Free Whale Season by N. M. Kelby Page A

Dagmar thought, they’re both crazy.
    â€œMr. Jesus,” Jimmy Ray said, as the two men walked into the house, “I was wondering what influence you think the other Big Dogs had on your philosophy. You know, like Siddhartha, or even Confucius—he had some mighty hep things to say.”
    And then the two began loudly debating the virtues of polytheism as if they were old friends. Closed the front door behind them.
    Dagmar was still sitting in the car.
    What Dagmar thought she promised was Waffle House, open 24/7/365, with somebody else cooking and cleaning up. She’d just spent the last few hours cooking for The Dream Café staff and patrons. Since 3 A.M. she’d already fried up twenty-five pounds of sausage and rolled out 288 buttermilk biscuits. Plus, there was a Christmas dinner waiting to be cooked in a cooler in the trunk of her car—turkey and cornbread dressing, mustard greens, sweet potatoes, and a frozen pecan pie that still needed to be baked. What she wanted to do was look at a menu and kick off her shoes.
    Jimmy Ray opened the front door. “You coming, child? Breakfast won’t make itself.”
    No sense arguing. She hadn’t seen Jimmy Ray this happy in a very long time. Something about the perversity of the situation seemed to bring out the best in him.
    So she went in to make breakfast and decided that the phone call, which she knows will feature that ever-hopeful lilt in Trot’s voice, could wait.
    In the tiny yellow kitchen, Jimmy Ray’s refrigerator was filled with things he shouldn’t eat, including a quarter shank of country ham, a slab of bacon, and a bowl with a few small brown eggs from Tully, his hen. In the vegetable drawer, there were a few ears of fresh picked corn and some small green tomatoes.
    The men were sitting at the dining room table, waiting. She could hear Jimmy Ray tell Jesus about the time the Duke and Duchess of Windsor came to Mardi Gras. He loved that story. “They were the real royalty,” he said. “Walked like they were made of glass.”
    He sounded so happy. So Dagmar fried up the ham, shucked the last ears of corn for corncakes, pulled out the box of pancake mix, and warmed the sorghum. She found three plates that matched and a few oranges from the tree out back for juice. Her back ached. She could feel the veins in her legs. Six hours of cooking, she thought. Six more to go.
    When she brought two plates filled with breakfast into the dining room, Jimmy Ray looked surprised.
    â€œYou actually
made
breakfast?”
    â€œWhat did you expect me to do?”
    â€œHe thought you were calling the police,” Jesus said. “That’s why he sent you in there. Breakfast looks good, though.” He took his plate from her hand. “Thanks.”
    â€œIs that right?” Dagmar looked surprised.
    â€œPretty easy to figure out,” Jesus said.
    â€œWell, why didn’t you just tell me?”
    She was now whining. Overtired as a child.
    Jimmy Ray looked a little sheepish. “Sis, you don’t know how to cook. I just figured you’d know I was talking code.”
    â€œWhat do you mean I don’t know how to cook?”
    Some questions are better left unanswered. That is the one thing that Jimmy Ray knows for sure about women.
    Jesus looked up from his plate, a drop of syrup rolled down the corner of his thin lips. His mouth was full of corncakes, but he said. “It’s not too bad. I’ve had worse. Although I’ve never seen corncakes made with pancake mix. Usually it’s made with cornmeal, isn’t it? More like a cornbread, I think.”
    Jimmy Ray was thinking that this was not a good time for a
Zagat
restaurant review.
    â€œWell,” Dagmar said, “should I call the police?”
    â€œI would,” Jesus said, “but I’m cautious by nature.”
    Dagmar was still holding a plate filled with food in her hand. For a moment, she appeared to be