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As far as I can tell there are two types of Tennessee river people and
they travel in competing packs and consume washed up fish or this ubiquitous leafy vegetation that I with my northern
bearings will only later come to know as kudzu. There are the stoop-shouldered people who are generally tall and
gangly and carry serious expressions but do not intend harm unless you present them with adequate incentive in
which case they will not hesitate to disembowel you and devour your pancreas. Then there are the red-faced people
who wear undershirts and/or bandanas emblazoned with the Rebel Flag and tend to thrive on disruption and terror
especially when it comes to interloping sons of bitches such as myself. Recently one of the red faced people who
wear undershirts and/or bandanas emblazoned with the Rebel Flag tackled me from behind and stole my slacks while
another flung a pail of river leeches onto the back of my thighs. These ill-mannered actions caused a substantial
amount of blood loss, dehydration and acute sunburn and forced me to abandon my trek out of the river jungle and
currently I find myself supine and near extinction on the riverbank as a flock of vultures take dibs on my pending
body parts resulting in a vicious quarrel over the tender eye meat.
The individual who saves me is a castoff from the stoop-shouldered people, an ancient ghostlike figure who hoists
me from the riverbank and slings me over his shoulder and carries me up the incline to his shack which has but
a single bulb burning over the living quarters and a shotgun and/or walking cane leaning against the wall. The
ghostlike figure positions me on a homemade pine cot and strips me the rest of the way down and pours salt on the
leeches and applies a caramel colored salve to nearly my entire body including the freshly sewn spot on my right
foot. The ghostlike figure informs me that his name is Abner and not to worry about the goldurn antibiotics and
to quit my goldurn jabberin' about these vagrants hackin' off my pinky toe and this man in black and this girl
named Paul stealin' my possessions and leavin' me to die 'longside the river.
Two hours or three weeks pass and Abner adorns himself with a blood-red headband with slash-like markings and proceeds
to light a series of candles and sit Indian style in the middle of the floor and conduct a singsong chant in what
sounds like a Far Eastern language. I join in from my position on the homemade pine cot while simultaneously holding
my hands in a prayerlike fashion and moving them in a circular motion.
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More published work by Andy Henion:
www.InkPot.com, Pindeldyboz.com, & Monkeybicycle.net
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