And this is what my small (though at one time it was) visual delight consists of:  a faded tent, no doubt purchased “as is,” from some desperate funeral home, I imagine. Beneath the tattered green fabric sits a cheap a la Fred’s-Giving-Away-the-Store-again! plastic table precariously atop four brittle fold-out legs.

Adorning this table is a wide array of accoutrement which might slip unnoticed to the average passer-by were it not for the handmade markered poster that is taped over where I assume the name of the funeral home would be, in the middle of the awning.

The sign says in multi-colors: Christian Things.

I take this as Improvement. The first time I came across this dandy jewel of self-enterprise, the sign read: Christian Stuff.  And was written only in black magic marker.

Use this on paper, not in your nose.

I used to love smelling those when I was in fifth grade. I don’t know why. They certainly didn’t have the odor of authenticity that the “candy” markers did. I may well have had a slight addiction to the purple one through most of my junior high years.

Grape is as grape does, though, right?

Anyway.

So dead is what’s left of Scooba that I take perverse pleasure in driving past the nine storefront buildings that comprise its Main Street, though it’s not named Main Street. It’s named Railroad Road, no lie. This is because only one side of the street has buildings; the other side is, as you might guess, a railroad.

Though I’ve never seen a train.

I’ve never really even seen people on that street. Other than this once, I saw two kids throwing rocks at one of the empty storefronts, but as soon as I turned fully onto the street, they took off, running.

I often drive down Railroad Road out of a morbid desire to get lost somehow on my way to the office, which is simply not possible to do. That’s a real indicator of how small or dead a place is if you can’t even get lost in it.

There are, to date, only five ways to get to my office, after you turn off Highway 45. Only five. Just so you know.

If the truth is to be told, I was for the better part of this semester, merely an average passer-by, myself. I’d see this earnest man under his funeral tent, several times, with his various and sundry accoutrement, and I’d drive a little faster, to be honest.

Like everyone else who commutes to this den of education, when my classes were done and my office hours met, I wanted to get the H-E-Double-Hockey-Sticks-That-Couldn’t-Find-The-Puck-If-It-Was-Glued-To-The-Blame-Stick out of town, too.

The other day, I had a different feeling about it, on my way home. And I can tell you exactly what that feeling was: guilt.

That happens to you a lot down south. You see the word “Christian”, attached to anything, and the very guilt you tried to drink into oblivion rears its ugly head and you’re compelled to pull in by the defunct fire house and get out and “peruse” his wares.

It’s time like these that you should remind yourself that God is God because He keeps quiet. Man isn’t because he wants to make a dollar.

The Other Almighty.

Or, I don’t know, maybe it’s just my own personal upbringing, but it’s impossible for me to continuously drive past any sign that has the word “Christian” written on it and not feel guilty if I don’t try and contribute in some way. In this case, I was under the pretend-impression that the man was an out-of-work Jesus Freak trying to support his wife, three kids, and her sister, recently recovering from an addiction to both deadbeats and ham.

So, I pulled in. I got out of my car, thinking I’m doing a good thing here. Not even two steps toward the tent and I realize I’ve been had…or I’ve gravely misunderstood what constitutes a Christian Thing.

I was confronted, as it were, not with back-ordered Bibles, as I’d thought, or Witness Wear, a popular form of T-shirt in this buckle of the Baptist Belt. I wasn’t offered multiple copies of old Carmen CDs or the latest from Sandi Patti. There wasn’t even one of the gajillion books written by Bishop T.D. Jakes available.

No, what this man was passing off as Christian Things included several inflatables of Dora the Explorer, alligators, and what I think was, at one point, a skeleton, as well as several vinyl records, one of them from Grease, which I would have bought had I not already stolen my sister’s years ago; there were also several assortments of novelty salt-and-pepper shakers, and postcards.

Not all of which were from Mississippi.

There were, to be sure, T-shirts for sale. But they were emblazoned with 1980s tours of Whitesnake, Poison, and get this, the Oak Ridge Boys, from a concert they gave, oddly enough, in Jackson, Mississippi, one of three concerts I’ve ever attended in my life. Off in the corner of the fishing line, on which they hung, was a Tupac shirt; they seem to be ubiquitous.

Not one item was Christian, in the least. Not one thing for sell was even remotely “of the Lord.”

I don’t know if I was feeling brazen or just gleeful that the day was over and I was headed back to normal people, but I asked him where the religious paraphernalia was.

Faith is still free, right?

“What?”

I should have realized that paraphernalia might not have been in his vocabulary. I should have just assumed.

I took a breath, “Where are the actual, you know, Christian Things? Do you have any Bibles, or I don’t know, hymnbooks, or something?”

“Nah, I don’t have anything like that.”

“But, this is called, I mean, you call this, Christian Things, right?”

“Yeah, I know. My name’s Christian…and these are my Things. If you want, I’ll give you Dora and the alligator for one price?”

I politely refused, but it wasn’t that easy. I’d forgotten, Christians, both in faith and namesake, are a haggling breed; I should know.

I managed to get away inflatable-free, but the damage is far from done.

See, he’s right off Highway 45, the one turn I have to take, regardless of which of the five ways I drive to my office.  And this naturally, makes it less of a delight to see, on any given morning.

I’m afraid this battle has just begun.

And so, in Jesus’ name, Amen.

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The first involved a childhood pet, Scruff, who had gone to live with my grandparents at Fish Camp, a family compound surrounded my cabins, ponds, a basic swimming pool, and a torturously long vegetable garden, where we gathered each summer for a fish fry and the annual task of grading blueberries and other such fruit; several on my father’s side were in the fruit farm industry; after an afternoon of grading blueberries, there is no child on this planet who wouldn’t rather be doing math.  All in all, I enjoyed these summers with a relish heretofore unknown to a child that age.  That is, until Uncle Joef decided to install an octagonal-designed farmhouse for emus.

Emus, I’m sure you know, are the opposite of all things pleasant.

Anywany, the dream: I was back square in the middle of eastern Mississippi, tucked away cozily in my bed, when there, in my blue bedroom, appeared Scruff jumping into the bed with me, and curling up above my head, whining. 

The next morning, Ya-ya called to tell me that Scruff had died.

She’d been poisoned, allegegly by some evil hunter who had been trespassing on the land and was irritated at her barking; my grandfather, suspicious as always, still arriving too late to make amends. It seems an awful thing to do to any living animal, especially for such a ridiculous reason – and it is.  Sadly, it is not that uncommon in the small-minded backwoods of Mississippi. I stay angry at men like that. But, I suppose, it takes all their thinking skills to carry the rifle, upright, barrel away from their own faces.

The second such dream involved a man I’d never met before. The father of a teacher my sister worked with.  I only nominally knew the teacher, herself, Mrs. Bell. A sweet woman, who, on the few occasions I went with my sister to her classroom – mostly before the school year started to help her clean her room – and Mrs. Bell, when she was there would always give me a Vernon’s Lemon-Lime Soda. I’m not sure why, but like any child would, I took it, and drank it as if it were holier than Coke.

She was a giving woman; still is.

And then one night, I dreamed I was on the edge of a high red hill, a small cliff, many of which dot the “famous” Winston County landscape. Our annual crafts festival is called the Red Hills Arts Festival, for instance.  It’s a type of clay and it’s a dense, earthy material full of possibilities for a kid. It, and the poprocks.

God, I loved a poprock.

They’re hard but breakable. You throw them on the ground, and they pop open revealing a soft collection of dusty, dry dirt inside. The Choctaws, native to the area – truth be told, it was their area – would mix this dirt with water and create war paint.

Need I say more? Does an adventurous child, to the point of earning a raw switch to the hind legs, need anything else in this often, too-great-big-of-a-world than access to bona fide Indian war paint?

Take a look at my hind legs and you tell me. (Just don’t be jealous of my calf muscles – I played tennis for years).

Now, in this particular dream I was peering over the edge and in the bottom of the small valley there I noticed a 1970s Lincoln Continental. It was a dull mint-green color, and very long…surely, you recall how long those cars used to be. All that was missing were goal posts. 

And in this car, with the driver-side window rolled down, a leg resting through the open window, was an aging black man, with a cane/fishing pole, a genuius of an invention for a senior citizen who requires a cane and a fishing pole combo, napping.   I watched him for several solid minutes, and then it started to rain.  Heavily.

It rained so fast that I began to worry that he wouldn’t wake up and he’d drown. And that is exactly what happened to him.

I yelled and yelled and screamed and it hit me: I knew this man, after all, even though I’d never seen him before. It was Mrs. Bell’s father. I called after him, again and time and again, and nothing. He drowned. And I was powerless to help him.

I saw Mrs. Bell the next day and told her, so sure was I that it was going to happen. She smiled at me, in that teacherly way, and assured me her father was too crippled to drive, and had never owned a Lincoln Continental. And something else about the power of the adolescent’s overactive imagination. She gave me a Lemon-Lime Vernon’s Soda, and then took it back: perhaps it was the sugar in the soda that gave me such dreams. She was concerned, I guess, that she might be aiding and abetting me in my overactive imagination.

I went on my way. Less than eager to help my sister re-arrange her classroom; it was fun until the school year started. Her kids were awfully messy to be the gifted students. I dreaded being picked up from the other school and dropped off at hers. 

Despite being Mississippi, she did have more than one gifted student.

I’m not sure how much time passed, a week or two, but one day Mrs. Bell was absent. She wasn’t in her classroom when I passed by it on the way to my sister’s. I asked Marsha when I got to her room and she told me that Mrs. Bell’s father had died.  He’d ridden with a nephew, last Sunday, to do some fishing, which he hadn’t done in years, and the boat tipped over…and he drowned.

When I did finally see Mrs. Bell, I was terrified she’d blame me for it. She didn’t at all. She hugged me and told me it was all right. Not to worry. Who knew her cousin was even coming to visit. He rarely did, but had a special reason for this sudden visit:  He’d been unemployed for a good while, and finally had found a job; he’d saved up his money to come down south to see the family, and was most proud of his recent purchase: a new Lincoln Continental. He wanted to show them all.

It wasn’t mint-green, but now we’re just splitting hairs.

The third dream, about 9/11, I’m not ready to share yet…it makes me nervous. So, instead, to change the nature of this blog, I’ll share this last one for my third dream. Even though it’s not about anything that’s happened (not yet anyway), and even though last night I had a perfectly frighteningly delicious dream I could tell you about being caught up in a tornado and thrown across the street and into a neighbor’s house…we’ll go with this other dream for now.

We’ll say it’s about destiny.  Because I like to think it is.

[...] I’m on a trip of some sort that has taken me to the woods, a retreat if you will.  I’m waking up, feeling this charge of potential, does that make sense?, feeling renewed.  I gladly get out of bed, which rarely happens for me, and I’m grabbing my towel and toiletries and leaving my cabin.

It’s a cold morning, but I feel rejuvenated.  I head for the communal showers, which are housed a few cabins down, a wood structure situated in the middle of this camp, for lack of a better term.

There’s a tall flagpole to the left, flying a blue, purple, and orange fabric.  The sky is intense and clear.  There’s no one else around.  I seem to be either the only one awake, or the only one at this retreat, this camp.

I step into the bathroom, and I’m immediately awed by how large it appears on the inside, as if it might have once been a gym facility, lockers and all. I pull aside the shower curtain and turn the water on, to steam the cold tile.  I remember putting my glasses on a distressed, amber-colored chair made of pine; I think it was pine, anyway. I step into the shower and feel the warm water.  It’s arresting.  I’m washing my hair when I hear it.  Crying.

I think at first it’s just the shower, you know, how old shower heads can whistle?  But, somehow, I can hear the difference, and I turn the water off. I call out to see who’s there.

The crying stops.

I call out again, Who’s there?

I step out of the shower, pull the towel around me and begin to walk towards the back of the bathroom. I turn the corner at the end of the sinks, there’s a long row of white porcelain sinks, and there against the wall, on a swollen cot, stained with urine, and that smell, in a beautiful copper dress, is Billie Holiday.

And one day, I'll be in this picture, too.

Her face is a mess; her breath stinks. Her eyes are yellowed. And this is what she says to me: ”It’s about time. I thought you’d never come. We all sorta mad at you, Kris. You better get on back and start singing. We’re all in your hands; you’ve been picked. You chosen.”

And she put a tear on the tip of her finger and rubbed it on my eye. And I finished her crying, while she turned over on her other side and disappeared into the swollen cotton.

So, you tell me: what would you do next? 

I hardly think telling this story would open recording studio doors to me, but heck, I guess anything’s worth a shot, huh? 

At any rate, that dream was a lot better than last night’s. I never did recover from being a tornado survivor, in last night’s dream, a dream than went on and on and on: I moved away, I bought a house, had an entire career, aged, had children, the Whole Nine Lives of dreams.

But anytime I thought about that tornado, I cried.

No wonder I can’t get out of bed in the morning, dreams like that – they just exhaust you.

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