the Edge of the Abyss - 5. Rain

The rain came in waves. It would rain hard for a while and then just drizzle for a while.

Eventually hungry drove us from our refuge. Biloxi is a wonderland when it comes to food. There is all sorts of it and it is very good.

As we dressed to go out I said, “What are you hungry for Lee?”

As he put on a pair of gray 501 jeans he said, “I haven’t had much experience with seafood but I hear this is the place for it.”

“This is a good place for a Milne and a Benoit to get in touch with our roots.”

Lee chuckled and said, “I know we’re supposed to have a lot of Cajun blood but my Mom has always been…”

“She’s not down with the Cajun side?”

“No. She calls it the white trash side of the family and avoids it like the plague.”

“Pauve ti bete.”

Lee said, “Excuse me?”

I said, “It’s Cajun for poor little thing.”

I had to quickly dodge an incoming pillow.

“We can repair this terrible cultural oversight. If we’re ready to go, Laissez les bons temps rouler!”

Lee lifted an eyebrow and I said, “It means let the good times roll.”

The mistake that most people make when visiting Biloxi is to just drive back and forth on Beach Boulevard. You miss entirely too much that way. About a quarter mile inland and running parallel to the beach is Pass Road. Pass Road runs into Keesler Air Force Base which is surrounded by a small community of restaurants, bars and shops that serve the base.

I pulled up to Mama Thibodaux’s Kitchen a little before three in the afternoon. Lee looked doubtful about the place. It had obviously been something else— probably several something else’s.

We entered the dining room and were greeted by a short, round woman. She started us out with a pitcher of iced tea and a dozen raw oysters.

Lee gazed up the oysters dubiously and I said, “If you’re brave you’ll find these quite a treat.”

I forked an oyster, dipped it in a horse-radish sauce and drizzled the oyster with lemon juice. Then I dropped the oyster down my throat.

Lee followed my lead and swallowed an oyster. Suddenly the lights in his eyes brightened and he said, “Oh wow… that’s odd but amazing.”

I said, “Oysters have some interesting folklore.” I prepared my next oyster. “Not that we need them but they’re supposed to be aphrodisiacs.” I swallowed my next oyster.

Lee grinned and said, “In our case that would seem to be redundant.”

We worked our way through the oysters and the lady appeared with two cups of some of the best gumbo I’ve ever seen. It was thick with small shrimp, crabmeat and okra. I gave it two shakes of Crystal hot sauce and the mixture was just perfect.

Lee said, “I’ve had gumbo before but it was never this good.”

“A lot of people try to make gumbo. You really know it when you’ve found the real thing.”

At last the main course arrived. We had a seafood platter for two and it was amazing. There were fried shrimp, oysters, scallops, soft shelled crab and several pieces of redfish. Of course- some people don’t like seafood. However, you don’t often get it like this. All of this stuff was fresh off the boats.

Lee took the soft shell crab, looked at me and said, “How does this work?”

I said, “You eat the whole thing.”

He broke off a leg, dipped it in the come-back sauce and raised his eyebrows. He said, “It looks a little scary but, wow that’s good.”

“The seafood is different around the country. On the east coast lobsters, clams and crabs are king. Out west you get a lot of cod and tuna. Here on the Gulf Coast we’ve got an amazing variety and it goes together so well.”

Lee asked, “I’ve heard a lot about crawfish. What are they like?”

“It depends a lot on how they’re cooked. They need to be in season too. They’re a lot like shrimp but they’re usually served boiled with potatoes and corn cooked in the same spices. There’s a dish call crawfish etouffee that’s really good.”

We finished off our feast with two slices of key lime pie, paid the check and found that the rain had finally lifted.

We walked around exploring some the shops that the locals called Keesler village. One was a hobby shop with model ships, planes and shelves and shelves of games. Six people were around a table playing a table top war game that reprised the early days of the Guadalcanal campaign. We departed after playing spectator for a while.

The next shop got us right where we lived. Mitch’s Albums used to be a small grocery store. Now it was a relatively large shop with a huge selection of albums, CDs, audio and video tapes. A new CD cost about $15. You could get a used CD at Mitch’s for five bucks or five CDs for twenty. We both went a little crazy. We were able to take a few chances on music we weren’t sure about since we we’re paying retail.

Right next to Mitch’s Music store was a used book store with tons of sci-fi and adventure titles. Once we had filled up my truck with CDs and paperbacks, we limped back to our cottage by the beach and had a couple of after dinner drinks.

As the sun began to go down, Lee absolutely shocked me with his choice for our activity of the night.

I sat on the love seat with Lee’s head in my lap and I read to him until we were both asleep.

Maybe we were weird but it was a happy weird.