GORJUS: might be gone even if you do go back

Levon Helm, a faded past, and country gold.

THE SONIC IN WEST HELENA was packed. All I wanted was to stand in the road and take a picture of a busted McDonald’s sign, but I had to keep hopping out of the way so I wouldn’t get run over—which I reckon isn’t highly ranked in the grand scheme of 2020 problems.

West Helena, Arkansas, August 2020 (Polaroid SX-70)

I had just finished poking around downtown Helena. Years ago I had been up this way, after seeing Jerry Lee Lewis play in Tunica on a cold night in February. It was one of those days where the film was almost not working, one with an ice gray sky and bitter wind—one when your hands start shaking if you fuss overlong with the camera.

I was shooting then almost exclusively with a Land Camera, in the patch of time when you could still get those beautiful Fuji films, while Impossible was selling what could charitably be called chemical experiments. (When people ask about that period of instant film, I often refer them to Lisa McCarty’s incredible collage Bedroom Window, sixty-three Impossible prints stitched together in a mass of fading, sliding, blurry noise—an incredible piece of art that reveals just how far Polaroid had collapsed).

With what light there was, I stood on Walnut Street and clicked the shutter over and again, trying and failing to frame this mystery:

Dreamland Place, Helena, Arkansas, February 2017 (Polaroid Land Camera with Fuji FP-3000B)

Let’s be honest, I never really got it down on film. But I just loved it so much. I wished I knew what the lion looked like before it had faded to a silhouette, wanted to know what kind of music played over the speakers at a spot so beautifully named: Dreamland Place.

I kept meaning to go back. I finally set aside a sunny day a couple months ago, and loaded up days of film for the 600 and SX-70. But when I made it to Arkansas, there were only charred timbers where I remembered the Dreamland had been.

I HEADED WEST to see what there was in Marvell, where I had heard the artist Levon Helm was from. I say artist because “drummer” doesn’t sound like enough and “singer” doesn’t sound right either. Somebody as big and as warm-hearted as he seemed needs some bigger words, maybe.

But there wasn’t much going on in Marvell, just a kid’s party at a park, and my eye couldn’t find anything to land on; truth was, I was tired, and my feelings were kind of hurt the Dreamland Place was gone. I had been listening to The Band on the way over but sometimes they make me sad, it’s all that twang and lament.

I was going through the motions of trying to take some kind of a picture of what I guessed was the house he was born in when a SUV with a Stennis flag plate screeched by, and a wild-haired boy hopped out. “That’s it, that’s it right there!” he yelped to his friend, pointing to a shack that was twenty feet to the left beside the one I had been squinting at.

We got to talking and he said “we just left Turkey Scratch! That’s where this old place was before—we had gone out there and visited it years ago, before they cut it in half and moved it down the highway. Look right there, you can see the stitches! Are you a photographer? Let me put this little flag up there, then will you do my photo?”

Jimbo Mathus, Marvell, Arkansas, August 2020 (Polaroid 600)

The old boy then insisted I head out to Turkey Scratch, as he jumped off the porch and went and got back in his ride and headed out. That’s where Lavon really lived, you know, he said; and he said his name like that, kind of like Lavin, not Lee-von, the way he was really called where he grew up, only softening it a little because nobody could ever really say it right. But I suppose I say Levon because it sounds like how I believe it should.

I figured that if you could trust anyone you could trust strangers who can tell one shack from another and how to speak the local language. As I wound my way up to the farm through hairpin turns and golden corn, I played this song over and again :

And when I got there it looked like this:

Turkey Scratch, Arkansas, August 2020 (Polaroid SX-70)

Maybe that old store won’t be there the next time I go back, if I ever do. (Like the song goes, can’t see me no more, newspaper said I sank). But I sure like that I went there at least once, and stood in the swirling dust.

Then I listened to that great song, over and again, as I headed back home, singing it as I crossed over the Mississippi at sunset.

NEXT WEEK I am going to try to write about the biscuit recipe I have been developing, with help from friends, over the past few months. They’re called BAMA BISCUITS because they can’t be beat (I SAID IT). Stay safe and as always I am gorjusjxn on Instagram and you can see more of my photography at McCartyPolaroids.

I’ll leave you with a fond memory from my past, COUNTRY GOLD.