Sitting Up with the Dead, page 13
The Moonlit Road was the brainchild of Craig Dominey, a young man from Atlanta who loved Southern stories, especially spooky ones, and wanted to share them with the world. He wrote on his Web page that visitors were welcome to enjoy these “ghost stories and folktales from the dark backroads of the American South, told by the region’s best storytellers. By selecting a story, you embark on a journey to a storyteller’s home in the land where the story was born.” Internet visitors could select to hear the tale if their computers were equipped to download sound, or read textual versions complete with historical background notes.
I loved the creaking gate that opened to invite viewers to the site — it led onto a dark road overshone by a full moon — and called Craig to compliment him. He invited me to a Moonlit Road recording session. A teller named Veronica Byrd was going to tape her version of a story called “Taily Po” in a garage in Decatur: why didn’t I come along? I agreed on the spot, and Craig directed me to the house of his audio engineer, Henry Howard: just off Interstate 20, past Wal-Mart and the Stone Mountain Festival Mall, right at a little sandbox of a cemetery (most of the graves decorated with plastic geraniums), and into the modern housing development down the street.
Henry Howard lived in a large white house half-heartedly glamorized by a pair of rectangular columns at the front entrance. As per instructions, I knocked at the side door, and Craig ushered me into the tidy studio that had once been Henry’s garage. Henry, a quiet man with pens clipped to his shirt pocket, like Dan Hicky, was deservedly proud of his sound-effects library. He had hundreds upon hundreds of CDs that reproduced any sound imaginable.
“Listen,” he said, grabbing one, “that’s a sliding glass patio door.” I nodded in agreement. He took it out and put in another. “What’s that?” he asked.
“Um, a car drag racing?”
“Car tires on gravel,” he corrected, adding “Ah, but consider this: what kind of car, what model, what make?” He showed me a catalogue that listed tires-on-gravel sounds for literally hundreds of different cars, broken down into model and year. I imagined armies of technicians systematically taking apart the heard universe sound by sound. Windshield Wipers; Hand Brake Applied; Door Opening with Person Outside; Door Opening with Person Inside. And this was only the automotive section.
“Show her how many hits we had on the Web site today,” said Craig, who was slight with sandy-colored hair and seemed mild-mannered, but for mischievous eyes. Henry’s computer monitored the number of Internet users who visit The Moonlit Road each day. On July 12, 1999, the most “hits” had come from the U.S. No big surprise. But the runner-up was the United Arab Emirates, followed by Canada, Singapore, Australia, Malaysia, and the U.K.
“Hi everybody, sorry I’m late!” Veronica Byrd swept into the room like a benign tornado. Cornrowed hair bound on top of her head, tied with a purple scarf; Hawaiian print shirt; large, gold hoop earrings. Veronica’s trappings were flamboyant but her beautiful, friendly face added grace and dignity — she had an impressively high forehead and cheekbones — and humor. She saw me taking it all in.
“I like to grab ’em with color!” she laughed, indicating her shirt. “I’m not one of those African-American storytellers who’s into dressing in African garb and all that stuff, blah, blah, blah.” She rolled her eyes. “Martin Luther King, Jr., gets shoved down the kids’ throats in Atlanta. So my African-American heritage stories are about other black explorers and inventors — women, especially — who aren’t so well known but equally important, if not more so.” She took a wheezy breath, explaining that she had asthma. “I went to Spelman, you know, oooh-la-la!” She made this last pronouncement in a fake English accent, rolling her eyes again. Spelman is arguably the most prestigious African-American university in the country. “And I can’t win there either. I wore my hair in cornrows at my tenth reunion, and my classmates were horrified
Coming to storytelling through acting, Veronica and her husband call themselves storyperformers, and do most of their work in the Georgia school system. “You have to be really careful what you say in the schools …,” she said, trailing off into an echo of Nancy Basket’s sentiments.
“That’s why she comes here,” said Craig, “to do demons.”
“Yeah, for Craig I do the scary-bloody-gory things that make you jump. Remember, Craig, when you broke up with your girlfriend?” Turning to me she continued, “I was recording a story called ‘The Boo Hag.’ He’d say, ‘C’mon, make it gorier. Make her suffer.’ Remember?” asked Veronica, giggling and digging Craig in the ribs.
Craig looked embarrassed. “I guess the stories kind of record my personal life. At the core they’re all probably deadly serious anyway.”
“Let’s get this show on the road,” said Henry, looking at his watch.
Veronica took her place in the sound booth. Henry sat down at a controlboard and asked Veronica to speak. When she did, horizontal bands of green lights jumped under his fingers. Craig was busy turning a row of stuffed animals around to face Veronica’s glass booth. “Every storyteller needs an audience,” he explained.
“This is an old African-American folktale, Pamela.” Veronica’s voice was magically clarified and magnified, made holy, almost, through Henry’s equipment. It sounded as if I were being addressed by a goddess. “It’s about a man who chops off this creature’s tail and eats it, then the creature wants it back.”
“I know this story!” I said excitedly. “The creature comes into his cabin and asks, ‘Can I have my tail back?’”
An explosion of digital-quality laughter shook the room; Henry’s soundboard shone like a radar panel.
“Ooooh, please sir, might I please sir, have my tail back, sir? I won’t trouble you again for my tail. Please?” Veronica roared asthmatically, helpless with laughter, between English-accented takes on my pitiful attempt to impersonate the creature. “Jeez, girl, no one’s giving their tail back after some polite little wimpy white-girl question like that. GIVE ME MA TAIL!” she bellowed so loudly she fell into a prolonged sneezing fit.
“Are you getting this?” Craig asked Henry. “The sound effects are great. That was a really ripe one.”
While we were waiting for her to recover, Henry swiveled around and said, “You asked about my favorite sound effect.” He’d evidently been thinking about this. “The BBC does the best stuff, like ‘Nails Pounded Through Flesh.’ That might be my favorite.”
Veronica very audibly snorted, sniffed, laughed, and cleared her throat. Then she began:
TAILY PO
The trials and tribulations of living in today’s modern society can tend to wear on your nerves. One can grow very weary of dealing with paying bills, taxes, insurance, morning and evening traffic — and the pollution! Not to mention anything about keeping food in the refrigerator. Oftentimes the whole thing can make you want to holler! Throw up both yer hands! And that’s exactly what old Bill Smith did.
He gave up the luxuries and, if you ask me, some of the necessities, of modern life. He loaded up just the barest of essentials and his three hunting dogs into his truck. And he moved way up into the north Georgia mountains…
Veronica’s words stirred a stereo effect in my memory. They were replaying words already there, almost matching up but not quite, like a mental double exposure. I knew what was coming: Smitty, as the townfolks knew him, would become the isolated old codger in the mountain cabin, hunting to feed himself and his dogs …
Once, a long time ago, down in the big woods of Tennessee, there lived an old man in a log cabin all by himself. Now that cabin was just one room, and at one end was a big old stone fireplace. And every evening, the old man would come in and cook whatever he caught on that big old open fire …
This was the opening to David Holt’s story “Taily Bone,” which I had listened to just days earlier on one of his cassette tapes. It gave me goose bumps. David’s version had also touched off another echo in my memory, which I pursued to the Internet. Months earlier, I had read “Tail Een Po” on Chuck Larkin’s Web site (Chuck was the Georgia teller who had introduced me to Colonel Rod). He said he’d first heard the story as a child, then again in the 1970s, before it was disseminated in print, in the Cookville area of Tennessee. A folklorist had told him that taileenpo is Irish Gaelic for “the tip of my dear tail,” and that the story has ancient roots in Ireland. Chuck’s version is set in his own Depression-era childhood in the tide-lands of Maryland. Instead of the old man, the hero is a boy named Aggie (short for Augustine) who rode the schoolbus with Chuck.
Aggie lived in a log cabin. When people built a log cabin they started with one room about sixteen feet by sixteen feet. After they started living in the one room they would later build on additional rooms. Aggie’s mom and dad slept on a homemade mattress back against the wall. Above their heads was a platform halfway up the wall just big enough for Aggie’s mattress, with two poles holding the platform and a ladder to climb up and down. To the left of the bed was a fireplace and to the right was one window. Across from the beds was the front door.
Veronica’s voice reverberated through Henry’s garage:
“Now Smitty built himself a nice little cabin way back in the woods. It wasn’t very big, but it was just enough for him. The cabin only had two rooms. One he used for a bedroom, and the other for every other room: living room, dining room, den, and even kitchen. He built himself a nice big fireplace, where he could cook his food and warm his body on chilly nights …”
This day Aggie was out in the garden chopping weeds … As Aggie was swinging [his] hoe … he suddenly saw a whole head of cabbage disappear straight down into the ground. That surprised him because there were no varmints big enough to pull a whole head of cabbage underground. In those days all your food … was grown in the garden, and Aggie knew he had a problem. When he saw another great big watermelon disappear underground, he raced over and started swinging that huge hoe at the spot. Whatever was in the dirt turned and was digging down faster than Aggie could dig.
“… during the warm months,” continued Veronica, “Smitty had no problem catch … oops. Let me try it again, Henry. Had no problem catching small game, but the colder months pro … Oh bother! Blather, blather blather!” said Veronica, choking on her words.
“It’s okay, it’s a raw tell,” said Craig to me. “Henry’ll just splice it together.”
Veronica went on, “… but the colder months proved a little more difficult to keep his stomach full. Well, it was on one of those cold wintry nights that Smitty went to his storage shed to see what he could find for dinner. All he found was a small piece of fatback meat and a handful of rice … He ate the fatback and a little bit of rice, but he gave most of it to his dogs. ’Iknow, Youknow, Comptiko Callico, come on, dogs, and git some of this here dinner!’”
He made one more swing as hard as he could and hit something, and he could hear a squeal going deeper into the ground. When he cleared the dirt away … he pulled out a bloody, muddy tip of a tail with no hair, about five inches long, pointed on the end and real thick and meaty where it was cut…
Aggie carried the tail in the house. His mom and dad had gone to town. His mom had a big pot of greens cooking in the fireplace. Aggie put the tail into the iron pot to cook … His parents had not returned and Aggie had not eaten any meat for about nine days. The only meat the family ate was game they caught in traps, and they had not caught any lately. Aggie fished the tail out of the simmering water … and carried it out behind the bam. He ate the whole tail and did not save any for his parents. He buried the bones in the ground.
“The sound of the wind blowing around, and in some places through, the tiny cabin had almost lulled Smitty to sleep. When he heard something. He opened his eyes and saw a shadow on the wall. He eased out of bed and tiptoed into the other room. There, he saw the oddest-looking creature he’d ever seen. It was short and stubby, with pointed ears and short, fat feet with long nails, and it had a long, bushy tail … Smitty quietly picked up his axe, crept over to the odd critter, who was devouring an insect of some sort, raised his axe, and came down squarely on the creature’s tail. Whack! Smitty turned to catch the varmint, but he was too quick. It hurriedly escaped, er, through the wall? It went right through the wall.”
It was late that night when Aggie woke up. Some noise had woke him, his parents, and their three hound dogs. The dogs were growling and barking at the door. Aggie’s daddy Orville got up and let the dogs out. They took off after something that had been in the yard. Orville closed the door and placed the locking bar down. Next he put a log on in the fireplace and stirred up the fire. Last he closed and locked the big shutter over the window and went back to bed.
The next time Aggie woke up, the fire in the fireplace had burned out. The inside of the cabin was dark, dark, dark … Aggie wondered what woke him up and then way off in the distance he faintly heard what sounded like a voice. Slowly Aggie heard the voice coming a little closer and getting a little louder … Then he realized there was something outside in the dark whimpering, Mail een po, tail een po, where is my tail een po?”
… When Aggie tried to get up he found he was unable to move or speak. All he could do was wiggle his fingers and toes and roll his eyes.
The voice came closer and louder, Mail een po, tail een po, where is my tail een po?” By this time Aggie’s mom and dad were awake and they told us later that they could hear this eerie voice moaning, Mail een po, tail een po, where is my tail een po?” but they could not move or speak!… Wham! Something hit the front door. “Tail een po, tail een po, where is my tail een po?” Aggie thought, “I ain’t scared. My daddy bolted the door, ain’t nothing gone to get in. ”
“Smitty thought the wind was playing tricks on his ears, but then he heard it again. Taily po, taily po, I want my taily po… Veronica’s voice quivered and shook in its highest register when she spoke for the creature. It sounded like the wind wailing up a bad storm. “Smitty jumped out of bed and called his dogs. ’Iknow, Youknow, Comptiko Callico, come in heah and see what’s makin’ that noise!’”
Mail een po, tail een po, where is my tail een po?” Then Aggie heard something big slowly dragging itself around the cabin toward the window, now quietly whimpering, “Tail een po, tail een po, where is my tail een po?” … Wham, bam bam bam, it hit the window hard several times and still whispered with quiet fury, “Tail een po, tail een po, where is my tail een po?” Now the thing was crawling slowly around the cabin … Aggie could hear what sounded like claws sinking into the wood as the creature slowly crawled up over his head, furiously whispering, “Tail een po, tail een po, where’s my tail een po?”
“Well, I ain’t scared, my daddy put thick strong overlapped shingles of oak wood on the roof, ain’t nothing can get through that roof” … Now Aggie could catch a small whiff of some ghastly smell coming through tiny spaces between the logs. “Tail een po, tail een po, where is my tail een po?” …
“Oh oh, that sounds like something is sliding and sliming down inside the chimney. It’s in the fireplace!”
“Tail een po, tail een po, where’s my tail een po?”
“Well, it can’t get up here on this platform. It can’t climb a ladder. I ain’t scared.” But then he could hear what sounded like claws on the bottom rungs of the ladder and he could feel the platform shake a little bit as something slowly climbed the ladder. “Tail een po, tail een po, where is my tail een po?” Aggie could feel a presence coming over the mattress at his feet… Now it was right over his face. Aggie held his breath, the stench was horrible. Then two little red beady eyes opened up right above his face and quietly whispered, “Tail een po, tail een po,” then screamed, “HAVE YOU GOT MY TAIL EEN PO?”
“Smitty ran to his bed and jumped in. The scratching and the voice grew louder and louder, and Smitty yelled louder, ’I ain’t got no taily po! Why don’t you leave me alone and go on about your business. I ain’t never hurt nobody or nothin’, just leave me alone!’ The scratching seemed to be inside the house now. The voice was so loud it was deafening. ‘TAILY PO, TAILY PO, YOU’VE GOT MY TAILY PO. AND NOW I’M BACK TO GET IT. GIVE IT TO ME NOW!’
The next morning all Aggie’s parents found were his fingers and toes. After the thing ate the rest of Aggie, it went over and unlocked the cabin door and left. A week later the three hounds were found several miles away in the next county and brought home. A few months later some hunters found a pile of bones that some say were Aggie’s bones, out in the swamp. AND THAT’S A TRUE STORY.
Craig and Veronica wanted to retape parts of the story to make it sound fiercer. That was fine with me: I sat in Henry’s studio, my feet tangled in a nest of interlaced wires, and tried to sort out the rich, schizophrenic harmony of “Taily Po.” I was dazzled and exhausted by its elasticity: that the same premise could be stretched in endless directions, not so much by altered details, but by voice alone, had resounding implications. Storytellers working with the same material literally use their voices to sow different realities in the mind’s eye of their hearers. I hadn’t realized until Veronica’s performance how vision-saturated voices really are. Images of race, gender, social status, even geography float along on the spoken word, invisible to the eye but unavoidable to the mind. Veronica’s voice conjured up an old black man, a loner who chose to retreat to the hills, decent but gruff, touched by the supernatural that turns up in so many African-American tales (Smitty’s creature walks through walls; Aggie’s has to come down the chimney). Chuck Larkin’s voice summoned a different picture, a more moralistic one: a no-nonsense, poor white family — I painted them white because Chuck has a white voice — living on the edge of a swamp, and a son who pays the price for not sharing his food. The creature that eats Smitty warns us against the otherworldly foes of the night; the one that wolfs down Aggie, also responsible for first devastating the garden, is more the incarnation of a natural disaster.
