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Elmore Leonard
Tishomingo Blues
For Christine
I'm going to Tishomingo to have my ham bone boiled,
I'm going to Tishomingo to have my ham bone boiled,
I'm going to Tishomingo to have my ham bone boiled,
These Atlanta women done let my ham bone spoil.
Performed by Peg Leg Howell Atlanta,
Georgia, November 8, 1926
1
DENNIS LENAHAN THE HIGH DIVER would tell people that if you put a fifty-cent piece on the floor and looked down at it, that's what the tank looked like from the top of that eighty-foot steel ladder. The tank itself was twenty-two feet across and the water in it never more than nine feet deep. De
When he told this to girls who hung out at amusement parks they'd put a cute look of pain on their faces and say what he did was awesome. But wasn't it like really dangerous? De
The past few years De
What he did as a plan of escape was call resort hotels in South Florida and tell whoever would listen he was De
They'd say, "Leave your number," and never call back
They'd say, "Yeah, right," and hang up.
One of them told him, "The pool's only five feet deep,” and De
No they couldn't.
He happened to see a brochure that advertised Tunica, Mississippi, as "The Casino Capital of the South" with photos of the hotels located along the Mississippi River. One of them caught his eye, the Tishomingo Lodge amp; Casino. De
"Mr. Darwin, this is De
Billy Darwin said, "We did?"
"I remember I thought at first you were Robert Redford, only you're a lot younger. You were ru
This Billy Darwin was quick. He said, "You want to dive off the roof?"
"Into your swimming pool," De
"We go up seven floors."
"That sounds just right."
"But the pool's about a hundred feet away. You'd have to take a good ru
Right there, De
"How much you want?"
De
"How long a run?"
"The rest of the season. Say eight weeks." "You're worth twenty-eight grand?" That quick, off the top of his head.
"I have setup expenses-hire a rigger and put in a system to filter the water in the tank. It stands more than a few days it gets scummy."
"You don't perform all year?"
"If I can work six months I'm doing good."
"Then what?"
"I've been a ski instructor, a bartender…"
Billy Darwin 's quiet voice asked him, "Where are you?"
In a room at the Fiesta Motel, Panama City, Florida, De
There was a silence on the line, Billy Darwin maybe wondering why but not curious enough to ask.
"Mr. Darwin?"
He said, "Can you get away before you finish up there?"
"If I can get back the same night, before show time."
Something the man would like to hear.
He said, "Fly into Memphis. Take 61 due south and in thirty minutes you're in Tunica, Mississippi."
De
But got no answer. The man had hung up.
This trip De
The place wasn't open yet. They were still landscaping the grounds, putting in shrubs, laying sod on both sides of a stream that ran to a mound of boulders and became a waterfall. De
He paused, but only a moment. "You're the diver."
"Yes sir, De
Darwin said, "You've been at it a while, uh?" with sort of a smile, De
"I turned pro in '79," De
The man didn't seem impressed or in any hurry.
"You ever get hurt?"
"You can crash, enter the water just a speck out of line it can hurt like hell. The audience thinks it was a rip, perfect."
"You carry insurance?"
"I sign a release. I break my neck it won't cost you anything. I've only been injured, I mean where I needed attention, was my first time at Acapulco. I broke my nose."
De