"Crawdaddy! Crawdaddy! Crawdaddy!"

Oh, sorry: I didn't realize that I had visitors here in my prison cell!

Stay where you are, my friends.

I will explain everything with the dispassionate objectivity of Edgar Allan Poe.

Just hold on a minute while I channel the old boy: Hmmm............ Hmmm.....

Take it away, Edgar:





I'll never forget the day that "HE" arrived.

I was around back making a show of "raking" the parterre, when I heard Mama call...


Egbert! Come out here to meet this fine gentleman caller!


"Oh, jeepers," I thought, "Here goes mama with another one of her 'husband wannabes.' Shades of the Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Wiliams! I wish my real pa hadn't gone and died like that so mysteriously in the nearby bayou. Fortunately, I was only 5 at the time, so I lacked the mental infrastructure wherewith to feel the full existential impact of that blow, but my retrospective blubbering grows louder every year as I increasingly realize the psychological ramifications of my loss. Mind you, you'll never see ME cry... though I've got a good mind to sniffle even as we speak.

Sniffle. Sniffle.

Not to worry, though: I've vowed eternal vengeance against my pop's murderer(s) and I'll no doubt be "good to go," psychologically speaking, once I give that gentleman (or gentlemen) the proverbial "what-for."

(See? I'm feeling better already just thinking about it! Wow!)

But where was I? Oh, yes....

Scarcely had I dried my admittedly tear-prone eyes over my no-doubt profound loss when my old lady starts advertising in the local paper, of all places, for a beau! Can you believe it? (Talk about funeral baked-meats coldly decking out the marriage table: Sheesh!)



Now, I ask you: Who places advertisements like that? Why, a crazy woman, that's who!


Boy! Get your (ahem!) keister (shall we say?) over here quick! (Ooh, that boy: I'll never forgive him if he spoils my interview with this fine-looking gentleman caller!)

I'm sorry, Mr. Ragland, but the boy's a real daydreamer these days, ever since his father, you know...


Well, well: Every boy needs a father, Madame.


True. That's why I found your resume so promising, Mr. Ragland, sir.


Indeed?


Well, you did say that you were a child once yourself, didn't you? I mean, talk about experience.


That's right, ma'am, and I have the references to prove it -- starting with the full street addresses of my five still-living brothers and sisters.


Oh, you! (Egbert, did you hear me?! Get out here at once!)


Yes, yes, I'm here already!


Why, hello there, Egbert. Put 'er there, son!"


Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

It was about this time that I apparently fainted, for my very next recollection was of the hypnotic sight of floral wallpaper in my grandmother's boudoir, the smell of her prodigally dispensed rose water, and the sound of her heavy lace curtains flapping wildly in what I couldn't help but think of at the time as some highly improbable breeze. And yet I had heard that sound before, on previous trips hither, whether in a go-fer mission for my notoriously lazy elders, or as part of some mischievous incursion of my own for the purposes of conducting a titillating and open-ended investigation into what I used to think of as "all things grandma." (What can I say? I was something of a snoop back then. Like YOU were perfect when you were 9 years old? Please.)


Wake up, Egbert.


What?


Boy, you like to embarrassed me good out there.


Huh?


Why did you go and faint when my gentleman caller went to shake hands with you?




Well, boy: Speak up? Whatever got into you?


You wouldn't believe me if I told you.


Oh, yeah? Try me.


Well, I didn't (ahem) precisely see an actual, um, human being when he turned to face me.


What? Egbert, you've already probably scared him away for good -- don't aggravate your already grievous crimes by attempting to cover them up with some wild whopper!


I'm not lying!


Fine. So you didn't see a human being when you looked at Mr. Ragland. What did you see then, if a body may ask?


Well, his, um, head was -- Oh, you won't believe me anyway.


Tell me! His head was what?


It was the head of a crawfish!


Oh, is that all? Head of a crawfish. Well, why didn't you say so? Head of a -- HEAD OF A CRAWFISH?!!! Boy, you better recuperate real quick from this swooning fit, because you have got an appointment with your old daddy's belt, on... oh, I think I can squeeze you in at 9:00 A.M. on the morning of Tuesday next.


Aw, maw, I'm not funning you now! His head was that of a crawdaddy -- and his eyes were on, like, stalks or whatever they call them!


Oh, so then I suppose that the hand that he gave you to shake was actually a claw.


Tell the truth and shame the devil.


Now you listen to me, young man: I'm going to send Mr. Ragland up here to look in at the door, and I want you to apologize to him for fainting like that.


Aw, ma!


And don't you dare say a thing about him looking like a crawfish! Your rap sheet is already as long as my arm when it comes to this affair, so behave.


But, ma!


Oh, Mr. Ragland: There you are. My son Egbert here has something to say to you -- don't you, Egbert?




I'm sorry, Mr. Ragland, but when I first saw you, I could have sworn that you were a -


Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!


Aaaaaaaa! indeed, young man. I AM a crawfish -- or "crawdaddy," as you somewhat quaintly term it -- but adults cannot recognize me as such thanks to a spell cast upon me by a magician down in Honey Island Swamp.


But I see you for what you are, from your antennae, claws, and first ventral ganglion all the way down to your ventral abdominal artery, uropod, and the so-called telson in your tail, albeit the lion's share of your carapace and thorax are hidden beneath the stripes of your blue seersucker courting suit.


You know too much, child -- in fact, you know WAY too much -- especially considering that your mother tells me that you're only 9 years old. Where did you go to grade school, anyway: Rutgers?!


What if I did? What are YOU gonna do about it?


Oh, that's easy enough: I'll just have to kill you, too, that's all, just like I killed your meddling pa, yes? Mouhahahahaha!


My pa?


Yes, he was onto me, too.


Poor pa!


I'm your pa now, child -- or I will be, on some sort of posthumous basis, that is, once the old lady ties the customary knot.


Never!


Now check out these pincers of mine. I just had them sharpened!


No! No!


Come to Daddy, son -- or should I say come to your stepdaddy -- or rather come to your step CRAWdaddy -- get it, son? your step CRAWdaddy? Mouhahahaha!

Well, the rest of the story is in the police report. The creature came for me, a struggle ensued, and I cracked him upside the carapace with one of grandmother's Victorian candelabras. (Served him right! Humph!)

Well, naturally, mama didn't believe my version of events, and the police thought I was mad, and so I was locked up here in this dimly lit cell of mine, when by rights I should be back home preventing any additional giant crawfish from courting my mother, much less marrying her!



I have the same dream every night:

Preacher: If anyone knows of any reason why this Belle should not be married to this Beau and vicee-versee, speak now, or forever hold your piece.

Me: How about THIS for a reason, Reverend Lee? The bridegroom is a crawfish!!!!!

And then, of course, I'm dragged off to this dimly lit cell, kicking and (predictably enough) screaming.



Oh, speaking of Mom, I got the sweetest letter from the old girl the other day -- well, it was sweet by her somewhat acerbic standards anyway: Mother MaCree she isn't, yes? I have half a mind to confess to a crime that I didn't commit, if only to spare her feelings "on the night," as they say.

Just listen to this:

Dear Son, It's your long-suffering mother again, Emma Mae. I know that you honestly believe in your heart of hearts that Mr. Ragland was a "crawdaddy," as you put it. But if you would only reflect how improbable that statement of yours must sound to any objective soul that hears it. Maybe you saw Mr. Ragland (the kingdom of Heaven be his, by the way) -- maybe you saw Mr. Ragland at some strange angle in which the sun's light somehow distorted his lineaments, thus giving him, in your young and therefore potentially gullible eyes, those amphibian characteristics (10 legs, stalked eyes, and so on) whereby you were so terribly frightened that you were moved to offer him personal violence. Then again, maybe (and this thought only now strikes me) -- maybe you were just jealous because your father was taken from you at an early age and you felt that Ragland, as a suitor, was imperiously profiting from that fact with a goal of lording it over you, me, and indeed over our whole family estate. But I'd better not "go there," as they say, because if that really were the case, I'd have a good mind to let you rot in prison. Fortunately for you, my maternal instincts would still probably win out, even in this case (albeit just barely) and I'd urge you to apologize as requested in any case. I guess what I'm trying to say is, you know that beau that I married shortly after you were rather unceremoniously tossed into the slammer (for your own safety, of course, not to mention that of the unsuspecting citizens of the greater Caddo-Bossier area, and especially those among them who would make so bold as to woo me personally)? Well, he's every inch the prince that I've been telling you about in my letters over the years, but... well, he just plumb will not mow the lawn! And I figured that a recently sprung ex-con like you would be the perfect person to employ in such a capacity, at least until you got on your feet in the real world. Yes, I'm offering you a job -- provided that you promise not to murder my new husband, nor to attack or in any way endanger the welfare of any future beau that I may acquire during the course of my so-far unlucky but continued existence here in northwestern Louisiana. Your Long-Suffering Mother, Emma Mae PS Mr. Newburger says hi. (He's my latest beau, remember? See my previous letter of June 29.)

Mr. Newburger, eh? Sounds suspicious to me.



They say that I could gain my freedom if I only took responsibility for my so-called childhood "crime" by admitting that this Ragland character was an actual human being rather than a giant crawfish... but I'm not going to lie for them, even if my principled stance prevents me from mowing the lawn on a no-doubt much-needed weekly basis at my ancestral home.

Of course, my lawyers are always like: "Ix-nay on the awdaddy-cray!" But I will speak truth to power even at the expense of my freedom. Nay, I'll repeat the taboo term in the presence of my judges, even as Shakespeare's Hotspur vows to keep the king awake at night by shouting the forbidden name of the imprisoned 'Mortimer!' You remember the line:

I'll have a starling shall be taught to speak
Nothing but 'Crawdaddy,' and give it him
To keep his anger still in motion.

Aaack! Crawdaddy! Crawdaddy! Crawdaddy!
(Polly want a cracker, too, by the way: Aaack!)

Hey, where are you going? You're my first visitor in weeks, don't leave yet! I'm just thinking out loud here, after all.

Oh, dear. Sounds like I'd better channel Descartes in order to convince you of my rationality.

Patience, people, this won't take a second!