Karen Spears Zacharias Tours Mississippi

I hadn’t gotten a tour dispatch from Karen Spears Zacharias for a while, but a few weeks back she let me know about her travels in support of the latest anthology in Macadam/Cage’s Blue Moon Café series, A Cast of Characters and Other Stories. As always, she’s got some great anecdotes to share…enjoy!

They still play the Bee Gees, Frank Sinatra and Chicago on the radio in Jackson, Mississippi. And you don’t even have to switch the dial. That was the mix I heard Saturday morning on the drive from my hotel to the vibrant and always-hopping Lemuria Bookstore.

I saw Sonny Brewer pull out of the parking garage right ahead of me, so I knew I wasn’t going to be late for the stock signing of A Cast of Characters and Other Stories—Sonny’s the editor of the series. Jack Pendarvis introduced us at the Southern Literature Festival in Nashville last year. Or as Sonny put it, “Jack was going around acting like he was Karen’s agent.” It was Jack who passed along my piece, “When Jesus Lost His Head,” that appears in the new collection.

Turns out I was late to the stock signing. I’d stopped to get a coffee, spilled it, had to clean it up and get another. By the time I arrived, nearly all of the other authors in the anthology were sitting dutifully at the tables: Howard Bahr, Stuart Bloodworth, Pia Z. Ehrhardt, Tom Franklin, Frank Turner Hollon, Chip Livingston, Thomas McGuane, L. A. Hoffer, and James Whorton Jr. (Only Ron Rash, Rick Bragg, and William Gay weren’t there.) I took the only seat left, the one next to crusty Howard Bahr, who kept calling me “ma’am”, until I wore him down and convinced him that “honey” was much more to my liking.

“Is that a navy tattoo?” I asked, pointing to a blue-mottled mark on his forearm.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Vietnam?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“What years?”

“65-67.”

“Aren’t you impressed that I’m a girl and knew that was a Navy tattoo?” I said, smiling.

“I am,” Bahr replied.

I love this collection of Blue Moon stories and not only because Sonny saw fit to include my piece, but because the pocket-size copy gets the reader as jazzed as a shot of the house’s best tequila. Pia’s startling rape account, Gay’s spin of the The Jeepster, Hollon’s well-greased memories of running the New York City marathon, Bragg’s fishy tale on the big ‘un, and the devout prayers of the guilt-ridden, Gilmore Girls-loving, Jesus-fearing Henry as dictated deftly by Pendarvis.

Harper Lee wrote a note to Sonny’s publisher, telling them how much she enjoyed the book. That note appears as a blurb on the book. Sonny says when Miss Nell approves of what a fellow writes, it doesn’t matter what any other critic says. He’s framed the note from Harper Lee.

Being late to the stock signing made me late for lunch. By the time I sat down, Sonny was stirring his red-beans and rice. When my BLT arrived, the only thing left in Sonny’s bowl was hunks of sausage, which he did not eat because, he explained, he already has blockage in his widow-maker artery. I only ate half my sandwich.

**

After our next signing, at Oxford’s Off Square Books, we gathered at the home of Tom Franklin and Beth Ann Fennelly for an end-of-the-tour party. Midnight found us shuffling around in the middle of the intersection of Sisk and Avent with Jim Dees, grandpoobah of Thacker Mountain Radio, pointing and asking, “Where’s the car?”

“Two blocks that a’way,” I said, pointing down Avent. “Which way is Faulkner’s grave?”

“That a’way,” Dees said, pointing up Sisk. Since I hadn’t imbibed of anything stronger than a glass of white wine, and only one at that, I was pretty sure that even though Dees surely knew which way Faulkner’s grave was, he was pointing in the wrong direction.

Without too much debate, I convinced Pia Z. Ehrhardt and Jim Whorton Jr. and Will Poindexter to follow me as we marched off in the starless night, leaving behind all those hearty revelers. “Follow me” is the infantryman’s mantra. I learned that and “I’m in the Lord’s Army” at an early age.

The march wasn’t as sure-footed as one would hope, and the weather pure-tee Mississippi sweaty, not a whiff of wind in them thar trees. But one left turn and a couple of blocks later, we found the historical marker signifying Faulkner’s grave.

“20 paces east,” Whorton said. “Only, how do we figure out which way is east?” He did a complete about-face. “Well, there aren’t any graves on the other side of the street, so I’d imagine east is toward the graves,” I offered, and Jim proceeded to stomp off 20 long strides. And, sure as shooting, there was Faulkner’s grave.

Nobody thought to bring a flashlight, but Will is young and his eyes still bright, so he helped us make out the “William Cuthbert Faulkner, Beloved, Go with God.” There were a couple bottles of whiskey leaning against the headstone and a business card from a car dealer. Wonder, was he counting on a sales out of the deal?

When we stumbled back to the house, Tom Franklin and the others where headed off to the Holiday Day Inn for an early morning dip in the pool with some movie actress named Jolie with a Colleen Dewhurst-like voice. Nobody could remember any movies she’s been in, or her full name, but that voice is unforgettable.

Pia, Tom, Jack Pendarvis and I decided against the pool party. Getting arrested is never that much fun and I have a feeling that in Mississippi it’s particularly unpleasant. So we bid farewell, promised to say in touch and closed out another Blue Moon season with memories of a midnight stroll to pay homage to Faulkner, and the question every writer faces, will they read me after I’m dead? Will they leave whiskey at my tombstone?

5 September 2006 | events |