We crossed the Indiana state line at noon. It was sunny. Cloudless. The springtime air was dry and pleasant, smelling of apples, IndyCar, and Hoosiers.
The GPS took us on backroads. We saw tractors, and cows, and fields of soy and baby corn, and big billboards that said Jesus loves you and doesn’t want to send you to hell so please call the toll-free number to learn more or visit our website whose address was a scripture verse with a dot com at the end.
We pulled over at a country gas station. I saw a guy pumping gasoline on the other side of my pump. He was wearing denim work clothes, filling up an old Ford pickup. His beard was white. His truck bed was full of firewood. Cherry and hickory, from the looks of it.
“Alabama, huh?” he said in a Midwestern accent. “I’ve been to Alabama. Good barbecue. No lottery.”
This was all he said for a while. Then he spit into a small cup.
“Do you have a lottery in Indiana?” I asked.
He laughed. “Is a bear Catholic?”
“What about barbecue?” I asked. “I’ve never had Indiana barbecue, what’s that like?”
He pointed to the truck bed full of wood. “Follow me and find out. Me and my sons are barbecuing all weekend.”
I told him I really wished I could but I have to be in Nashville, I can’t make it. He smiled and said, “Next time.”
Then the man explained that Indiana barbecue is not talked about in mainstream culture, but it’s a beautiful thing nonetheless. Even though Indiana’s barbecue doesn’t get any press alongside Barbecue’s Big Four—Memphis, Texas, Kansas City, and Carolina—it’s a work of art, he told me.
“Our sauce is sweeter,” he said. “Sort of similar to Kansas City barbecue sauce, but we don’t just use brown sugar. We use stuff you’d find on a farm. Sometimes we use maple syrup, or apple sauce, or apple cider vinegar. I know a guy who uses strong coffee in his sauce and local honey.
“And we use different woods, too. In the Carolinas and in Alabama, you use a lot of pecan. In Texas, they use mesquite. But here, we use a lot of oak and hickory.” Then he patted the bed of his truck. “I like cherry. It’s milder. Smoother. You sure you don’t want to swing by the house?”
“Get behind me, Satan,” I said.
Shrug. Spit.
“We also do something kinda different, at least my family does. We pile up French fries in a bowl, then top that with baked beans, and then mac and cheese, then a hunk of pulled pork I smoke for 18 hours. Some people call this the ‘Hoffanator.’ My wife calls it a barbecue parfait. Sure you don’t want to come by?”
“Give me strength.”
Then, I asked the man why I’d never heard of Indiana barbecue before. Why don’t you ever hear about this delightful art form? Why is it that you only ever hear about certain things, but not others?
He laughed. Then spit again.
“Same reason you never hear nothing good on the damn TV. Same reason you never hear about anything positive happening in this world.”
The old man climbed into his truck and fired the asthmatic Ford to life. “Life is a big high school,” he said. “And it terrifies me that my graduating class is running the world.”
Then he drove out of sight.
Maybe someday Alabama will get a lottery.