Once across the bridge you can see it, just off to the left. It used to be a Mexican food restaurant with no air conditioner and then it was a barbecue joint with no air conditioner. A lady named Christina bought it in some sad state and turned it into a restaurant and bar, with no air conditioner. The bar was called “The Catfish”, and the restaurant was named “Nowhere in Particular”. The name was a little on the nose in an effort to be clever. I remember going there on my way home from a university night class to try the catfish tacos advertised on a big flapping nylon banner. Tuesdays only. They served a variety of burgers and fried foods like okra, frog legs, and those beautiful catfish tacos. I ordered 2 and a cold beer. Then I ordered 3 more. For less than 10 dollars, a man could get more full than he wanted, and they were scalding hot. Little cubes of deep fried catfish piled into double stacked corn tortillas, thinly sliced cabbage, topped with a sriracha hot sauce dressing. They were fat, too. When you folded them into taco shape the outer edges of the tortilla wouldn’t even touch on top because of the generous portions. I’d place my order and pick a handful of songs on the digital juke box next to the exit door while I waited. That was a special time at a special place and the music was turned up loud like they didn’t adjust the atmosphere after a boisterous karaoke night the previous weekend. Skynyrd resonated throughout the dimly lit room where young cowboys and dairy workers and cashiers from the hardware store played pool and darts. I snuck a few songs by Deftones and Chris Knight. A Duran Duran cover, and songs about growing up along a river, respectively. I had found it, right there down the road from where I lived and worked and it was my favorite Tuesday evening event for some time.
There was a year, maybe less, perhaps 8 months when the bar hadn’t acquired a liquor license and things were peaceful. No belligerence, no fights, nothing shifty. It was a time before the local populace grew akin to the establishment, it was a time before the restaurant figured out that they were overserving catfish, and the tacos got skinny. Less crispy fish and more cabbage. This was the sweet spot. I went there with my kid cousin Sam and we would sit side by side with our elbows on the bar like we were in the old West, talking about everything. We planned fishing trips and complained about work and I beat him badly at darts several times. It was obvious to me that things were beginning to change at The Catfish and Nowhere in Particular. There were a few locals who became problematic. Loud conversations led to brief outbursts and the occasional pushing and shoving; seldom anything more than friction among the short tempered. Mostly symptoms of over imbibing. One night, a local patron was convinced that Sam and I worked for the CIA and he pursued us relentlessly. The barkeep asked him to leave it alone and eventually called his mother to pick him up. He was in his 50’s and it was complicated. After his extraction, we found out that he’d bit part of a man’s ear off in a scuffle the week prior. I looked at Sam and we laughed uncontrollably because we didn’t know better, and honestly we couldn’t help it. It was like he was speaking in randomly cryptic sentences, incomplete and obviously confidential. We were deeply intertwined in his clandestine counterintelligence mission. We might have become earlobe statistics ourselves had we not been rescued. Another night, there were a few teenagers mixed with a group of adults who were attempting to order drinks. The barkeep told them to leave and they shrugged it off. She came through the hinged part of the bar counter with a purpose and slammed a wooden bat onto the greasy shellacked counter top, screaming and hollering about how she could lose her license. They made their exit, trying to maintain composure as they stumbled around the jukebox, walking in to each other and tossing a few foul words and feeble gestures for good measure. They felt foolish. She was shaken up after they left, I understood her frustration. Things started to feel brittle.
One time, Sam and I kayaked all day down the Tuolumne River. It must have been ten hours. We had driven to a bridge that was much farther than our usual entry point, and as we listened to music and smoked cigars in the truck, we lost track of how far we had traveled. It was 16 miles, and we’d had a late morning start. We concluded our kayak voyage, sunburned and dehydrated, and drove straight to the Catfish. We were still damp from a few bridge jumps and one enthusiastic rope swing event, but there was no time for changing clothes or making ourselves presentable. It was this evening that made the Catfish feel like home. We ordered almost everything, it seemed like. Scalding hot frog legs, big greasy burgers, extra fries. Sam even pilfered some Maraschino cherries from a jar for dessert. Our shoes dripped beneath the barstools as we ate like starving waterlogged travelers.
A few months later, I was in the field evaluating disease pressure in one of our orchard experiments. I looked up from the legal pad to rest my eyes and noticed black smoke rising from the North in a plume. Sirens wailed in the distance as engines were dispatched from the local consolidated fire station. I always think about first responders when I hear those sirens. I assume they are moving quickly to a place where the worst day of someone’s life is unfolding in real time. I hoped everyone was okay.
I drove to town that evening for charcoal briquettes and lighter fluid and a few items to grill. I crossed the old bridge and veered left into the turn lane and that’s when I saw it. The Catfish with its roof caved and blackened, everything hanging in water soaked chaos among the empty parking spaces. Rafters sagged, broken and charred. The fire had started in the middle where the kitchen sat between the bar and the restaurant and it was out of control by the time the engines arrived. Months later, remnants of the building have been pushed into a heap. The asphalt lot bakes and cracks, cultivating a variety of hearty weeds that quickly swelter and die in the dry, late season heat. To me, it looks like nowhere in particular. To others, it must look the same.
