In Providence: Flames

“He brought Flames to the party. The boy ain’t playin’ around none, is he?”

She told me to bring chicken if I was going to bring anything, and she said to make sure it was spicy. I went to Flames on Eddy Street, which makes my favorite chicken in Rhode Island, and brought it over to her house on Sackett Street.

Every Saturday night, she has friends over and with the weather being so warm lately, she’s able to open up her yard and let people sit outside and talk for a bit until the evening cold arrives. She and her friends play cards, talk, trade stories, but mostly — they eat. And their food of choice is always something hot. Really hot.

“It became kind of a game, no? People make things and they bring things from places they found, but we try to see who can eat it and who chickens out. Don’t come to my house on Saturday because you know just what you’re gonna get.”

She’d had Flames before, but she was surprised to see me walk in with it. I guess the bet had been that I’d show up with hot wings, which her daughter’s boyfriend tried to bring by the first time he was invited over, only to get teased for how mild they were.

“He come in here telling me they were hot. He a liar. I tell him that too. My husband sucked all the sauce right off them and didn’t think nothing of it. My husband, he’s a lightweight. If he can eat your wings like that, your wings ain’t spicy. I tell that boy, ‘Bring me something else next time,’ but I let him come by again, because I like how he laughs when we joke with him. That means he’s good stock. But you brought chicken from Flames, so now I think you should have married my daughter.”

Oh, that’s right. The boyfriend is now the new spouse. Her family’s getting bigger, and she’s grateful. A few years ago, her Saturday parties started, because she was too sick to go out. Her health had been nagging at her, and when she finally got checked out, things didn’t look hopeful.

“Before that I was sunny. Used to be go, go, go. Now I gotta slow down. I did slow down. But I hate being all cooped up in the house. I started telling people come by. Never liked having anybody over before, messing up my house. I want to come to you, I don’t want you coming over here seeing how dirty my place is and getting it dirtier. I’ll dirty up your house. How about that? But it’s no good to be lonely when you’re sick on top of it, so my husband says, ‘We gotta have people over. People want to see you. People love you. They want to come by and make sure you’re doin’ all right.’ I say, ‘Fine with you’ and they come over, and they want to bring something to eat for me, I say, ‘I can’t hardly taste nothing.’ That was the problem with being sick and with my medication, I say, ‘I can’t taste anything’ and my friend, she tell me, ‘I’ll make my chili. We’ll see if you can’t taste nothing.’ I put that in my mouth, and I wanted to kill that girl. I was choking, it was so hot. But it was good, too. I say, ‘Okay, girl, you want to do like that, I’m gonna make you my grandmother’s stuffed peppers,’ which was the hottest thing I ever ate. That girl took one bite, and she’s puking up over there in that corner of the yard. We was all laughing. Nobody could stop laughing. They like seeing me laugh, too. Now we’re always bringing over the hot things to try. I like it. I never liked spicy food before, but now I eat it all the time. Wakes you up, no? That’s what I like.”

As luck would have it, she had some of her grandmother’s stuffed peppers ready for me to try when I got there. I put a little piece on a fork and as soon as it touched my palate, I thought I was going to need an ambulance. Her husband was nice enough to get me some milk, but I gagged for about 10 minutes before the deliriousness subsided.

Everybody at her house patted me on the back and told me I had to take another bite. I thought they were crazy, but she told me that eventually I’d get used to the heat.

“That’s the thing about it. When you can do it and it don’t hurt no more — that’s what feels so good. That’s why you gotta go back for more.”