Lunch at the Lodge

Florida

He was already at the table when Lanying and I sat down. Big guy, maybe sixty-five, seed cap, the kind of handshake that's trying to tell you something. His wife was small and quiet and spent most of lunch cutting her food into smaller pieces than it needed to be.

He sells equipment. Used to. Retired now. Thirty years moving farm equipment, tractors, attachments, irrigation rigs, whatever a man needed. Built the whole thing himself, no partners, no bank loans after the first one. Customers liked him because he'd deal. Not on paper necessarily. You come to me with cash, he said, I'm gonna take care of you. That's just how it worked. You treat people right they come back. He shook his head at whatever the alternative was. Government wants a piece of everything you earn, everything you build, everything you sell. Near the end I figured I'd paid my share and if a man wanted to hand me cash for a used bush hog I wasn't gonna make him fill out paperwork. That's just two Americans doing business. Before they complicated everything.

We talked about the weather, which has been strange. We talked about fishing, which has been bad. He asked what I did and I told him I wrote and he nodded the way people nod when they're being polite about something that doesn't make sense to them.

You from here originally, he said.

Navy brat, I said. Grew up on bases. Everywhere and nowhere.

He nodded slowly, like that explained something. My uncle was Navy, he said. Good man. Different time.

We're from Florida, he said. Moved up from Sarasota twelve years ago.

So am I, I said.

Good state, he said. Mostly. Except for Disney. You see what they're doing down there. Teaching kids to be homos. Right out in the open. My grandkids aren't going anymore. Neither is anybody I know.

You have kids, he said.

Grown, Lanying said.

We ordered. The food came. He was easy company, actually. Knew a lot about the county, the way water levels had changed, which roads flood, who owned what before the developers got to it. Smart in the way guys who've worked outdoors their whole lives are smart.

Then somebody sat down at the bar with a Biden hat on.

You see that, he said. He wasn't asking.

I see it, I said.

Oh, that just. That just burns me. That right there. After everything that man did. After everything they did to Trump. You see what they're doing now, right. You see it. They got him in court, they got him in four courts, made up charges, all of it made up, and people still walking around with that. I just. I don't understand people sometimes I really don't.

The media, he said. That's the whole thing right there. That's all it is. You watch CNN you think the world is one way and it's just. It's not that way at all. My neighbor watches CNN all day long, all day, nice guy, good neighbor, but you can't talk to him anymore. You just can't. Because he thinks. He's got all these ideas and none of 'em are real. None of 'em.

They don't report half of it, his wife said. Half of what goes on they just don't report. My sister sends me things. You would not believe.

You would not believe, he said. And the border. Don't even get me started on the border. Millions of people, millions, just walking across, and what does Biden do, what does he do, nothing. Less than nothing. And now they want to vote. That's the whole plan. Get enough of 'em in here, get 'em registered, get enough of the brown people voting and they don't need us no more. Real Americans. They just. They don't need us.

He said millions the way people say millions when they mean a number they haven't checked.

How many you think are coming across, I said.

Nobody knows, he said, getting louder. That's what I'm saying. Nobody knows because they don't want you to know. They don't count 'em on purpose. You got whole towns. There's a town in Colorado, whole town is just gone. Gangs. Crime. You can't walk the streets. And you won't see it on the news, you won't see it nowhere, because they don't want you to know it's happening.

I didn't ask about the town in Colorado.

His wife refilled her iced tea.

My grandfather, he said. My grandfather came from Poland. Nineteen twenties. Worked the mines in Pennsylvania, coal mines, worked himself half to death, learned English, became an American. A real American. Did it the right way. The right way.

He stopped. Set his fork down.

And now my grandson comes home from school. Twelve years old. Comes home talking about white privilege. To me. To me. My family didn't have nothing. We didn't own slaves we didn't have privilege we had nothing and we worked for everything we got and some teacher, some. I don't even know what you call 'em anymore. Is telling my grandson he should be ashamed. Twelve years old.

He looked at me.

It's Soros, his wife said. He funds all of it. The schools the protests the DA's. All of it. You can look it up.

That's exactly right, he said. It's organized. You think this just happened. This didn't just happen. Didn't just happen. They been planning this for years, decades, and Trump is the only one who stood up and said it. Only one. They want him in jail for that. That's the truth right there. That's why they want him in jail.

He brought the jobs back, she said. Before COVID. Before they stole it. Unemployment the lowest it's ever been, stock market the highest it's ever been, gas was two dollars, two dollars, I have the receipts, I kept them, and people act like that didn't happen. Like none of that happened. He built the wall. He started it. And they tore it down. They literally tore it down and left the pieces in the dirt because they hate him that much. They hate him so much they'll let the country burn just to say he didn't win.

And the economy now. You go to the grocery store. You go. A dozen eggs. I'm not going to say what a dozen eggs costs because people don't believe you, but you go look. You go look for yourself. That's Biden's economy. That's what they gave us. And Trump is supposed to be the bad guy.

He loves this country, she said. That's what they can't stand. He actually loves it. These people, the ones coming after him, the prosecutors and the judges and all of it, they don't love it. They want to change it into something it's not. And he's the only one saying no. Just no. And they call him a dictator for that. For saying no.

He went through things, she said, quieter now, almost to herself. Things that would have broken anybody else. Anybody. And he keeps going. You have to respect that. Whatever you think of him. You have to respect a man who keeps going.

He looked at Lanying for the first time since we sat down.

No offense, he said.

None taken, Lanying said.

You're not from here originally either, are you, his wife said to Lanying. Brightly. Like she'd just thought of something helpful.

No, Lanying said.

Where are you from.

China, Lanying said.

Oh, she said. Well. That's different.

I'm not a racist, he said to me. I want to be real clear on that. Guy I work with, Curtis, Black fella, good worker, shows up, does his job, we get along fine. That's not what this is about. This is about people who break the law and then want the same rights as people who didn't break the law. That's not complicated. That is not a complicated idea.

He leaned back.

They take the guns it's over, he said. That's always next. Always next. You watch. And then what are you gonna do. Trump's the only thing standing between us and. I don't even know what they got planned but I know I don't want to find out.

Good people in this country, he said. Just regular good people who work hard and want to be left alone. And they hate us. They do. They hate us. I don't know when that happened. I just don't know. But it happened.

The check came. We split it. He shook my hand the same way as before.

Good talking to you, he said. Nice to meet real people.

We walked out into the parking lot and I thought about his grandfather coming out of Poland with nothing and learning the language and working the mines and I thought about the town in Colorado that probably isn't gone and I thought about his wife cutting her food into smaller and smaller pieces the whole lunch and I thought Curtis probably has his own thoughts about all of this and nobody at that table is ever going to ask him.

Lanying and I got in the car.

Well, she said.

Yeah, I said.

We drove home.