Post oak from a ranch outside Caldwell. I split it myself. By noon, the smoke is thin and blue, the clean smoke, the good smoke, and the brisket has hit the stall, and the ribs are taking color, and the whole backyard smells like heaven decided to set up shop in Central Texas. My best friend Tommy Garza shows up around 11:00. He’s been showing up on Saturdays for 20 years.
We grew up together in Bryan, played linebacker and strong safety on the same high school team. After graduation, I went into construction. Tommy went into firefighting, worked his way up from volunteer to full-time to lieutenant to captain to, as of 3 years ago, fire chief of Brazos County. But on Saturdays, Tommy isn’t the fire chief. He’s just Tommy.
He rolls up in his beat-up F-250 with a dented tailgate and the Yeti cooler in the bed, grabs a pair of tongs, takes over the flat-top grill I keep next to the smoker. Smash burgers, thick ones with American cheese and grilled onions and jalapeños from the garden. He’s been making the same burger since we were 21 and it’s still the best burger I’ve ever had. Our Saturday barbecues aren’t fancy, no caterers, no string lights imported from Pottery Barn. Just cold beer, good meat, a Bluetooth speaker playing Turnpike Troubadours, and whoever wants to come.
We eat too much, laugh too loud, and stay out until the fireflies come up and the kids fall asleep in lawn chairs. It’s the best part of my week. And for 3 years, it was the thing one woman in this neighborhood had dedicated her entire miserable existence to destroying. Valerie Ashford lived at 412 Magnolia Court, the five-bedroom stone front at the corner, the biggest house in Stonebrook Heights, 4,000 square feet, three-car garage, a front yard so manicured it looked like a putting green had been surgically implanted into the Texas clay. She was gorgeous.
I mean genuinely stop traffic, forget your own name gorgeous. High cheekbones, full lips, a jawline sharp enough to open a letter, eyes the color of glacial meltwater, pale blue, almost transparent, and about as warm as a January foreclosure. She had the kind of face that belonged on a magazine cover and the kind of soul that belonged in a courtroom exhibit. She drove a white Mercedes GLE with tinted windows and a license plate frame that said blessed and well-dressed. Her husband, Dr.
Richard Ashford, was an orthopedic surgeon at St. Joseph’s in Bryan. He left for the hospital at 5:30 every morning and came home after dark. He existed in the way that furniture exists, present, functional, and never consulted on aesthetic decisions. Valerie became HOA president 2 years before I moved in.
