Burning Tulips

Chapter Twenty-Six: Real Meatloaf

79 Chapter Twenty-six Real Meatloaf With a cigarette in one hand and a beer bottle on the counter, Mrs. Lock uses her fingers as spoons and her palms as measuring cups. Throwing food in all directions, but not directly into the bowl, she talks about her waitressing job at the bar my mother calls seedy. “I like working there better than the factory. Get to meet interesting people. Ain’t that what life’s all about? Meeting interesting people.” Mrs. Lock and her six kids are interesting, but I don’t mention it. I just watch her shake mustard out of the jar and mix it into the ground beef. “The right amount of mustard is the key to good meatloaf,” she says. “What got into you today?” Lou Ann, her twelve-year-old daughter who’s my age, asks. “What d’ya mean?” “You ain’t cooked us dinner in a long time. Someone coming over?” Mrs. Lock laughs and laughs. Then she finishes her can of beer. “Can’t I cook my family a nice meal?” “You can but you don’t. Who’d ya meet at the bar?” She ignores Lou Ann and breaks white bread into pieces, tossing it in the bowl. Then she cracks a few eggs and separates the whites from the yolk with her fingertips, continuously swirling her fingers through the mixture. My mother rarely cooks, but we have dinner every night. On Mondays, she opens up a can of peas and puts some fish sticks in the oven. Tuesdays she makes Hamburger Helper, but she uses a measuring cup to add the water. On Sundays she puts a pot roast in the oven with potatoes and canned carrots. She never stirs anything with her hands, never drinks a beer, and thinks women who smoke are cheap. Jimi Hendrix is blasting out of the stereo in the living room.They have black lights on and I can see tee shirts glowing as her older kids dance. Mrs. Lock dances toward the living room and asks me to stir her meatloaf. “With my hands?” I ask. 80 Burning Tulips “Of course with your hands. It’s the only way to cook. Better roll up your sleeves.” Lou Ann rolls her eyes at me. “She’s really high. You watch. Some guy will be coming over. And if he don’t show, she’ll take off to the bar looking for someone else.” I like Lou Ann’s wild mother and say nothing. My hands slip into the ground beef and it oozes up between my fingers. Mrs. Lock probably isn’t stoned, just excited from having her hands roll through this bowl of ground beef and onions. I can’t wait to show my mom this new way of making meatloaf. Disappointed, I look at the clock and know I have to go home for Wednesday’s boxed macaroni and cheese and boiled hotdogs. I conjure up ideas to get out of the house after inhaling my dinner so I can race back when the meatloaf comes out of the oven. My mother will tell me Mrs. Lock doesn’t make enough money to feed her own six kids, tell me to stay home where I’m safe. “What will you do if the police come while you’re there? You’ll end up in the juvenile delinquent center. I don’t know why you like going there so much. Tell those girls to come over here instead.” “Run home and tell your ma you’re eating with us tonight,” Mrs. Lock says. “I’m just puttin’ it in the oven. You helped make it, you gotta eat it.” My mother says everything I expected her to say, but she finally gives in. “Just this one time.” That one meal was all it took for me to appreciate the art of dancing to music and cooking with your hands, of really enjoying something like squeezing mustard through ground beef and squishing eggs into a bowl with your fingers, the difference between a box of macaroni and real meatloaf. And no man from the bar showed up. Mrs. Lock cooked this meal for her family and me. ...