X
to the upper right corner, an Sue
put a
0
in
the middle, an I knowed right then an there ain’t nobody
gonna win.
Well, after that, I done a couple of things. First, I called Mister Tribble
an tole him that anything I got comin in the srimp bidness, to give ten
percent of my share to my mama an ten percent to Bubba’s daddy, an
the rest, send it all to Jenny for little Forrest.
After supper, I set up all night thinkin, altho that is not somethin I am
sposed to be particularly good at. But what I was thinkin was this: here I
have done foun Jenny again after all this time. An she have got our son,
an maybe, somehow, we can fix things up.
But the more I think about this, the more I finally understan it cannot
work. And also, I cannot rightly blame it on my bein a idiot—tho that
would be nice. Nope, it is jus one of them things.
Jus the way it is
sometimes, an besides, when all is said an done, I figger the little boy be
better off with Jenny an her husband to give him a good home an raise
him right so’s he won’t have no peabrain for a daddy.
Well, a few days later, I gone on off with ole Sue an Dan. We went to
Charleston an then Richmond an then Atlanta an then Chattanooga an
then Memphis an then Nashville an finally down to New Orleans.
Now they don’t give a shit what you do in New Orleans, an the three
of us is havin the time of our lifes, playin ever day in Jackson Square an
watchin the other fruitcakes do they thing.
I done bought a bicycle with two little sidecars for Sue an Dan to ride
in, an ever Sunday we peddle down to the river an set on the bank an go
catfishin. Jenny writes me once ever month or so, an sends me pictures
of Little Forrest. Last one I got showed him dressed up in a tinymight
football suit. They is a girl here that works as a waitress in one of the
strip joints an ever once in a wile we get together an ass aroun. Wanda is
her name.
A lot of times, me an ole Sue
an Dan jus cruise aroun the
French Quarter an see the sights, an believe me, they is some odd-lookin
people there besides us—look like they might be lef over from the
Russian Revolution or somethin.
A guy from the local newspaper come by one day an say he want to do
a story on me, cause I am the “best one-man band” he ever heard. The
feller begun axin me a lot of questions bout my life, an so I begun to tell
him the whole story. But even before I got haf thru, he done walked off;
say he can’t print nothin like that cause nobody would’n ever believe it.
But let me tell you this:
sometimes at night, when I look up at the
stars, an see the
whole sky jus laid out there, don’t you think I ain’t
rememberin it all. I still got dreams like anybody else, an ever so often, I
am thinkin about how things might of been. An then, all of a sudden, I’m
forty, fifty, sixty years ole, you know?
Well, so what? I may be a idiot, but most of the time, anyway, I tried
to do the right thing—an dreams is jus dreams, ain’t they? So whatever
else has happened, I am figgerin this: I can always look back an say, at
least I ain’t led no hum-drum life.
You know what I mean?