Dupuy's has shucked oysters for loving patrons since 1869. The original location on Main St. in downtown Abbeville launched us into the blessed foodways of Acadiana.
The dozen oysters we downed were so firm, fresh and cold they seemed to have just been plucked from navy blue arctic waters. It was just after two o'clock on a Tuesday and lunch service was over. A small crowd, well into their cups, sat at the bar nursing cocktails and holding forth on the delights of the Boucherie, the communal celebration of killing and butchering hogs. The death, the fluids and viscera, these did not bother them. They loved to get their mitts into a body cavity and yank and unwind the guts.
The conversation drifted into local crime and capital punishment. The bartender's house had recently been robbed. The thieves had taken everything, including her four poster bed, bottles of hairspray and faded cassette tapes. She wanted to see them suffer.
''I'd like to see you make away with my bed with stumps instead of hands,'' she said. Then she tucked her hands down toward her wrists and pretended to try and drag off an enormous object.
A guy who'd been silent asked us where we were from and when I said Montana, he asked me whether I'd heard of the Freemasons. He pointed to the bulky ring on his finger.
''You ought to check them out,'' he said. ''I'm serious. I'm giving you something here.''
When Bee went to the restroom, he pulled me in close. He whispered that he had once weighed almost 300 pounds, but that he had gotten some ''therapy'' that included gastric banding and testosterone injections. ''Now I'm back in action,'' he said. He began to describe one of the bartenders' blemish-free skin and just as he was telling me that he'd paid her for sex, Bee returned. As we hastily donned our coats, he held up his ring. ''Don't forget,'' he said.
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