Two Cokes and a Fish Fry Menu

The First Piece of Perch

I thought that was the end of it. I helped Grandma take off her coat, because she had decided we were staying for supper after all, and I was folding it over the back of the stool when Gil disappeared through the kitchen door.

He came back a few minutes later carrying a single plate. On it was one piece of fried lake perch, golden and still crackling, with a lemon wedge and a little paper cup of tartar sauce. He set it down in front of Grandma very carefully, like it was something breakable.

“First piece out of the new batch,” he said quietly. “On the house. You can’t argue with this one.”

Grandma looked at the plate, and for the first time all night, her face changed.

“Your dad used to do that,” she said.

“I know,” Gil said. “I remember. You and Walter, every Friday, that booth by the window. Dad always brought Walter the first piece of perch out of the fryer. He said Walter was the only man in town who could tell a perch from a bluegill with his eyes shut.”

Grandma’s eyes filled up. I had not seen her cry since Grandpa’s funeral. She put her hand flat on the bar, near his, not quite touching.

“He could, too,” she said. “He’d have liked you tonight, Gilbert. Stan would have too.”

“I don’t know about that,” Gil said. “I don’t think Dad would have liked much about tonight.”

“He’d have liked the end of it,” she said. “That’s the part that counts.”

She ate the whole piece of perch. Every bite. Gil stood there behind the bar and watched her eat it, and nobody in that room said one word to him the whole time, because everybody understood that something was being paid back that had nothing to do with money.

When she was done, she folded her napkin and set it on the plate. “That was very good fish,” she said. “Your dad’s batter.”

“It’s still his recipe.”

“I could tell.”