Having been chased by tornados from central Arkansas through Jasper, AL and all the way to Atlanta, GA, I was suffering from a new form of PTSD by the time I arrived at my friend Lenny's house in Decatur. Post Tornado Stress Disorder. It was so bad, I kept Lenny up all night watching the weather channel. Atlanta (and I) got lucky as the tornados split around the big city and one went north and one went south. I got very little sleep that night.
By the next evening I had recovered enough to give my poetry reading at Charis Books in Little Five Points, one of the oldest feminist bookstores left in the country. Charis was my bookstore when I lived and policed in Atlanta and my memories of that store are long and fond. So I was pleased to be reading there one last time before they move from their present location to a new one and begin to diversify to include more than books.
The reading was small, but with some of my oldest and dearest friends attending. Friends and fans often say to me when I tell them I have butterflies in my stomach before a reading, "Oh, you can do this blindfolded. You've been doing it forever." But the truth is every reading is different and every audience is different. My own perception and mood is different, and no matter whether you still have post tornado syndrome or not, the show must go on.
The flavor of this reading was sweet. I had come all the way from being a cop in this city to being a visiting poet, some 20 years later. The audience was incredibly attentive, almost spellbound, although I know how this may come across. I can only say this was the look I saw on their beautiful faces as they gazed at me, listening hard for the next word, the image, the metaphor that would hopefully strike a chord with them. And they made noises of affirmation and understanding. No reading can compare to the one where your audience actually amens in one way or another. To a preacher's kid, it is the ultimate signal of a job well done.
Well, sounds and selling books--which I did. As many listeners bought my family cookbook as they did my book of poetry and I was thoroughly pleased. Of course, there were several good cooks in the audience who just couldn't let the idea of a book from which I had drawn family recipes for women's potlucks all those years ago get away from them.
Admittedly, I felt exhausted after the reading, but the weekend was just beginning. I was to hear my favorite band, Roxie Watson play in both a parade and onstage at the Inman Park Festival. Saturday morning, Lenny and I loaded up the car with her bass, amp, and gasoline generator and headed over to meet the band just a few blocks from where both she and I used to live over twenty years ago. Beth, who plays mandolin for Roxie and is one of the original founders along with Lenny, owns a big old F-150 pick 'em up truck. A talented carpenter, she has devised a stage which can be built on the back of the truck in about an hour and taken down in less than that. This is really an amazing feat and a testament to the many talents of Beth Wheeler.
Then the band climbs up (and I mean UP) on the stage with their chairs and instruments all set in place and the driver slowly, carefully (with a stick shift no less) drives them along the parade route with all the other acts; none of whom, I might add are actually doing a live set on the back of a pick-up truck! They were singing "Jolene," the famous cover by Dolly Parton, when they passed Victoria and me where we lounged beneath a giant shade tree. I have to agree with Lenny, that nobody sings that song as well as Becky Shaw from Roxie Watson.
The next day, Sunday, the band was scheduled to play at the Inman Park festival in the early afternoon. At least they had a stage that stayed in one place this time! A huge crowd gathered when they learned who would be playing next, and I found myself surrounded by fans shouting and stomping with every song they played. I grinned the whole time as they played several songs that I and my partner Leigh had co-written with Lenny. I had written a song on the spur of the moment a couple of years earlier called "Five Easy Words" and this was the first time I had heard it played by the band. The refrain goes, "It's gonna be all right." When they got to the chorus and were repeating the phrase in harmony, they completely changed keys altogether in one voice, it seemed, and chills ran through my entire body. Both that song and Lenny's true song about being a coal miner in the deep mines of Alabama continue to haunt me.
When I finally left Atlanta for Asheville, I made my way to my friend Jane's house and barely made it to the bed before I was asleep; knocked out cold for 2 hours in the middle of the day. I slept for a couple of days to recover from the excitement of ATL, Roxie, and Big Lenny Lasater. But every moment was worth it. Well, I could have done without the tornados, but not without a minute of the rest of that 5 days. So far, it was Mendy's Excellent Adventure all the way.
—Mendy Knott is a writer, poet and author of the poetry collection A Little Lazarus (Half Acre Press, 2010). To order your copy of A Little Lazarus directly from the author, please click here. Or, if cookbooks are more your style, get a copy of Mendy's family cookbook Across the Arklatex at www.twopoets.us.
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