Back Home

Just west of Tuscaloosa on 82 I start to pick up 99.9 The Fox (North Mississippi’s Rock Station).  Ted Nugent, Pre One-Armed-Drummer Def Leppard, G n R, Zeppelin in heavy rotation – same as it always was.  The soundtrack of my misspent youth, seemingly frozen in time forever guiding the wayward back to the Magnolia.  Surely they’ve added tracks but the primary catalog remains unchanged for at least the last (10) + years.  When I switch off the iPod and dial in to hear that first staticy Fox transmission – my eternal welcoming committee – I know that I’m almost there.  Yes it’s ridiculous, but all I do is smile when it comes in clearly for the first time.  And so it’s been since I left.

The cool thing about driving back to Mississippi is that culture shock sets in incrementally.  Driving west the roads get more and more narrow and deserted.  What traffic is on these squiggly little roads moves slower and slower and a helluva lot less intentioned than I’m used to.  Successfully, safely operating the automobile is the secondary activity it seems.  Primary is driving slowly.  Turn signals?  Who needs ‘em?  Long before crossing the state line into Mississippi you travel through the epicenter of nowhere.  West Alabama is about as far away as you can be.  From anywhere.  These little towns – Reform, Coal Fire, Gordo – have a certain Children of the Corn quaintness to them.  No matter where I fill up prior to, I invariably have to pit stop here for gas. 

Wednesday night I was paying the attendant (pay-at-the-pump is apparently a bit liberal for these parts!) and he said to me, “ ‘em deerunnin’? “  Excuse me?  I’m not sure what about me made him think that I might know if the “deer were running” (whatever the hell that means).  It could be that he saw that I was from out of town – when he CARDED me to buy gas.  I didn’t know how to respond, so I said nothing and walked out.  He mumbled some inaudible garble as I did.  Back in the truck, I imagined him calling up his banjo-pickin’ buddies to come down here and get all Deliverance on me or something so I got the hell out of dodge.  (My imagination sometimes gets the better of me.)  Between Reform and the state line there is literally nothing but darkness.  Thick, black, night that headlights barely cut – horror movie darkness.  But thanks to The Fox I had Foghat and Alice in Chains watching my back. 

Upon my arrival at the Top, I met my folks at Moore’s where I promptly ordered the chicken-fried steak.  Only in the south would someone think to take not one, but two huge pieces of beef, batter them and throw them in the fryer. Outstantding! “You want gravy and onions on that?”  As a matter of fact I do.  What else do you have back there that will shorten my life further?  Maybe throw a cup of lard or a fried pie on there – I might as well go out with a bang!  I can certainly think of worse fates than face down in a plateful of this beautiful gravy.  (Just an aside here, but this might be why Mississippi is one of the fattest states in these United.)  I will say that after (6) hours in the car with Maynard and my over-active imagination that big plate of home was exactly what I needed.  Besides, we all get a pass from sensible eating habits the last week of November, right? Right.

Maynard didn’t sleep well that night and was up and down like a teething baby (as if I know what that might be like.)  At or about 4:00 AM I found myself sitting near the edge of the woods on a stump watching May navigate the twigs and thistle.  Peaceful moment back at the crib notwithstanding, I could not help how overpowered I felt by the silence – so dark and so quiet that I felt like I should whisper.  I felt like if I allowed myself to think, someone would overhear.  That’s an unsettling, a very uncomfortable feeling for me.  I need noise.  I need the hustle…the sirens, the sounds, the shouting, the sweet serenade of the city.  I felt suffocated.  And scared.  I succumbed to the silence for a split second and scooped up the little man and scurried back to the safety of my solace.  As Maynard was twittering around the leaves I think I saw him being an appetizer for a werewolf or a jack-a-lope or whatever weird ass shit they have in Mississippi.  I prefer spotlights from police helicopters (ghetto birds) over darkness: the numbing hum of wheels on asphalt over silence.  I slept for (2) hours Wednesday – did I mention how freakishly quiet it is?  Back safe in the bed my mind sped faster into the imagined.  Perhaps I’ve read In Cold Blood too many times but to be honest I’ve not had a good night’s sleep in my parent’s house since high school.

Thursday I went to my brother’s house where I had a Thanksgiving dinner that couldn’t be beat and spent some much needed time with my family.  I’d told some friends I would look them up but I didn’t.  It’s not the first time, and it probably won’t be the last.  Whatever disregard you might feel; it’s not intentional.

Driving there and around and just letting my mind wander, I recall these landscapes well. 

Even at night, I can still see the ghosts of Confederate soldiers charging through the smoke, the Chickasaw on a hunt, and even a shadow of my former self traipsing around the way.  I grew up here.  This was home for a lot of years.  Phrases I say, even thoughts I think are a product of growing up here.  I learned how to politely tell someone to go to hell without them even knowing.  I gained a strange appreciation for John Anderson songs.  I made memories that I still go back to almost daily.  But every time I physically come back it seems more and more foreign to me.  I find it harder and harder to see that long-haired teenager stumbling through.  I think everybody misses where they grew up and I’d give at least a pinky finger to have one more lap around the square back in the day.  It's only memories now.

It’s not Mississippi that has changed.  Nothing changes in the ‘Sip but the seasons and that's the way it should be.  It’s me.  This was the first trip that I’ve made by myself in a number of years and I had a lot of time to think – coming and going.  On the way back to Atlanta it finally hit me, like a ton of whatever.  On all other trips back to the A, I’ve started counting miles as soon as I’m east of Birmingham.  I never really knew why – I thought it was just a compulsion.  Ready to be back or whatever.  I’ve always subconsciously counted miles ‘til Exit 46.  When I top that hill just before Six Flags and I see that beautiful, amazing Atlanta skyline unfold – downtown first, then mid-town and finally Buckhead off to my left  – that’s when I feel like I’m back home.  That’s where I’ve found as close to my perfect self as I ever have.  When I’m not here I miss it.  I haven’t missed Mississippi in…maybe ever.  Yes, I miss my family.  I miss my old friends.  But I don’t miss living there.  I don’t miss being there.  I don’t miss the person I was there.  There’s no back home there for me.  “Back home” nearly sucked the life right out of me.  As much as I wish there were, there is just no “there” left for me there.

When I drove through the village tonight on my way home, I saw that crazy dude reading the phone book at the bus stop.  When he finished a page, he tore it out and threw it down.  When he threw it down he yelled something that nobody but he understood.  The only thing that I found odd about this is that he hasn’t been there the last few weeks. 

I missed him.  

I was happy to see him tonight. 

It made me feel like I was back home.