Words: Noah Davis 2021-11-16 08:05:02
“The best chicken I’ve ever had was from a weekend social gathering along Deep Creek, South Andros, Bahamas. Big speakers blasted island tunes and a crowd of pleasant people socialized while I placed my order for a huge plate of chicken and mac. I ate alone on the Deep Creek bridge, looking out into the tongue of the ocean. While KFC is a far cry from Bahamian home-cooking, Bahamians love their chicken.” Photo: Copi Vojta God bless gas station food. And God bless the person who said you could put a chain restaurant in a gas station. And God bless the person who said to keep the restaurant and the business of the gas station together. One workforce unified by fries under heat lamps and cartons of cigarettes on the wall. God bless them because these are the bearers of our salvation after hours on the water. Still two hours from home and a shower, six hours from our last bite to eat, and there on the edge of the interstate at dusk like a shining city on a hill, is unleaded for $3.17 and the burger you’ve been yearning for since the pool where the brown rising in the corner jumped once and spit your hook. Mercy, sweet mercy. My father and I hiked about 10 miles today. Not Midwestern-corn miles, but Appalachian miles. Up-and-down-again miles. Ground so rocky we dreaded the down more than the up. The brook trout were healthy and big, and the water so cold the males forgot to fade back to green. Each belly orange like a slice of pumpkin or red like a teaberry. Stomachs hard and ridged with the shells of crayfish. Every fish heavy in the palm, each slapping our fingers as they slipped back into the stream. The light left the hollows quickly once the sun fell below the mountains. We drank the last of our water and broke down our rods. In prepping for the climb, we guessed what time it would be at the truck, asked what granola bars were left in the backseat, the dusty dry oats already chalking our throats. I grew up in a home where tortilla chips were junk food. Road trips were passed with carrots, PB&Js and Wheat Thins. Every exit with a McDonald’s was ignored like a trico in a salmonfly hatch. So now, when we pull in for gas and dad tells me to buy some fried chicken and potato wedges, I feel a tear crawl down my cheek. How grace works in mysterious ways. There’s a popular fried-chicken chain whose pro-staff I’d happily join if they had one. The particular branch I’m devoted to is married to a Sinclair station across from a cemetery. Their original sauce is the essence of a trout slamming a hopper along a grass-curtained bank. Or maybe, because the chain is from the South, it should be a bass on a frog popper beneath the limbs of a dogwood. It’s got a kick, which all fish who eat off the top have deep in their belly. But it’s smooth. Nothing masking the chicken, only emphasizing the best of the whole parted meat. The mayfly no less mayfly. Only more stunning when framed by a trout’s mouth. This place gives you the fried chicken in a box. No handles. Just a gift, a piece of golden cargo. This is where the creative utility of fly anglers and the packaging of gas station food merges. The high-wing presentation of a mayfly imitation the same seduction as the shadowing on ruffle-cut chips that sends us clambering for their crunch. The soft texture of a corn dog spinning in the case is something like the deer-haired body of a streamer. The chicken is gone before the next exit six miles down the highway. I scoop the remaining sauce out with my finger, pinch what fried bits have fallen to the bottom of the cardboard box and suck them down together. It’s almost dark and caddis ricochet off the windshield as we cross a river. We each mutter that we could pull over and catch the last bit of action. That the kitchen at the next gas station is open 24 hours. We’d probably be hungry again after a few more fish.
©Funny Feelings LLC. View All Articles.