Return Engagement by Harry Turtledove

down.
Cincinnatus was listening to what he himself wasn’t saying as well as to what the cop wasn’t.
Got to pay for my passbook some kind o’ way. I fall down, though, I pay too much.
    Even before he got back into the colored part of town, his nostrils twitched. The breeze was out of the east, and brought the sweet, spicy, mouth-watering smell of barbecue to his nostrils. First Apicius Wood and then his son, Lucullus, had presided over what locals had long insisted was the best barbecue place between the Carolinas and Kansas City. The Woods, over the years, had had just about as many white customers as black. Freedom Party stalwarts weren’t ashamed to get Lucullus’ barbecue sauce all over their faces as they gnawed on falling-off-the-bone tender pork or beef ribs. They might despise Lucullus Wood. Nobody but a maniacal vegetarian could despise those ribs.
    And the smell just got stronger and more tempting as Cincinnatus came closer. Walking inside was another jolt, because the Woods cooked indoors. It was like walking into hell, though Cincinnatus didn’t think the sinners on the fire there would smell anywhere near so tasty. Carcasses spun on spits over pits of prime hickory wood. Back after the USA took Kentucky away from the CSA, Apicius had chosen his surname from that wood.
    Assistant cooks didn’t just keep the spits and carcasses going round and round. They also used long-handled brushes to slather on the spicy sauce that made the barbecue something more than mere roast meat. Fat and juices and sauce dripped down onto the red-hot coals, where they hissed and popped and flamed.
    Coming in here on a dubious errand took Cincinnatus back in time. How often had he done that during and just after the Great War? Back then, he’d been whole and strong and young, so goddamn young. Now the years lay on his shoulders like sacks of cement. His body was healing, but it was a long way from healed. That fellow in the auto had almost done for him. But it had been his own fault, no one else’s. He’d run out in the street, though he still didn’t remember doing it, or actually getting hit. The pain when he came back to himself afterwards? That he remembered all too well.
    One of the cooks pointed with a basting brush. Cincinnatus nodded. He already knew the way back to the office that had been Apicius’ and now belonged to Lucullus. He’d been going there longer than that pimply high-yellow kid had been alive. He set down the box and knocked on the door. There had been times when he barged in there without knocking. He’d got away with it, but he wondered how.
    “Yeah?” came the deep, gruff voice from the other side of the door. Cincinnatus opened it. Lucullus’ scowl disappeared when he came in. “Oh. Sorry, friend. Thought you might be somebody else. Set yourself down. Here. Have some of this.” He reached into his battered desk, pulled out a bottle, and offered it to Cincinnatus.
    “Thank you kindly.” Before taking the bottle, Cincinnatus carefully lifted the Del Monte carton and set it on the desk. “This here’s for you. Ofay who gave it to me said not to drop it.”
    Lucullus Wood rumbled laughter. His father had been unabashedly fat. He was big and solid and heavy, but too hard for the word
fat
quite to fit him. He said, “I didn’t aim to do that anyways. I know what’s in there.”
    “Suits me. Reckoned I better speak up, though, just in case.” Now Cincinnatus picked up the bottle and tilted it back. The whiskey wasn’t very good, but it was strong. It went down his throat hot and snarling. “Do Jesus!” he wheezed. “That hit the spot.”
    “Good. Glad to hear it.” Lucullus’ Adam’s apple worked as he took a formidable knock of hooch himself. He said, “Part of me’s sorry you stuck here with your folks, Cincinnatus, but you got to answer me somethin’, and answer it for true. Ain’t it better to give them Confederate sons of bitches one right in the teeth than it is to sit up