M2M2M Trip (22)

TWENTY-TWO

ONION SESSION:

UNNECESSARY SURGERY ON HIS FOOT AS A BOY. PAIN. FEAR. FEAR OF HIS FATHER WHO BELIEVED IN TEXAS JUSTICE. SHIPPED OFF TO A BAD SCHOOL TOO EARLY FOR BEING TOO SMART. WALKED THROUGH A BULL FIELD TO HIS NEXT SCHOOL. Dad had a bad childhood. The family onion is unpeeling. Nanny was the greatest grandmother ever and my favorite person throughout our time together…and she was a disinterested parent and wife before that. Poppa had a live-in girlfriend before he died when Dad was only a boy. Dad had a bad childhood and his young adult years were so clouded. My poor half-brothers had a rough time of it after being born to a boy, not a man. Especially Miles. Dad’s second son was born to a hard-drinking, self-loathing beauty. She was Dad’s second wife, yet Dad was still basically a boy. Miles’ life has been a tragi-series of bad event after bad event, and he is Arkansas to the bone and too damn smart for his simply dumb life. Near toothless and too stoned and mostly alone, after his lady friend had a stroke related to an accident at the chicken plant where they both worked. I cry and blame Dad, in a way, and take up for Miles in a big way and say: “IT IS NOT HIS FAULT!”

Dad and I talk a lot of the things between us out. My problems. His problems. Our problems.

I don’t see too much that I like about Arkansas. I liked Emmitt, but he is from Iowa, not The Natural State. Maybe if it was light out I would see more of the natural beauty and appreciate that.

Then we hit Mountain Home, and I do like it. We have a stop to eat, and I have a few cocktails, and the onion does not sting my eyes as badly as it did in the car. I see some girls that are kinda cute. The tourney is on.

I miss my sons and my ex-wife and love Dad’s “new” woman, Dale. I feel like Dad has the right partner: they need each other, which is point blank never the best reason for any relationship. But I just adore her and trust her and somehow know she is the right woman. Dale is awesome.

I miss my sons and pray for them. I pray for my whole crazy family. I pray for my sons again and their mom. I miss my Nanny. These cheese fries are pretty good. Texas A&M is playing UCLA. My Dad’s dad, Poppa, went to A&M, Gig ‘em, Aggies. I applied for a job at UCLA and hung out there a few times and love powder blue. I pray for my Dad. I am shaken up. This drink is helping a little. I pray for myself.

 

M2M2M Trip (21)

TWENTY-ONE

DAD’S DISCLAIMER:

“Now don’t get me wrong about Arkansas, son,” Dad says. “I really like Mountain Home…That’s where we go to town. The people are nice…A whole lot of the people are real nice in Arkansas, it’s just the poverty and corruption that gets to me.” I ask: “What are some other cool towns?” “Eureka Springs is our favorite.” “How about Fayetteville and Little Rock?” “Little Rock is not my favorite city, but I’m sure Fayetteville has some pretty good stuff going on, with the University being there…They were sure mean as hell to away fans when I went to see TCU play there. We’ re like some little private school fans and I had your mom with me, didn’t matter…They were like throwing rocks at people…You know who was the nicest to away fans?” “Who?” “Nebraska…I remember them saying ‘You should have beaten us,’ which was true.”

M2M2M Trip (20)

TWENTY

OUR KANSAS:

You can see why this is our Kansas. The Natural State is so almost immediate nothingness. Memphis suburb for a few minutes, and then flat farm land for miles-and-miles. Rice. Cotton. “One of the most polluted parts of Arkansas, this flat farm land,” Dad says. “Overfarmed?” I ask. “YEAH! (Note to reader: Dad always sounds pissed off when he talks about something he cares about, like now) year-after-year of chemicals…there’s probably not an eartthworm within miles of here.”

We stop at a gas station, near a WAL-MART. The locals inside are stereotypical Arkansas, so very Arkansas. I take a picture of a friendly guy named Emmitt. He tells us he is from Iowa. I tell him my aunt and uncle live in Iowa. He wants to get back there. We don’t blame him. He has bad teeth and smokes and is overweight and works at a gas station…and I really like him. He is as real as real can be. I like him. Dad says, “Even that ol’ boy. Not always but usually when I meet someone half-way decent acting or normal looking in Arkansas, they are from somewhere else.” “And you have spent lots of time in Arkansas, too, Dad.” “YEAH! My son lives here…He loves this place.” “Wait a minute, Dad…that girl over there is pretty hot. Definitely hot for Arkansas.” “She’s probably from Texas, son.”

“You gonna write about Emmitt?” Dale asks me. ”Definitely…I am not going to make fun of him either.” “I know you wouldn’t, honey.” ”You know, Dale, he is about twice as real as all the people I know back home. I hope he makes it back to Iowa. Those folks, like my mom’s folks from Nebraska, that whole part of the country, they are salt-of-the-earth people. One reason I wanted to go study in the Midwest this summer is I enjoy how real they are. It would be the opposite of writing about California, I guess.”

“Oh yeah, Dad. They have a shirt in there that says: ARKANSAS, Land of Opportunity.” “YEAH! They are so poor and uneducated and uncaring about things that would normally be considered…decent, that there is freedom for business and government criminals to take advantage. They don’t care if they are raped and pillaged.” I say: “They don’t know no better.”

M2M2M Trip (19)

NINETEEN

RESPECT:

This one could have been entitled Adventures of Han Finn. The creek was our Mississippi, when I was a boy. We adventured and played on the creek most of the year throughout the time I was in elementary school. Private, Christian school and then the creek, sandlot football or bikes - I’d break only for Batman. So I know what Mr. Mark Twain was talking about when he talked about those feelings Huck had in him. Huck’s the best narrator too. And Jim. Big ole Jim, who w’it Huck. He knows everything. And the Mississippi floors me. It ain’t nuthin’ but a riva’? How much commerce and life and action has flown through this river? That’s how the Blues and the Jazz got around from city-to-city. That was the heart of America and there would simply be no “America” without it. RESPECT!

Hemingway said of the book, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, “There was nothing before.”  He was Faulkner’s fave too…And Mr. Mark Twain is from Missouri, where we are heading. RESPECT!

M2M2M Trip (18)

EIGHTEEN

MEM-FAST?:

Germantown, Midtown, Downtown: areas of Memphis. New South suburb of Memphis first, and this feels familiar because this could be Atlanta. Starbuck’s and KFC and Region’s Bank. SUVs and Corvettes and Mercedes. Nice Southern homes mixed with traditionally crappy expensive new suburban homes. Traffic. Box stores. “This looks like Sandy Springs,” I say.

We stop for health food. We see some half-way cool grown people - the wish they were healthy types that frequent health food stores. I have a salad and a juice and a candy bar. I would rather be eating BBQ. Dad spends about 30 minutes wandering around the rig before he makes it inside. Dale walks with a cane and generally moves faster than him. He is constantly distracted. His life is one distraction after the other, and a task is just another distraction distracting him from his other distractions. I am mostly finished eating and have read two articles by the time he gets a plate of food and joins us. I am studying people while my folks eat.

We joke and poke around, and I go grab a second alternative culture Memphis rag. I wonder if I could live here happily. The features are on Memphis bands that played at South by SouthWest, in Austin, Texas. Creative Loafing back home had been all about Atlanta bands playing SxSW, and I’m sure Flagpole in Athens was all about Athens bands playing SxSW. Austin is the Live Music Capital of the World, and SxSW is the most prominent music festival in America. I have rockstar looks and attitude for days when I feel like playing it that way, and I used to think it was too bad I can’t sing because I would have been a frontman with mad style. I am so much of a “frontman” that once I realized I could not sing, I did not bother to learn an instrument. I am a feature performer, after all. I guess it may have gotten in the way of my destiny to be a writer. Dad can sing and play guitar. My sons are musical. I was around the music scene in Athens…it just wasn’t for me. As we are leaving a pair of bumper stickers on a truck catches my eye: “MIDTOWN IS MIDTOWN” and “MEMPHIS IS MEMPHIS.” Reminds me of me, hating on my culturally-retarded, suburb-raised friends who will be in Atlanta, in Buckhead or Midtown and say into their phones, “I’m downtown.” It makes my blood curl.

Midtown here has big, pretty, Southern (distinctly Southern) homes. Very nice area. Green space even. Overton Park. The Memphis Zoo. “I could live here,” I say to Dale. I see some relatively hip people - hip for Tennessee. People are out and about, living. This area has that thriving, hiving feel of a truly great section of a good city. It is not all show.  I can just feel that the people live with substance as I tap into them; they are mostly good people with good lives. I feel the struggle, too. The American dichotomy. The famous Memphis struggle that I know about from now Atlanta black folks who spoke of Memphis as home. That is not very far from this oasis. And the good doctor, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered here, probably by our government.

Memphis basketball stuff is everywhere, and we talk about the tourney a little, about my DAWGS getting beat after running out of gas. Texas and Memphis may play, and I hope these good people end up real disappointed. Most of them are really Tennessee Volunteers’ fans anyway. So I like it when they get disappointed. Dad is worried that we are heading in the wrong direction for the bridge across The Mississippi. He wants me to look at the map, but I refuse. I have never seen Memphis, and I travel to see.

Downtown is a mix of old and new architecture with buildings of varied height and style. Nothing too distinct until we get near the water. Zoo signs. Elvis signs. Elvis made a name for himself. Graceland is that way, and I need some Elvis shirts for my sons. We are planning to come back on the back end of this trip for an overnighter, but I know how my dad is about plans. Ramps to bridges. The Pyramid. We take a ramp and there she is: The Mighty Mississippi. I am in awe of her majesty. This once was and therefore, in a way, is the heart of America. God Bless America.

 

 

  

M2M2M Trip (17)

SEVENTEEN

FAULK YOU:

So Mississippi. Home of Uncle Billy. William Faulkner, yes sir, the greatest Southern writer of all-time, until now. I could not even read him - not at first. I was writing in a very modern vernacular, you know what I’m saying, homebiscuit. And I tried to educate myself on the classics. I have been a fan of now for sometime. The now that includes Tom Wolfe and Nick Hornby and David Sedaris and Dave Eggers…and ME. But I wanted to know then. So I re-read some and read others for the first time. I read Uncle Ernie - HEMINGWAY is the heat. And I twice tried to read ole billie boy’s The Sound and the Fury and bogged down in the language, the antiquated vernacular. So I switched to Light in August and was challenged a bit but absolutely loved that shit. Now I sit half-way between Faulkner and Hemingway. Faulkner makes it all up with style and trick-after-trick and Hemingway reports on it and flat out says it; I do both. I love them both. They disliked one another, which is “interesting.” Anywho, I was walking down the street, my street, and I saw guess what name on the back of a Kell High School Lettermen’s Jacket??? Faulkner. “FAULKNER!” I cried out. The boy turned around and had his face, almost. My neighbor had The Name and the Face. His grandma jumped in saying, “He’s related to him too. His sister did a report on William Faulkner and found out exactly how Danny, his dad, was related to the writer.” “Wow, I’m a writer…I’m a huge fan of Faulkner. I was just studying Faulkner and looking at a picture of him before I left my house. You actually look a good bit like him…What position do you play?” “This is a band jacket.” “Oh what instrument then?” “French horn.” “Perfect.”

M2M2M Trip (16)

SIXTEEN

SOUTH-TOWN:

Looking at a pamphlet for the “Elvis as a Boy” park. The King is THE KING. How cool was that guy? Heading to downtown Tupelo now. Signs for National Battlefield, Trace State Park, Chickasaw Indian Land. “This is the Natchez Trace,” Dad says. “Feels like the Civil War here,” Dale says. Wild plums are blooming. Redbuds are blooming, and we are zooming. Tupelo is a cute Old South town, a little sleepy but classic and folksy. We have a burger and a general peak around and then stop at the old courthouse to take some pictures. I get the skateboard out and pose in front of a defaced warning sticker that used to say: “NO SKATEBOARDING.” I skate some and take a picture of the old “Lyric” Theater for my niece; that’s her name. The old courthouse is a monument to “justice,” Old South justice. I do love the South but have to wonder in my head how fair things have been - this is Mississippi after all, home to many a famous courtroom drama, some real, many mythical. I would not want to be black in that place now, and I would definitely not have wanted to be black there in say 1962. Stately columns suggest the plantation past to me, but this building is a breathtaking piece of architecture, and this town has history and charm and character. I have been thinking about the utter importance of good character lately. I historically questioned Dad’s character over the years, and that is why we fell out of father-son love. It was my fault for questioning so much, I guess, and it was his fault for not being a better man. He has a big heart but has been way too unreliabe. I am ready to become the man that I want to be. I want my children to love me - and I love my Dad - but I also want their respect. And I have made enough mistakes for one life, plenty of bad for such a good-hearted person. Time to shine. Time to shine. The sun is gleaming as we depart, me repeating the mantra in my head: TIME TO SHINE.

M2M2M Trip (15)

FIFTEEN

SAW:

“Is this what Elvis saw?” I joke as I poke my head out the motel window in Tupelo. I did not even realize the King was from Mississippi; Tennessee claims him so hard. He is Memphis. But he lived here as a boy, in the only town of any size between Birmingham and Memphis. The new highway that we traversed last night was one of the few non-trucker signs of life along the path. Something charming and lush about the Magnolia State, I noticed almost immediately as we crossed the Alabama-Mississippi state line. Elvis is the King. I, in particular, love his Hawaii stuff. That was once come down music of choice for my best friend and me. We had to come down too often. Then he moved away, and I alone came down…hard. Glad to be alive and happy to be here.

Feeling fine after a few hours of sleep. I sit at a patio table now and write, out by the Ho Jo pool. Dad and Dale like Tupelo and stop here regularly. “What’s up?” a dude asks as he passes by, “you from Georgia?” I am (typically) wearing a Dawgs’ hat and say, “Uh-huh.” ”I’m from Thomasville,” he continues, “you know were that is?” “Yeah…T-Town.”

And the chill lifts as the breeze starts to slow and the sunshine starts to warm the place. The winter is becoming spring, and this is the South. Hello. Oh yeah…Thank you. Thank you very much. 

 

M2M2M Trip (14)

FOURTEEN

QUICKLY:

And it goes away quickly. 78 turns to ugly old industry. We stop at a giant truck stop, and I take a picture of dad and go inside to marvel at the locals. Feels a bit like south Atlanta, the atmosphere. And then we are back on the road and then quickly back in the country heading to Mississippi.

M2M2M Trip (13)

THIRTEEN

LITTLE ATLANTA?:

My dad said that he has heard B’Ham called “Little Atlanta.” Must have been by an Atlantan. We think of all other Southern cities as wannabes and ourselves as a fusion of New York and LA with Southern charm. I like B’Ham because it is so different. It is more old world, rust belt industry town than it is New South flash. The people here are from here mostly. And you can get a meeting with the Chief of Police (as I once did) and a good pork sandwich in the same afternoon with minimal effort. Rent is cheap; property is cheap. Not many earn very much - it is the Old South. I like how UAB has gobbled up the whole top end of downtown. I like the Five Points area. I like the houses on hills that remind me of California towns. I love the old statue, Vulcan. He perches atop the surprisingly urban-looking city as a tribute to industry and is the world’s largest cast iron statue. And Legion Field is as historic of an in-town stadium as you will find in America. Bama still plays a few games a season here, but the history of the stadium is the Iron Bowl, Auburn vs. Alabama. And Paul “Bear” Bryant had the Tide rolling in that old slab of a stadium. Much like the BAMA program, the town is more historic than it is currently relevant. Birmingham matters…in Alabama.