A COLLECTION of SHORT STORIES by LAURA PAYNE, B.A

WANDER DOWN RIVER; A COLLECTION OF SHORT STORIES by LAURA PAYNE, B.A. A THESIS IN ENGLISH Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Texas Tech University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS Approved Accepted December, 1995 /Wo ih^O^ ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I owe a debt of gratitude to Professors Doug Crowell and Jill Patterson. Dr. Crowell first challenged me to work hard and aspire toward an artistic voice. He made me realize my own writing through self-critique. Dr. Patterson gave me unerring support and advice. She listened patiently to my insecurities and gave me honesty in return. William Faulkner once said in a 1956 interview with Jean Stein that the formula for a good writer is dictated by the demons that choose him and that formula goes as follows: "99% talent...99% discipline...99% work... He must never be satisfied with what he does. It is never as good as it can be. Always dream and shoot higher than you know you can do." Without the caring and expertise of my committee, I do not believe that I could have understood or agreed with Mr. Faulkner. I also thank my friends, family, and classmates. 1 especially thank Mase Lewter for being my friend and for somehow finding something valuable in my stories. Her outlook on life and talent as a writer constantly inspired me to work on, to dream, and to shoot higher. Thank you to my parents for raising me up right and for not suffering a collective coronary when I chose not to be a lawyer but to write stories instead. TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION 1 n. WANDER DOWNRIVER 8 m. POWWOW 24 TV. OLD HANDS 38 V. FLIMFLAMMAN 50 VI. BROTHER DAMON TAKES A RIDE 63 Vn. BILLY BOYS PAWNSHOP AND MUSIC EMPORIUM 76 Vin. THE VERANDA 89 DC. SHIMMERDANCE 107 ni CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION I've known rivers: I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins. My soul has grown deep like the rivers. -Langston Hughes from "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" I was introduced to Langston Hughes' poem of rivers as an imdergraduate at this university. At the time, I was struck with the beauty of the language and the beat of the rhythm that seemed to hide within the letters, the words, the lines. Through the years, the poem has stayed with me as a companion, an inspiration, for my travels down rivers. The theme of rivers has continued, with the actual poem, to &scinate me. The river is a symbol, a metaphor, for the continuation of life and for the struggles of a culture or an individual. I feel that Langston Hughes, with his words, attempts to indicate the history we all hold within our souls. We don't necessarily need to have physically witnessed the birth of our roots in order to feel those roots beating inside and informing our lives. With that message in mind, I wrote this collection. The idea of it began a few years ago when I returned to north Florida-a childhood home-to live with my maternal family and try my hand at writing for a newspaper. The idealist inside me longed to write at a small town paper and act, for a little while, like all those great writers I learned about in 1 college. "Newspapering" seemed to be the first step to greatness for so many American writers. But while I learned a great deal about answering phones, mailing subscription notices, gofering-a little about writing-and much about life on my own, very little greatness developed. What did develop was the story of Booker T Goldwire and his friend Junior. 1 worked at the Gadsden County Times in Quincy, Florida, and lived in Tallahassee. Quincy is about twenty miles west of Tallahassee right on the east edge of the Florida Panhandle, and I drove my old, umeliable car back and forth every day. I didn't mind too much, because the drive gave me time to look aroimd the jungle that is north Florida. One afternoon, on my way home, I stopped at the Suwaimee Swifty convenience store to gas up my car. The Suwaimee Swifty is a small-town number much like an AUsups in Texas. I stood at the pump, pouring gas into my car, when this decrepit old Impala lumbered loud and slow up next to me. The man inside the car looked older somehow than the rusty metal contraption he traveled in, but he jumped out of that car as spry as a twenty-year-old. He swaggered over to me and, cool as could be, said, "I be getting your gas, baby." I named him Booker T Goldwire in my imagination, and a relationship was bom on a hot, afternoon in north Florida, on a day when 1 was doing nothing extra special. While I never saw the model for my character again, the relationship has continued in my work for years. North Florida is a very special area of the country. So much of the landscape remains wild and undeveloped, and the people who live there seem to develop and civilize themselves as slowly as the jungle. Both people and the land they inhabit down there seem a bit wild and unrestrained. They are wrapped up in a package of Southern maimers as pretty as wild roses, but if you look into the eyes of a Southerner, a wildness of thorns and vines adorns the package. Southern short stories, according to the anthology entitled A Modern Southern Reader, develop from the "native Southern idiom and oral storytelling tradition" (15). I tend to 2 write tales of people and their tensions with themselves, with the people around them, and with the traditions behind them. The deep South, especially south Georgia and north Florida, is interesting, because it refuses to concede defeat to the encroaching Americanization that threatens to engulf it into normalcy all the time. The area retains a distinct, independent character. One of the most distinct characteristics is the continued separation of the races. They remain socially at odds somewhat, but while I lived among my family, I experienced the beauty of both cultures. 1 was struck with the family togetherness ever-existent in the black culture in Quincy. They gathered in great, extended family groups both in trouble and in happiness. Every occasion seemed like a celebration of life and of roots, and that seemed beautiful to me. They accepted people for who they were. They called me "Blue-eyes," and 1 was fascinated. Their lives revolved around music and the rhythm of the river. They strove to excel vMle planted firmly in their world, not desiring to leave it. The youngest child stUl remained at home to care for parents until their deaths, and grandfathers sat at parties in the best chair while children listened to stories of the past. The white culture is one reminiscent of old lace and velvet marmers. The outward actions of the white culture seemed somehow restrained and quiet, a way of life. But within that outward restraint lived an electricity that brought to mind the lightning bugs and their shining, disappearing dance. The white culture at times searched for life outside of the South, but the inherent spirit of tradition remained a constant: Once a Southerner, always a Southerner. 1 found my family-my Southern roots-which has resided in the area for generations. I lived with my Uncle Bob and Aunt Mary, and from them, I learned to think Southern, to enjoy the flow of the river in an aesthetic sense. The year I spent with my Southern family was quite a while ago, and at a time when I felt very hopeless about completing this collection, about remembering details and recreating electricity, I received a book written by my uncle. Jack Olive. He is a younger brother of my late maternal 3 grandfather. Daddy Bob, and he wrote his memoirs of growing up in Bainbridge, Georgia-just north of Quincy. His early memories are of the twenties in a rural country in which fiin was learning to drive a Ford Model T and traveling in it for miles to listen to an Edison phonograph. I read the book, entitled Jax Trax: An Autobiography, and I felt once again inspired to imagine the rivers I came from, generations of fishing and dancing with the lightning bugs always shimmering in the north Florida evenings. Uncle Jack ended his memoirs with the line, "Once upon a time there lived a man named Jack, not his real name, but that's what everybody called him...." My collection is not a true story of the south or of my roots or rivers, but one I created in my imagination, based on experiences of mystery and beauty, living with these southern folks in the jungle. I attempted in the coUection to intertwine short stories which would inform one another through thematic reverberations. The stories were written in couplets, somewhat, but they are arranged here in order for the ideas to transcend through themes rather than plot and chronology. My first story ("Wander Down River") examines regret and imderstanding, both dictated by the pride of the main character, Booker T Goldwire. The collection proceeds with an examination of actions and reactions, reality and subterfuge. 1 worked with the theme of the Southern experience as it affects the relationships among my characters, especially those between men and women. Everyone has his or her own river to travel down in order to find him- or herself, and as is so common in Southern literature, those rivers and those who travel down them are often at odds.

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