08302014 Hoodoo Tale: "The Jack Cannon Cotdang Volcano"

Well, well, my friends, here we stand…the week the world as we know it renews in a flourish of pageantry, team colors and the thin blue smoke wafting from grills lined like soldiers on The Quad. 

Alas, the bleating horn of war has sounded and the crimson-clad legions will once again focus their collective attention on the weekend activities of 18-22 year old young men.

For fans of college football, this weekend represents Christmas, Halloween and the Fourth of July all wrapped up in the same tortilla. And while our beloved Alabama Crimson Tide will not be facing an SEC foe or a respected army from another division, this Saturday’s opening game against West Virginia deserves a Hoodoo sacrifice nonetheless. The Football Gods will not be taunted this year.

That said, in accordance with local customs and the widely held practices of this fair land we call Alabammy, a Hoodoo sacrifice I will put down for you fine people, as breaking with tradition could not only place the Tide in Fate’s lethal crosshairs, but would elicit a karma wave that could drown our cherished pachyderms and leave us done before the first shot is even fired in the inaugural playoffs race (which truthfully, belongs to us anyway…it’s only fair).

So while West Virginia does not instill fear in the lot of us (Bama has been a double-digit favorite all week in the betting lines), I wanted to bring something strong this week…just in case. And you folks already know how I like to get down on this here HooDoo thread. While this little ditty has become somewhat humorous thanks to the dulling fog of years, at the time of its occurrence, it was not very funny at all.

So friends, prepare to be regaled with this tale of action, adventure and deception. For Week 1 of what will undoubtedly be a championship season, I give you, my faithful readers, the story of the Jack Cannon Cotdang Volcano.

One may wonder why I picked this particular tale with which to entertain you during this, our Week of Hatred for the couch-burning enemy to the north.  But I have my reasons, and they are phonetically sound, so let us begin this particular walk down one of the dark ruts of a well-furrowed Memory Lane.

In my old neighborhood, there lived behind me an old man by the name of Jack Cannon. He was a Mississippian, a rabbit hunter, a raiser of bird dogs, a squash connoisseur and woman-hater. This guy was as throwback a codger as you can imagine, complete with chewin’ tobaccy, pomade with which he’d slick down his ivory-silver hair like the preened feathers of a wet goose’s back, his overalls only half-fastened almost all the time. He had a big lot for our neighborhood, a couple acres or so. He’d plant rows of corn, these strange climbing Cuyote squash and butter beans, and he was always willing to share with his little buddies from over the fence line.

He also had dogs. Lots of dogs. They were cramped inside a make-shift kennel of scrap wood and discarded chain link fence mesh erected over a pourn concrete slab. He even had an open septic tank serving the doghouse, and when I say open, I mean nothing between the stench of rotting sewage and the open air but a couple pieces of roofing tin he had casually arrayed over said stank-pit. There were times when he’d pull back the tin and stir through it with a long piece of pecan branch, cleaning the inlet and keeping everything simmering. Truly disgusting and horrifying, to say the least.

Now ole Jack was a keeper of sorts, he seemed to avoid discarding anything that could one day become useful. There were stacks of lumber around his place, an assortment of roofing tiles and tin, pipes, doubled-over fence posts. And his garage, oh to the eyes of a boy-child, that garage was pure heaven: every inch of wall space covered with something hanging there, each piece with a story to tell. Like the “mole trap” he had hanging near the entry way. It was a medieval device, sharpened spikes loaded with a spring and a catch, so that when the mole had the misfortune of tunneling beneath it, the spikes dropped with force and impaled the poor critter.  My Vance grandmother (the nine-time Golden Gloves boxer and six-time Heisman winner at running back for the Vance Pea-Turkeys) told me how she’d use a similar trap to catch and kills moles in the interest of turning their hides into luxurious fur coats for her babydolls. Trippy, right? Needless to say, that garage was a museum of the Southern gothic macabre, and I found myself over at Jack Cannon’s house every chance I’d get.

I guess as penance for the entertainment he invested in me and my brother B-Rad, we’d help him out with chores. After all, he was a vet of WW2, fought in the European theater and had the nickel Nazi officer’s dress dagger to prove it. His wife, Rue Pearl (if that ain’t Meessippeh, I don’t know what is), would pull it out of storage at his request, then he’d promptly shoo her away the way one would a disenfranchised cat. He had about as much respect for her opinion as well, more times than not telling her to “Shut up and get these boys some pie, woman!” To call Jack Cannon a mere misogynist would be doing grave injustice to the concept itself.

Jack Cannon was also a teller of tall tales. For example, he convinced me and my brother that he’d joined the war effort at the age of 14 after lying about his age. As I got older, I noticed that the man in his service picture was not that young, and the war only lasted so long. After that, I began to unravel the kernel of untruth that resided at the heart of all his tales.

Here’s another example: he told us that he once saw a German shot through the helmet. In his telling, the bullet penetrated the helmet and rode the inside circumference of the rim, shearing off the top of the German soldier’s skull, leaving his brain exposed. He also told us of one of his fellow soldiers had, eh-hem, equipment… of such prodigious length that the Army tailor had to create an internal pocket in his BDU’s into which he could coil and secure his God-given gift.

To say Jack Cannon was a liar would have been to completely miss the point: it wasn’t whether or not his stories were true that made them interesting, but rather the telling of the story itself. Come to think of it, I do take a little after the man, if I do say so myself.

Enough character development, let us walk further down this trail. After the passing of one hurricane (pronounced by JC as “hair-ih-kun) or another, a prodigious red oak in his back yard was spun and tumbled. Now we were too young to shoulder up and play the role of chainsaw jockey, as that work is far too dangerous for the uninitiated. But once the cutting was done, we helped him haul off some of the wood, split some for his fireplace and sold the rest as kindling to other neighbors who hadn’t been fortunate enough to have Mother Nature do their dirty work.

Once the tree was processed, Jack Cannon was left with a stump of enormous girth. Red oak wood is hard and dense, and this stump stood about six feet tall and about six feet around. Like many members of the Quercus rumbrum ilk, this specimen had inside it a “holler,” by pronouncement of Jack Cannon.

“What are we gonna do, Mr. Cannon, chop it up?” I asked.

“Hell naw, boy, take us a year to cut that up. We goan burn it down.”

Awesome. Like most young boys, I was enamored with fire. This would be exciting, to say the least. So after B-Rad and I had our fun, standing atop the stump, peering down the dark maw at the heart of the grain, Jack Cannon called us down and said we needed to get to work. So we made preparations to burn that sucker to ash. Step one, at least in the “Official and Recognized Jack Cannon Handbook of Tomfoolery,” was to simply pour gasoline down the hole and light it. Despite the lack of a vent, the gas would burn until it consumed the oxygen in the hollow, then snuff out and smolder. This went on for days. Sometimes we’d pack dry leaves and straw into it to increase the burn factor, but it was slow going nonetheless. Each morning when I’d look out the back window, Jack Cannon would have the chimney top of a stump puffing like a distant Pacific volcano, slowly simmering through the wood little by little.

One thing to which we had become accustomed was the slow rate of burn. There just wasn’t enough air inside the stump to really get a good fire going, but the plan was to keep it simmering until it burned through around the bottom of the reaching roots at some future time, providing the vent needed to accelerate the flame and finally finish the job.

We must have gone about this task a couple times a week for a month as we awaited for the searing Eye of Sauron in the deep-down base of the holler to finally break through the bottom. It was something B-Rad and I had anticipated like Christmas, that day when we’d peer through the elephantine root bases of the charred giant and see those glowing embers.

My mama had already told me and my partner-in-crime that she didn’t like the idea of us handling something so dangerous as gasoline, and knowing Jack Cannon’s wampus-cat ways, she made the pronouncement that we were to touch neither gasoline, nor kerosene, nor diesel fuel nor lighter fluid, thinking that she had adequately covered the bases regarding possible accelerants that may have been suggested by our aged overseer.

But what she had not accounted for was the love little boys have for anything that burns and/ or booms, and like the cavemen of yore, the call of the flame licking away inside that ancient wooden edifice was far too much to expect a red-blooded American male-child to shun.

So we continued our daily work, stealthily slipping over the back fence after informing Jack Cannon of the edict that had been nailed to our cathedral door. I told him we wouldn’t be able to help him with it anymore, but that if he didn’t mind, would he please let us know when the fire burned through so that we could see the result of our diligent efforts.

Having lost his fetch-it boys, Mr. Cannon immediately dismissed our mother’s concern as womanly drivel.

“Aw shit boys, you know this is men’s work here…you caint expect an educated and worldly woman like yo mama to understand this kind of thing…you see, they just built different from us. Now come on, I won’t tell her you boys was over here…”

That day would live on in infamy, and had I really considered my dear mother’s warnings, maybe the outcome would have been very different.

I admittedly don’t remember the details that immediately proceeded that with which I am about to entertain you. What I do remember is that we were playing fast and loose with that grungy, bar-oil splattered 2.5 gallon tin gas can. We splashed gas all around the base of the roots on the outside, all over the remaining bark, on the ground around the trunk. We were bound and determined to burn that stump through that day, as continued fraternization with Jack Cannon and his various conflagrants was going to land us in hot water with moms.

Finally, we added our insurance policy, our tour-de-force, our ace-in-the-whole…literally.

“Go ‘head and dump ‘resta that gass-o-leen down in that holler,” said Mr. Cannon, gesturing to just dump it in. Sounded like a good idea at the time, so B-Rad and I scrambled up the remainder of the stump and peered down the holler at the coals burning deep inside. They were searing hot, while there was little visible smoke, the vapors were enough to peel one’s eyes from their sockets like skinned grapes. Being the oldest, I thought it only fair and appropriate that I take command of the situation, seizing the rusty gas can and preparing to finish the stump in style.

It is important at this time to note that my schooling had not yet reached into the realm of anything but the most basic chemistry. I, of course, was intelligent enough to understand the flammable and somewhat explosive nature of gasoline. Hell, I’d watched enough Dukes of Hazzard to know that gas will ‘splode if you do a barrel roll in a ‘76 Plymouth Duster (especially if that joker was Chinese-restaurant-mustard yella) and flip it over onto its roof.

But the finer points of the combustible nature of petrochemicals was something I had not yet covered in my studies. Specifically, I did not yet understand the nature of petrochemical fumes. But alas, did Chris Columbus know what he was sailing for when he pushed off from Seville in 1492 or whatever? Did Thomas Edison know he was going to have to electrocute elephants to one day bring his prized invention to the masses? Did Cheech and Chong know that a movie about stoners would still be popular after 30-some-odd-years? Who knows…but these great men set out with greatness in mind, and look at all they accomplished.

But I digress. Back to the action of this sordid tale. “Just pour ‘at shit in there, bo! Com’on, ‘fore yo mama gets home.”

So I did just that, I tipped the nozzle of the gas can over into the gaping maw of the red wood volcano, and was immediately greeted by the resulting “WHOOOOSH!” as a jet of flame erupted from the hell mouth, casting B-Rad and I back with the force of three Nagasakis (that is a possible exaggeration, but please don’t hold it against me.) FIRE EVERYWUR, Y’ALL! There must have been a 20 foot tower of brimstone that erupted from the heart of that ole red oak, its last measure of revenge against those who wanted to literally burn it to ashes. Touche, ole Stump…touche.

The initial blast must have been horrendous, as my ears were ringing and the heat was incredible. I ended up roughly 20 feet from the stump…I can imagine what ole Jack Cannon was thinking from his perch a safe 30 feet away.  From my perspective, it felt like being lifted by a mumakil and thrown across the back yard like an empty croaker sack. I say felt, because I don’t remember seeing a damn thing after watching a blast of gray ash splash across my face. I had ash in my eyes, ash in my nose, ash in my mouth…gasoline flavored ash at that. I shook off the shell-shock, and immediately thought about B-Rad.

“Oh no, mom’s going to kill me if B-Rad is dead,” I thought. I wiped the ash from my eyes as the dust cleared, hearing nothing but Jack Cannon excitedly yelling, “COTDANG BOY, COTDANG!!! RUE PEARL BRING ME THAT WATER BUCKET.”

You see, in addition to serving as Jack Cannon’s chief “hep-meet” as he’d call her, she was also our club doc and EMT…kinda like an old, wrinkled, illiterate Mississipeh version of Tara on “Sons of Anarchy.” She came to the rescue as I located B-Rad, who was fortunately still whole. Rue Pearl tossed that bucket of water on the simmering hole like an experienced fire brigadier, and I snuffed in a hiss and puff of thin smoke.

“Dodged that bullet,” I thought to myself as Rue Pearl cleaned us up and made us look presentable. At least I thought we were presentable.

The sun was setting, and we’d stayed away from home as long as we could. “We’re good though, Mom will never know unless we tell her.” No evidence at all whatsoever.

We jumped the fence and headed in at the ringing of the dinner bell. As soon as we walked into the light of the kitchen, I knew something was awry. Mom briefly floated a look of consternation across her face before getting back into character.

“So…what did y’all do this afternoon?”

“Oh nothing much, helped Mr. Cannon feed the dogs…threw rocks at Jeffro Bodeine (the neighbor kid), played some football in the street…”

“Oh, I see. At which one of those places did you leave your eyebrows?...”

I had neglected to look in the mirror, believing that if anything was askew, certainly Doc Rue Pearl would have filled me in. When I saw my face, I realized the jig was up. I looked like a meerkat dipped in Nair, not a hair on my ever-lovin’ face. No eye brows, singed eyelashes, and the front of my hair had unnaturally receded about two inches.

I don’t know how B-Rad escaped the singing, and what was even more surprising was the fact it never dawned on him TO TELL ME I DIDN’T HAVE EYEBROWS! Nice powers of perception, B-Rad.  

Criminy sakes, sometimes I wonder about that boy. When the gavel fell, I got two weeks of restriction and I was banned from Jack’s until that stump was gone. I watched its demise from over the fence like an inmate, forever banished from the Jack Cannon Cotdang Volcano for the duration of its existence.

Anyway, hope this long-spun tale does the trick and we dominate the meth-addled Couch-Burners from the Land of Saban. You know Coach wants to kick that ass, so Hoodooers of the World, let’s unite and bring this one home for the Man Himself.

Never underestimate the power of the Hoodoo, people…Roll Tide Roll.