Between Wrecks (33 page)

It would be remiss of my not mentioning this: Panacur C, which comes in 1-, 2-, and 4-gram packets (one gram per ten pounds of dog body weight), carries a warning that goes “Keep this and all medications out of the reach of children.” I guess it's some kind of FDA approval law. I don't want to become relentlessly graphic, but right before I finally sold
No Cover Available: The Story of Columbus Choice, African-American Sushi Chef from Tennessee
, when things were looking bleakest, maybe I had no other choice (no pun intended) but to keep Dooley's medication “within my reach.”

An amateur psychologist—which means any person living on this planet only the width of a piece of paper away from being a “certified” psychologist—might say that I cried out for help. This is just to say, as that poet wrote in that famous poem, that I took the last of the dewormer. And now I have one less problem to worry about when I'm on a jet, flying around to book signings and festivals.

Goody's 520 Milligram Powders, made by Goody's Pharmaceuticals over in Memphis, with their Tamper Evident Safety Overwrap. BC Powders. Aleve. Tylenol. St. Joseph's Baby Aspirin. Rite Aid Lightly Coated Easy to Swallow 325 Milligram Aspirin Tablets. Bayer, of course. Excedrin. Advil. Anacin.

I need to thank all of these products. Deep down, I know that Columbus Choice would want to thank a number of anti-inflammatory agents, too.

Flora, my mother's cousin—which makes her my second cousin, I believe—deserves my thanks for giving me a book of etiquette for my high school graduation present. While every other family member gave me money, fancy pen and pencil sets, and study lamps, Flora understood that I needed Amy Vanderbilt's tome so that I might learn social skills. I understand that she only decided on the etiquette book after I had eaten potato salad with my hands and kept my elbows on the picnic table after one of those family reunions, but it's as if she possessed some kind of extra sensory perceptions. It's as if she knew that I would one day go on book tour and be required to attend fancy dinners in my honor with local newspaper book critics, mayors, city council members, NAACP bigwigs, card-carrying members of the Southern Poverty Law Center, and bodyguards to protect me against hate group morons. Second Cousin Flora—who died, oddly enough, in a Japanese restaurant when she mistook a giant chunk of wasabi for a length of avocado, had a coughing fit, then a well-meaning diner nearby thought she choked and during his attempt to perform the Heimlich maneuver broke her ribs, which punctured one lung, which got her sent to the hospital where she caught a staph infection and never got released alive—somehow had a hunch that I would make a fool of myself should I not know which fork to use, or if I reached the wrong way and drank from a tablemate's water. So thanks to Flora, and to Amy Vanderbilt, and in a weird way to the guy who squeezed too hard performing the Heimlich maneuver, because now I know that there's a fellow traveler roaming this planet who understands how best intentions usually go unrewarded at best. A good Taoist knows that aphorism that comes out translated something like “Never do anything, so that everything will happen as it should.” It's unpronounceable in the Chinese or Mandarin or whatever dialect a good Taoist might employ. It sounds like “Oooooway er Booooo-weway,” and this dishwasher who used to work for Columbus Choice evidently said it all the time when he stuck those dipping-sauce bowls into the Hobart.

I'd like to give a shout-out and offer my props and raise the roof to Sportstar for their ingenious product, Eye Black Stick-Ons (with marker for writing your own message). You've seen these things primarily beneath the lower eyelids of college and professional football players. In the old days, sometimes I blamed a shanked punt for my faulty, old-school eye black consisting of beeswax, paraffin, and carbon. Maybe I had too much on my hands. Maybe it worked so well that the football's lace's disappeared, and I didn't connect my foot to the ball correctly. Anyway, at times I felt, while writing, like I couldn't concentrate due to the glare of the lamp when I lived in a house, apartment, or trailer. I got headaches from having to squint so much while writing at a picnic table at the Frozen Head State Park Campground. I thought to myself, What would help me out in regards to this situation, outside of spending good money on a pair of, say, Suncloud Habit Polarized PS UV Protection sunglasses, which is what I'm going to buy and wear while skipping around the country on the imminent book tour?

Sometimes when I came across conundrums such as this I went walking down at the rec center baseball fields in order to unknot my brain cells. I don't want to call it a miracle, or an act of God or whatever they're calling it these days, but on this particular occasion, with no money to buy sunglasses or eye black, I entered the empty baseball diamond, looked down, and saw two black strips with “Proverbs” printed on one, and “23:14” on the other, right there on the ground next to first base. I'm no soothsayer, but I did take a logic course one time and I envisioned two outs in the bottom of the ninth, boys on base, and a kid grounding out to end the game. Then he ripped off his Sportstar Eye Black Stick-Ons (with marker for writing your own message), and went crying back to the dugout.

I don't want anyone having to cross-reference my Acknowledgments. Proverbs 23:14 goes like this: “Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell.” Little League baseball is getting a little too serious, if you ask me.

Anyway, I stuck those eye-black strips atop my own upper cheekbones, and looked straight into the sun. Who invented these things? I thought. I thought, If I had any say in it, I'd nominate this man or woman for one of those Best Invention of the Twenty-first Century lists.

I walked to the empty dugout, where I sometimes found spare change, or a catcher's mitt, or unopened candy bars, and—Lo!—that same kid, I assumed, had left eighteen stick-ons
and
the marker right there on the wooden bench. It was a prize worth $5.99 times .90, seeing as ninety percent of the package was usable.

I looked around, put the package down my pants, and got out of there as quickly as possible before some beaten-with-a-rod kid returned with his twice-angry father.

Call me nostalgic and superstitious and a rationalizer, but I began writing about 3,500 words a day
minimum
while wearing Stick-On eye black. I wrote about Columbus Choice's purported illegitimate child living somewhere in Vietnam. I wrote about the time Columbus Choice was accused of using Chicken of the Sea in a hamachi roll. Then one day things came to a halt writing-wise and I got out that marker—up until this time I'd written things like “Abraham” on one, and “Lincoln” on the other, or “Martin Luther King” on one, and “Jr.” on the other. Anyway, when the struggle returned, I wrote, of course, “Fuck” on one, and “Me” on the other.

And went out for another one of my walks, down to the rec center.

I want to thank Deputy Marion Pelt, of the Roane County Sheriff's Department and volunteer coach for one of the Tennessee Valley Recreation League Baseball Association, for believing my story, and for gently leading me off the premises while all those mothers and fathers yelled “He's a pedophile!” and “He's a child molester!” and “That man over there has a rod to spare on our children!” et cetera.

So if it weren't for the Sportstar people and their fine product, and Deputy Marion Pelt, I would've probably never finished my tome. So I thank them endlessly and somewhat apologetically for appearing to use stick-on products for personal gain, though I didn't mean to do so. Because I felt threatened later on in public, I pretty much stayed in my tent for the next month or so, writing, writing, writing. Finishing up. Doing what I didn't even know that I'd been called to be done. I wouldn't have ever finished Columbus Choice's biography if I'd never—rightly or wrongly—felt as if a lynch mob of my own waited for me to come out in public.

I will wear eye black at my book signings, should I lose my Suncloud Habit Polarized PS sunglasses, say, while skimming over one of the lakes in my new used Sea Ray.

I would be rueful to exclude my appreciation to John Cage for his groundbreaking piece 4'33”. Silence and brevity. As I wrote
No Cover Available: The Story of Columbus Choice, African-American Sushi Chef from Tennessee
, it occurred to me often that there weren't enough writers out there who understood silence and brevity. Nor editors. Politicians. Everyone. Having John Cage's 4'33” running through my head on most days probably kept my biography stripped down to less than 2,000 pages, which would probably run about 660,000 words, which would mean about 3,540,000 characters not counting the spaces, which would mean about 4,340,000 characters counting the spaces. John Cage, you have, even in your death, become a beacon for the Environmental Movement, by indirectly helping me from killing off trees. Maestro!

I extend my gratitude to Rube Goldberg.

I cannot be remiss in forgetting the influence of Mr. Ray Guy—
Professor
Ray Guy—on my entire life, from front yard punt-offs with neighborhood kids (sorry about the window, car panels, bird feeder, and dog, Mrs. Irwin!) when I sailed my Wilson or Spaulding footballs high over telephone lines into next-door lawns back in Forty-Five, right on up to how I live my life today. Ray Guy—the only punter to have ever been drafted in the first round, who averaged 42.4 yards per punt over a thirteen or fourteen year career, who never had a punt returned for a touchdown, who graduated from the University of Southern Mississippi (not that far from where I received my low-residency master's degree in Southern culture studies at Ole Miss-Taylor), who wears three Super Bowl rings proudly, who had five punts go over sixty yards
in one season
, who had opponents test his balls for helium because they hung so long—made all of those Pro Bowl teams, and he's not in the Hall of Fame in Canton. Now, I must keep Ray Guy in mind should, perhaps, my book
No Cover Available: The Story of Columbus Choice, African-American Sushi Chef from Tennessee
end up getting a lot of attention, sell 100,000 copies, then never win the Pulitzer Prize or National Book Award.

I would like to thank the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award selection committees for their on-target selections
in every category
over all these years.

Anyway, a thousand thanks to Ray Guy, professional punter, who stayed on my mind every time that my long snapper, Chester Clabo, hiked the ball back to me, and then I didn't have a 42.4 yard punt, and had countless punt returners catch the line drives and return them for touchdowns when I didn't shank the thing off into the bleachers. Thanks for fucking up my mind and causing me to shank all those punts, Ray Guy, which got me kicked off the team at Vanderbilt, which drove me straight to the library, which got me interested in the life of the mind, as they say—or at least what that mass-murderer Charlie character says to Barton Fink in the classic movie
Barton Fink
. I couldn't have done Columbus Choice justice without you, Ray. Maybe one day I'll come down to Georgia or wherever you live in retirement and have a punt-off with you. I hope you don't have neighbors.

Ronaldo Rash was a regular at the VFW, listening to Mighty Max, and I want to thank Ronaldo for making me appear almost normal when it came to dealing with Drink for Free Ladies Night: “Hey, you ever have a Rash on your vagina?” Ronaldo used to say to women. They'd go, “No! No, I'm a clean, STD-free woman!” because it's impossible to see capital letters in regular everyday spoken words. And he'd go, “Well, would you like a little Rash on your vagina?”

I wouldn't have met Ronaldo had I not misread the sign out front that first time and thought it meant, “Drink for Free Ladies Night,” as in “If You Win Some Kind of Drinking Contest, then You'll Get a Free Lady.”

I am oddly grateful to Mr. Randall Brewer (father of two) at Nationwide Insurance for providing Mr. Joe Smythe (father of four) with personal injury coverage. And I want to thank Nationwide for “settling out of court.” Listen, to the end of my days I'll argue that A) it doesn't matter if a person's intoxicated when he's walking across the street legally; and B) if a man (Mr. Smythe) and his wife (Mrs. Smythe) find it necessary to have four children in five years, even if they're Mormon or Catholic or other cult members or whatever, then they (the Smythes) must understand that they just can't drive around the Tennessee Valley with their heads craned into the back seat looking at their babies in car seats to make sure they all have their pacifiers shoved into their mouths. I mean, I know one must show some responsibility as a parent, but one must show even more responsibility as a
driving
parent.

The money I got for the settlement allowed me to A) continue
No Cover Available: The Story of Columbus Choice, African-American Sushi Chef from Tennessee;
and B) limp back to the Atomic Arms apartments where I had enough electrical outlets to plug in a laptop and type up what I had handwritten. And eat. And watch some TV so I could get back in touch with pop culture. And later make the mistake of going up to every obese person I ever came across and say, “Hey, aren't you on
The Biggest Loser?”
like an idiot and get punched with a slow right-cross, which made me realize that I needed to stay inside more often and finish
No Cover Available: The Story of Columbus Choice, African-American Sushi Chef from Tennessee
.

Which made me call up Juanita Wilkins and say, “I know that I threw you out of class that time and embarrassed you to the point of making shit up to my department chairman and the dean, but I hope—seeing as you're a good Christian—that you believe in forgiving people, and seeing as you're the only person I really know here in town with any kind of background in medicine, because you're a certified phlebotomist and all, could you please come over here and take a look at the hematoma on my eye socket?”