OLWG #125- Ellie’s

This week’s prompts are at the bottom.
Practice makes perfect. Let me know what you think.

Here’s how to play along, if you are unsure.

I used to work at a bar called Ellie’s in Natchez. There was a long bar there, a few tables and maybe three or four booths. We offered bargain prices on a limited menu. It was enough to keep folks there and drinking. Ms Ellie was the owner and she liked to come in the evenings and wait tables two or three nights a week. She’d listen to what the customers were saying and treat the things she heard as suggestions. Ways to make the place better or more attractive. Ways to bring more people in. She was a good boss, a true lady. She never made much money but she paid up all of her bills, doin’ what she done.

Well, one Sunday night I was working the bar and Ole Mr Zachary was cookin’ in the kitchen. Truth be told he was more dishin’ up food in the kitchen than he was cookin’ there. He’d cooked up a Mississippi roast, low and slow. earlier in the day. Mr Zachary could make up the finest roast I’d ever flopped a lip over. I don’t know all the details but over the years I learned a few things about his recipe. He’d cook it with butter, and bacon drippins. He also tossed in paprika, cayenne, a bit of cider vinegar and buttermilk, with enough garlic and onion to do whatever it is that onion and garlic do to a dish like that. That roast’d stay in the oven for about eight hours and when he pulled it out he’d shred the meat and put it on Po Boy bread. We could, and would, sell ‘em all day, but when we was out, we was out. He’d make more on the nex’ Sunday. We took no phone orders. We took no reservations. We’d sell ‘em dressed or undressed, as requested at the table. Sundays was the most popular day of the week at Ellie’s.

Anywho, I was startin’ to say that it was this one ‘ticular Sunday an I was sweatin’ buckets drawin’ beer after beer and pourin’ lots of whisky for the patrons. Mr Zachary was makin’ Po Boys like a house afire and these two ole boys was sittin’ at the bar. I were eavesdroppin’ like I knew Ms Ellie woulda been doin’ if’n she’d been there.

The one ole boy says to the other, “You look really familiar to me, Sir. Have we met before?”

“Don’t think so,” says the other.

The one signals me to draw a couple of beers; one for him and one for the other. When I place the drinks on the bar the one says to the other, “Where ‘bouts are you from?”

The other raises his glass and takes a long draught. He uses his sleeve to wipe the foam from his bristly moustache. “I’m from Jackson,” he replies.

“Me too,” the one announces, he’s using the index finger of his right hand to point at his own chest. “What part of town you live in?”

“West Central,” the other answers. Intrigued now in spite of himself. Studyin’ the one.

“Me too,” says the one. By this time, he’s almost hoppin’ up and down on his barstool. “I lived on Lynne Street and went to Provine High School. Where’d you go?”

“I went to Provine too,” says the other, “class of ’63.”

“No shit! I was 63!”

It was right then that Ellie walked in. She put her handbag beneath the bar and grabbed her serving apron.

“Its gonna be a rough night, Ellie,” I told her as she pulled the apron over her head.

“What’s up, Sam?”

“The Runnell twins are drunk again.”

Ellie rolled her eyes, said nothin’ but shook her finger at me. Shook her finger the way Ms Landy used to do to me when I was in the second grade.

This week’s prompts are:

Miss Jenny
there has to be a better way
the lady with the fan

Go ahead and dive in, set your imagination free!
Write something
Ready, Set, Go – you have 25 minutes, but if that is not possible, take as long as you need and, have fun!