Last Train to Clarksville

It was 1933, during the height of the Great Depression, in a one dog town in northern Mississippi just south of Memphis, goes by the name of Clarksville. It was a hot and dry day, as days tended to be in the deep south during the Great Depression, seeing as they was hurtin so bad they couldn’t even afford to keep their traditionally humid climate from being repo’d up and out of there, sold off to carpetbaggers from the north for a song.

It was bad times for all, but especially for the po sharecropper black folk. Negroes, or coloureds, they called them back then, that is when they was being polite and all. Dickwood “Fatback” Johnson had mouths to feed and a failing crop. While he was “a no account shifty middling musician,” as his wife liked to call him when describing to her friends about how they met, he was a desperate man in desperate times, and in playing his harmonica he felt a sense of letting steam off. It let him vent his frustrations in the music of the Delta negro, blues they called it, (the Delta Blues it would later be famously known) because it was about releasing their blues, their blue mood, through music. Which was a healthier way than a more destructive course of events, of which there were a many.

As Dickwood’s crop had failed because of the intense dry heat and drought conditions, he set upon the idea to head down to Yazoo where he heard there was work “for bucks who ain’t afraid for a hard days work” in rebuilding the shipyards—after the Great Mississippi Flood of ’27 had wreaked it’s unholy vexification on the good folks of Mississippi. As he set out on foot towards the center of town, towards the crossroads where he could hitch a ride down south, he took one last look at his young bride and mother of his 9 childrens. A strange feeling came over him as if his previous life with his family had all been a dream, that it was as ephemeral as a mirage in the heat of the Clarksville sun.

When he got to the crossroads he put his trunk down and stuck out his thumb; he had left early, hoping to get a ride before the heat of the day swallowed him up whole. It wasn’t to be. He stayed in that spot for pert near 12 hours before deciding to give up and go back home with hat in hand, dejected, a failure at even getting a ride. But that also was not to be, not on that hot and dusty summer evening at the crossroads in central Clarksville, Mississippi 1933. What Dickwood “Fatback” Johnson didn’t know, was that he was being watched (just like all of us, folks).

As Dickwood picked up his trunk and started to set off, a horn sounded, so loud you’d have thought the walls of Jericho itself would have been transmogrified into dust. Startled, Dickwood turned around just in time to see a sleek looking large shiny white automobile screech up and park right in back of where he was a standin with his eyes and mouth agape. He tried to squint through the light of the headlights to see who was driving, but all he could see was a dark outline, being that the lights were so bright and blinding.

As he started to turn quickly to go home—as he had felt a strange premonition that the person in the car was bad business, he heard his name called out, almost a whispering sound, like the rustlin of dead branches on a grey winters morn. “You talking to me sir?” Dickwood said to the figure in the car he still couldn’t see, even with shading his eyes with his hand. “You go by the name a Dickwood Johnson son?” whispered the voice in Dickwoods ears. “Why yessir, though mose folks be calling me Fatback, count I liked to play with pigshit when I was a youngin. Always comin in to dinner covered in pigshit, momma used to say, don’t remember much though on account I was a youngin” Dickwood nervously stammered out.

“Well Fatback, I heard you was lookin for some honest pay for some honest work?” said the whispering phantom. Surprised, on account of telling no one but his wife late last night about his plan to go down Yazoo way, Dickwood was still too desperate for work to give it much thought on how this stranger could know his intimate personal business. “Why yessir, yes I am, got me a strong back and a strong hand, ain’t afraid of a hard days work, no sir, ain’t afraid t’all” Dickwood nervously rambled, hoping he wouldn’t have to make the long trip down south to an uncertain future, leaving the comfort of his young bride and 9 kids.

“Ain’t no worry ’bout that son, I don’t require any hard laboring. I need someone I can trust to go on errands for me, delivery job so to speak” said the figure in the car. Perplexed, Dickwood didn’t know what to say seein as he didn’t know how to drive and didn’t own an automobile, being po and all. But he was desperate for money, “You can trust me sir, ask around, I never cheated no one and t’ain’t ever been caught stealing or nothing like that sir” stammered Dickwood. “T’aint never been caught?” said the whisper with a laugh. “Oh no suh, that wasn’t my meaning , t’aint never been caught cuz I never done um” Dickwood now frantically pleaded. “You know how to write Fatback?” said the whispering voice. “I can sign my name, but nothin else sir, sorry, I can learn if need be” Dickwood nervously said. “That’s all I need son” said the specter in the dark behind the light, “come close Fatback” he said.

Later that evening when Dickwood got home, he knew his life had changed forever. He hoped he had made the right choice, he hoped his soul was worth losing for the comfort it would bring him and his family. The man in the car hadn’t given him a job just yet, he said in the future he would call on him to deliver a message, but he would be given a gift to enable him to make himself a very rich man right now. He showed that gift to his wife that night, he asked her to name anybody she knew. “Why Dickwood?” she said. “Baby I want to show you how we is gonna get rich” he said. “OK than, how about that Mahatma guy from India?” she laughed, not knowing what he was going on about. In an instant Dickwood’s form began to shimmer like a mirage in the mid day Clarksville sun, and in the next instant Dickwood was gone—in his place was the savior of India, Mohandas “Mahatma” Gandhi, wearing nothing but sandals, a loin cloth, and spectacles.

And rich they did become. Dickwood could take the form of any human he desired for as long as he wanted. He had been given the power of the man who hired him, as he was now his official representative. Being a shape-shifter was not just part of the job requirement he was informed of, on that long ago warm summer’s eve at the crossroads in Clarksville, Mississippi—it was also his reward. He could impersonate anyone, and by that be able to access whatever he desired—be it money, gold, jewels, anything anyone owned—all was his for the taking.

As life dragged on over the years, eventually his wife grew old and passed to the other side, his children grew up and had kids of their own, but the man from the car never came for Dickwood for so long that Dickwood thought maybe he had forgotten about their deal. And so it came to pass that in the early 1970s when the man did finally show up, Dickwood thought maybe he had wanted to wait for his wife to pass on so he could devote himself to his work without distraction. But it became evident that it wasn’t the reason when he found himself in the form of a young man, a white man, a Jewish one at that, in a religious cult on a commune up in cold as hell West Virginia. New Vrindavan they called it, seemed like weirdos to Dickwood, but his boss had informed him his job was to take over the cult, by any means necessary, for he had plans for the world, and Dickwood “Fatback” Johnson—was his messenger.

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