Between Wrecks (31 page)

Furthermore, thank you so much for letting Juanita Wilkins use some of your space to sell her hair-care products left over from the cosmetologist/beautician phase of her life. If she'd not made that extra money selling Pantene, Clairol, et cetera, she would've never been able to continue her education in the realm of phlebotomy. And if Roane and Anderson counties didn't have a phlebotomist on the payroll, where would we be now?

I would like to thank National Public Radio for their
Morning Edition
segment what seems like a decade ago about the sudden boom of flea markets and jockey lots, and how everyone selling at these places now possesses encyclopedic knowledge of, say, yellow ware and toasters, which caused me to visit Mid-State Jockey Lot in Wartburg, which allowed me to meet Renee Sands (too late) after I'd gotten rooked on a
Sanford and Son
replica lunchbox for fifty-five dollars. And then I would like to thank National Public Radio for showing up only a couple years ago, and interviewing me as I stood there like an idiot trying to sell that
Sanford and Son
replica lunchbox for a dollar—which I couldn't do, seeing as everyone there knew that it wasn't an original—and the woman asking me, “Are you here because of the economy?” and my saying, “I'm here because I'm finishing up
No Cover Available: The Story of Columbus Choice, African-American Sushi Chef from Tennessee
and I can't get any support from Yaddo, Provincetown, the NEA, the NEH,” et cetera, and how, when the program finally aired after necessary editing, it came out, “Are you here because of the economy?” and my answer came out, “No cover. Choice. Sushi,” which—I feel pretty sure—will remain in all listeners' psyches and/or memories once the biography hits the shelves. I guess we'll find out!

While I'm dealing with mass media, I would like to thank Fox News for being so blatantly right-wing that they'll probably find a way to support the Plemmons brothers should ever a Fox “reporter” or “anchorperson” find a need to do a “book review.” I don't care. Someone once said, “I don't care if people are talking good or bad about me, as long as they're talking about me.” Actually, I think my fourth-favorite history professor said that, right before he got denied tenure and was fired for fucking one of the cheerleaders, a young woman from Sevierville who always went around saying she knew Dolly Parton personally, and whom I could hear yell out “No, no, no, are you crazy?!” to the coach when he decided to punt instead of going for fourth and twenty to go from our own, say, five yard line. Screw her. I don't want to thank her for anything.

The local-news cameramen who had to go out and film the place where Columbus Choice got lynched deserve a nod, seeing as they'll be, I believe, scarred for life, like I have been. Particularly I would like to thank Buddy Kirby, who shared with me some footage that didn't get aired on TV or in the Roane County courtroom proceedings. He had walked into Columbus Choice's restaurant with his camera down low, like in one of those undercover operations. I think that he and his reporter were supposed to be just looking around scouting for a place to stand in order to do one of those human interest on-air moments. Anyway, Buddy had his camera on, maybe down around the height of his knee, and for some lucky, serendipitous moment the thing caught the underneath side of Table B8—left side of the room, eight four-tops back. Actually the camera caught Tables B 1 through 7, also, which mostly showed chewing gum stuck beneath the tables. But at #8 it was evident that someone had scrawled “6-6-76,” which is the
exact date that Columbus got lynched
, and which, too, includes the sign of the devil according to the King James Version of the Bible.

Here are some questions: Why did it take the Plemmons brothers so long to get upset about the sushi restaurant? Were they that slow? How had Columbus lived for so long in the Harriman/ Oak Ridge? If the Plemmons brothers, or at least one of them, showed up to sketch that date in the bottom of the table, what had they/he ordered? Did the date have something to do with Jimmy Carter coming through the area on a campaign stop?

I never thought to look on the underside of any of Renee Sands's flea market tables or have a real-life cameraman undertake some undercover operation to conquer the scrawled or sketched or carved lettering that may or may not expose her as some kind of anti-capitalistic vendor. I had other things to think about, viz,
No Cover Available: The Story of Columbus Choice, African-American Sushi Chef from Tennessee
. Which is why I'm writing these Acknowledgments. In my editor's final publication.

Thank you, again, to Mr. Davey Hough, copywriter, for pointing out in my manuscript that it should be “The media
are
involved,” instead of “is.” I still say it sounds stupid, and some rules need changing.

I would like to thank the hapless linksters who paid six dollars each to walk nine holes at the Emory Golf and Country Club. At times, early in the morning, I found it necessary and beneficial to walk the outskirts of this particular course—it's only 2,880 yards, which comes to 8,640 feet, which comes to 1.636363 miles. No one ever asked me any questions about my trespassing, really, over all those years I walked the course, watching the wealthiest residents of the Harriman area tee up, slice, and curse. Well, actually, the wealthiest men and women probably drove over to the Centennial Course in Oak Ridge and played on a regulation eighteen-hole course. I watched men and women who either A) wished to be appear wealthy; or B) had been convicted of DUIs and couldn't ride a moped all the way to the better course while balancing a bag of clubs on their laps.

No one asked questions, but plenty of them mistook me for an employee. They said things like, “Do you people know that if you water grass it'll actually grow?” or “Hey, did you see a Titleist hit over there in the woods?” or “Hey, will you tell this fool I'm playing with that it's not cheating to move a ball within one standing long jump?” and so on. They said, “Are you the concession guy? Where's your cart?” They said, “You look like a ball washer. Are you a ball washer?” and laughed the way men in plaid pants are prone to laugh if and only if they're in a group, feeling all strong and lucky and impenetrable.

I wish to thank these people for a couple reasons. First off, they indirectly caused me to write Columbus Choice's biography harder. It made me realize that Columbus would never want to be like these cheap half-course golfers, and therefore neither would I. On the other hand—and this will be difficult for me to admit—I kind of wished to
join
them in a camaraderie-filled amble across fairways forever radioactive, and the sole means of my pulling my three-wood out on the first tee box would be through finishing up, then selling
No Cover Available: The Story of Columbus Choice, African-American Sushi Chef from Tennessee
.

The part of the brain that contains all wishes must be a complex place. I wouldn't want to be in charge of it.

I would be remiss to omit the influence of Schopenhauer, Hume, Diogenes, and Bobo.

Arthur Schopenhauer once said, “Almost all of our sorrows spring out of our relations with other people,” and “Religion is the masterpiece of the art of animal training, for it trains people as to how they shall think.” Schopenhauer said a lot of good things, some of which, though, are misogynistic. I won't say that I've nodded my head to this one, but it has come to mind on three occasions: “In our monogamous part of the world, to marry means to halve one's rights and double one's duties.”

David Hume's statement, “Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous; those in philosophy only ridiculous,” ran through my head every time I heard someone try to justify why the Plemmons brothers murdered Columbus Choice. It runs through my head every time I hear a church bell ring, too. At times, in the Oak Ridge-Harriman area, it's hard to delineate whether church bells ring simultaneously or the disaster sirens have been set off.

“The mob is the mother of tyrants,” said Diogenes.

Jimmy Rex “Sexy Rexy” Bobo, who brings his own chair to the VFW Club because he swears he sat on a booby-trapped barstool in Saigon that blew
its own
legs off and only left him with enough shrapnel in his ass to receive the Purple Heart, once said to me, “God created Racism when He realized He couldn't handle a population explosion. None of us would agree, I doubt, but God's biggest mistake was fucking. You can't expect one lifeguard to handle every beachgoer in the world.” Then he said, of course, “They been calling me Sexy Rexy before I even owned a map to
find
Vietnam,” which is what he said, on average, twice per Budweiser.

I am grateful to a woman named Penny Cuthbert at Plutonium Lanes 'n' Games for allowing me to drink beer (cheapest and coldest in the tri-county area!) and never bowl a game or play Ms. Pac-man, pinball, that bowling game that involves a puck and sawdust, or Skee-ball. Thanks for letting me trade in my boots for those size 11 rental shoes, too, just so I could feel like I wasn't a total outsider, and for letting me go through the Lost and Found box. I will always cherish my Plutonium Lanes 'n' Games shirt with those tiny pockets. Whoever drew up the logo—the ball crashing through ten pins for a strike, the mushroom cloud lifting up above the pinsetter—needs to receive the Graphics Arts Award/Local Business/Attire category from the Tennessee Valley Association of Advertising Firms during their annual ceremony over at the Holiday Inn Knoxville-Downtown Convention Center. I wore that bowling league shirt with pride, and it seemed to have worked, especially when I was in the middle of the “Columbus Had No Other Hobbies” chapter toward the end of the biography. Thank you, Penny, for also allowing me to plug in my laptop right there at a table behind Lane 12, and for telling people that I was from
Modern Bowler
magazine writing a feature piece on Mid-South keglers so they wouldn't bother me any.

I need to show my appreciation to Juanita Wilkins again, too, for not ratting me out those times I was at Plutonium Lanes 'n' Games when she pretended not to see me while she participated in women's league play for her team, the Blood Suckers. Listen, Juanita—and I know you won't ever listen to me again—but a 132 average is
great
. I read somewhere that anyone who can bowl above his or her weight is doing a fine job. Marlon Brando was never worshipped at Hollywood Star Lanes, which served as the set for
The Big Lebowski
, but then got razed in order to make room for a school. President William Howard Taft could have never bowled his weight when he went back to his hometown of Cincinnati and played at Glenmore Bowl, or if he traveled up to Baltimore and played duckpins. In Japan, by the way, sumo wrestlers are revered until they walk into a bowling alley. There are some other stories, I'm sure, but I can't think of them off the top of my head while I'm supposed to be finishing up these Acknowledgments. Anyone on that reality TV show, for example, about obese people trying to lose weight with the help of a personal trainer that aired on a network that should be thankful to Ted Turner.

There are a few images that one can never erase from memory, and my primary one—besides that of Columbus Choice's body hanging from an oak tree—is that of Chester Clabo's butt pointed in my direction. I've never thought about how both of them had the initials C.C. How odd. Anyway, Chester Clabo was my long snapper at Vanderbilt University, and I would like to thank him for the indirect way in which he aided me when it came to thinking up, then finishing,
No Cover Available: The Story of Columbus Choice, African-American Sushi Chef from Tennessee
. Just in case any scholars who read my book and are now going through these Acknowledgments don't know the term “long snapper,” it's the guy who hikes the ball to the punter on fourth downs. He's the center, but with the strength and accuracy to spiral a football twelve yards back at waist level.

So after I shanked my last punt and got asked to leave the team, the new punter came in and did the exact same thing. The chances of that happening might be on par with a guy who has indelible images of a man hanging from a tree and a guy's rear end pointed his way, both of whom have the same initials. When the new punter shanked the ball nonstop, the coach not only cut him from the team, but also Chester Clabo. The special teams coach figured that, somehow, Chester's delivery—maybe too tight a spiral, maybe too hard, maybe it came in at an awkward angle invisible to the naked eye—caused all of the bad punts. Me, I stayed on at the university and studied up on my history. Chester left school, embarrassed and ashamed. He secured a number of odd go-nowhere jobs for a while until he finally landed a job at the Tennessee Aquarium at One Broad Street in downtown Chattanooga.

Listen, anyone writing a biography the scope and intensity of
mine
knows that he or she must, at times, “get away” from the subject matter, and when I needed to do so, I found a way to get to the Tennessee Aquarium, which isn't but about 79.38 miles from here, according to MapQuest, which I just had to look up in order to keep the goddamn fact checker off my back. There's a town in between called Soddy-Daisy. Get on that MapQuest thing and look it up yourself to see if I'm lying.

Anyway, Chester Clabo and I had stayed in touch over the years—he says he has an image burned into his brain of my staring at his ass—and when I had to go over to the aquarium where he worked as a ticket taker/bouncer, he let me in for free. I'd go in there and stare at the bonnethead, epaulette, brown banded bamboo, and sand tiger sharks. I don't want to get all metaphysical or mystical about it, but their utter menacing beauty gave me a certain strength to forge on with
No Cover Available: The Story of Columbus Choice, African-American Sushi Chef from Tennessee
, I feel sure.

Anyway, thanks, again, to Chester Clabo, for hiking me awkward balls, which made me shank them, which sent me directly to the Vanderbilt library, which got me interested in the history of the area, which led me to Columbus Choice. I am forever grateful, and look forward to more visits to the Tennessee Aquarium, then later to those questionable bars you frequent like Lamar's, or My Uncle's Place, or Lupi's, or even that strip joint that made me sad to enter because I knew I'd run into Juanita Wilkins, part-time phlebotomist.