What Not To Eat At A County Fair Near Corinth, Mississippi

Note: What follows is an excerpt from a story that I've had in progress for a number of years. I think it wants to be a short novel when it grows up. The characters are my own creation; sadly, The Slugburger is not. The dialogue you'll read here is a loose adaptation of an exchange I had with a coworker a lifetime ago down in Selmer, Tennessee. Selmer's a fine and lovely town, but I don't expect to see it featured on The Food Network any time soon.

For just a few minutes, I forgot about Russel Franks, his missing daughter, and the retainer he still owed me. The hissing lines of the Scrambler’s hydraulics fell silent as the gyrating monstrosity ground to a halt. A gaggle of preteenagers stormed off down the sawdust midway to seek other thrills, while the group in queue fidgeted and wiggled, waiting their turn to have the contents of their bellies churned to a froth. “It’s a what?” I took my change and blinked a couple of times at the sandwich vendor, leaning forward an inch or two to make sure I heard him right the next time. The greasy paper bag in my hand suddenly seemed less innocent than it had a moment ago. The man in the little open-sided trailer kitchen fixed me with a look that was two parts amusement and one part defiance. He repeated, “It’s a slugburger.” I swallowed and nodded. To my credit, it only took me about three seconds to get back up to speed. I smiled and said, “Okay then, just how many slugs goes into one of these treats?” He stared back at me, ratcheting the defiance component up to two parts, bleeding the amusement back to about one. He folded his arms across his dingy white uniform shirt and waited for me to either leave or rephrase my question. I was sure I could win him over; I just needed to take a different tack. “Well, what exactly is a slugburger? And long as I’m asking, why do you call ‘em that?” I was still smiling, careful not to show any teeth; I think I heard once that the locals took that as being too aggressive. Or forward. Or something. Mr. Slugburger assumed an air of world-weariness that was remarkable in a forty-year-old who had probably never been a hundred miles from home in his life. He launched into his own version of The History of the Slugburger. “Well, what a slugburger is, is a cereal patty. There’s no meat in it, less’n you count the lard that kinda holds the cereal together in the deep fryer,” he said, gesturing over his shoulder to the two bubbling fry vats installed against the little trailer’s far wall. A stack of uncooked patties waited beside the fryers. They were shaped more or less like hamburgers, but there the resemblance ended. They were a sort of yellow color for which I have no previous point of reference, and rather lumpy. A pair of flies buzzed lazily in a holding pattern over the stack, as if slugburgers were uncharted territory for them, as well. The man continued, “And as for the name, that came from back in the Depression.” He leaned down into the window and rested his elbows on the formica counter inside. “Back then, meat was scarce if you weren’t a farmer. Somebody came up with a way to make a patty out of meal and lard, fry it up in a pan, and put it on a bun like a burger. Made a big hit at all the little county fairs and such, where you could buy one for a nickel, which some folks used to call a slug. So you see where the name come from.” He stood up, pulled a grimy towel from the waistband of his black trousers, and wiped his hands. “Yeah. I do see,” I replied, slipping in a quick sideways glance at the bag, which was by now pretty saturated with drippin’s from the two sandwiches and the order of fries I had bought. “They’re really good, once you get used to the taste. A lot of folks that grew up around here won’t eat a meat burger.” The man turned to drop the next batch of slugburgers into the fryer. He looked over his shoulder to dispense one last piece of wisdom: “And remember, long as you’re here, if you want a meat burger, you have to specify “meat hamburger,” and don’t just ask for a burger. You’ll get a slug ever’ time.” I thanked him for the tip, walked halfway across the fairgrounds, and dropped the bag into a trash bin beside the Tilt-A-Whirl. So far, my visit to Fayette, Mississippi was beginning to look like a real waste of time. I thought about finding my car and getting back across the state line. I could find someplace on the interstate where I wouldn’t have to specify whether or not I wanted my hamburger made of lard and oatmeal, and still make Nashville by midnight to boot. I looked across the open field adjacent to the fairgrounds that had been cordoned off for parking. It was that elusive hour before twilight when the sun is gone from view, but somehow manages to brighten everything with a diffuse glow that is far more pleasing than the harsh orange haze of sundown. The round hills in the distance were a patchwork of timber and hayfields and seemed to be lit from within. If it hadn’t been for the shrieking machinery behind me and two acres of cars and trucks that looked like cast-offs from a demolition derby in front of me, it would have been a damned fine moment, indeed.

Pitch

It's only because all's fair and all of us
Are in for a penny...nothing but a little pitch & turn
So what's the harm? It feels good to say it and brother,
In your own coin it makes everything
Worth it. So let's just throw some bones, eyes and dollars
All trained down on the chute. Because an old man
Told me one time, Eyes open and dome on a swivel,
That's the way. The situation, he said, is fluid.
The bread is on the water and the current bears it away.
Cast your handful of ones and sixes
Against the rail, and count your money where the wind
Isn't blowing. All's fair and all's the same again.

©2008 Timothy W Holland

Fifteen Seconds Between Things

Strangest days are the ones laid
Out like this: steps go somewhere and everybody's in a hurry
To take them. Me, I'm dragged down to a halt
With the current split around me: a boiling hydraulic
Of all the things people do and say.
I catch myself with my ear bent to the sussurus
Of some conversation that doesn't belong to me,
And it sounds like stolen silk ripped down from the line.
It must be better; they seem
So content. Nothing to do for the
Shudderstop lockstep I think I keep noticing.
They don't think they're doing it, but
They are. None of that matters when the big engine
Turns those gyros fast and clean
And serves up everything normal and sweet.
Which must be better. Must be right.

©2008 Timothy W Holland

Wrestle

The way he looked across I could tell that
Language, a common language, was going to be a barrier.
Broken-wing eyebrows tried to raise
And lower over the conversation, picked to bits
And cached for later. Wood and paper,
Steel and gold and death all woven into lace
And draped across the table like a souvenir caul
But still, a thing only half-said turns
Into a sermon every time. Every last time.
Preacherman raised his hands, raised his voice, raised
His expectations to the rafters and my friends, you all know
What happened next: they came back down through the beams
With a noose and a promise. The floor pitched and heaved;
Nothing for it now but to watch the cord unravel and find
Some fresh use for the matchburnt ends, woven back
In a hand-over-hand step. Someone reminded us all
To keep one eye on the ground and gather all we find.

©2008 Timothy W Holland

Full of Wild Letters

The morning crashed in and
Made a new window, broke the seal on the vacuum
That was keeping all those dreams so crisp;
Now I have to think about them all.
Like this one: The old man with a pistol and a vendetta
Who chased me across three states. Something about
Something my family had done, before my time. But
That didn't make any difference. Sins of the father,
And all that. I woke up just as he found me
Where I had run to ground in the city
Where I grew up and just before I figured out
That I was going to have to kill him, or be killed by him.
That was just one. The past week has been full of them,
Full of wild letters. Secrets about the giant slipping engines
Grinding away under the earth, and something
I was supposed to do about them. There was a schematic
drawn on the lid of a box. With that done, I just want
To forget. I want to put my own pistols away
And stop drawing them down on old men.
I want to welcome Persephone back topside
When the four months are over.

©2008 Timothy W Holland

Blister

Here's the truth of it, boy, and you'd be damned smart
To write it down somewhere:
If you brush up against something
That's too hot for the likes of you ––
Run too wide-open for way too long
On roads you've never
Seen -- well, you're just going to get burned.
That drywhisper hiss, you heard it coming
Plenty of time to move, fool,
So why didn't you?
You stayed around for the blister.
All sweat-slick and full of memory,
There's nothing for it now but to wait.

©2008 Timothy W Holland

Drive / Three Parts

Drive / Three Parts

Run down that road, man
Red clay and gravel, washboard to scrub anything
You know how to do it
Just point the grill and shoot for the moon
You know you'll miss, so
Nobody gets hurt. Or gets out.
A little Rage in the box, a little fuel
Now, look man:
This is no long goodbye.
Wire guided and wound up tight,
Flying, this time.

_______________

Drive / The Second Part

In the long bellybottom of the road
Ninety is the new sixty
Until that place, you know the one, man
Where the water claims the road for days
Every spring and leaves deep fingerprints.
Sideways in the cage
And you chip your tooth on that half-open window.
Then up the hillside, gravel buried
Under some cousin's cousin's work
For the Highway Department.
A windshield speck becomes a porchlight
And you focus on it like a moth.
Like there was ever any question.

_______________

Drive / The Last Part

The light keeps pushing backward
Dragging the porch and the little house with it.
Hard up against that hill, all vines
And poplars and cottonwoods
Green as money in the daylight, washed grey
Here in this light, with the certainty of a mirage.
Dusk or dawn, you can't remember
And it doesn't matter anyway...your grill is pointed at that light,
Flickering and blown through with candlefly wings
And the smoke of ten thousand cigarettes.
Across the millstone-step and painted porchboard
A screen door tilts out against a spring, and slams back
Into that dark room. She scratches a match to life
And touches that burn against a fresh stick and waits.

__________________________

©2007 Timothy W Holland