Chapter 32: Singing While You Work/ Return of the Crawdads!
Disclaimer: I f I owned NCIS, Tony and Ziva would have given themselves to each other for Christmas/Hanukkah
Author's Note: Lot of ground covered in this one, basically, it's just to put the boys in your memory...because if there's a sequel, it will star them...and the NCIS people, of course!
They finally found the house that they had been directed to; workers were picking debris up from the ground and working on repairing the roof and other damages.
It was the Coopers' home...Well, now, just Cade's home.
They climbed out of the car and looked for someone to tell them what to do.
They found a man who seemed to be in charge of the work effort.
"The guy who lives here is a Marine. He's gone to Iraq, but when he gets back, he's gotta have something to come back to," the man explained.
He told them that they needed people cleaning up the tree limbs and chunks of roofing and various other pieces of debris from the backyard.
They headed around back and saw the others wearing thick gloves and piling debris into barrels and wheelbarrows.
A man walked by and saw they didn't have gloves and went and brought them each pairs of gloves.
They went over to a relatively empty part of the yard and began working.
There were about twenty people working in the front and back yards and about ten more people up on the roof working.
A person working near Tony began singing,
Take me down to the paradise city
Where the grass is green
And the girls are pretty!
Oh, won't you please take me home!
Another boy joined in for the next part,
Take me down to the paradise city
Where the grass is green
And the girls are pretty!
Oh, won't you please take me home!
The boys stopped, looked up at each other and the first said, "I don't know the next part. Do you?"
"Naw, how 'bout you?" the second asked a third boy.
"Nope."
Tony laughed and started singing,
Just an urchin livin' under the street
I'm a hard case that's tough to beat
I'm your charity case
So buy me something to eat
I'll pay you at another time
Take it to the end of the line
"TONY!!!" the boys shouted, realizing who was singing.
Tony realized who the boys were, "Hey, guys."
It was Noah, Ryan, and Matt.
"What are you guys doin' here?" Matt asked.
"We were in town when the storm hit and we decided that we should stick around and help," Tony answered.
"Man, that's great. We need all the help we can get," Noah replied.
"Speak for yourself, Noah," Ryan joked.
"Dude! You know what I was talkin' about! I didn't mean it like that!" Noah shouted defensively.
"Hey, calm down there, killa. I was just messin' with ya," Ryan replied with an infectious smile.
"Let's keep singing!" Matt shouted.
"I don't know the rest of the words to Paradise City," Tony shrugged.
"We'll think of another one," Ryan replied, "Ooh! I've got one!"
Ryan began to sing,
Woman!
You know you're woman!
You got to be a woman!
I got the feeling of love!
Tony and Matt joined in,
When you're
Talking to me
You see right through me!
I got the feeling of love!
Tony made overly-flirty gestures toward Ziva and she rolled her eyes.
Noah then joined in the song,
She's a woman
You know what I mean!
You better listen
Listen to me!
She's gonna set you free-ee-eee!
Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!
They started laughing and Ryan almost fell over.
By this time they had filled a barrel of debris and Noah carried it over and emptied it into a trailer.
"Wanna keep singing?" Noah asked when he returned.
"New song!" Matt shouted before singing,
It's early morning
The sun comes out
Last night was shaking
And pretty loud
My cat is purring
And scratches my skin
So what's wrong with another sin?
Noah and Ryan joined in,
The bitch is hungry
She needs to tell
So give her inches
And feed her well
More days to come
New places to go
I've got to leave
It's time for a show
Then Tony joined in,
Here I am!
Rock you like a hurricane!
Here I am
Rock you like a hurricane!
This time, Ziva almost fell over laughing.
"Was it that bad?" Tony asked, feigning hurt.
"No...it's just...everytime I hear that song I think about that episode of The Simpsons when Sideshow Bob was holding Bart and Lisa hostage at the Air Force Base during the air show and he made the comment about how white trashy air shows were and that there would be some drunk guy waving his shirt over his head to the tune of Rock You Like A Hurricane and then it cuts to Homer and he's doing that...," she laughed.
"They do play that at every air show I've been to," Ryan said, thinking.
"I thought you didn't own a TV," Tony said, critically.
"You've been to my apartment; you know that I own a television," she replied.
"Yeah, I was just calling your bluff," he conceded.
"Hey, after we finish up here, you guys wanna go get something to eat with us?" Matt offered.
"Us and some other people working," Ryan corrected.
"Oh, yeah, some of the other workers are going, too," Matt ammended.
Tony looked at Ziva who nodded, "Sure," he replied.
"Cool," Noah responded.
They worked for the next few hours, only stopping to eat a sandwich for lunch.
Before sunset, the yards were cleaned up, the roof had been repaired, and the shed had been replaced.
"You guys ready to go eat," Ryan asked as he finished putting the last load of debris into the trailer.
"We should probably go change into some nicer clothes. We've been wearing these since yesterday," Tony said, but his stomach protested loudly. They had barely eaten anything in the past forty-eight hours.
"Dude, you eat outside at this place. Nobody's gonna care what you're dressed like," Matt replied.
"Alright," Tony shrugged, "Where are we going?"
"Big Bayou Market," Noah answered.
"Where's that?" Tony asked.
"Bald Knob."
"What?"
"Bald Knob."
"Are you freakin' kidding me?! That's a town's name?!" Tony shouted, laughing.
"Yeah," Matt smiled.
"How do we get there?"
"Follow us."
Matt and Noah climbed into a truck and Ryan climbed into another one and Tony and Ziva climbed into their own car and followed the trucks.
They got to Bald Knob and drove just outside of town. They pulled into the parking lot of a small L-shaped building. In the middle of the buildings was a wooden deck underneath a tall green awning.
A sign that looked weathered read, 'Big Bayou Market' and had a catfish and alligator.
The whole place looked like a former gas station.
There were wooden picnic tables on the deck, Ryan and Matt went and pushed a few tables together.
Three more cars pulled up and a mixed group of kids, teenagers, and adults came out.
"Who are these people?" Tony asked Ryan.
"We were just inviting people that we met while we were working," Ryan shrugged.
"So...you don't really know any of them?" Ziva asked.
"Well...some of them..." Ryan replied.
They went inside one part of the building to order; Tony ordered a shrimp po'boy and Ziva, who had never heard of most things on the menu, ordered chicken.
When they sat back down, Matt, Noah, and Ryan were setting across from them.
Matt had a basket of fried fillets of some type, Noah had a box of some sort of fried nuggets, and Ryan had two baskets one had little lobster-looking things in it and the other had what looked like little shrimp.
"So, what are all these things?" Ziva asked, motioning to their food.
"I got fried catfish. Here, take some," Matt tore off a piece of his fish and handed it to Ziva. She sniffed it, unsure of the food; then ate it and, much to her surprise, actually liked it.
"Mine is fried alligator. It kinda tastes like if a catfish and a chicken had a baby," Noah replied.
Ziva made a strange face and refused to take the piece that Noah offered, but Tony took it and said, "It does taste like if a catfish and a chicken had a baby! You should taste some, Ziva."
"I prefer not to eat something that could eat me," she said, shaking her head.
"These are boiled crawdads," Ryan motioned to the small-lobsters, "and these are fried crawdads," he pointed to the tiny-shrimp.
"So, those are crawdads...how do you eat them?" she asked.
"You take them and you pull the tail out and you bite on the meat on the tail-end and eat it...the purists then take the head and suck out all the boil and seasonings and juices that are up there. I don't," Ryan said, offering them each a crawdad.
They both took them, Ziva only ate the meat, but Tony slurped the juice down and made a horrible face.
"I told you not to do that. See!" Ryan laughed as Tony took a big drink of his iced tea.
"And what did you get, Tony?"
"A po' boy."
"What's a po'boy?"
"Well, et me think...If I remember correctly back in the 1920's some workers went on strike in New Orleans and they didn't have any money so they didn't have anything to eat. So these deli workers decided to make the workers some sandwiches. They used leftover, stale hoagie rolls and whatever meats and vegetables that had on hand and remoulade sauce, which is a like tartar sauce combined with Tobasco sauce. They handed out these sandwiches to the striking workers so they got to be known as 'poor boys' sandwiches', thanks to local dialect, that became 'po'boy sandwiches."
"So...what kind of food is this?" Ziva asked.
"Cajun food. What they eat where Abby is from," Tony answered.
"Oh."
"I would like to propose a toast," Tony smiled between the five, he held up his styrofoam cup and said, "Let me see if I can get this out...Laissez les bons temps rouler!"
The guys slapped their cups together and shouted nonsense words.
Ziva smiled at Tony and said, "Let the good times roll."
A.N.: Laissez les bons temps rouler is a Mardi Gras greeting that means let the good times roll in Creole French.
The songs are:
1, 2, 3: Paradise City Guns N' Roses
4, 5, 6: Woman Wolfmother
7, 8, 9: Rock You Like A Hurricane Scorpions
So, Big Bayou Market is one of my favorite restaurants ever. I would have made them go to my real favorite restaurant, but I didn't think I could justify a trip to Memphis! (Interstate BBQ! I love Interstate BBQ!)
Bald Knob is a real town's name, my dad works at a distribution center in Searcy and says that drivers will come in and they've had to stop and take pictures of the sign...There's even a website that sells shirts that say "I Love Bald Knob".
Furthermore, I have a video project that I am working on. If you are interested in helping me with the video, go to my profile page and e-mail me! Por favor!
Meanwhile, please review! Please, please, please!