Michael F. Leake

The moment you sit down at a Texas Roadhouse in Texas, they test your composure with a metal bucket of roasted peanuts and a basket of hot yeast rolls. I sat in a wooden booth across from my friend Hank, whom everyone at his welding shop calls Torch-Hand Hank, while country music shook the timber walls. A waitress in a black shirt that said I Love My Job arrived at our table in four seconds flat. Her nametag said Darlene, though Hank called her Hurricane Darlene. "Y'all ready for fresh rolls and honey cinnamon butter, or do you need a minute to breathe?" Hurricane Darlene asked, setting down four rolls so hot they were practically glowing. "Thank you," I said, picking up a peanut and looking around for a small dish to place the shell in. At the next booth, a rancher in a felt cowboy hat, a man Hank introduced as Brisket Bill, cracked a peanut and dropped the shell straight onto the wooden floor. "Excuse me," I whispered to Torch-Hand Hank. "That gentleman just dropped his shell on the floorboards." "It's Texas Roadhouse, chief," Torch-Hand Hank said, cracking two shells and tossing them under his boot. "You're supposed to throw them on the floor." "Every instinct in my Japanese soul is screaming right now," I said, holding three empty peanut shells tightly in my fist. "Pick up a roll before you pass out," Brisket Bill called over from the next booth. "Use the whipped butter in the plastic cup." I opened a steaming roll and spread the honey cinnamon butter inside. When I took a bite, time stopped for three full seconds. "What is this sorcery?" I asked. "That's why nobody actually comes here for the steak," Torch-Hand Hank said. Hurricane Darlene materialized out of thin air before we had even finished the third roll and dropped a second hot basket on the table. "Didn't even have to ask, boys," Hurricane Darlene said with a wink. "I have not ordered my entree yet," I told her. "Honey, eat the bread, we'll pack your ribeye in a box for tomorrow," Hurricane Darlene said. By the time my ten-ounce steak arrived, I had consumed seven rolls and half a pound of cinnamon butter. I left the restaurant carrying my untouched steak in a foam box, still holding my peanut shells in my left pocket because forty years of Japanese upbringing cannot be undone in one evening.