Friends Betty and
Don own the Star Café in Fort Worth’s Stockyards National Historic District.
The Star is known for steaks and for my favorite—chicken fried steak. Local
food guru and restaurant critic Bud Kennedy has rated it the best CFS in town
for several years now. So last night Betty and I planned to go to the Star, so I
could have a CFS fix. Until word came down that between 300 and 700 members of
a Southern California motorcycle gang, with a pretty tough reputation, were
expected to arrive in the Stockyards last night for a weekend rally. Betty
thought it the better part of wisdom not to mix me and my walker into the
inevitable parking mess, and I agreed. I declined her too-kind offer to fetch
my dinner in mid-afternoon—too much coming and going for her and besides, I am
quite sure reheated CFS at home would not taste the same as the real deal
freshly cooked in the café. So we’ll reschedule.
But I looked this
gang up on the internet, and they are indeed scary. So then I began to worry.
Fort Worth police promise an extra-heavy presence in the Stockyards, and some
merchants have posted signs that anyone wearing gang insignias, etc., is not welcome
(that seems like throwing a glove in their faces as a challenge, to me). The
aura is one of tension before a storm. And of course, rumors are flying. Is it
safe to go to the North Side for dinner?
Last night I sat
home, ate a leftover salmon patty, and worried. My imagination conjured up scenes
of violence—shattered store fronts, people injured, etc. Of course, none of
that happened. Betty said this morning she saw nary a motorcycle—apparently, they
didn’t arrive until later at night. But while my imagination ran wild with the
worse possible scenario, the practical side of me was wondering where 700
motorcyclists sleep. Do they pitch tents? If so, where? There’s not much public
land up there, and surely they would need a permit. Would motels rent to them?
I think I had a primitive vision of all these men—and surely some women—sleeping
out exposed to the rain (yes, it’s supposed to storm) with their motorcycles as
their pillows. You know, like cowboys around the fire using their saddles as
pillows. Told you I have a good imagination!
Hmmm. The
imagination and the practical side. See why I write fiction?
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