Woody & My IBF

Took a stroll over to the commissary to leave keys and pay. I bought a baseball cap. The prints about each shack were really great, but the one about the Cadillac shack was about 2 people. As much as I love Brad, I have to come back with a real boyfriend to buy that. Maybe almost-real imaginary boyfriend. I was given a parting gift: one of those decorative rectangles on sticks with the name of the place on it. Shack Up Inn air conditioner. He asked if I needed a user's manual. Works both ways, right and left. The outhouse is at the left. Good thing they had some Dixie Donuts there, because when I went to Dixie's they had already closed. Light as air. Krispy Kremes are wannabes.

He and Guy tried to get the credit card system to work. Charged me 80 bucks for room and hat. Seemed to pull the number from the air. I don't think they even have set rates.




My porch is warm and the kind of place you'd like to sit and read with a Co Cola in your other hand.


This is not where you pee, unless of course you want to. It is there for visual effect and probably because one of the guys found it and wanted to bring it here. I bet they have those garbage  dump orphans working for them. Oh come on, I know it's not p.c. I was just being illustrative.

I just had to take these pictures before I left although I know that's terribly uncool. Or is it?

I took the little map that the Shack Up Inn thoughtfully provided and headed to downtown Clarksdale. I never realized how cool this place is. When I left, I instantly knew I made a mistake leaving at all. Clarksdale is the blues. I didn't know anything about the blues, but it gets under your skin.

This is LaLa. My sister's name is LaLa, too. Neither she nor I knew there were any more. LaLa works at the Black Cat, but she is really a blues musician. She lived in southern California for a long time, and then moved to Oregon. Her husband needs and explosion to make any changes in his life. They came to Clarskdale and never left. At least she did. They are divorced and I don't know where he lives now. LaLa is in Super Chikan and The Fighting Cocks. And the Electric 88. All the cocks are girls. Since I know nothing about blues, I didn't know they are famous. I just hung out with LaLa for a while. She smokes tobacco as does everyone in Mississippi. And Tennessee. And Kentucky. And some of West Virginia. I later found that everyone in Clarksdale smokes. That's just what they call it. Everyone is always kind of off. And it is charming in a raw sort of way.


LaLa looks at you with narrowed eyes. She is tough and sees right into your soul. My interaction with her set the stage for the rest of my day. I am often tentative and hide in plain sight. This trip I have been bold. I should have related most to these people but I found myself feeling like an outsider. LaLa told me I had to stay and hear  the music. More than one night. I knew I wouldn't. As I said, the minute I left town I knew I had made a mistake. I know I'll come back and stay for a stretch. Who knows? Maybe on this trip still.
I bought some art from LaLa at the Black Cat. Here it is in Woody. I bet it is from someone famous, too. I just like it. LaLa likes the red and white car like my turquoise one. It had something 88 on it and she's in that band. I just nodded. In Clarksdale, this is like me looking Mick Jagger viewing a giant tongue and saying he likes it because he's in that band, and me shrugging and going ok. Mine is entitled A Night Without A Date. The woman looks really mad. I would too. The other one is of an old blue truck. I like the license plate too. A little obvious, buy hey, I love them.

By that time I was really starving (what's new, hungry and having to pee). I didn't bring my little map from the Shack Up Inn telling me where to go so I just winged it. I got my plate lunch from Delta Amusement. You walk in the joint and sit where ever you want. There are two rooms. I sat in the back. Five guys were playing poker on the plastic tablecloth. A few others were sitting at a bar that had almost naked Budweiser girls on the wall. They were checking their email. I guess xx has wifi. Bobby, presumably the owner, asks you what you want as you walk in. Today's plate lunch is fried pork chops. I decided to have that. I sat down. Bobby came over and asked what I wanted to drink. Sweet tea. I'm only waiting on you because you're new. You get it in the back over there. Ok. Lunch came on a styrofoam plate. Normally, I hate styrofoam, but here it was just right. They do have real knives and forks, but the spoons are plastic. Bobby hollered at an unseen guy "get a sweet tea before I smack the shit out of you." The guy was J.R., but I get ahead of myself. Bobby brought my lunch. They always do this part. I listened to the guys next to me talking about socialism and how they want to take all your money. I presume they is the government.

This is one of those places where I just couldn't take a picture of the food. I was trying to be there there, not documenting there. I thought about that a lot today. I've found myself constantly worrying about remembering who I meet and what they said instead of listening with my soul. Back to lunch. Bobby have me a fork and held the knife out. I'm giving you this even though you don't need it. I didn't quite understand. The pork chop is fried like chicken, not like pan fried. You eat it just like you do fried chicken, pick it up and bite it. Really crisp and full of flavor. I also had white rice and gravy (never thought of that) and what baked beans would be like if they didn't have barbecue sauce in them. The beans also had raw onions on top. Anything with raw onion is my favorite. It's ok because I'm grown up and I don't have a boyfriend anyhow. After lunch, I had peach cobbler. Bobby made it. It was good. The whole deal was $10.

This is J.R. His hat says Ask Someone Else I'm On Break, and has a hand with its middle finger up. This is what he wears to work. He took me over to the Blues Museum. As we walked, he tells me that he has to keep the black people out. The bums. There's a place over there call the Sunrise something that gives out coffee and food and shelter. J.R. thinks they should go there. He also wanted to show me Ground Zero which is Morgan Freeman's place for blues. It's called ground zero because here at the intersection of 49 and 61 is where all the blues greats came through at one time or the other. The walls were papered with all kinds of stuff. J.R.'s name is written in marker on the pool table felt. He knows everybody and doesn't have to pay. He least he thinks so.

The Blues Museum was very difficult for me. It showcased things from each great blues musician. I knew none of them. I was ashamed. I went out to the shop and bet that the merchandise is more popular than the exhibit, especially the t-shirts. I bought two books and two blues compilation CDs. Even though I am carrying half a dozen things that need charging, I have no way to play CDs. I asked Jasmine what I should see while I was in Clarksdale. She asked Chris. Chris said the Black Cat, Shack Up Inn, and Ground Zero. He was going to a meeting to discuss this with some committee. They are working on marketing Clarksdale. I know they have to but I wish they didn't. I feel like the tourist dollar is dirty, but the community has to stay alive somehow. Half the buildings are empty. An apt setting for the blues. This is Jasmine and Chris.

This is Floyd and his dog Bo. He is in the men's clothing store that has been in his family for 91 years. I told him it was unusual these days for people to stay in the family business. Floyd doesn't know what else he would do. They sell more hats than you would think.






This is Ground Zero.

I went into Miss Dells because it was on my little map from the Shack Up Inn. I asked the lady at the counter if she was Miss Dell. No, she is Charlotte. Miss Dell is for Mississippi Delta. Here's Charlotte and Bob. Bob is from Iowa and says not to go there. He told me that more than once.


Walking back to Woody, I saw Hambone's music and art. I wanted to see the art but there was a sign saying push button to get in. I hate that because I feel like I'm bothering someone, and I have to buy something. I pushed the door without ringing the bell and it was open. There was a faint harmonica playing. Stan Street told me to look around. He was teaching Charlotte to play harmonica. While he was talking to me and showing me around, he would say things to Charlotte about what she had just played, what was good, what she needed to do. You want harmonica lessons? Yes I do. You see, I really need to be in Clarksdale more. Anyhow, I bought two of Stan's pieces. I love them very much. I took my chicken with me because it fits in Woody. Sharecroppers Blues does not. He will ship it to me when I call him. There is no receipt because tacitly neither one of us wants one. The painting has a real voodoo doll on it. I hope it is good voodoo, because this could be really scary to take into my house. Charlotte is French. You'd never guess it. Her mother is American and Polish and Dutch, and her father is French. Charlotte's mom sent her to all American schools. She is a photographer.

As I went out of town, I noticed the Chicken Store. They have floured gizzards. When I got to Cleveland (Mississippi has lots of towns that are in other places. So does Tennessee. It seems that everybody has a Lebanon), I found Delta Cream Donuts. They are every bit as good as Dixie Donuts. They have the bavarian cream that was in those fruit tarts that we got from the bakery as a treat because my daddy loved them. I can't believe I just wrote my daddy. I've been in Mississippi too long. Or not long enough.

I stopped a Walgreens to see if they had those little plastic balls on elastics things that I saw in a girl's hair at the Civil Rights Museum. I used to always wear them because you could put your hair in a ponytail without doubling it back through the elastic which sometimes hurt. I found them, although they are sort of an irridescent color. Hers were clear. I liked hers better. I am getting very tired of talking to people about Woody today. I'm just plain tired. Listening to other people is exhausting, in a good way, but exhausting nonetheless. Here is Pete. He stuck his head into my car like he was a turtle checking out the next mossy log. Asked me where I was from. Began to tell me that he was from the top moonshining family in Mississippi. He started driving the stuff when he was thirteen or fourteen. I asked him if he still does it. No, and he's been sober for 36 years last Thanksgiving. He told me he'd never been out-talked before. You're a good yankee.

Here is Nicky. I don't remember what we talked about because I am so damn exhausted. I am now staying at the Duff Green Mansion because the Judge told me I should. Stay in the master bedroom, he said, it has a glass panel in the ceiling that shows where a cannonball made a hole. When I called for a reservation, I was told that I could not have that room because of the sharks. The owners had moved upstairs and apparently they keep sharks. The Judge neglected to tell me that the Duff Green Mansion is haunted. Ghost Hunters is coming on Saturday. I am the only guest. It is a lovely home with a long history, part of which I wlll recount tomorrow as I am so tired today.

Let me reitereate. I am staying alone in a huge haunted Confederate mansion in Vicksburg, Mississippi. I miss my shack.