Skin Deep: Volume 2

By Eric Trujillo

Before you can force yourself to put SKIN DEEP down, you will meet:
-a preacher’s wife and tele-evangelist’s daughter who can cuss like a sailor and punch like Ali,
-The Blue Lady, the Jelly Man, and the Atchafalaya Swamp Monster and her kid,
-A junior psychopath who kills cats and collects their eyes,
-A self-centered Jewish boy who grows up to be an anti-Semitic asshole, eschewing his heritage, his religion, and his people.
A white singer/television personality, dubbed “America’s Sweetheart” by the Press, who gives birth to a black baby in 1950’s Hollywood.
- Princess Margaret, a gorgeous silver Persian cat who must run for her life,
-America’s wealthiest black family whose billions put Oprah’s billions and Trump’s “millions” to shame.
-A mule named Caliste who saw Satan once and never wants to see him again!
And:
-Two teenaged boys, one black and one white, who meet, fall in love, lose touch, and reconnect years later to solve a cop’s murder.
You will also take a trip on an unpiloted wooden sailing ship on a rough sea and witness the stench, the rats, and the degradation of the Middle Passage from Africa.
SKIN DEEP introduces the reader to a coterie of characters: Pirates andPilgrims, satyrs and centaurs, handack trees, space colonists, and much, much more.
SKIN DEEP is a novel you will want to go on and on forever.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 9, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669846802

Eric Trujillo

Septuagenarian Eric Trujillo was born in South Louisiana and educated in both Louisiana and Mexico City. He speaks English and Spanish fluently, and can 'maneuver' in three other languages. He worked for the State of Illinois in various investigative positions for thirty years before returning to Louisiana, where he currently lives with his two standard poodles, Bella and Leo. He is the father of Jared, now an attorney in New York City. This is his first novel.

Book preview

Copyright © 2022 by Eric Trujillo.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 11/03/2022

Xlibris

844-714-8691

www.Xlibris.com

818036

CONTENTS

Will Eckland’s Story

Ciminee Sucks!

The Music Saved Me

The Legend Of Fernand Catash And The Devil

The Death Of Noly Catash

The Matangaland Saga (Part 2)

The Matangaland Saga (Part 3)

The Matangaland Saga (Part 4’)

The Matangaland Saga Continues

The Matangaland Saga (Continued)

The Matangaland Saga (Continued)

The Matangaland Saga—Part 5

Victor & Evangeline

Joe The Barber

Chris & Rochelle Pipsair

WILL ECKLAND’S STORY

The day Cletus left the Kirkwoods’ home for Memphis was little Willie’s liberation day. His life after that was less stressful and a whole lot happier but the damage of years of physical and sexual abuse, poor food, and psychological terror had already been done.

Dilsey and Ajax tried to undo what Cletus, Norb, and the other Ecklands had done but that was impossible. Willie had nightmares for years. He had to be taught that there were other ways of repaying favors than by offering sex in return for them. He also had to be taught the difference between good and bad touch.

Good food, Dilsey’s herbal concoctions, and a loving home and a safe harbor had taken the scrawny, scared boy and turned him into a muscular six-foot, six inch giant by the time he was eighteen, when he left home searching for his older brother, Jesse’s widow.

At eighteen, Will was the closest thing to a living god that the girls at Poinsett County High School had ever seen. He had grown an additional three inches, his hair was the color of old gold, and his eyes were the blue of lapis lazuli.

Everybody who knew Will liked him. He was still painfully shy and self-effacing, but his psychological problems had not really manifested themselves at that time. His coach and several faculty members now offered him a place to stay in their homes, rather than living with the Kirkwoods but he always refused, giving thanks but saying he was fine and comfortable where he was.

Everybody told him he should head directly for Hollywood once he got to California. No one even remembered calling him a white nigger now.

Dilsey, Ajax, and their children said a tearful good-bye to their foster son and brother and wished him well as he boarded the Greyhound bus bound for Los Angeles with a cardboard suitcase and a brown paper bag full of sandwiches and candy for his trip.

Will ended his story saying, they had to go but that they would be in Skylarville a few more days sorting through his brother’s things. He had a considerable amount of money in the bank. As his only relative, I guess it goes to me.

You deserve it, Andy said. There’s one other thing. He had a small poodle named Wallace. I’ve been takin’ care of him since your brother was killed. I’d like to buy him from y‘all.

Keep him, Will said. We’re too busy to have a dog anyway. I can’t see Cletus having a poodle, he laughed, shaking his head.

We parted from the Ecklunds after that, promising to meet them again before they returned to California.

We’re at the Bayou Belle Fleur Motel in Skylarville, Room 108, Will said, as they parted in their rented car.

****

Andy returned home to bathe and change clothes. I returned to Creswic House to do the same. We met at Andy’s house at six o’clock and at six-thirty; we started out for Belle Glade. I drove Andy’s Firebird rather than take two cars. Andy sat in the passenger’s seat, noticeably tense.

I liked the wonderful road feel of the midnight blue coupe. Besides, I thought that it fit Andy’s personality so well in that it was a very masculine, highly sensual automobile. This car just screamed sex.

I had noticed the mounting tension in Andy during the day and was glad that the meeting with the Ecklunds had lasted so long. It gave Andy a chance to think of something other than the forthcoming meeting with his father.

Jolie-Marie Bourgeois had urged her son not to tell his father about the relationship that he and Wayne had developed. Just do whatever y’all want, she said, an’ don’t flaunt it.

I thought that John Bourgeois should know about the two of us and be allowed to make his own adjustments to the reality of the situation but I told Andy that I would abide by whatever decision he chose.

Andy also felt that his father should be told about our relationship. He said he did not feel right keeping anything as important as this from his father. Also, he did not want it to seem like such a dirty little secret and that he was ashamed to tell his father about it. Still, he seemed to dread the actual meeting and probable confrontation between him, his father, and me.

As I drove, words were few and far between. I traveled the distance holding Andy’s hand when it was not occupied with the gear shift. I wanted Andy to know that he had my support in whatever may come. I, too, hated the impending confrontation.

We drove down the grade from the roadway and onto the short driveway. John Bourgeois’ van was parked under the carport. There’s no turning back now, I thought. You know, you don’t have to tell him right now if you don’t want to, I said, noticing his face and feeling the tension in his hand.

I want to, Andy replied. "I have to. Wish me luck." He gave me a quick kiss and my hand a long, squeeze. I noticed that the hand had now become warmer and had begun to sweat, even in the Firebird’s blasting air-conditioning.

Andy licked his lips and mustered his courage to enter the home in which he had grown up.

It’s show time, I joked. Ready?

Ready, Andy said, opening the passenger-side door and stepping out into the sweltering inferno.

Jolie-Marie hurried out of the house to greet us when she heard the Firebird pull into the driveway. She wiped her hands nervously on a flimsy yellow and white apron. She held a large cooking spoon in her hand. She was about to say something when her husband appeared behind her.

T-Beau? he said. I didn’t ‘spect to see you tonight. Som’pn the matter? He stopped briefly to greet and shake hands with me but kept his eyes fixed on his only son. Worry lines appeared around his eyes and mouth. His wide brow knitted.

No, Pa, Andy said, nut’in’s wrong. His Cajun accent returned when he was around his parents. Andy shook hands with his father and tried to manage a smile. He then kissed his mother on the cheek. Hi, Ma, he said.

Jolie-Marie also greeted me and invited us to stay for supper, which, she said, was ready.

We filed into the house, Jolie-Marie, me, Andy, and, last, John. We took places at the small circular dinette set in the breakfast room off the kitchen.

If I’da known y’all were coming, I’da set the big dining room table, Jolie-Marie said. She brought in the food immediately. The chicken gumbo and the dirty rice entrée were excellent and I told her so. She smiled weakly and thanked me for the compliment.

I thought you’d be back in Chicago by now, Ween, John Bourgeois said.

I decided to extend my stay, I replied. Andy’s helping me with the story I stumbled onto when I got here. It’s been a working vacation, really.

RC Eck’s murder? John inquired.

I nodded. Yes sir,

If I was you, I’d leave that one alone, yeah. Whoever killed Eck knew jus’ what the hell they was doin’. Me, I t’ink it was the Syndicate, he said.

You may be right but I can’t stop now. I need to know who did it and why, I said. I’m a newsman. That’s what I do for a living.

"I don’ believe we ever lost no newspaper men in deese swamps, no, but I tell you what, mon fils, you keep pokin’ your nose where it don’ belong an’ you might be the first."

I’ll try not to be the first, Mr. Bourgeois, but those are the risks you take.

Jolie-Marie brought out breaded veal cutlets and served each of us two. Ween, you a big guy. I c’n make you an extra one if that’s not enough.

No thanks, Mrs. Bourgeois, I said.

What’s this? John Bourgeois said, noticing our rings as we cut our meat. Y’all both got on the same ring. Zale’s have a sale? Lemme see, T’Beau, he demanded, perplexed. We both showed our left hands to him, sort of like two children caught playing some forbidden game.

These are real pretty but why’d y’all got the same exact ring, an’ why they on y’all’s weddin’ fingers? he asked, still not comprehending their significance.

Andy took a swig of beer and spoke. Pa, we came here tonight ‘cuz we wanted you and Ma to know that we’ve decided to share our lives together.

Like Claire an’ Teri? John asked as both full comprehension and naked truth stared him in the face.

Yeah, Pa, Andy said non-chalantly. I admired the way he was handling the situation, as if to say, no big deal.

No! No! John said.

I love this man, Pop, Andy said.

John’s face set in an ugly scowl. You, Ween? he asked.

I love Andy. We wanted you and your wife to know first, I replied.

Jolie-Marie, the peacemaker, stepped into the conversation. She saw her husband’s face go from disbelief to anger. John, she said, dey’re grown men. Dey can do whatever dey want.

John Bourgeois ignored her and turned to me, intending to take out his wrath on me. "You should be ashamed of yourself, Ween, comin’ in here an’ corruptin’ my boy wit’ your big city ways? What your mama an’ daddy say ‘bout all this? I’ll bet they’re really proud of you." The man was better at sarcasm than I ever would’ve thought.

Andy spoke before I could reply. I guess he saw the bolt of lightning that crossed my face. I was instantly angry and was about to give the man a piece of my mind, despite being in his home, at his table, and in his neck of the woods. The one my dad had warned me about.

"Wayne didn’t corrupt me, Pop. Nobody did. I’ve always been attracted to men. You jus’ didn’t know it. I’ve always tried to hide it til now but do you ever remember me bein’ seriously interested in a girl? Any girl?

John Bourgeois looked pensive; trying to remember any girlfriend Andy may have had growing up. He pointed to the prom picture in the living room. Andy laughed. She’s a lesbian, Pop. Jus’ like Claire an’ Teri. We jus’ got together ‘cuz I needed a girl to take to the prom an’ she needed a boy to take to hers".

Andy continued, "Wayne and I met at St. William’s when I was thirteen. We lost contact until Wayne came into my office on business the other day. He recognized me right away but I didn’t recognize him right away. When we met, he was tall an’ skinny. All knees an’ elbows. Now, look at him. He’s filled out a lot. I invited him home for supper. We’ve hardly been apart since then.

When I’m not with him, I’m thinking ‘bout him. The minute I saw him, Pop, I knew I’d found the One True Love that everybody talks about. I hadn’t even spoken to him yet, Pop, he said. It was incredible. I wanted him, I went after him, and I got him.

He placed his hand atop mine, the new gold of the rings shone brilliantly against my dark chocolate and his walnut-colored skin. Jolie-Marie used her paper napkin to wipe the tears from her eyes, hearing her son describe his brief but intense relationship with me.

Vini, vidi, amavi, I said, lightening the mood a little, at least for me and Andy, who turned to me, smiled, and said, that was good! His parents appeared not to have understood the reference.

Turning back to his father, Andy continued, "so if you’re asking anybody whether they’re ‘shamed of themselves, ask me, but I can tell you now that I’m not the least bit ‘shamed of going after someone I’m attracted to. If Wayne had walked out of that office without my saying something, without my letting him know that Andy Bourgeois, that po’ Coon-ass from Belle Glade, Louisiana, was interested in spending the rest of his life with him, I’d still be kickin’ myself in the ass. Pardon my French, Ma."

"That’s not French, she replied sternly, eyes still moist. It always irks me when people say ‘dat."

She turned to her husband. "You ‘member that fais do-do I met you at over in Vacherie, John?" she asked.

"So what? He growled.

You ‘member what you tol’ me later? You tol’ me dat you knew the minute you saw me, that you was gonna marry me. Didn’ you say dat?

"But we was man an’ woman! What they’re talkin’ about ain’t even nat’ral. Man is supposed to marry a woman, not anudder man."

What’s natural is natural for you, she admonished, but not necessarily right for somebody else. It’s like shoes she continued, "you have to have the right size for the perfect fit an’ it’s jus’ a little bit different for everybody. What fits you might not fit Yogi, an’ y’all are twins."

I’m certainly not ashamed of loving your son, Mr. Bourgeois, I said. When I realized that it had already happened, I accepted it and I’d strongly urge you to do the same because that’s the way it is and storming about won’t change a thing.

Apparently, these people believed in the soft touch approach because they all turned to me as if I had egg on my face. Louisiana had its ways of dealing with crises and Chicago had its ways. Chicagoans are more direct. I prefer the Chicago way. Everyone in the room, including Andy, was taken aback by my frankness.

I don’t believe in beating about the bush. If something needs to be said, I say, say it and get it over with.

Not accepting this relationship will only change your relationship with your only son, I continued. I don’t want to be the cause of that but I love him and I don’t plan to give him up just because you refuse to accept it. You accept the relationship between your sister and Teri, don’t you?

John did not answer.

"You’re not ashamed of them, are you? Is it any more natural for them than it is for us?

When we put on these rings, we promised to be faithful to each other regardless of the pressures from society or from heaven or hell, themselves. And that includes you.

John Bourgeois looked sobered by my little speech. Your parents are doctors, Ween. They couldn’t cure you?

It’s not a disease, Mr. Bourgeois. There is no cure. It’s biological. Like the color of my skin or of Andy’s eyes. It’s a chemical attraction. That’s what love is. Would anyone want to find a cure for love?

Oh, by the way, I said. I took out a small square envelope sealed with the Creswic House seal and burgundy wax. I handed it to Mr. Bourgeois, as head of the household. Andy and Jolie-Marie remained quiet as he read. When he finished, he passed the enclosed card to his wife. Andy was quiet while she read the card.

What is it? he wanted to know. It’s an invitation to a reception in our honor next Sunday, I said.

"They wanna celebrate this…this…bouffonerie? This farce?" John said as he flung down his napkin and left the table. Andy, Jolie-Marie, and I picked up our utensils and continued eating.

Give him a li’l time to adjust, Jolie-Marie said, patting both our hands.

He’s got all the time in the world, Andy said. What’s for dessert? She brought out a large, homemade apple pie and cut wedges for Andy, herself, and me.

A few minutes later, a knock on the door interrupted our dessert. It was Andy’s cousin, Paul, recently returned from offshore.

I saw the car, he said, after greeting us, so I came over. Where’s Nonc John? he asked, looking around.

In the bedroom pouting, Andy said.

Jolie-Marie served him a slice of pie and a large glass of milk.

Kev tol’ me ‘bout y’all, he finally said. I came over to see if I could help out. Welcome to the family, he said to me, and gave me a heart-felt bear hug.

Thanks, Paul, I said.

Paul laughed. "If we could get an old Irish priest over here, this would be the gay, Coon-ass version of ‘Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?’" We all laughed at that one.

When he finished the pie and milk, Paul said, Let me see if I can talk to him. I’m his favorite nephew, and went down the hallway to the master bedroom. He knocked on the bedroom door. Nonc Jean, c’est moi, Goo." Can I come in? I got some apple pie for you." He talked as though he were coaxing a recalcitrant child. The door remained closed. No sound came from within. After a few more attempts, Paul gave up and returned to where we waited, still sitting at the breakfast table.

When everyone was finished gorging themselves, we cleared the table. Despite Jolie-Marie’s protests, Andy washed, I dried, and Paul put away the dishes while she fretted about the closed bedroom door. It was an awkward situation so Paul suggested that Andy and I go to his trailer before I gave Andy his keys for the drive back to Skylarville.

Before leaving, Andy hugged his mother and knocked on the bedroom door. Pa, we’re goin’ now. See ya later if you wanna talk.

No sound emitted so Andy and I left. Before I got into the car, Jolie-Marie hugged me and pulled me downward so she could kiss me on the cheek. Don’ worry ‘bout him, she said, John sometimes backs hisself into a corner an’ then can’t figure a way out. Sometimes he reminds me of ‘dat Archie Bunker on the TV, she smiled.

I baked some extra apple pies, she continued. Give these two to your mama for me, OK? She handed me two foil-wrapped pies and handed one to Andy. I thanked her and told her that my grandmother or someone from her office would be in touch with her about the engagement party. In the meantime, she should start preparing a guest list. The party would probably take place the following Saturday night.

****

When I returned to Creswic House, I made notes from the recording I had made of the conversation with Will Ecklund.

In my mind, Will had become a suspect. He had motive: years of physical, psychological, and sexual abuse; opportunity: there was no way of knowing how long the Ecklunds had actually been in town or how long they may have been shadowing Eck and the description of the murderer did match Will.

The witness said the murderer was a tall white male with tattoos. Will is a tall white man with tattoos but I believe that if the murder were as tall as Will, the witness would have pointed that out, or at least made some mention of the height. Will is around my height, well over six feet. That’s a feature most people do not forget.

I didn’t know if the Skylarville detectives were aware of these coincidences but I knew they knew of Will’s presence, since he had attended the funeral. As far as either Andy or I knew, the Ecklunds had not been questioned by any of the law enforcement officials. I needed to talk with Andy about this so I called him immediately.

Andy was not asleep. He was still mulling over his father’s reaction to our relationship. Processing it, he said. He said he couldn’t sleep and relished the opportunity to talk to somebody right then.

Why didn’t you call me? I asked. I invited him to come out to Creswic House and spend the night. He accepted with the caveat, I can’t spend the night. I can’t leave Wallace alone. He’s a really great little dog. He gets lonely when I’m not home. Not being my home, I couldn’t invite Wallace along, too. Besides, I didn’t know how my parent’s dogs would accept this cute little interloper. He’d make a great snack for the two of them.

Andy arrived fifteen minutes later. He looked strained around the eyes and mouth. His father’s reaction, though expected, was taking its toll on him. I wanted to help but I knew that there was nothing I could do to assuage the helplessness he felt.

We talked in the Children’s Library on the second floor, where I had set up shop. I pointed to the large flannel board and the easel on which it set. I had eliminated, but not discarded, the cards I had made when Artie Coleman was the prime suspect. I concentrated only on the more recent cards, and pinpointed those I had just made from Will Ecklund’s tape.

I really like that guy, Andy said. And if he killed Eck, I’ll like him even more.

I concurred. If someone had done all of the things he says happened to him at the hands of his older brother, I couldn’t blame him for killing him. I’d be out for blood.

Let’s say, hypothetically, that he did kill his brother, I continued, and we proved it, would you turn him in, knowing what we know?

Maybe we should talk to the Kirkwoods before I answer that, Andy said. I don’ like hypothetical questions. We need a way of confirming what he told us. We might be gaining sympathy for this guy and he’s jus’ fed us a pack of lies.

We need to go there, not just talk to them over the phone, I said. We could fly to Oxford, I guess, rent a car there, and drive to Poinsett.

Any commercial airline’s gonna fly into Memphis, not Oxford, Andy corrected.

I think I can talk my dad into lending me his jet. We can fly in, rent a car, drive to Poinsett, interview the Kirkwoods, and be back before dinner, I said.

Ah, Andy said dubiously, Who’s gon’ be the pilot?

I am, I replied.

You? Andy sounded none too certain about flying with me.

I nodded and smiled. I’ve been flying since I was sixteen. I got my driver’s license when I was fifteen.

Is there anything you can’t do? he said, hugging me. You swim, you drive, you ride horseback, you fly… anything else?

I sail, too. Someday I’ll take you out to the Gulf on my sailboat, I smiled. I’ll ask my dad if it’s OK to use the jet. Tomorrow?

You make it sound like you’re a teenager wanting to use the family’s car on a Friday night, Andy smiled.

For most people, that’s what it would be. For me, it’s my father’s private jet, I replied.

****

Traveling to or through Mississippi had long been most black people’s nightmare and I was no exception. I had read newspaper accounts and heard tales of the lynchings and cross-burnings, and just plain hatred by whites toward blacks, and I had vowed that I would never, ever, travel to Mississippi, only over it.

I remember exactly where I was when I heard that fouteen-year old Emmitt Till had been lynched. I was eight years old at the time and I did not know what the word meant. We were getting ready for our annual summer sojourn to Bermuda and the TV set in my parents’ bedroom was on while we packed. When she heard that the missing boy had been lynched, she sat on her bed and began to cry. My dad put his arm around her and comforted her, as did her maid, Celeste.

I was completely flummoxed and deeply upset seeing my mom cry about something she had heard on the television. I asked what the word meant and who Emmitt Till was but they refused to tell me. Ordinarily, if I asked the meaning of a word, they would say, you have one of the largest and most complete private libraries in the state. Go look it up.

When no one would answer me, I went to the children’s library and got out the dictionary. It said, Transitive verb. To put to death (as by hanging) by mob action without legal approval or permission.

My parents were not about to tell me that grown white men had done this to a little black boy. I remember sitting there shivering, thanking God for the walls and moat around our home that would keep lynch mobs out. Finally, after they had composed themselves, my parents found me, called the other children together, and told us what lynching was and what had happened. There was a long family discussion that lasted well into the afternoon and delayed our departure by several hours.

I also remember James Meredith and the hell he went through at Ol’ Miss, and when Medgar Evers was shot and killed there. Why do they hate us? I wanted to know. They waited a long time. Thinking, maybe We don’t know my dad finally said but be careful when you’re outside the RESERVE.

My dad had the same misgivings that I had, about flying to Mississippi. He taught me to fly so he had no misgivings about my ability to handle the jet but he suggested I take along a co-pilot to watch the plane while Andy and I went to Poinsett.

You’re a black man flying an expensive aircraft. I don’t want someone at the airport to do something to the plane so that you don’t make it back here safely, he said. My dad worries a lot about me. I guess that’s what parents do best.

He called the airport and arranged for two members of his flight crew to accompany us the following day.

When I returned to the library, I called the operator and asked for a phone number for Alex Kirkwood. A polite female voice answered. I knew that I had reached the famous Dilsey Kirkwood.

Hello, Mrs. Kirkwood? I began. My name is Steven Wayne Mallory and I’m a reporter for the Chicago. I’d like to talk to you for a few minutes, if you have the time.

Mrs. Kirkwood wanted to know why a Chicago News Register reporter was calling her. I told her that I had received information that she and her family had been instrumental I raising the Eckland children. When she said she had, I wanted to know if she had been told that Cletus Eckland had been killed in south Louisiana. She said she had. I made arrangements to arrive the following day to talk to her.

Y’all makin’ a big deal outta this, ain’t ya? she wanted to know. Cletus wasn’t that important, was he?

I gave her my theory, that his death was the tip of the iceberg. Someone wanted him dead for some reason. My job is to find out who and why, I said.

Ain’t that the police’s job? She was a very wise woman.

It is, I replied but I’m not just a reporter. I’m an investigative reporter, I don’t just sit and wait for the police. I do my own investigation and come up with my own answers. Besides, police in Louisiana are very slow, even when it’s one of their own, I responded. I asked her if I could visit with her the following day.

You c’n come if you wanna, she said. I cain’t stop ya but I don’ know what-all I could say that would he’p ya. I knew that someone would kill Cletus someday, she continued. "I jus’ didn’ know when or how.

If you gonna come, come tomorrow. she said. We’ll talk then. Bye.

I placed the receiver back in its cradle.

****

Andy got Kevin to babysit Wallace and spent the night at Creswic House with me. We took off from Bessie Coleman Airport at seven o’clock sharp with Larry Griffin, a former RAF pilot as my co-pilot Phillip Hunter, Steward, two of my dad’s most trusted employees.

I left the controls to Larry. Larry was armed. He and Phillip would remain with the plane while Andy and I continued on to Poinsett County. We made the flight in a little under an hour.

I have always been intrigued by the musicality of Mississippi place names: Itta Bena, Nitta Yuma, Senatobia, Pascagoula, Yalobusha, and my favorite, Yazoo (City), to name but a few. These were Native American names, Choctaw, Chickasaw, or Natchez, I imagine. Strong, musical names.

I imagined that people who spoke languages with such beautiful words could not be all bad, either. Sadly, though, the only things that those people left behind were the beautiful names. They too, were the victims of man’s inhumanity to man.

The heavy air, the gently rolling land, and the moss-draped trees gave the place a gentle pastoral feel that belied the brutality for which Mississippi had become famous. It reminded me of the Louisiana swamps: On the surface, all was beautiful and serene, but underneath, killers crawled and squirmed. Norbert Cletus Eckland, Jr. aka RC Eck, was but one of them.

It was not hard finding the Frogmore section of Poinsett, or the tiny shack in which Alex Ajax and Dilsey Kirkwood had raised their five children plus, Jack, Cletus, and Willie Eckland.

The house was painted a sunshine yellow with sage green trim. A wide, deep porch spanned the front of the house, providing shade from the hot Mississippi sun, protection from frequent rainstorms, and additional living space for the family.

It sported bright mid-summer blooms around its base and a lush green lawn, in sharp contrast to its neighbors, most of whose houses sported hard-packed red dirt lawns decorated with old tires or abandoned vehicles.

A neat brick walkway ran in a straight shot in a running bond pattern from the front steps to three thick wood planks that crossed the ditch that separated the houses from Clark Road. Two old cars sat beside the house under the boughs of a large hickory tree with their windows lowered.

An older, woman the color of licorice, whom I assumed to be Dilsey Kirkwood, sat on an unpainted wooden bench on the wide front porch, combing, brushing, and braiding the long, wavy, jet black hair of a copper-colored beauty with a dead-pan expression and lifeless eyes. Mary Grace Kirkwood, I thought to myself, one of Cletus’ early victims.

The younger woman, who sat on a low footstool in front of her mother, appeared to be in her thirties. She livened when she saw us approach.

Dilsey’s purple and white cotton caftan and white tignon gave her a regal look. Her serious, unlined face made it hard for me to guess her age but I supposed that she was in her late fifties or early-sixties.

She waved and smiled a warm smile, showing teeth as white as sugar cubes, as we approached. A grizzled old bloodhound and a younger mixed breed dog appeared from under the porch to defend the keep.

She ain’t gon’ bite y’all, Dilsey said. She got cataracts. She cain’t hardly see y’all an’ she ain’t got too many teeth left to bite nobody with, no how.

Surely enough, the older dog approached us more cautiously than we approached her. She sniffed around our feet and, satisfied that we meant no harm to her family, she presented her head for petting.

The younger dog, representing the true Heinz 57 mixture of mixed breeds, was white with brindle patches on her back and across her right eye. One ear stood folded back while the other flopped over like a dead leaf. One eye was dark and the other, light.

Dilsey Kirkwood sat with a pair of blue and white flip-flops beside her bare feet. She moved with a languid grace as she continued combing, brushing, and braiding Mary Grace’s hair. They here, Hon, she called to someone inside the house. "Bring out two chairs.

Y’all come on up here an’ sit down, she directed. We mounted the four steps that led to the porch and took seats on the bench, near Dilsey. Mary Grace continued reacting to Andy’s presence. She think you my son, Junior, Dilsey said to Andy. "Y’all kind’a favors one ‘nother.

We don’ have air-conditioning an’ it’s hot as an oven inside so we gen’rally come outside during the daytime. Y’all want some lemonade? Fresh squeezed, she cajoled. We both accepted.

She called into the house for the same someone to bring out two tall glasses with ice cubes. The good glasses, she said.

She drank her lemonade from a Mason jar and Mary Grace drank from a bright yellow plastic sippy cup with pictures of Big Bird on it. A tall pitcher made of white plastic with a red lid stood on the bench next to Dilsey. I could see the lemon slices floating like yellow ghosts among ice cubes inside.

She introduced us to Mary Grace, who smiled and reached out toward Andy. Andy sat and held her hand as she handed him toy after toy for him to examine. He examined each and returned them to her as she handed him yet another one.

Stop, Mae, Dilsey finally said in a low, soft voice. That ain’t Junior. They jus’ look alike. The girl paid her mother no heed and continued smiling and handing Andy toys, dolls, balls, and jacks, for his inspection.

Ajax emerged from the house, first with two padded kitchen chairs and then, with two tall glasses made of frosted glass and embossed with grapes and leafy gold vines that circled the glasses from base to gold-rimmed lip.

Sit over here, Baby, she said to Andy, "or you ain’t gon’ get no rest. She think you her brother." She poured lemonade into the two glasses and offered us each a paper napkin with which to hold them.

She was a large-boned, strong woman with sagacious eyes. It seemed more than coincidental that she and Faulkner’s heroine of The Sound and The Fury bore the same name.

Ajax, in contrast to his wife, was short, thin, and wiry. He wore a much too-large red ribbed tank-top that drooped in front and left uncovered most of his boney chest and one pink nipple that hid among his auburn chest hairs.

His leathery skin was sun-dyed brown on his face, neck, and forearms while his upper arms, chest, and those parts not usually exposed to the sun were the color of pastry dough. The farmer’s tan, I thought. Here was the king of the blue-veiners.

Andy and I looked at each other, telepathically asking each other the sixty-four dollar question: "Is this man a very, very light-skinned black man or a white man passing as black?"

Ajax chain-smoked Camels incessantly and stomped out the butts with his long, thin bare feet. His eyes and fingertips were amber-colored and his face, especially his razor-thin lips, were crisscrossed with the tiny, tell-tale seam lines that mark the faces of many heavy smokers.

In contrast to the calm, graceful movements of his wife, his liver-spotted hands were constantly in motion when they were not pumping chemicals into his lungs. To have something to do with his hands, Ajax finally picked up an old guitar that stood near the door and began to strum it quietly.

Ajax’s blue/gray eyes looked wary. They darted about his orbits like newly-caged birds seeking an escape route.

His thin ginger-colored hair had gone almost completely silver under his New York Yankees baseball cap. There was absolutely nothing about Ajax that appeared even remotely African, not even his accent, which was one hundred percent Southern cracker.

Although many white men tipped over the color line in the dark, after midnight, to enjoy the fruits of our dusky beauties, few chose to remain on that side after the thrill was gone.

I had read about and heard stories of Southern white men who fell in love with black woman and crossed the color line with their bags packed and their toothbrushes in their breast pockets on their way into blackness while passing Louisiana’s alabaster-colored mixed-race blacks on their way out of it. I had never met such a man, as they were few and far between, but I suspected Alex Ajax Kirkwood, Sr. of being one of them.

The Southern authorities, during and prior to the Jim Crow years, were willing to allow white men to establish black families (in Louisiana, they called the system "plaçage" in French) as long as they did not attempt to legalize the relationship.

They would not have been as tolerant if it were a black man living with a white woman, however.

Play us som’pn, Ajax, Dilsey said, as Ajax’s strumming became louder. Ajax smiled and sat on the bench near his wife.

I had never been a fan of the blues. They were too country and depressing for my taste. I had heard the phrase, "to sing the blues, you gotta live the blues." I had never lived them and did not understand them.

Ajax began singing. In a matter of minutes, he transformed from a Mississippi redneck to a Delta bluesman. First, a black sharecropper who had seen nothing but hard times, hunger, and woe, then into a black convict, a member of a Mississippi chain gang, breaking rocks, laying tracks for the railroad he would never be able to ride, or planting and picking cotton under the hot Delta sun.

With every song, he took us deeper into the despair, oppression, and desperation of a long-suffering People left with nothing but hope and their faith in God.

As he sang, his voice changed, his face changed, his demeanor changed. I remembered the motion picture transformations of men to wolves or from vampire bats to men but I had never actually seen a white man change into a black man before my very eyes until that day. He serenaded us for over an hour, singing songs made famous by Robert Johnson, Howling Wolf, Ma Rainey, and Billlie Holiday, Muddy Waters and others whose names I did not know.

Others songs, wordless, were made up by him. He sang Negro spirituals straight out of slavery, songs from southern chain gangs, and gospel songs from the 1930’s and 40’s, closing with Strange Fruit, a song about lynching, made famous by Billie Holiday, but he gave it his own personal touch. Neither Andy nor I had ever heard it before. It left both of us and Dilsey in tears.

The man was phenomenal. Elvis was definitely not the only white man in Mississippi who could sing like a black man; assuming, of course, that Ajax was white.

I came away from the experience with more unanswered questions about his origins than I had when I met him but I was too polite to ask. Whoever he was, he had convinced me that he was who he was and in the end, that was all that mattered.

I was happy I had brought my tape recorder and that I had stocked up on cassettes!

When he finally finished his impromptu concert, transforming back from the anonymous cotton picker, he and Dilsey told us essentially the same story Will had told us but they added some details that Will had edited out, forgotten, or never known. They were especially graphic when they told us about the incident in which Mary Grace was injured. After all these years, the pain was still there. Some wounds never heal.

They told us that Willa Mae and Norb were born way back in the mountains of West Virginia. Norb’s father and Willa Mae’s mother were sister and brother.

As first cousins, they were too closely related to be legally married anywhere in the area but when seventeen-year old Norb seduced and impregnated the fourteen-year old Willa Mae, Dove Eckland, Norb’s father, sent Norb to live with Eckland relatives in Jasper, Mississippi, an unincorporated village in Tishomingo County, east of Poinsett.

Norb no sooner got to Jasper when he hitchhiked back to Leonardo, Kentucky and reclaimed Willa Mae as his own. This scenario was re-enacted so many times it became a travesty. Dove Eckland and Jesse James Dayleader put up a good but futile fight to keep the couple separated.

Jesse James Eckland, Norb and Willa Mae’s oldest son, was born in Leonardo, Kentucky five months later. Soon afterward, Norb impregnated the willing and waiting Willa Mae a second time, took her to Tupelo, Mississippi, found a justice of the peace, and married her. No questions about ancestry or provenance were asked since the surnames were different. Although it was disapproved of, it was not the first time first cousins in that family had married and it would not be the last.

They told us about Will’s attempts at suicide, how Cletus had conditioned Will to have sex with him under threat of great physical pain or in exchange for food or favors; about Will’s second departure for California, when he was seventeen, how he had gotten involved with hard drugs and was eventually imprisoned, and of sending him money, books, and news from home while he was in prison.

They proudly showed us Will’s modeling portfolio and post cards he had sent them from California. Although they had not met Samira, they showed us photos of Will and Samira, too. They thought she was adorable and were pleased that Will had finally settled down. They were extremely pleased that she was black by U.S. standards, anyway. If they had any idea that Samira may be biologically a male, they did not say.

As we visited, a rusty old Chevy pick-up crossed the wide wooden bridge over the ditch, pulled into the yard, and parked under the tall ash tree in the side yard. A sticker on its bumper, declared in big red letters, PREACHERS DO IT ON THEIR KNEES.

A smiling demigod jumped from its cab and into the heavy pine-scented air. He had sun-tanned alabaster skin, ruddy cheeks, and heavy, jet black hair that covered his ears and cascaded over his forehead, neck, and shoulders in the manner of Joe Willie Namath, whom I suspected, was his idol. Like the proverbial brick shit house, he was around six feet tall, big-boned and well-muscled like his mother.

Chocolate-colored freckles peppered his sunburned pug nose. Peach fuzz was beginning to sprout from his chin and cheeks. A shadow above his top lip indicated where a heavy mustache would one day grow in. He reminded me very much of a younger version of Andy.

The boy wore a grass- and dirt-stained football uniform that had once been white, with the number twelve emblazoned in large navy blue letters on the front, back, and both sleeves of his cut-off jersey.

A thin love trail that started just south of his navel and continued down into his grass- and dirt-stained football pants.

In his left arm, he cradled a beat-up old football nestled in an upside down, well-scuffed helmet with the same number twelve on each side. It was white with a navy blue stripe down the center and ram’s horns painted on each side, encircling the ear holes.

From his right hand, he dragged a thick white cord that contained a pair of plastic shoulder pads and a net bag of what appeared to be dirty laundry. Around his neck, he wore a pair of scuffed white football cleats tied together by their dirty shoestrings.

Alex Kirkwood, Jr. personified the term, a strapping lad. The boy was only about sixteen or so but he was one of the finest physical specimens I had ever seen. He was tall, well-built, and extremely easy on the eyes but what captured my attention immediately was how much he resembled Andy, but with brown eyes instead of violet.

The boy’s café au lait complexion had a little more café than Andy’s but, being biracial, he was much darker than Melodye Matherne, who, like Ajax, showed no vestige of her African ancestry.

He was a little taller than Andy but had Andy’s dark curls but other than that, they could have easily been brothers.

They grow ‘em big here, don’t they? Andy said, marveling at the young god who had joined us on the porch, but otherwise, he seemed clueless.

Dilsey and Ajax noticed the look on my face, smiled, and nodded at me as I did a double take from Andy to Junior and back again. I told ya, didn’ I? she whispered to me.

When we saw your friend, we thought the same thing you thinkin’ now, she continued, smiling. She introduced us to Junior. He shook hands first with Andy, then with me, displaying his mother’s resplendent smile.

How’d y’all do? his father wanted to know.

We won twenty-eight to fourteen, the boy answered proudly. Both proud parents broke out in large smiles.

We don’t normally miss his home games, Ajax said, but my wife told y’all to come today. She forgot that he had a game. By the time she remembered, it was too late. We wanted to be here to talk to y’all.

I was surprised that he had had a game on Saturday morning. I thought all high school football games were on Friday nights. I asked why.

The white school has their games on Friday nights, Ajax answered. We have ours on Saturday mornings.

I was surprised that in 1977, the schools were still not completely integrated. They had begun the process in 1970.

With all deliberate speed, the Supreme Court said in BROWN V THE TOPEKA BOARD OF EDUCATION in 1954. I guess they were taking it literally.

The kids have the choice, Ajax continued. They can go to the formerly all-white school or to the formerly all-black one. Junior goes to the all-black one. Little by little, they’re integratin’ the schools so that there will be jus’ one high school for all of the children but that’s gonna take a while more, he continued.

At that rate, it’ll be completed by 2001! Dilsey laughed. Maybe.

While Junior and Andy talked football, Ajax slipped into the house, returning a minute later with a Kodak Insta-matic camera. Let me take a picture of y’all, he said. I knew why he wanted the photograph but Andy apparently did not. I offered to bow out but Andy and Junior insisted that I be included. I chose to stand in the middle with my hands across both their shoulders, bookended by the two extraordinarily handsome men.

Junior spent some time playing with Mary Grace, whom he called Gracie, then excused himself to go and get cleaned up. Only he and Andy failed to see their remarkable resemblance.

I gave Ajax my parents’ mailing address and asked that he send me a copy of the photos he had just taken.

Junior’s my ‘change o’ life baby,’ Dilsey said when the boy had gone into the house. I was forty when he was born. Seventeen when Grace was born. Thought I was long finished havin’ kids but he slipped up on me.

"He already got li’l gals comin’ by to see him an’ callin’ him at all hours on the telephone. I tell ‘em to git theyselves on away from here an’ I tells him I know he good-lookin’ an’ atha-letic but his first duty is to God, his second is to hisself, an’ his third is to his fam’ly. He gon’ make some li’l gal real happy but that ain’t gon’ be for quite a few years yet. He need to get hisse’f a good education first.

He got coaches an’ recruiters after him to go to their college after he graduates. They been offerin’ him all kinds’a things. He big but he jus’ a baby. He jus’ in ‘leventh grade, Wade."

I corrected her. Wayne.

Sorry, she said, and continued. "It’s easy at that age to get a big head an’ think that you ‘all that’ but if you do, an’ I tell ‘im this all the time, the Lord got a way of bringin’ you down, so stay humble, do a good job at whatever you got to do, an’ he’ll bless you instead of bringin’ you down."

How are his grades? I wanted to know. He a pretty good student. Math’s his weakest subject. He gets mostly ‘B’s. A couple of A’s, ‘specially in P.E. an’ science. He likes science. Said he might wanna be a botanist.

That’s interesting. Why botany? I wanted to know.

"He seen me wit’ my plants an’ poultices ev’ry day of his life. I taught all’a my kids bout ‘em. I tell him the earth gives you everything you’ll ever need to cure yourse’f of any disease. All you gotta do is keep lookin’ for it.

He says in another life, in another time an’ place, I could’a been a botanist myse’f. She smiled a little longing smile, as if to say it’s possibly true but time, place, and circumstance worked against her. Still, she possessed a cornucopia of knowledge that she has passed on to her children.

Come see my herb garden, she said. An’ while we out, we c’n walk down to the old Eckland place.

Fifteen minutes later, Dilsey and Ajax, leading Mary Grace, led us toward the rear of the Kirkwood property, which was larger than I had initially suspected.

Although narrow, it ran deep into the woods. I estimated there were between twelve and fifteen acres, one or two of which were surrounded by an old rail fence, and more that consisted of no-man’s-land, land claimed by no one but used by all of Froggymo’s residents for their own purposes, though it was probably owned by the county. Hackberry, oaks, sweet gum, laurel, and maples seemed to predominate, along with others that I could not identify.

They pointed out her rabbit and deer gardens, to keep them away from her vegetable and herb gardens, which were surrounded by chicken wire and close-fitting picket fencing, painted white.

She told us about her other daughters, Lolita, Isabella, and Penny. Mary Grace is the oldest.

Lolita, she lives in Memphis, Dilsey said. She a teacher. She was valedictorian of her class. Got a scholarship to Southern University in Baton Rouge, down y’all’s way. She married now an’ got a daughter almost Junior’s age. Her pride was evident.

"Isabella lives up north, in Terre Haute, Indiana. She a hairdresser. She said she don’t wanna get married. An’ I ain’t forcin’ her. If she don’t wanna get married, she don’t havta.

Penny’s in the Army. She stationed in South Korea. She call or write all the time. She a nurse, Ajax said, just as proud of his daughter as Dilsey.

She sent me a dressing gown like one Willa Mae had, Dilsey interjected. I always envied her that gown. I thought when she died, Norb would give it to me but he gived it to his girlfriend, that trashy slut from up the road yonder. Willa Mae would’a died if she knew what he done. She always said, ‘if som’pn happens to me, Dilsey, I want you to have the silk robe JJ sent me.’

Dilsey slung her medicine bag over her shoulder. It was a hand-embroidered cloth bag in which she placed leaves or other medicinal finds she encountered in the woods. What would have ordinarily been a five minute walk down the well-worn earthen path took over half an hour as she stopped to gather and teach us about the things she put into the bag.

I told her about my family’s cosmetics and pharmaceutical companies, both of which could use her expertise.

My father’s brother, Jonas, heads up the pharmaceutical company, Mallo-Rx, and lives on a huge estate called Cressley on Pain Dure Road near the intersection of Pain Dure Road and Hunt Club Road in unincorporated New Bern, at the far end of Lake Laura.

Creswic House is at the opposite end of the lake. When we were kids, my siblings and I would use mirrors to send messages in Morse code to our cousins at Cressley. Later, we used flags to send semaphoric messages to one another.

According to the family newsletter, Uncle Jonas was now considering expanding the company to include a branch of all-natural medicines. I felt certain he would be interested in Dilsey’s knowledge. Maybe she could be hired on as a consultant. I would highly recommend her.

Dilsey and Ajax pointed out the burned-out shack that had been the Eckland home. They said kids playing with matches had set fire to the place about a year prior. By the time firefighters arrived, only a portion of the roof remained.

****

CIMINEE SUCKS!

Ciminee, Tennessee,

July, 1937

That was fun, Charlie Hinkle said, as he entered the house and was finally able to remove the little hood and robe. He turned and helped his brother, Georgie remove his hood and robe. To them, the parade they had just attended was like any other: fun. His parents and older sister entered the parlor a few minutes later.

Don’t get your outfits dirty, boys, his mama said. Y’all are gonna need ‘em when we go to the big Klan rally in Indianapolis next month and I don’t wanna have to wash and iron them again. The same goes for you, Ella Mae. She referred to her oldest child, who had been petulant and sulky all day.

Daddy, what’s a nigger? Charlie asked. Charlie was eight years old. He and his brother, Georgie, had seen their father dress up in his white robe and hood since they were infants but this was the first time they had actually participated in a Ku Klux Klan parade and heard the speakers (though they didn’t know what the speakers were talking about), and seen the burning of a giant cross that they erected on the village green.

When their daddy got up and did the honor of lighting the cross, they had cheered and cheered until they were hoarse, though they had no idea as to why he had burned it or what he had said prior to setting it alight.

God’s not gonna like that! Georgie had said before being slapped in the mouth by his mother.

This month was full of new experiences for Charlie and Georgie. They had gotten their first taste of freedom just that morning and had come across ominous-looking signs rimmed in black and printed in large black letters, posted all over his town’s business district, such as it was. He and his brother had ridden off on their bicycles and, for the first time in their lives, had been allowed to go beyond their own block.

They had, of course, visited the business district with their parents on numerous occasions to buy groceries, auto parts, or other sundries. Except for the five-and-dime, which had closed two years earlier when Georgie was four and Charlie was six, they had no real interest in the goings-on of the town.

Although they had seen the posters all their lives, they had paid no never-mind to them but now, as independent bike-riders, new world explorers, as it were, they noticed everything.

Everything else in their constricted world made sense except the signs. They had no idea what a nigger was but they figured out that being one couldn’t be good. When Charlie couldn’t fathom an answer to his brother’s question, he went to the font of all knowledge in his world, his daddy.

****

Located in a hidden corner of the Great Smoky Mountains, near the eastern end of the State of Tennessee, near where it comes to a point like the prow of a ship, Ciminee was not a destination for most people. Even people living fifty miles away had no idea it existed. Ciminee’s residents preferred it that way. They were an insular people, called rubes, hicks, or hillbillies by outsiders, and they loved their isolation.

A small weathered green sign with white lettering on the rough, winding two-lane highway that passed five miles away pointed the way up the mountain toward the town. Another green and white sign five miles in said, Ciminee, Pop. 500.

One entered the village from the west, turned around, and left the same way, as the pavement ended at the intersection of Main and Hickory Streets. Everything after that was either horse trails or dirt paths that led farther up the mountain.

A tattered banner that stretched across Main Street proclaimed in red, white, and blue letters, Welcome to Ciminee, Home of Nobody Famous.

The sign was stretched between tall chocolate-colored wooden light poles on either side of the street by grommets and heavy cord. One of the cords that attached the bottom of the sign