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CHAPTER SIX: What King Evans Told Me
- University Press of Mississippi
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51 WhatKingEvansToldMe May 2006 I could hardly wait to get back to Asheville so I could call the mayor from the quiet of my home. But driving the 650 miles across the South with Jay was not going to be quick or direct. Only an hour out of Anguilla, he wanted to stop in Yazoo City to visit the Willie Morris exhibit at the local museum. I remembered one of Dad’s typed reminiscences. He posted it to Laura, Jay, and me. The following is occasioned by a Christmas 1990 gift from my son, Jay Fields, Jr., of Faulkner’s Mississippi, with text by Willie Morris, who grew up in Yazoo City, whose Yazoo County adjoins our native Sharkey County, Mississippi, and with haunting photographs by William Eggleston, the Memphis photographer. I met William Faulkner on two occasions. Neither of these meetings were significant in the context of voluminous bibliography and the even more pervasive folk tales which have proliferated apace the author’s growing greatness. I record them simply because they occurred and are doomed to expire with me if I do not do so. Meeting One: Early winter of 1949. I had returned from my boarding house lunch to my desk as owner/editor of Rolling Fork, Mississippi’s The Deer Creek Pilot. Jack Dayle Shults, a free-lance photographer on whom chapter six what king evans told me 52 I relied for the small amount of photography my anemic weekly consumed, sauntered in with: “Guess who’s in town?” I didn’t bother with guessing and went straight to: “Who?” “William Faulkner,” Jack answered. “Where is he?” I continued. “Well, he got a haircut and shave at Roney’s Barber Shop and is just finishing lunch at the Courthouse Café. He came in with some fellows been deer hunting out of a camp in the national forest.” “Got your camera with you?” I asked. “No, but I can get it real fast,” Jack said, heading for the door. Within minutes, Jack was back and [we] sauntered across the block to the café. Faulkner had finished his lunch and stood alone on a nearby corner, readily recognizable because of the many pictures of him that had been occasioned by the filming in Lafayette County of Intruder in the Dust. I was immediately struck by a memory of my father who had died some 14 years earlier when I was 13. Both men were small of stature. Both men were of neat appearance. Faulkner’s hair was trimmed and his face ruddy from the application of the barber’s hot towels and generous palmsful of bay rum. “Mr. Faulkner, I’m H. J. Fields, editor of our local weekly newspaper. Do you mind if we get a photograph of you here in Rolling Fork?” I asked hesitantly. “Not at all,” he answered, removing a toothpick from the center of his mouth but otherwise not particularly posing, except to lift his head toward the camera lens. I stepped out of the area of focus and watched as Jack performed every photographer’s rite of coaching his subject and asking for just one more. On conclusion of the picture-taking, I reapproached Faulkner, extending my hand. [3.215.183.194] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 01:15 GMT) what king evans told me 53 “Thank you so much, Mr. Faulkner. It’s an honor to have you in our town,” I said. “Well, thank you,” Faulkner replied, shifting his toothpick from right to left hand and giving my hand a solid shake. At that time I didn’t know much about newspapering and had no remote idea about interviewing—especially interviewing a celebrity. So, for a few minutes longer, I engaged Faulkner in small talk relative to the success (or lack of it) of his hunt. Memory dims and I will not attempt to dignify that mostly one-sided conversation with quotations. After a while, I thanked Faulkner a final time and Jack and I left for the newspaper office. We left him standing in the exact spot we’d found him, solitary, at ease. Dad’s second encounter with Faulkner occurred on Derby Day, 1951, at Churchill Downs. My grandfather Fleming offered Dad a seat on his annual chartered flight to Louisville. From Dad’s description of this event, I could tell that his enthusiasm for going had little to do with horses. He entered the scene as a young journalist , taking in the colorful and elegant...