Living in Biloxi, Mississippi on and off over the past year hasn’t made me a son of the South yet. One piece of proof is that I was still shocked by the sight of kudzu on my way to Tallessee, Alabama in flight from Hurricane Gustav. There’s kudzu growing on power lines, kudzu growing on trees, kudzu growing on buildings, kudzu growing on kudzu growing on itself. Every few minutes we’d come across another field of lush vines and every time the feeling was like waking up after a snowstorm and seeing the whole world’s corners rounded off. The sight was stunning and I was quietly grateful for it, a respite from the tension we felt while evacuating for the hurricane.
Before too long it was time to eat, and following the advice of John T. Edge’s Southern Belly, we came to the Hotel Talisi.
Nadene looked around and said, “I feel like I’m in a church of Southern food.” Christine looked around and said, “I feel like we’re in The Shining.” I looked around and said, “There’s a bathtub in the lobby.”
It’s a special place that can inspire all three of these comments, and the Hotel Talisi is serious American exotica. “Relive the spirit of the roaring ’20s!” they say, but it’s not entirely clear what that means. Cabinets of crystal figurines duel with wall sconces and mirrors in a great sparkling battle for your eye. You might be forgiven for thinking it was a tchotchke museum, only then you would be hard pressed to explain why there are more pieces of furniture than tchotchkes. And in particular chairs and couches. So many chairs and couches! Chairs and couches like kudzu. It’s as if people in the ’20s didn’t know how to stand up. Or to match upholstery patterns.
I missed those things a little bit when I got to the enormous dining room, though. Its size suggests a former grandeur, a holdover from more flush days, but despite the chandeliers and hanging mirrors, the present is clear in the sameness of hundreds of institutional chairs and tables.
Behind us a pale woman was playing piano to little response, all around us were people dressed for church, and in front of us lay the buffet—a display of fine-looking fried chicken, unidentifiable vegetable casseroles, and salads that involved raisins and mayonnaise. We powered our way through it—I confess there was a little wincing at the squishy, suction-y sound when the spoon hit the squash, or maybe it was the spinach—and started putting fork to plate amidst women in big hats. I noted, right away, the crunch and the juice of the fried chicken, and quickly it was gone. And then so were the squash and the spinach and the sweet potatoes and the stuffing. I’m pretty sure it was stuffing, anyway, because of the shreds of turkey mixed in. Christine looked at the spot on the plate where her mound of it was and said, “I don’t know what that was, but it was f****** tasty.” She’s a vegetarian. I didn’t say anything about the bird meat. (I look forward to her reading this and saying, again, “That’s not how ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ works.”)
Just then a man hobbled up to the piano. Under a cap that identified him as a Vietnam veteran, a puff of gray afro framed his dark face. He pulled his black track pants nearly up to the chest of his church shirt. He and the woman at the piano exchanged smiles and he leaned heavily on his walker as he reached for his wallet. I saw him count out four dollars and put them, carefully, in her tip jar. She saw it too and reached out for his hand, as if to stop him, as if wanting him to keep the money for himself. They talked, and though I couldn’t hear, I watched their faces and saw much kindness in their exchange. I watched how their eyes softened, how she kept holding on to his hand. She put her other hand on his arm and helped him turn around with his walker and directed him to the door.
A server came by our table with a tray of desserts. We pondered the banana pudding (well, it wasn’t a ponder—I always get banana pudding), but also looked at the peanut butter pie and the lemon meringue. But then there was peach cobbler, too. The man and the pianist made their way down the pathway, and our server stepped aside for him. He looked at the tray, smiled at us and said, “Take ’em all!”
I laughed and thanked him for the advice. Silently, to myself, I thanked him, I thanked the pianist for being here.
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