God’s Wrath Spared The Rusty Pellican

God's Wrath Spared The Rusty Pelican

The Gulf Coast of Mississippi is a poorer-man’s west Florida. Before the casinos set up shop in the early 90s, the Biloxi area enjoyed miles of white sandy coastline near water. Most days it looked to be a mosaic of blue and silver glass beads.

After the tide rolled back near dusk, I would collect seashells. I always checked them for crabs. Once, I reached my small, wet, and sandy hand into a conch shell and a gray little bug pinched my fingertip. I yelped, but I didn’t cry, it didn’t hurt too bad. I learned that the hazards of the ocean were different than the hazards of the West Michigan lake shore. I took special note of the washed up jellyfish and Man o’ Wars that rolled in with volumes after every real storm. Those worried me more than the stingrays or the small gray finetooth sharks, because they are nearly invisible. I figured that if I got a shark bite, at least I would have stories to tell. But, I didn't and I don't. Except for the crab, the Gulf’s predators never made prey of me.

Across from the place where you could once rent Sea-Doos, there was a souvenir shop and an old shrimping boat that was washed to shore by Hurricane Camille. Shrimping boats could be seen off in the blue-gray horizon each dawn. To get the freshest catch you would meet shrimpers at the docks at 8 A.M to buy the world’s finest shrimp dirt cheap.

Grubby shrimpers with more scars than teeth would sometimes slice one open in front of you to show you how meaty they are how easy the vein came out. Because of the availability of fresh ingredients, shrimp gumbo was served everywhere. They best might have been the Rusty Pelican, a dive restaurant near my grandparents home.

The sign out front had a large cartoon pelican, and it said in bold letters: PO-BOYS, GUMBO, CHICKEN, FISH, SEAFOOD. A Po-Boy is a large submarine sandwich with thick bread. The best one at the Rusty Pelican had fried crab cakes and was served with a hushpuppy and about a pound of salty carnival fries that were perfectly accompanied by a few splashes of malt vinegar. If you had room, you could also get a slice of Key Lime Pie.

With the humidity, white sand, and bounties of citrus, you would think you were in one of Florida’s finer vacation destinations if not for the prevalence of the Confederate Flag and middle age men going into town without shirts and/or shoes.

At a small market in Pass Christian with my grandparents, I remember a black man in a straw fedora coming into the store, and continence of the old fat man at the register changed completely. With his dry blue-gray eyes he followed him through the store. He stepped a few feet and pulled out a small wooden bat, like a little leaguer might use, out from behind a tall garbage can and he leaned it out of view where he stood near the register.

While grandpa was looking over the booze, the black man made his way through the store. He picked up a bag of potato chips, and a couple of big bottles of beer.

Grandpa paid for his bottle of Seagram’s 7, a copy of The Times-Picayune, and a 3 Musketeers for me, and we headed out. Before we could get to the door the black man went to checkout and man behind the counter told the black man to empty his pockets. By the look of his brown furrowed brow, he was perturbed, but he was used to things and he politely complied. With his chapped hands, he reached into his pocket and laid out on the counter a red Bic lighter, rolling papers, tobacco, his I.D., and a small wad of bills. "I ain't got nothin," he said.

He hadn’t stolen anything. The man behind the counter rang him up. When grandpa and I got back to the car where my grandmother was waiting, I buckled-up in the back seat while my grandfather told her about how Ray shook the man down. “Nigger shit”, said my grandmother. “It’s always nigger shit”.

I didn’t know what she meant. I still don’t.