For an unusually short haul of potatoes from Long Island to the Bronx market I got to ride with my father in the cab of his truck. Rare gift enough, but he said the real treat was a chilli lunch at Red’s—I figured that meant cold cuts—but when we hauled into the parking lot the sign didn’t say Red’s, it said The Big Road Rest, so I asked why Dad had changed his mind. “Oh, don’t worry, son, this is Red’s all right. You’ll see why.” And I did. The owner had a carrot-top head of hair and more freckles than all the beans in the pot out of which he ladled us bowls of chilli. It was the thickest soup I ever had, and I made myself like it cause Dad loved it and he hoped I would. What I really loved were these hexagonal puffs of saltines Red called oyster crackers when he offered me more to crush into my chili which wasn’t chilly at all, and I found no oysters in it or any pearls in the crackers which was fine with me as I was having a lot of what Dad called rights of passage.
Expat New Yorker James Penha (he/him🌈) lives in Indonesia. Nominated for Pushcart Prizes in fiction and poetry, his work is widely published. His newest chapbook of poems American Daguerreotypes is available for Kindle. Penha edits The New Verse News, an online journal of current-events poetry.