Not Unknowable

Dank, deep, dark, discordant. Chanting words, not even pretending to make any sense. I carry a stick, to beat away the spider webs. Inchoate monologues like wisp on the wind. The story the stump might tell, rent deeply with heart checks, might not be the story you want to hear. ---musical interlude--- A fine walk, pricked an oak gall and sucked sweet liquor, pulled some chicory roots to supplement my coffee. Later, I'm standing at the island, rolling a cigaret; seven watts of illumination, fourteen stations of the cross, thinking about prime numbers. McCarthy uses the word incandescent several times. Memory is useless, in terms of actually remembering, but incredibly useful in terms of providing fodder. I wish I had an axe to grind. ---musical interlude--- B said I shouldn't be concerned with time at all, that it (really) didn't matter. I could argue both sides of that. For a constant companion I'd pick a Blue-Tick or a Redbone, I tend toward hounds, I like the way they sound. My friend Big Roy, in Mississippi, would bring some boys out to my place to hunt coons at night, he and I would just sit on the porch and listen to the hounds. He knew the dogs by sound, and could tell what was going on. We'd sip moonshine ($20 a gallon) and talk. He said he'd never known a white man that he'd drink with. He was broken hearted when I left; cried, gave me a ham and a slab of bacon. The man could cure meat. We were fun together, taking ribs to road-houses in the delta. In some of those towns, Cruger, Sidon, Tchula, Black Hawk, I was known as the skinny white guy with Roy. His extended family spread down through the delta, half way to Jackson. I went with him one time, my truck, as his wasn't up to it, to deliver meat and foodstuffs to some relatives that were on hard times. I was the only white person in a town of maybe 1500 people. Roy got out of the passenger side, a crowd had gathered, and he pointed to me as I was getting out of the other side and said that I was Tom, his friend and driver, and that if anyone fucked with me, he would kill them. Instant acceptance, I went and had a couple of beers with his second cousins twice removed. One night, Son House ate at our table. We field dressed wild boar together. When a niece of his was raped by two white boys, I talked him out of having them killed, which he could have done with a nod, convincing him that going to Parchman was way worse than being lynched. I drove by Parchman, on the way to Yazoo City. There are pecan trees on the side of the highway. You could gather a bushel in ten minutes. Natural bounty, who would deny. Watching convicts work a ditch. This or that.