Posey’s

Posey’s


Posey’s. Right on the water, the Gulf of Mexico, at St. Marks, Florida. Right next door to a fish house where Mr. Posey or whoever owned Posey’s Restaurant got his shrimp and oysters and mullet. That’s all Posey’s served—raw oysters, boiled shrimp, and smoked mullet. The oysters came on an aluminum pizza pan. The shrimp were served in an aluminum pie pan, and the smoked mullet was served on brown paper towels like they use in restrooms. Plus beer. Any beer that was advertised in the neon signs hung everywhere around the joint.

In a back room overlooking the water were three professional pool tables and there was always someone hanging around willing to hustle a few games. My favorite was the prim little lady in a polyester pantsuit and round-toed stacked heels who carried her own pool cue in a little case.

The kitchen help was mostly white trash, to put a positive spin on it, and once when we were there with some friends, the cook and the waitress spent most of the time making out behind the bar. The waitress overheard Larry talking about his former life as catcher for a trapeze act with a circus, and she came over to join in on the conversation. It seems that the cook, her present paramour, was AWOL from a carnival that had passed through Panama City a couple of weeks before and he was going to leave her soon to catch back up with them in Mobile, or maybe Pensacola. He was a barker at the girlie show and was itching to get back.

“You know how it is” she said to Larry, expecting his understanding, “when you get show business in your blood.”