearing spurs, chaps, and their hats pushed back. The tables were always filled with families, and newspapers, and people enjoying homemade sausage, farm fresh eggs, fresh squeezed juice, prickly pear omelets, and ground steak with white gravy. But the stars of the party were always the cobblers. Peach, olla berry, apricot, blackberry, cherry, plum, and everyone’s favorite…green apple. Just like your favorite girl, the right combination of tart, crisp, and sweet.
So there I was on a Tuesday, a newspaper under my arm, waiting outside the front door for a space to open at the counter. Two young cowboys were talking and getting in their cigarettes before going into the smoke free café.
“Well I heard they both are funny if you know what I mean,” one of them smirked.
“Yeah, they may be a couple of gays but you can’t beat their food,” the other remarked.
“I wouldn’t even be eating here at all but there ain’t nothing but a McDonalds for the next 100 miles,” his partner replied.
I looked the two over. Maybe 22 years old. Dirty baseball caps and cheap boots. A cigarette behind their ears. Small, dwarfy looking throwbacks with big belt buckles, bad teeth and worse tattoos.
“Excuse me gents,” I said in a polite tone. “Are you two referring to Millie and Gail, the proprietors of this café?”
They looked over my way. I was standing very casually with my best hand Red, my wrangler Ricky and my summer hire Sunshine. My cool, careworn demeanor usually discourages fights. Red’s 275 pounds of ex- college football girth and Ricky’s biceps, about the size of eggplants, usually ward off any casual violence. Sunshine’s long hair and tie-dyed shirt usually just confused the opposition.
“What if we were?” one of them sneered.
“Well then,” Red replied. “I would have to defend the honor of our sisters,” he said. He grinned and cracked knuckles the size of walnuts. Ricky was taking off his sunglasses and looking very intense.
Dumb and Dumber looked the situation over. “We didn’t mean nothing,” one of them finally said.
“Well,” I said, “Let’s just write it off as a failure of the educational system in our juvenile halls.”
The two dimwits, finally understanding that two divided by four bigger factors equals a lot of pain. They left in an old beat up Chevy pickup.
We stood alone quietly.
“Do you think Millie and Gail are lesbians?” asked Red.
“I don’t know,” I said. “It’s really none of my business and it doesn’t affect the quality of the cobbler.”
“I bet they are,” said Sunshine. “I think it’s cool that they have had this cafe for all these years. It can’t be easy to be gay out in cowboy country.”
Ricky looked down at his boots. “I am not some pro-gay,” he said. “If this is true and Millie and Gail are that way, then I ain’t eating here any more.”
Red looked at him. “What difference does it make Rick? It’s their lives, not ours. I just want to have some breakfast.”
Ricky looked up. “It’s another sign of the end of the American way of life. Someone has to draw a line in the sand to stand up for family values.”
I thought about my own life. A dozen women in 30 years that I loved, two divorces, two children in two states, and now praying that my latest lady would be the last. And here at the café were two people who had been together for 35 years, owned a successful business, sponsored FFA auctions and little league, and were quiet, church going people. Who in the hell was I to judge who they loved and why?
We all sat down at the counter. Millie waltzed up, her long blonde hair in a long braid and poured all of us a cup of coffee. Gail hollered hello from the kitchen. Her short spiked hair, just growing back from chemo treatments for breast cancer, was dyed bright orange. I noticed their matching wedding rings for the first time.
“What’s up Pep?” Gail yelled over the hiss of omelets and steaks.
“Hey beautiful,” I said. “I haven’t seen you since I dreamed last night.”
“Big talker” she said. “All hat and no cattle.”
Rick mumbled an excuse, dropped a five-dollar bill on the bar and walked out.
Millie watched him walk out the screen door.
“What’s eating old Ricochet?” she said.
“Stupidity and ignorance,” said Red.
“Nope” I said. “Just someone who can’t see the prairie because of the tumbleweeds.”
The cobbler that day was pear. I won’t say it was Gail’s best because pears are hard to cook and get too soft. But the huevos rancheros were absolutely perfect. We left our plates clean, left a big tip, and Gail ran out of the kitchen to give me a kiss on the cheek.
“You better drop by to see us on your way back down the hill,” she said.
“Only if you have green apple cobbler,” I said. “Pears aren’t strong enough to hold their own against brown sugar and caramel.”
