Solomon versus Lord

Sixteen
HOOCHIE-COOCHIE MAN

“Anybody hungry?” a deep voice rumbled, as the door to Steve's office opened. An elderly black man in rimless glasses and a rainbow-colored dashiki walked in, carrying three grocery bags. At his side, Bobby lugged a thermos bottle. Cece Santiago brought up the rear, carrying a Styrofoam cooler.

At her desk, Victoria smelled the sweet, spicy aroma of barbecue sauce.

“Cadillac,” Steve said. “Right on time.”

“Baby back ribs, Uncle Steve,” Bobby said. “Your favorite.”

“Plus conch fritters,” the old man said. “Bimini bread, ham croquettes, oxtail soup, and my sweet potato pie.”

“That's it?” Steve said. “What is this, the South Beach diet?” He grabbed the grocery bags. “Victoria, say hello to Cadillac Johnson. Cook, musician, and friend.”

“Hello, Mr. Johnson. I've seen you at the courthouse lunch wagon.”

“The Sweet Potato Pie,” Cadillac said, smiling. “My kids run it now, but the recipes are still mine.” Thick through the chest, he had a round face with chubby cheeks and a full head of salt-and-pepper hair.

The smells were tantalizing, and Victoria was famished, but if she ate her share, she'd have to take a siesta. Not only that, almost everything violated her vegan principles. Actually, Bruce's vegan principles, she rationalized, thinking… Maybe just one little rib.

“The Pie wouldn't be there at all, 'cept for Steve,” Cadillac told her. “You know about that new zoning ordinance?”

She ran a finger along a baby back rib and sucked off the sauce, tart with vinegar, sweet with brown sugar. “No vendors on public property. How'd you get a variance?”

“Legal quiz, Vic.” Steve passed around open cartons, unleashing a mixture of aromas. “Cadillac's been cooking on the courthouse steps for twenty years and the county tries to evict him. How would you argue the case?”

Here we go again, she thought. Solomon the teacher. Treating me like a schoolgirl. She nibbled at a rib, the meat falling off the bone, melting in her mouth. “I'd go for a declaratory judgment and an injunction under Section 1983. I'd argue estoppel, due process, equal protection.”

“El bicho,” Cece said. “Steve don't know that shit.”

“Federal litigation?” Steve said, spearing a croquette. “That might work, after about ten years of motions and hearings.”

“So what'd you do?” Victoria asked. “Bribe the mayor?”

“And the commissioners,” Steve said.

“You didn't!”

“A dozen pulled pork sandwiches and some sweet potato pie.”

“You're making this up.”

“The law doesn't win cases, Vic. Emotions do. Feelings. The key to every case is finding those emotions and hitting those notes.”

“Do I get continuing education credits for your lecture?”

“You get seconds.”

Without realizing it, Victoria had wolfed down half a slab of ribs. Okay, Bruce didn't have to know. “Mr. Johnson, these are delicious.”

“Thank you, missy,” Cadillac said. “Now try some fritters.” He sliced a crisp, golden ball. Juicy pieces of conch oozed from the thin fried crust.

“Maybe just one.” She dipped the fritter in mango salsa, tasted it, closed her eyes with pleasure.

“Steve's my man,” Cadillac said. “He's a fighter. And the price is right.”

“Lunch?” she asked, taking a second bite.

“Hell, no. He pays for lunch.”

“Guitar lessons.” Steve was slicing the pie with a plastic knife. “Cadillac's a helluva musician. Rhythm and blues, early rock.”

“Played fish fries, juke joints, bars where you could get your throat sliced for looking at somebody cross-eyed,” Cadillac said.

“When you gonna teach me the blues with a shuffle feel?”

“Same day people stop calling you ‘Last Out.'”

“Why do they?” Victoria asked.

“Because I'm always the last one out of the library,” Steve said.

“Eso es mentira,” Cece said. “That's a lie.”

“A big fat whopper,” Bobby said.

“Steve made the last out in the College World Series,” Cadillac said.

“Aw, jeez,” Steve said.

“Uncle Steve's a 'Cane,” Bobby said. “Played at U of M.”

“Couldn't hit a lick,” Cadillac said.

Steve winced. “C'mon, guys. I was good at stealing bases.”

“And petty cash, if I know you,” Victoria said.

“Uncle Steve once scored from first on a single,” Bobby said proudly.

“I seem to have a knack for running in circles,” Steve said.

“Instead of slowing down rounding second, he speeds up by balancing the centrifugal and centripetal forces,” Bobby said.

“So you got thrown out stealing?” Victoria guessed. “That it?”

“Worse,” Cadillac said.

“Much worse,” Cece said. “Aw, don't be such a baby. Tell her.”

Steve sighed. “We're in Omaha, championship game against Texas. Two outs, bottom of the ninth, nobody on base, we're down by a run. We get a triple. I come in as a pinch runner, take a lead… and get picked off.”

“Oh, dear,” Victoria said, not knowing what else to say.

“The thing is, I was safe. It was a bad call.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Honest. The video proves it. I got in under the tag. My first taste of injustice.”

“Some of us seen a lot worse than that,” Cadillac said.

Ten minutes later, Victoria sampled her sweet potato pie and listened. Cadillac was telling Steve he'd taught T-Bone Walker to cook catfish, and T-Bone taught him to play bottleneck slide guitar. “And I ended up playing guitar a helluva lot better than T-Bone cooked.”

Steve paid rapt attention to the old man, and Victoria wondered just how many people did. Cadillac started telling Muddy Waters stories, and Steve began singing, “I'm your hoochie-coochie man.”

Cadillac laughed and slapped his thigh as Steve mangled the lyrics and the tune, completely unfazed. Looking at her, Steve belted out the stanza about a man who could make pretty women jump and shout, but then he forgot the words and started making up his own. Just like he made up his own laws.

She'd better add Cadillac Johnson to the Steve Solomon Fan Club. The old man showed deep affection for him. Leaving her wondering again if she'd been missing something.

What a complicated man you are, Steve Solomon.

Chisel away that purposely obnoxious exterior, there might be a heart and soul buried inside. As she looked at him now, the dark hair falling across his forehead, his eyes bright with pleasure, she let herself see him not as a lawyer but as a man. A man who could round second without slowing down and score from first on a single. A man who was already a surrogate father and would make a wonderful father to his own children. A man who-dare she even think it?-was hot.

If I weren't engaged…

Whoa. Where had that come from? She was about to do the happily-ever-after with Bruce. She was lucky to have found him. She loved so many things about him. His honesty and loyalty and levelheadedness. And Solomon? On good days, he could be a savvy, funny colleague. But on bad days, they still squabbled and yapped at each other like those dogs in Judge Gridley's barn.

Whoops. Strike that thought, Counselor.

Those dogs ended up humping on a bale of straw. Best to banish all thoughts of Steve Solomon and barking dogs and bales of straw.

But seconds later, her mind, which had, well, a mind of its own, wandered again: If I weren't engaged…

Focus, she told herself. Don't think of his arms, his legs, his hands, his…

Omigod. I saw it!

The memory came back to her now. A lost dream recovered from the foggy mist between sleep and consciousness. When Bruce's alarm clanged her awake this morning, she was pressed, spoonlike, against him, feeling his warmth. But the man in her dream was not Bruce. It was Solomon.

They were walking on a deserted beach, Solomon wearing nothing but a towel, just like Sunday night at his house. In the dream, she tore the towel away, revealing his fully aroused…

Iron Rod.

Joystick.

Kosher Pickle.

Oh, God, how could she? It was as if she'd cheated on Bruce. She vowed to control her rebellious psyche. Concentrate, she told herself.

Sequester Solomon. Expunge him from every brain cell.

Victoria had no doubt she could, through sheer force of will, remove Solomon from her conscious thoughts. But how, she wondered, stricken with guilt, would she ever control her dreams?