Going Home: Riding the River with the Spirit of Mark Twain by Win Blevins

Author:Win Blevins [Blevins, Win]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook
Publisher: WordWorx Publishing
Published: 2017-02-13T18:30:00+00:00

Writing You Mid-Afternoon on the First Full Day Underway

Today has been easy for me. I bought half a dozen new books for my iPad and intend to read. Though I want to jabber with Mark, to hear and remember whatever stories he wants to tell, I can’t imagine spending whole days without reading. My books are by writers who provide worlds that, for whatever reason, I’m comfortable in—Hemingway, Steinbeck, John D. MacDonald, James Lee Burke, and many more in that vein. For me they are cardigans worn long and well beside cozy fires.

I looked forward to today, all cruise, no stop. The first port for us, Memphis, is a long way downstream, two days and two nights from St. Louis. There the boat will stay docked for a full day of touring the town. Not being interested in Graceland, and knowing those ducks who walk through the Peabody Hotel as well as I care to, I will probably stay on board for the day and spend a lot of time reading or swapping stories with Mark.

A New Orleans tour guide I met once said the three most visited graves in the U.S., from first to third, are Elvis, JFK, and Marie Lavaux, New Orleans’ Voodoo Queen. Don’t know whether to laugh or cry at what this says about my country.

My roomie and I went down to the breakfast buffet—eggs, bacon, cottage fries, biscuits and gravy—all the food I was raised on and still love but avoid. Mark’s eyes popped. “What a spread!” Of course, it was all the food he grew up on, too.

“Look at Ursula and Stanley,” Mark said. They were already eating and didn’t seem to notice us. Oblivious to everyone, really.

I saw it. “They act like a couple,” I said.

“Yep.”

I laughed a little. I liked that. “Hope they never get into a fight. She’s got him by miles on attitude.”

“They’re sleeping together, of course,” Mark said. “Only time a couple is that quiet at the table is when they’ve already said everything needs to be said. And usually without words getting in the way.”

I thought that was a fine thing, if it was true, but no one really wants to think about their children’s love life, nor the love life of their parents. It’s squeamish-time. I rearranged the furniture inside my head and pushed those thoughts under the rug.

We loaded up at the buffet, found a table facing the river, and dug in. Some people stopped by to say how much they love my books. A few sat down uninvited and told me how my stories played out in their personal psyches.

Though I usually avoid such talk, this time I felt easy with it. I smiled and nodded a lot. Mark and I traded several wry or amused glances. If these people had known the real Mark Twain was sitting with them, would they have said a word to me? I hope not!

(There was also the person that we know will always show up. The guy who

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