Your Mama Eats

Your Mama Eats is a roadside barbecue restaurant that becomes a brief but consequential stop for Takeshi Fumimota and DL. The pair arrive wary of the place and its patrons, but the meal brings them into contact with Ortho Bob Dulang, whose offer of lodging points them toward the Thanatoid village at the confluence of Shade Creek and Seventh River.

Setting and Atmosphere

DL spots the restaurant sign while she and Takeshi are driving and urges him to keep going, fearing trouble at a place with a loud jukebox and the wrong sort of cars outside. Takeshi insists that she is there to protect him, and eventually pulls into a space and switches off the engine. Their caution does not ease once they enter: they take mental note of the emergency exits and sit in a battered turquoise plastic booth, trying not to look at anyone—including themselves.

The restaurant is known locally for its barbecued meat. Its windows are painted black, and a counter circles a large central pit where cooks roast and carve beef and pork. Ventilation draws away the wood smoke slowly enough that it mingles with the cigarette and cigar smoke hanging in the room. Takeshi orders a rib platter and DL chooses a filet dish, though both are especially interested in getting coffee.

An Interrupted Meal

Takeshi’s watch signals a call, and he leaves the booth to use a pay phone near the restrooms. Professor Wawazume tells him that Minoru has disappeared and that Chipco’s performance on the Tokyo stock exchange has become strange. The low-cost satellite connection drifts below the horizon before the professor can finish explaining, cutting the conversation short and sending Takeshi back to the dining room without the promised clarification.

When he returns, a young stranger has taken his place and eaten half of the still-steaming ribs. Sauce and grease mark the tablecloth, and half a dozen empty beer bottles stand nearby. The stranger introduces himself as Ortho Bob Dulang, a hitchhiker and Thanatoid, and says that DL invited him to help himself to Takeshi’s food. The intrusion turns the couple’s guarded meal into an unexpected encounter with a potential guide.

A Route to Lodging

Ortho Bob is headed to the Thanatoid village at the meeting of Shade Creek and Seventh River in Vineland County. He offers to arrange a place for Takeshi and DL to stay if they drive him there. The offer gives the restaurant scene a practical consequence: beyond the meal and the interruption, it opens a possible next destination for two travelers who have just learned that people are searching for them. The evidence establishes the offer, not whether they ultimately accept it.