Harrison’s Famous Pulled Pork

Step One: Stand in the kitchen of your girlfriend’s apartment the night before you plan to smoke the pork. Rub meat with garlic powder, dry mustard, chili powder, cayenne pepper, and XXXXXXX. Check your father’s scrawled recipe to make sure the portions are correct. Try not to get messy fingerprints on the old, wrinkled paper. Wrap pork tightly in plastic wrap. Refrigerate.

Watch a movie with Karen. When she comments on the red hue your hands have taken, tell her it is from the spices you massaged into the meat. Let her lick your fingers, taste the sharp sting of pepper, the vague sweetness of XXXXXXX. When she asks about the recipe, do not answer her. Feel guilty about this. Carry her to bed. Taste her as she has tasted you. Smile when she jokes that you can never make it through a whole movie.

Step Two: In the morning, do not wake her when you rise from her bed. Dress quietly. Brew coffee. Drink black even though this will give you heartburn later. Remove pork from fridge and carry to your truck. Keep a hand on pork as you drive to the bar, so that it will not slide off the seat.

As you clean the place, leave pork on counter. Bring to room temperature. Do not unwrap. Throw away half-empty beer bottles in the big trash cans. Remember visiting the bar as a teenager, remember cutting your hand on a broken bottle while helping your uncle clean the place. Close your hand against the memory.

Step Three: Start charcoal in smoke box at side of grill. Keep lid open until charcoal takes on a layer of gray dust. Turn on TV in time for the Mississippi State game. Think of your father in the hospital, watching his last Egg Bowl, his favorite State ballcap sitting too-loose on his suddenly bald head. Unlock front door. Open beers for first customers as you wait for your bartender. Check on charcoal. When ready, close lid, leave vents half-open.

Add chunks of Hickory wood to bed of charcoal. Do not use pellets. Do not use chips. Do not use mesquite or apple-wood. Take a moment to breathe in the acrid smell of burning wood. Try not to think about fall days in Jackson, your father in the backyard, smoke billowing around him.

Step Four: Go inside. Comment on State’s inability to score. When Shackelford and Coop bash Ole Miss, shoot them the bird. Say, “Fuck you, old man.” Laugh. Say, “You too, fatboy.” Think of your mother, mocking your father after a nasty Egg Bowl loss. Take pork outside. Unwrap. Set on grill surface. Close lid quickly. Do not allow excess smoke to escape.

Step Five: Mix mopping sauce. Use Shiner Bock, chicken stock, chili powder, vinegar, garlic, onions, generous portion of XXXXXXX. Reduce over medium heat. When they come in, open beers for Sally and her boyfriend. Politely ask how she is doing. Do not bring up the child you had with her. Do not give Sally time to bring her up either.

Mop pork every thirty minutes. Kiss Karen when she comes in. Fix her drink. Introduce Sally to Karen. Watch for awkwardness. Agree that a double-date would be nice.

When Karen follows you outside, explain that you didn’t wake her because you wanted to let her sleep in. Smile when she tells you how good the pork smells. Mop. Do not baste. Just mop, using the long handled brush, the way your father taught you.

Add charcoal and hickory chunks as needed. Try not to wonder what Karen and Sally say to one another when they go to the bathroom together. Keep temperature inside grill 250-275 degrees, Fahrenheit.

Step Six: At four-hour mark, wrap pork in aluminum foil. Continue to cook as before. Give Sally’s date hell for being an Auburn fan. Begin to think that maybe things aren’t so awkward as they seemed. Switch game to LSU/Alabama at Coop’s request. Wish that Ole Miss wasn’t on a bye week.

When Sally pulls you aside to tell you about seeing the Maxwells in the grocery store, try not to show emotion. Try to be supportive. Say that in a town this size, it is bound to happen. Reassure her that the two of you made the right decision. Do not believe this, but say it anyway, repeatedly, until Sally agrees. When she tells you that Liz was walking on her own, try not to imagine your child standing beside you at the grill, breathing in the sizzle of pork fat. Try not to think about leaning down to the child, telling her, “The secret is XXXXXXX.”

Step Seven: Remove pork. Let stand thirty minutes. Fix barbeque sauce while pork cools. Use vinegar base. Add XXXXXXX. No ketchup. Reduce. Reduce again. When Shackelford, ten drinks deep, gets weepy over seeing you behind the counter where your uncle used to stand, tell him maybe he’s had enough, maybe it’s time for him to head back to the nursing home.

Drive him. Keep the windows cracked so that the cold air can sober him before he has to face the orderlies. Shake his hand at the door. Try to believe him when he tells you that you’re a good man.

Step Eight: Pull the pork. If smoked properly, it should shred easily with a fork. Charge two dollars a plate. Or don’t. Give it away. Let all of them enjoy the recipe your father tinkered with for years, the one he perfected a month before he died, when, weak from chemo, he had your mother move the pork to and from the grill.

Drizzle sauce over your plate, stir it into the pork. Eat with a plastic fork. Refrain from deflecting complements. When people say that you’ve got to give them the recipe, smile, say that you’ll have to do that. Know that you will not do that.

Follow Karen out to the back porch, where you can be alone. When she asks how you’re feeling about seeing Sally, tell her that you’ve been thinking about Liz a lot. Be honest with her. Refrain from withholding. Tell her that every time you think you’ve gotten past it, you imagine your daughter growing up with another family, and all the pain and anger and frustration comes back. Let her hold your hand. Thank her for listening. Mean it.

Sit beside her, looking out at the dark, empty field behind the bar, smelling the lingering odor of wood smoke. Tell her how your uncle built this porch. Tell her that he had just bought the bar, that he didn’t have any money. Explain that he drove every night to a hardware store in Sulligent, where the owners were foolish enough to leave piles of wood in their parking lot at night, covered only with tarps. Tell her how you helped him steal a few boards each night during your visit that summer. Explain the logistics of putting together a porch, how you have to dig post holes and build a latticework of wood before you can lay the surface of it. Show her the scar on your palm, where a sliver of wood bit into you. Smile at the memory of your uncle freaking out over the cut, afraid that between that and the slice on your other palm from the broken bottle, your parents would never let you visit again.

When she says, “You miss him, don’t you?” tell her that you do. Tell her that you miss your father as well. Tell her that it helps to talk about it.

Find a balance between privacy and honesty. Do not hold things in, the way you used to. After a time, lean over, kiss her softly on the neck, whisper in her ear, “XXXXXXX.”

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