"Jake, what are you planning?"
"A BBQ, Tommy. The biggest, best-smelling, most welcoming BBQ Stonebrook Heights has ever seen. Open invitation, every house. Brisket, ribs, sausage, burgers, sides, desserts. Kids welcome, dogs welcome, everyone welcome, including Valerie."
"Including Valerie?" he laughed. "You're either a genius or an idiot."
"Probably both. Listen, when you come, bring the boys. Reyes, Booker, Walsh, whoever's off shift."
"You want half my fire station at your BBQ?"
"I want the people who matter most in my life at my BBQ. That happens to include the Brazos County fire chief and half his best firefighters."
"You know they'll eat you out of house and home."
"That's what the second brisket is for."
"Second brisket?"
"Two, 18 pounds each, plus four racks of ribs, 12 pounds of sausage, and enough sides to feed a football team."
Tommy whistled low. "This isn't just a BBQ. This is a statement."
"It's both."
Here's what I understood about Valerie's strategy. She'd been fighting me in the dark. Anonymous complaints, private meetings, whispered campaigns in living rooms I was never invited to.
She won by controlling the narrative when I wasn't in the room. The neighbors who'd stopped waving had never talked to me. They'd only heard her version delivered with a beautiful smile and a glass of Chardonnay by a woman who could make a lie feel like a favor. A BBQ would put me in the room, in the yard, face-to-face with every person she had turned against me.
And when they smelled the brisket and tasted Tommy's burgers and watched their kids run through the sprinkler, they'd know the truth. That I wasn't a nuisance. I was a neighbor. I spent 10 days preparing, printed 50 flyers on cardstock.
"You're invited. Neighborhood BBQ at 408 Magnolia Court, Saturday, June 14th, noon to dark. Bring nothing. Eat everything. All welcome."
I walked them door to door, 48 doors. I introduced myself to people who'd lived 100 yards from me for 3 years and never said hello. Some looked surprised I was normal, a regular guy in a T-shirt and work boots, not the menace Valerie had painted.
A few looked guilty. I left a flyer in Valerie's mailbox. She never acknowledged it. Of course she didn't.
Acknowledging it would mean admitting I existed as something other than a problem she was solving. I also installed four security cameras, wireless, high definition, two covering the backyard, two covering the front. Cloud upload. Motion activated.
Mounted where the eaves met the fascia, small enough to miss, positioned to capture everything. Friday night I prepped. Trimmed the briskets. Salt, pepper, garlic powder, the holy trinity.
Firebox lit at 4:00 a.m. Saturday. Both briskets on by 4:30. Ribs at 7:00. By 9:00 a.m. the smoke was rising in a thin blue column above my backyard.
82° not a cloud in the sky. The live oak was throwing shade. Table set. Coolers full.
Tommy pulled up at 10:30, dented tailgate, Yeti cooler. He pulled out his flat top griddle charcoal ground beef cheese and a brand new apron, bright red. White block letters: Kiss the Cook.
"Really?" I said.
"It was on sale." He set up the griddle next to the smoker and fired it up. The stage was set.
The first guests arrived at 11:30. Dave and Linda Hoffman, potato salad and a case of Shiner Bock. Dave shook my hand hard enough to reset a bone. Linda hugged me.
Their kids ran straight for the sprinkler. By noon, 20 people. By 12:30, 35. They came in waves.
Families from the school drop-off line. A retired couple from the far end, the Petersons who brought homemade egg rolls worth the price of admission alone. A single mom named Tess who lived four houses down and told me she'd been wanting to come for months, but thought I only invited certain people. She'd heard that from somewhere.
I knew exactly where. Ray Castellano brought his speaker and a playlist that started with George Strait and ended near Selena. His wife brought a tres leches cake so good, I nearly proposed to her in front of Ray, and Ray said he wouldn't blame me. Tommy was in his element.
He stood at the griddle in the red Kiss the Cook apron flipping smash burgers with the precision of a man who'd been doing it for two decades. Four patties at once pressed flat cheese at the flip onions caramelizing in the corner. The smell was incredible. His off-duty guys showed up around noon.
Firefighter Reyes, Firefighter Booker, Paramedic Walsh, personal vehicles, t-shirts and ball caps, just regular guys at a cookout. Nobody introduced Tommy as the fire chief. Nobody mentioned the fire department. To anyone watching, they were just friends who liked burgers and cold beer and a Saturday without a pager.
The brisket came off at one. I sliced it on the red oak cutting board I'd sanded myself. The bark was dark and crusty. The fat had rendered to a thin golden layer.
The first slice released a puff of steam and a smell so deep it stopped three conversations mid-sentence. Pink smoke ring. Quarter inch deep. Tender enough to pull apart with your fingers.