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ARROYO CITY — I take my seat under the watchful gaze of an antelope while a nilgai stands guard.
The aromas of fried fish and grilled mushrooms and steak sandwiches and hamburgers offer quick relief from a rather bland Sunday afternoon. The menu at Chili Willie’s Bar and Grill offer the fine and the familiar woven with distinctions.
We can have onion rings and over easy eggs, but where else can we have “The Cowboy” with an over easy egg cooked inside an onion ring and topped with rattlesnake sauce?
Nowhere else but Chili Willie’s at 35420 Marshall Hutts Road.
And hand battered fried pickles with ranch dipping sauce?
I have never before seen that, nor have I ever heard of the Billy’s BLT or “The Rattlesnake” except at the Freer Rattlesnake Roundup many years ago. And the time a rattlesnake exploded at my feet and I nailed it with my shotgun and put it on the BBQ pit.
My waiter brings me ice water and takes my order for the “Loaded Fajita Pancho.”
“Full order or half?” he asks.
Half, I say, remembering the fajita nachos plates I’ve enjoyed at The Vermillion in Brownsville or at La Playa in Harlingen. I have many times had to take with me half of those meals in boxes. I wonder if I will have to do the same here at Chili Willie’s. I hope so.
I take a moment to enjoy the senses of the music filling the dining area and the deer heads with their twisted antlers and the tiny beads or buttons popping up along the antlers. A girl raises her head and drops a French fry into her mouth and then twists the tail off a shrimp.
A family of four — two sons about 12 and 14 years of age — finish their meals and remain in front of the wide screen TV where the Houston Texans and the Minnesota Vikings charge and collide as they the compete for the next touchdown. Miller Lite and Modelo present themselves with their neon smiles.
My loaded fajita panchos arrive quickly, and they are certainly quite loaded with tortilla chips covered with refried beans and melted cheese and beef fajita strips and guacamole.
I eat slowly to savor each bite. I will not say if I liked it or how much I liked it. I will let a photo of my empty plate speak for me. The animal heads continue to intrigue me.
“Is that an elk?” I ask the young waitress. I know it is but I must clarify.
I get more than quick clarification.
“Yes,” she says. “It was killed in Colorado with a bow and arrow.”
Wow. I am indeed impressed. That requires quite some skill and strength and patience.
I really don’t know what the other head is.
“It’s a nilgai,” she says. “It was killed on a ranch right down the street.”
Someone here likes to hunt. I’m reminded again of my hunting so long ago in the bottom lands of the San Antonio River in Goliad. I’m remembering when I could not imagine a life without hunting or fishing, and I reflect now with a subtle bit of regret that I have not hunted in years.
I knew very early in those years the value of color, the intense green of the leaves of the trees in the spring in Goliad and the twisting of the sunlight on the river. I remember positioning myself quietly near mulberry trees where squirrels loved to feed, and then helping myself to some sweet mulberries. There was the smell in the spring of wild onions, the swirling chatter of the river moving and the scree of hawks and the chiming of robins.
And here at Chili Willie’s more than 40 years later, I think on the power and the importance of the senses. The sight of the waitress bringing the two boys ice cream floats, the flavor of beef and guacamole and melted cheese in my mouth, the aroma of beef and fried shrimp and burgers, the sounds of the Vikings and the Texans on the wide screen TV.
I consider now that the senses — the smells of wild onions and the sounds of the robins and the taste of the nachos and the hum of conversations — offer us security, a sense of place and a sense of purpose. The senses keep us connected to our lives here and serve as bridges between the physical and the spiritual, and they engage our relationships between our past and our present and with each other.
Without the senses of the wild onions and the robins and the fajita nachos and the talking we would be freefalling in an eternal vertigo.
And the stories, about nilgai antelope and elk hunts and spring turkeys and the revelry around a wood stove late at night, those give the place its personality, and that personality gives us a sense of belonging.
Hours at Chili Willie’s are 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday.
