INGLEWOOD, Calif. _ The sadness can wait, and so can the uncertainty and tension. People need to be fed.
The Rams are in the Super Bowl. In the hours leading up to Sunday's game, cars will pull up to Ms. B's M&M Soul Food Restaurant, the one with this banner out front: "Welcome Rams, Come Try Our Yams. Love, Ms. B."
The customers will race in, grab their containers of catfish, short ribs, pork chops, chicken and oxtail, and hustle back home, the better to enjoy the game with authentic Southern provisions. Then the Super Bowl party will start at the restaurant, with the big game on all the televisions. All that good food, plus hot wings.
Everybody wants hot wings on Super Bowl Sunday. So says Ms. B.
There really is a Ms. B. Her name is Beverly Brinson, and the Rams just might put her out of business.
Not this week, certainly. Maybe not this year. But next year the Rams will move into a majestic new stadium rising within walking distance of Ms. B's Manchester Avenue restaurant. Brinson has lived and worked in the Inglewood area since 1974, when she fled an abusive situation in Mississippi and rode the bus here. She was 25, and she carried all she had that was precious.
"Two babies," she said, "and $17 in my pocket."
This is her fourth location in Inglewood. She has dished out soul food and love at this one since 2008. The pictures that cover one wall are not signed portraits of celebrities. They are the faces of her family, and her employees, her second family. Her head cook has been with her for 25 years.
When this location opened, the Lakers and Kings were long gone from the Forum, which had been bought by a local church. The Hollywood Park racetrack was dying.
In 2011, Prince played 16 shows at the Forum, and Brinson celebrated by decorating her restaurant in purple. The concerts came back after the Forum was refurbished, and now the sports are coming back to town too _ the Rams and Chargers in 2020, the Clippers planning to follow in 2024.
The people will be coming too, but Brinson might not be there to feed them.
Her landlord has raised rent from $6,282 to $14,000 per month, she said, and her lease has been converted to a month-to-month tenancy. She has failed to find a less expensive spot in Inglewood or the surrounding communities.
She has 19 employees, all of whom could be one month from unemployment, and she says she barely sleeps anymore.
"I'm 70 years old," she said. "I used to look like I was 30. Now the stress is getting to me."
