THERE’S A STORY in Rick Bragg’s book with Jerry Lee Lewis where he writes about the baby Killer heading up with his father to Memphis to cut some sides for Sun. The two boys from Ferriday were fixed at a sink in their hotel room, turning the knobs back and forth, just watching the water spray out on command.
This is real, but it’s also a ghost. 706 Union Avenue, Memphis, Polaroid SX-70 (2023)
THIS WAS 1956, not terribly far removed from Jerry Lee walking over to Natchez and crouching in the woods to hear the jazz echo off the riverboats traveling the River, and shoot, they’d walked out of the corn fields the day before to make the drive up.
When I am in Tupelo, I try to place my hand up on the wall of the little white house—try to remember it wasn’t just where Elvis lived, it’s where he was born, that Vernon and Gladys had built the structure themselves, that the boy’s screams upon tasting air ricocheted off the walls of the little home, could be heard blocks away, would be heard around the world.
The original Sun closed in 1959, before my daddy could drive, so the neon is a dream: but these bricks still got smacked by “I Walk the Line” and “How Many More Years,” and of course absorbed the Big Bang by the Atomic Powered Singer himself, just nineteen years old at the time.
Once at an art show in Jackson my friend Brannon overheard me talking up the Delta to a fellow from up North. He had been working with Katherine Dieckmann on Strange Weather, and was full of genuinely well-meaning questions about Mississippi, almost vibrating in his tight pants.
I filled him up with dreams, basically reciting a passage from Neil Gaiman’s Sandman or maybe something from Hellblazer about thin places—those parts of the world which are closer to other spheres or dimensions, especially the world of Faerie. I leaned in, like sharing a secret, and told him “The whole Mississippi Delta is a thin place.”
Behind the Yankee’s back Brannon rolled his eyes, knowing I was hoping to make a sale—it was an art show after all, and my work was scattered over the walls, so he figured I was trying to imbue a tiny square of plastic and light sensitive paper with magick. Perhaps the spell wouldn’t last, but you just needed it to work just long enough for the credit card to swipe. (I personally always hoped a little glamour lingered the next morning, having myself regretted a purchase or two in the cold light of day).
Maybe I was spinning a tale a little bit, but I was also telling the truth, hearing Howlin’ Wolf echo in the back of my skull—
I'm gonna fall on my knees
I'm gonna raise up my right hand
Maybe it’s only true if we believe, like Peter Pan, but that’s real, too, or at least real enough to keep a pretend dream alive. At least a little bit longer.
Red Banks, Mississippi (2023). Weaving spiders, come not here.
“RAISE MY RIGHT HAND” is this week’s installment of GORJUS, an occasional dispatch devoted to art and life in the South, preserved by instant film.
If you like it, consider sending it to a pal. Just like anything, some weeks are better than others. I’m gorjusjxn on Instagram, and you can see more Polaroids at McCartyPolaroids.
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