Friends,
I have not been more excited about anything in Cedar Grove, TN than the news I received through my personal assistant, Susan Blunderdoss. As many will recall she was our first hire here at the UPLC. She has the son who plays the drums in the West Carroll High Marching Band who has to march freestyle to minimize his chance of being struck by a heavenly body.
Anyway, Susan's second cousin, who hails from Mississippi, got into a little bit of trouble back home with her church, and rather than fight it out locally, her momma, Clotile, felt it would be better for little Yolanda to move up here and have the preacher's child out of state as well as out of wedlock. Yolanda is a spirited young girl with black, black hair, and pale white skin with a sprinkling of freckles around the nose and the bluest of blue eyes. She has a nice figure for a girl of thirteen and in a certain light could pass for sixteen.
She was only twelve when she got into trouble with the Preacher, there in Humpityduditycannipotitty County, Mississippi. Funny how all the Mississippi counties have native American names. Humpityduditycannipotitty is the Kashkashkia Indian tribal word for salt. Back in the day humpityduditycannipotitty was a very valuable comodity. So important that Mississippi named an entire county for it!
Well, Susan has brought Yolanda out to the house where I met and have been speaking to her and she relates to me that she is a clairvoyant. And regularly communes with spirits, both famous and infamous. I thought I would humor this troubled teen with what I thought was a harmless question.
"Could she get me an interview with my favorite American writer, Ernest Hemingway?"
Well, before I knew it her bright blue eyes had rolled 180 degrees back into that pale faced skull, and she intoned in a somewhat other worldly voice, that Hemingway was not reachable through the gates of Hell, suicide, you know, but Mark Twain had an opening and was agreeable to an interview. I decided to play along with her on this one, curious to see what would follow.
I tentatively asked my interviewee if I could get him/her anything before we start. His/her bright blue eyes snapped back into focus, gazed about the library in which the ordeal was unfolding and rejoined, a Cuban Cigar if you have one. I had some swishersweets left over when mother was alive and offered him/her one of these and he/she accepted. I lit it up and he/she took a long drag off it and blew it out and then refocused his/her gaze on me.
Mr. Twain, I uttered. I was not expecting you today, and have not prepared anything in particular. Can I get you anything to drink? Sherry would be just fine. I asked Susan to bring some of momma's finest in a glass for our guest and I asked Mr. Twain to tell me a story of interest to him. He related the following short to me that day:
When I was just a lad of 10 or 11, Tommy Blankenship and I would spend summers exploring the area around Hannibal. Mother always sent a negro named Roger to watch after us and keep us safe. Roger was a great big fellow who was a few years our senior and was strong enough to pick both Tom and me up with one arm, and though he looked like a man he was childlike. On a dare, he once swam across the Mississippi river round trip and didn't even get winded. He was strong but not bright.
His/her bright blue eyes flashed and flickered for a moment, and then he/she continued:
Roger was one of the kindest fellows I ever met. He wore a hat that was my grandfather's which was thrown out 10 years ago. Roger's mother, Cici, had retrieved it from our family's dump after my mother's father died. He never went anywhere without that hat. It was fine old hat in its day. Pap used to wear it to church and to campaign stops. And though it made Pap look distinguished, when Roger wore it, he looked comical. A young lad with a top hat! What next, honest men in politics! But I digress.
It was a hot, hot August day and Tommy and I had not played a trick on Roger for over a month. He, Roger, was terribly feared of haints and we could always count on his fear to play a good one on him. One of our swimming holes had a bank with a hole in it where a small boy could swim down into and come up on the other side of the bank and if you was quiet enough you could slip out of the water and it would look sure as not that you'd drown! The hole was made by muskrats and had washed big enough to allow passage of a small boy. I was playing and splashing with Tommy in that swimming hole as Roger looked on with a vacant stare. I winked to Tommy and went under and made it to and through the muskrat hole and slipped up and peered over the bank at the commotion when Tommy yells to Roger that Sam is done drown.
Roger lept up and hit the water so hard it nearly splashed half of it over the bank, he swam every inch of the swimming hole, coming up only long enough to grab a quick breath and down again. After what seemed a few minutes, I swam back through the hole and floated to the surface near Tommy and Roger had me hoisted on his shoulder and on the bank in seconds. He laid me out and began to wail over me. I done lets my little marster drown! Miss Clemens will never forgives me. I has failed. Lordy Jesus give my lil marster Sam back. The tears were welling up in his eyes and on cue, I opened my eyes and Tommy said, Look! He is alive!
Roger fell on my chest hugging and kissing me to a point that I was embarrassed by all the attention. I asked who they were and who was I and pretended not to know anything. Roger wasn't worried until Tommy told him I had "amnesia" a loss of memory attributed to folks that went across the river Styx and drank from its waters of forgetfulness and somehow mistakenly returned to the ranks of the living. Tommy explained that I was dead and didn't know it.
This got Roger's attention. He got off me and stepped back and studied the situation for a moment or two. Then he said, suppose we could take him home and ack like nothing happened? Tommy said, they would have to teach me everything first before I could go back home, if I lived. Roger's eyes got big as saucers.
Sam, yo name is Samuel Clemens! Yo mama is Mistress Clemens, and yo father is Marsta Clemens.
I am Mistress Clemens, my mama is Samuel Clemens, I said.
No, no, no! said Roger.
You is Samuel Clemens. Got it?
Yes, You is Samuel Clemens, I said.
Naw, I ain't you. You is you. You is Samuel Clemens! Samuel Clemens is you! I am Roger, remember, Roger.
I am Roger. I said.
About this time Yolanda's eyes flicker back in that white skull of hers, and she lets out a mighty groan. The baby, my water has broken, the baby is coming!
I fell out of my hoverround trying to get out of that room. I did not know nothing about water breaking. Yolanda started to laugh.
Shoot, Mr. Maybolt, didn't my aunt warn you that I am only in this thing to entertain myself? Everything's made up, it is all a young girls fancy. I am not even pregnant. I made that story up to get away from home for a few months too.
I have to admit that she was good. I will never forget Yolanda from Humpityduditycannipotitty County, Mississippi!
Jackson Maybolt, President, Urban Poverty Law Center
"The difference between a tick and a congressman is eventually a tick will get its fill and drop off." Mother Maybolt 1922-2008
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