Fried Chicken Friday

LOWERY'S RESTAURANT
Tappahannock, VA

The first bucket of chicken I ever saw came from Lowery’s Seafood Restaurant, the flagship joint in my hometown that I think was founded on the goddam Mayflower and has been run by the same family for generations. Up until a few years back when the Wal-Mart came and with it every conceivable fast-food restaurant, it had been the only game in town; located right on Rt 17, anyone driving through that part of the state would inevitably find themselves driving by it after going, oh, maybe 15,000 miles since the last restaurant and decide to pop in. For decades if you told somebody you were from Tappahannock they’d go “oh yeah, Lowery’s right?” Of course now if you mention Tappahannock they might say “oh yeah, that place where a certain SOMEbody could’ve gotten a homer in his last-ever Little League at-bat but got held up at third by Drew Allen’s fucking retarded, blind father, ruining what would’ve been the perfect cap on an otherwise amazing Little League career, thus teaching a young buck it’s okay to settle for third base, don’t bother dreaming cause you’ll be stopped short every time and you’re better off just becoming an 800-lb jobless bed-wetting alcoholic pussy loser than trying for greatness, right?” (cough) Where was I...ah yes... the Lowery’s have gotten richer with each generation and, if the group of guys from the family that I grew up with is any indication, dumber. I can still remember a 15-minute report given by one of them in the 7th grade (SEVENTH!!) that summer and winter occur because half of the year the Earth rotates around the sun and the other half it rotates around the moon. Yikes. Hey, maybe his brain was solar-powered and this was during the winter. Freakin’ dumb moon!!!

If you actually live in town though there’s only three reasons to go to Lowery’s: you’re about 5 years old and you wanna go “fishing” after eating, you’re at a Lion’s Club meeting or you’re a 108 year old woman who wants to meet up with the 4 other oldest women on Earth, eat a meal for $2.19 and then spend 30 minutes afterwards using a calculator to calculate that the 21-cent tip is more than generous for a “nice colored girl.” I have no idea what goes on at Lion’s Club meetings, though were I to guess I’d have to maybe think it involves dudes making out while naming each other’s back fat. But that’s just conjecture based on what I’ve heard. Well, and from watching my “Lions Club Gone Wild!” dvds. But I do remember fishing – if you were a kid, as soon as you were done eating they’d bring you a little plastic fishing pole and you’d go in the back where there was a wishing-well kinda thing, and on the bottom were wooden fish with hooks. So you’d dangle the line down and bat it around, hoping to nab a fish while hyperventilating. Much like real fishing it was filled with hope and anticipation, until 11 seconds had elapsed and your father was on top of you “Jesus Christ, come on!! Let’s go, lets go camoncamoncamon! Hurry the hell up and get the damn fish! Jesus, it’s right there, let’s go!!!” Which would lead to the inevitable being distracted into looking at the parrot they had back there in a cage so your dad could reach into the well which, looking back now, was maybe 2 feet deep; your dad would slip a fish onto the hook “wow son, look!! You did it!!! Get in the car!!!!” And it never occurred to you that while you were focusing every ounce of your mind and body into getting the fish as if you were a doctor in your 8th hour of neurosurgery you couldn’t hook one, but the second you started goofing with the parrot, listening to his “colorful” sayings like “Chevy sucks!” or “Constant revolutionizing of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeoisies epoch from all earlier ones” all of a sudden a fish would appear on your line. So now you sprint to the front of the joint and get your prize. Which was either a Lowerys keychain – FINALLY a tool to keep all a 5-year old’s keys to be in one place, particularly if your name was “Schnieder” – or, even better, a rolled up paper placemat from...Lowerys. Wow.

Now, as I said before, Lowerys was pretty much the only game in town; for takeout it was either go there and get a bucket of chicken, or go get pizza from Roma’s. In my house growing up about once every, oh, 9 years my parents would decide you know what, let’s go into town for takeout instead of cooking dinner. Which would send my brother and my little bodies into a frenzy; we’d start shaking like soda, frothing at the mouth and just to make sure our folks would get our point we’d jump on chairs at the kitchen table and start our “mother and father, perchance you’d like to go into town and purchase some pizza we’d be much grateful, not only for the substance but for the love and support you’ve given us, providing a blanket of warmth in family in such a cold, cruel world” song, the lyrics of which were “P-I-ZZ-A!! P-I-ZZ-A!! P-I-ZZ-A!!!” Little fists pumping in the air like Rosie at a fat rally. One time we were doing this and from across the table I saw my brother slip off his chair, and in slow motion I saw his fall momentarily stopped by his temple meeting the edge of the table before his 8 year-old body fell to the floor. From my chair, I couldn’t see him on the floor, and it was all I could do to barely, quietly keep our chant going – hey, any momentum lost and we were right back to regular home-cooked dinner. Finally, after an amazingly long pause, I see a little, white paw fly up into he air and land SMACK! on the table...he’s up!! Dramatically dragging himself up to his chair, egg slowly rising on his temple and with a single-mindedness rivaled only MAYBE by the guy in Princess Bride looking for the 6-fingered man who killed his father, he found his feet, got himself together and our joyous chant resumed.

Was there any 60 minute stretch longer than when my mother would go into town to pick up the pizza? Good lord. My mother would barely be out of the driveway and my brother and I would start our watch, noses pressed up against the living room window. You could see down the road about a quarter mile, each time we saw a glint of metal in the distance our frenzy would roil. At least if it was still light out you could quickly ascertain if it was her or not. God forbid it was nighttime; every pair of headlights creeeeeping down the road “is that her? Is that her? I think that’s her!!! It’s here-“ ZOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM car speeding by us. No mother, no pizza. Whoa. Has there ever been a sadder sentence written than that? Wow.

Or, as I said we’d elect to get Fried Chicken from Lowery’s. I had started this post thinking I’d review their fried chicken, but now that I’m thinking about it I don’t remember much about the chicken itself. I can still taste the loads of pepper on it. But it’s been about 15 years since I’ve had any. I recall it being very adequate. I do remember the accoutrements for some reason though. First of all, the rolls. What the fuck....here’s a restaurant that prided itself on all things homemade; the down-hominess of making everything from scratch. Except, of all things, the rolls....which pretty much was served with every meal ever there. Why would they take so much trouble to personally walk to the river and dredge the muddy floor with their bare hands for the clams, yet for the bread they’d say aw fuck it and run over to the Safeway to grab some fucking Sunbeam knockoffs? Wtf? And the french fries that came with the bird. They were actually thrown in the bucket with the chicken; by the time you opened up the lid the fries were absolutely limp from the steaming they took. This would quickly be overshadowed by the fact that when you would extract the chicken, the fries would therein get shredded. So by the end you had a pile of wet, soggy shredded fries sitting at the bottom of the bucket, much like a man’s hopes and dreams once he finds out there’s no career based on having every episode of "Wings" memorized. Or tater tots before the glucose is added. Did so many potatoes really have to die for this? Put em in a separate box, fuckwads!! The other thing I remember is that with the bucket, the “rolls” and the fries came, for some reason, a prodigious amount of honey. Honey? What the hell is this for? Who puts honey on either of these things? You know my rule: the only thing that is to be spread on any bread product is butter. Period. Jam, jelly, honey, no no no. If I’m looking at some bread and my hands are sticky and it’s not from butter, there better be a group of dudes in a circle with their pants at their ankles. All I’m saying.

Anyways, since as I said I ain’t had it in about 15 years, next time I’m back home I think I’ll actually hit Lowery’s for a bucket. As for next Friday’s fried chicken, any requests are welcome...except Popeye’s. Too much honey. Sorry Op!