Tishomingo Blues

"You went to school while you were doing this?"

"A Catholic school, but they didn't have many nuns left. It was too bad, I liked the nuns. They give it to you straight, no bullshit."

"They know what you were doing?"

"No, man. I'd get brought up in Juvenile Court, my mama'd call the school, say I had a sore throat."

"She didn't mind you selling drugs?"

"She'd look the other way taking the money. I never got sent down. I went to Oakland University three years and did some dealing to pay for my tuition and books and shit, but only weed. I wouldn't sell heroin to students, fuck up their young minds. Lot of 'em were fucked up to begin with, worrying about what they go

"You weren't worried?"

"I took eighteen semester hours of history-ask me a question about it, anything, like the names of famous assassins in history. Who shot Lincoln, Grover Cleveland. I took history 'cause I loved it, man, not to get a job from it. I knew about the Civil War even before I saw it on TV, the one Ken Burns did. I stole the entire set of videos from Blockbuster."

Robert looked over at De

"You go to school to get a job?"

"I knew the first time I saw a high diver go off that's what I wanted to do."

"There you are. What'd you take?"

"I quit after two years and joined the Great American High Dive Team."

"How long can you keep doing it?"

"I'm ru

"Then what?"

"I don't know."

"You ain't ever been to jail, have you?"

"I was held one time while they searched my truck."

"Thought you were trafficking?"

"I wasn't."

"The kind of nerve you have," Robert said, "when you quit diving you ought to get into something, you know, edgy."

"When I was on the dive team, I was the edge guy

"There you are."

"But with divers," De

They came to Corinth, to a wide, open area of railroad tracks on the south edge of the town's business district, and Robert stopped the car.

"This is Civil War City, man, Corinth, the rail center all the fighting around here was about. You looking right at it. The Memphis and Charleston line went east and west, the Mobile and Ohio the other way. You listening to me?"

De

"To see what he had going. His plant's south of here, across 72. But he was already in Tunica putting up his Village. It wasn't a wasted trip 'cause I also came to visit Jarnagin's and look at uniforms. Can I go on?"

"You're driving."

"I mean with your lesson, telling you about what happened here. Musta been thirty thousand, at least, killed, wounded, died of cholera or the shits fighting over these railroad tracks. I'm counting Shiloh, north of here across the Te

De

Robert turned his head and stared at De

"What, getting shot?"

"No, being in a battle. Walking across a field toward a line of men shooting at you. Or charge this Battery Robinett, big Parrott guns, twentypounders, firing canister at you."

"What's canister?"

"I think it's like scrap metal packed together, but I'm not all the way sure. I know I wouldn't want any parts of it. Man, you have to be brave keep walking into that shit. But they did, both sides." Robert shook his head. "How, I don't know. I went up to Shiloh? This Park Service person, Ranger Diana, cute girl, took me around in her uniform and Smokey the Bear hat. Showed me the Sunken Road, the famous Hornet's Nest, like a woods. She said they fought in there for hours, the black-powder smoke so thick they shooting their own people by mistake. The trees caught fire and there's wounded in there can't get out. She said you could hear 'em screaming and smell burning flesh. Yeah, Ranger Diana, she was good, put you right there at the scene."

For maybe a minute the air-conditioning was the only sound in the car.

Robert said, "Right over there across the tracks was the original Tishomingo Hotel. They used it as a hospital. You can take a walking tour of historical sites, see where General Beauregard stayed, visit a war museum, or we can skip it, get your uniform and something to eat. Beer and wine, but no booze in this county. What else you want to know?"

There was no showroom or retail shop here. De

Outside, De

"Don't worry your head about it."

"I know the shell jacket was one-twenty, the shoes around a hundred."

"You get a present from somebody, you ask how much they spent on you?"

"This isn't a present. How much?"

"Little under four bills."

They were in the Jaguar now going back to Tunica by way of Memphis, into the sun, both wearing their shades.

"You understand," Robert said, "reenactors are serious people. I mean whether they all the way hardcore or not. They go to the trouble to get to the place, put their uniform on, sleep in a tent on the ground, cook their food over a fire, they're serious people do that. They have no patience with farbs wearing Speedo skivvies under their wool pants. You know what I'm saying?"

"They're serious."

"They are ser-i-ous."

"Not just about reenacting."

"About everything."

"Like you and Jerry. And A

"Going as a quadroon hooker-shit, huh?" Robert gri

"And she's serious."