Mississippi….what happens in the Deep South, stays in the Deep South….unless you’ve got toilet paper stuck to your shoe. Part 1 of numerous ramblings: I had been driving for almost four months in anticipation of skimming the back roads of this state….a state that screwed me in 2nd grade spelling class and would leave a “spell” on me later in my life when I fell in love with its music. Baby Moses Blues was put in a basket in the delta and floated up the Mississippi to Memphis where he was proclaimed the pharaoh of rock and roll. This was also the birthplace of Mr. Robert Leroy Johnson….the man who sold his soul to the devil at the crossroads of Highway 61 and Route 49 to learn how to play the blues. Legend has it that Lou Cypher himself tuned Robert’s guitar for him that night. I looked at Ruby and wondered if he knew how to tune a ’56 Bendix carburetor. Mr. D held the owner’s card to my ass from past misdeeds, so unless he was accepting double-coupons, it would be useless to try. As lady luck would have it, we located a “super mother ship” just outside of Natchez and made camp for the night. I opened the door of the camper in the morning and stepped into a family posing for a portrait in front of Ruby. The father asked me to pose with his wife and children in front of the “antique truck and teardrop trailer” while he snapped a picture….while I was holding a Gatorade bottle full of piss. None of them noticed that the label said Fruit Punch but the color inside was bright yellow. Electrolytes. I gave Ruby her 10 minute morning warm up….with massage, and we ambled on to Highway 61 north….the “Blues Highway.” We weren’t more than a mile down the road when I spotted what looked like a three-story bottle of Aunt Jemima about to cross our path. We parked in the shadow of the great lady and that’s where I met Lorna Martin, owner, hostess, waitress, cook, and master pie maker at “Mammy’s Cupboard”….a local luncheonette, coffee shop and institution since 1940. I found a table in the corner and sat with Lorna to get the history of the place. “It used ta be called ‘Black Mammy’s’ back in tha day and ‘er face was painted black as coal. We’ve lightened ‘er color over tha years…’speshly dur’in tha sixtee’s….with segregation and all….had ta”, she said. I asked her how business was since the recession began. “Folks been com’in here fer lunch evra day fer yeerzs….I started notasin they wuz’nt gitt’in pie fer deezert and figured they was cutt’in back and all….on spend’in that is…..so we began ta offer half slices ‘a pie….fer half tha prize….that helped, but it just ain’t wut it used ta be. Sometimes I let folks eat fer free if they ain’t gotnee money” she said. Just then Lorna’s mother Mary sat down and added “And we make all ‘ar pies frum scratch…cept the Ritz crackers. I buy all ‘ar ingredints local….won’t never shop at the Walmart….ever since they started mak’in the employees say ‘happy holidays’ steada ‘merry chrismas’”. I got a “whole” slice of Lorna’s “mile-high lemon meringue pie” to go….it was worth every last bite of the $2.00 I paid for it. Ruby and I flipped a coin on which route north we would take. Heads was Highway 61 with all of the tourist traps, and tails was “mapping” it on the back roads. Tails it was. We slipped off of the main road and started hacking our way through the cotton fields on tiny Route 3 north. After 50 miles “in country”, it was obvious that the folks who lived out here were still incarcerated in hardship and poverty. We must have rolled past 100 miles of cotton fields….it was endless, and at times, it almost looked like snow had just fallen. I gazed out and tried to picture someone bent over picking all of that stuff by hand….16 hours a day….7 days a week….for free. It was simply unimaginable. We stumbled into the tiny town of Crupp, or what was left of it, to get directions and I was fortunate to discover “Little Wimp’s BBQ”….it was the best hot lunch I’d had in the past six weeks….not to mention the only hot lunch I’d had in the past six weeks. I asked Laverna, my waitress, how to get to Route 7 that would take me to Morgan City. “Watchyo wanna go they fo sah?” she asked. “I’m looking for a little church cemetery….do you have any idea how to get to route seven from here?” I answered. “No sah, I dun have no cah, so I dun know sah”, she replied. I complimented Laverna on her ribs, thanked her for her time and got behind the wheel again. We were leaving town when I started to think about all of this “yes sir, no sir” business. Yes, it was polite, but why didn’t any white people speak to me like that? This happened every time I stopped to ask a black person for directions, or just a simple conversation. Was it their parents who told, or more likely “warned” them, to address the “white man” as “sir”? Why were white people giving me strange looks every time I opened a door, shook hands, or laughed at a joke with a black man? It was bizarre….like some unspoken rule that no one would clue me in on once they heard my northern accent. Ruby and I ended up finding Route 7 by accident. We were both enjoying the beautifully flat and scenic road that wrapped around the swamps and when it happened….when all hell broke loose from above: rain….HAMMERING RAIN. We were being water boarded by God. Ruby’s windshield wipers have two speeds: SLOW and EXTRA SLOW. Trying to keep my eyes on the lines of the road was like staring through two empty coke bottles. The interims of absolute terror ranked up there with those mountains that we crossed out west. I saw a small building in the distance and we made our way into its tiny gravel parking lot to wait the tempest out. It eventually slowed enough so that I could see through the glass of Ruby’s cockpit. We were sitting in the parking lot of the Mount Zion Baptist Church. A coincidence? I slid out of the door and walked behind the church to spy its tiny cemetery. There it was….hidden in the middle of a small Baptist graveyard….in the middle of nowhere….Robert Johnson’s grave. I was dumbstruck and mesmerized all at the same time. Ruby waited patiently while I paid my respects and then we drove away….silently, and back on to the road. The telephone poles along Route 7 looked like arrows that God had misfired from above….none of them were straight. We passed huge bales of cotton that were bigger than Ruby….waiting to be woven into plush bath towels or a set of king size sheets. I don’t know how Muddy Waters got his name, but we didn’t pass one creek, river or tributary that wasn’t chocolate brown. We made a left turn on to Route 8 and finally made it to Ruleville, Mississippi….where Elmore James once played at “The Colored Café”. I strolled down Front Street, also known as “Greasy Street”….where the carnival row of old juke joints once exploded with a jangled orchestra of music and drunken love. A stray dog ran out from behind one of the vacant buildings....yet another dog that had “take me with you” in his eyes. I wasn’t far from the “Holy Grail”, and walked into a small auto repair shop with the hope that the Templar working there could “fix” me with directions. The mechanic’s name was Jimmy and I asked him how to get to Marigold, Mississippi. “Is jist right up this heeya road….watchu loo’in fo in Maygold?” he asked. “Poor Monkey’s Lounge”, I answered. Jimmy got a big smile on his face and exclaimed “Po’ monkey’s! Sho I kin shows you how ta git theya!” Jimmy spent a few minutes sketching directions on a piece of scrap paper and then handed it to me…..it looked like a game of tic-tac-toe with some arrows and the words “left” and “right” next to them. The last thing he said before I left was “Jist make sho you take that lef afta you pass tha sign fo Pembo Fawms!” I thanked Jimmy for the directions and we followed his map as best as possible. The paved roads turned to gravel and then the gravel changed to dirt. I saw the sign for “PEMBLE FARMS” and made the immediate left. I had to downshift Ruby into 2nd gear and ease her around and through the “God knows how deep that one is” mud puddles on the dirt road. We rounded a bend about a mile down the road and there it was…..the one, the only, the original and the last of its kind….Poor Monkey’s Lounge. To be continued….
Posted on: Sun, 20 Oct 2013 21:55:52 +0000
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