PawPaw

“We can report that Edward G. Partin has been under investigation by the New Orleans District Attorney’s Office in connection with the Kennedy Assassination investigation… based on an exclusive interview with an Assistant District Attorney in Jim Garrison’s office. We can report that Partin’s activities have been under scrutiny. In his words: “We know that Jack Ruby and Lee Harvey Oswald were here in New Orleans several times… there was a third man driving them and we are checking the possibility it was Partin.”

– WJBO radio, New Orleans, 23 June1964

By the time Judge JJ assumed my case Jimmy Hoffa had been missing for a year and was presumed dead; no one named Edward Grady Partin was useful to anyone outside of Louisiana. Judge JJ worked with my mom to ensure she had the minimum requirements for resuming my custody: a job and a home with my own bedroom. While she prepared for her final court battle against Ed Partin Junior, I was living with the coincidentally named Mr. and Mrs. James “Ed” White on their small farm a few miles from Glenoaks High School, near the intersection of Hooper and Plank Roads, about two miles from the Baton Rouge Airport and the relatively new Interstate 1-110 that led to downtown and the I-10 split.

I woke up early one morning the summer of 1976 to the smell of PawPaw on Saturday mornings: Old Spice after shave, unfiltered Camel cigarettes, and black coffee. I opened my eyes and see his smiling face. He was kneeling by my couch; from my perspective he was tilted sideways.

“Hey, d’er, Lil’ Buddy,” he said with his sideways grin. “‘Bout time you woke up.”

I sat up and the world rightened itself and PawPaw’s smiling face was staring straight at mine. His good eye sparkled; his glass eye looked the same because it was morning and his good eye wasn’t bloodshot yet, but the glass eye lacked life and never quite caught my gaze like the other.

I’ve always been quick to wake up and I hopped off the couch and plopped my big bare feet on the faded peeling vinyl floor. I had scuba fins for feet; MawMaw said I’d grow into them one day and be as big as my daddy, but that never happened (I still have disproportionately large feet; I’m the runt of the Partin men and only 5’11”, but I walked away from the military wearing a size 14 combat boot and now wear a size 14-wide hiking shoe or size 15 running shoe just like my Uncle Keith Partin, whose seem big on him even though he’s 6’6″ and 280 pounds). PawPaw said my big feet were good for climbing trees. I stepped into his open arms and he squeezed me and told me he loved me.

PawPaw was the most respected tree surgeon in all of southern Louisiana. Families all along the winding River Road between Baton Rouge and New Orleans called on him to trim branches and get rid of termites; plantation owners of as far away as Saint Francisville two hours hour upriver or an hour along I-110 would ask PawPaw to make their lawns beautiful in time for spring wedding photo season; those plantations had names like The Oaks, Oak Alley, and Oakly Downs; since slavery had ended around 100 years earlier, all of those plantations now earned their money from tourism and events like weddings.

But PawPaw could only work as a tree surgeon on Saturdays; during the weekdays he was Glen Oak High School’s landscaper and custodian. I never saw him on weekday mornings because he left early to open the school before kids and teachers arrived and he came home late after locking the doors when everyone else had gone. He was like the Airborne Pathfinders of Vietnam: first in, last out. When he came home he had rough stubble on his cheeks and chin and he smelled like Pine-Sol and Camel cigarettes and his good eye would be a bit bloodshot from the long days. But he’d still hug me and we’d eat chocolate chip cookies and watch TV before MawMaw made my couch into a bed and they left to go to their bedroom. On Saturdays PawPaw woke me up and I got to climb trees and, during the summer when days were long enough, go fishing with him either in the pond behind our house or in False River about an hour drive away..

That Saturday PawPaw was wearing his tree-climbing shoes: thick leather boots that could hold the metal climbing spikes he strapped on and looked a lot like the spurs cowboys wore on the small black and white television across from my couch. PawPaw was a wiry man who could scurry up any tree. On weekend mornings like that Saturday, his black hair with grey streaks was slicked back with oil like was common back then. He only stood as high as Daddy’s chest and was practically invisible around Big Daddy, but his hug was strong and pure and my five year old self loved him more than anything in my almost-five years on Earth. I instantly knew it was going to be a wonderful day; there would be pancakes and Saturday morning cartoons and then PawPaw would take me to work with him while MawMaw baked us chocolate chip cookies from the tube with little elves who lived in a big oak tree like the ones on PawPaw’s farm.

“Go on now,” he said. He nudged me out of his hug and pointed to the short hallway only a step away from my couch. “Get in d’er before MawMaw’s up.”

At the end of my couch I could see the entire hallway; it had three closed doors and a full-length mirror we took turns using so the bathroom would be free. I scuttled to the bathroom and PawPaw folded my sheets and began making pancakes.

I was giddy with anticipation but took time to make a game of dodging melted pock marks from decades of dropped cigarettes, scuffmarks from work boots, and gouges from tree-climbing spikes. I stepped into the small and cluttered bathroom and peed and flushed and stepped on the rough wooden step stool PawPaw had made for me and shoved aside the cluttered bottles of after shave and cans of hairspray and washed my hands in the sink. I hopped down and planted both big bare feet onto the floor with a satisfying smack! I took off my sleeping t-shirt and picked up the short pants and daytime t-shirt draped over the bathtub that MawMaw had laid out for me the night before. I put on my socks and tennis shoes made for walking and rushed out the door.

I ran into MawMaw in the hallway. She was wearing her fuzzy light blue slippers and shaggy grey-white bathrobe the exact color of her disheveled hair. She knelt down and locked her gaze on my eyes and smiled as mischievously and said: “Gimme some shugga!”

I cringed and brought my arms up to my chest and ready to defend my face.

She shuffled along the vinyl floor in her fuzzy slippers and got about a foot from my face and said again: “Gimme some shugga!”

I giggled and bring my fists closer to just below my cheeks; it was my modified crawfish defense, like how a crawfish holds up both pinchers and keeps them pointed at you so you can’t grab their whiskers, but closer to my cheeks because I knew MawMaw was aiming there.

MawMaw’s held up her own pinchers and scooched closer and closer and snapped her thumb and fingers together like a crawfish about to get me.

“I’m gonna steal me some shugga,” she said.

She thrust out her pinchers out but ducked them down and tickled my exposed ribs. I erupted in giggles and my defense dropped down and she shot some shugga on my cheeks like a shugga sniper with rapid fire reflexes. I squealed and raised my pinchers back to my cheeks; MawMaw tickled me again and I squirmed and she snuck in a few more shots of shugga.

I laughed loudly and she said: “Shhh… You’ll wake the baby.”

The baby was asleep in my old room. She was MawMaw and PawPaw’s first granddaughter. Their daughter was Linda White and Wendy’s best friend in high school; Linda married Craig Black, and whenever we watched TV together Craig would always tell me that we lived in a Black and White house together. He was an artist who painted woodland elves who live in swamps; there was no work for canvas artists so PawPaw trained him to be a tree surgeon and got him a job at Houmas Plantation about an hour towards New Orelans on the River Road where Craig maintained the trees and could paint murals on the walls of their tourist cafe. Craig and Linda had lived in rented house closer to the River Road that was adorned all over with Craig’s psychedelic murals in swamp themed colors until Linda had the baby; they moved back and took my room but I was happy on my couch wiht the only TV in the whole Black and White house. It was a long drive to and from Houmas Plantation and Craig worked long days; he and Linda slept in on Saturdays and let just PawPaw and me watch cartoons and The Lone Ranger on our little TV.

I shush so I don’t wake the baby but I made the mistake of lowering my hands; MawMaw is a shugga’ sniper who saw the opening and swooped in for some more shugga. I squealed again and she shushed me again.

“Get in there and help PawPaw make breakfast,” she said. She rotated me and scooted me towards the kitchen and stepped into the bathroom where she’d spend a half hour or so putting on her makeup and dewing her hair.

Before MawMaw was Mrs. James “Ed” White MawMaw she Delores Lamar of the Baton Rouge Lamars; their name was at the bottom of every billboard in Baton Rouge and all along I-110 on all the state highways leading to Chemical Alley, Scotlandville, Zachary, and Saint Francisville; today Lamar Advertising is a publicly traded company on the New York stock exchange and owns 80% of the billboards in America; if you see their little green Lamar banner under an advertisement, it’s a sign of how you and I are are connected to MawMaw and this story. She didn’t sound like anyone else I knew; she sounded like the families on weekday evening television sitcoms and articulated every word except for sugar: she loved saying shugga’ instead. When she wore her makeup, she left bright red shugga’ marks all over my cheeks.

I stepped towards the kitchen but stopped in front of the mirror and stood with my toes on a big scuff mark the size of the eventual C-shaped that would make me stand out among all other bald headed teenagers in basic training. I nudged the tips of my walking shoes to the scuff and presciently stood at attention like a soldier being inspected. I looked at my reflection and the bright red smudge that grazed the top of my head. Nothing had changed and I felt disappointed that I hadn’t grown. I stood up more straight and put more weight on my tippie-toes and saw the top of my head poke above the smudge. I held my stance as if practicing being taller will make it happen faster.

“You not gonna’ grow by lookin’ at y’self,” PawPaw said. “Come in here and eat some pancakes with y’er PawPaw.”

I trotted over and stand on the wooden platform by the stove that was just like the one in the bathroom: simple 2 by 4’s nailed together with love. There were a few loose eggs on the counter and PawPaw was mixing Bisquick from a box with Blue Bonnet milk from a plastic gallon jug and eggs he had beaten while I was in the bathroom. He stained empty coffee cup was beside the half-full Mr. Coffee machine.

I asked PawPaw if we were going to climb trees after we watched cartoons (I spoke more like MawMaw than PawPaw because I grew up spending all day weekdays with just her and me; Linda and the baby were new additions that summer and MawMaw spoke to all of us the same way.)

“Nope,” PawPaw said. “T’day is y’er day wit’ Wendy and Debbie.”

I said that sounded fun. Debbie does magic tricks and Wendy always buys me a Slushie from the 7-11 near Debbie’s house and the park where we play all day; that’s where I get to climb tall metal swings and spin on the squeaky merry-go-round. From my perch PawPaw looked me straight in the eyes and smiled lovingly.

His smile broadened and his good eye twinkled mischievously. Craig said PawPaw looked like Puck when he did that, a prankster elf and inspiration for his swamp elves. It was accurate; something was about to happen.

PawPaw pulled the last unfiltered Camel from the crushed pack in his pocket and crumbled the pack and dropped it in a trash can by the kitchen sink. He slipped out a dented silver Zippo from the little pocket in his blue jeans and brought the white Camel cigarette to a foot from his lips with the little black printed camel facing me.

Wait PawPaw! I exclaimed. You’re about to light the wrong end, I said. It’s backwards again.

I said that the little black camel goes in his mouth and that he should light the other end.

PawPaw chuckled and said: “You right, Lil’ Buddy. You smarter d’an your PawPaw.”

PawPaw spoke like the New Orleans fans cheered the Aint’s, which is what we called the Saints back then and when fans wore paper bags over their heads but still chanted loudly in the French Louisiana accent of dropping th’s and adding d’s, as in Who d’at! Who d’at! Who d’at talkin’ ’bout beatin’ d’em Saints! Who d’at! Football season began at the beginning of hurricane season when PawPaw was busiest as a tree surgeon, but we always found time to watch a Saints game and I grew up understanding every word PawPaw said.

He flipped the cigarette around and lit it and I smelled the Zippo fuel that’s not unlike JP-4 jet fuel. He took a drag and let it dangle from his lips and flipped pancakes and smoked from the corner of his mouth like Popeye the sailor. (PawPaw looked a lot like Popeye, the little guy who squinted with one eye and smoked a pipe and mumbled and protected Olive Oil’s baby Sweet Pea from the big bully Bluto on Saturday morning cartoons.)

PawPaw smoked and cooked pancakes and I stared out the window and through the dusty spiderwebs on the outside towards the fishing pond. There was a tall rusted metal gate leaning against the fence from when a previous owner tried to raise cows, but we had no animals other than bullfrogs we’d sometimes gig for dinner so there was no need to fix the gate; they lived in the pond and weren’t going anywhere, PawPaw said.

I could hear crickets from PawPaw’s cricket cage in the carport behind us. When we fished we’d fill a mesh tube with some and take them to the pond to catch brim; for catfish we’d rub a notched stick in the ground until night crawlers surfaced and use them as bait. There was no special day for fishing; summer days were long and when PawPaw returned from repairing all the things broken at Glen Oaks we had plenty of time to fish. Though Glen Oaks only had 150 or so students, there was enough repair work and tree maintenance to need PawPaw there all year long.

PawPaw turned to the kitchen table and shoved the pile of his old tools and my Lone Ranger pistol and bullet belt aside. He put a jug of Aunt Jemima syrup on the table and a roll of paper towels to use as napkins. He poured both of us a glass of Blue Bell and we drown our pancakes in Aunt Jemima and took big bites and washed them down with swigs from the glasses. We finished and I stepped up to the sink and helped PawPaw wash dishes. We finished washing and he said: “How ’bout we go to d’ store and get some mo’ milk an’ cookie dough so MawMaw can make some cookies for when you back from seein’ Wendy?”

My eyebrows shot up and I asked if we could climb the tree; there was only one tree I called the tree, and it was the really big sprawling stately oak tree across from the convenience store on the corner of Hooper and Plank that didn’t have Slushies but had those elf in the tree cookies. I told PawPaw I bet I could climb into the saddle all by myself. He chuckled and said: “Of course, Lil’ Buddy. D’at’s what made me think of it. We’ll go after MawMaw done in d’ john.”

Just then MawMaw walked into the kitchen as if PawPaw had manifested her. She had done her hair in a towering beehive held aloft with copious amounts of hair spray and it towered over PawPaw and me. She tore a paper towel from the roll on the table and pressed it to her lips and showed me the red kiss mark; she handed me the napkin and said it was my breakfast shugga.

I giggleg and set the breakfast shugga by my Lone Ranger pistol. She gave PawPaw some shugga on his cheek and he told her we were going to the store. She glanced at the mostly empty jug of Blue Bell and asked for more milk for her coffee. She looks at me and tells me to hurry and brush my teeth because Wendy’s coming and I don’t want to be late.

I return from the john and MawMaw’s sipping coffee from the Mr. Coffee machine; her cup is stained like PawPaw’s but her coffee wasn’t black like his; she drank her coffee white from milk with lots of shugga from jar kept next to the machine. My breakfast shugga is gone and probably in the same trash can as PawPaw’s crumpled Camel box/ I got one almost every morning and knew there would be another tomorrow.

PawPaw told MawMaw we’ll be back soon. He opened the door to the carport and I stepped outside by the cricket cage. PawPaw paused inside to grab a potato from a bag laying atop the washing machine then stepped into the carport with me. He opened the bigger blade of his Old Henry two-blade folding knife to cut the potato into chunks and opened a hatch in the refrigerator-sized cricket cage and dropped the potatoe pieces inside. He returned the Old Henry to the same pocket that had the little Zippo pocket and took my hand.

We had to turn sideways to squeeze between his rusted brown Ford pickup truck and the piles of Yellow Pages phone books lined along the carport to keep them out of the rain. We reached the driveway and walked side-by-side along the crunchy gravel carport and turned left onto the blacktop of Hooper Road. PawPaw stood between me the road in case a car speed by.

They go fast on d’at road, he once said. D’ey in a hurry to get to d’ airport. I rarely saw cars on Hooper Road, but I didn’t doubt PawPaw and I walked off the blacktop and along the gravel and weeds. I slapped the thistles that grew taller than I was and watched them weeble-wobble back upright.

I see the stately oak tree at the empty corner of Hooper and Plank Road. Its sprawling undulating branches make it seem like a giant octopus with sprawling tentacles draped in grey Spanish moss and one of those tentacles hoovers a few feet above the ground about 40 feet from the trunk and forms a perfect saddle that beckons me to climb into it. I let go of PawPaw’s hand and rush to the tree and reach up and grab the to of the saddle and my fingers slip into grooves in the old bark that are as deep and sprawly as the wrinkles on the back of PawPaw’s weathered neck when I hug him goodnight. I heave and heave but can not pull myself up. I stand on my tippie toes like in front of the hallway mirror and pull with all my strength but can not pull myself higher. I’m trying with all of my mind focused on nothing but getting into that saddle and I feel PawPaw’s hands under my arms and I get stronger and pull myself onto the branch and swing my feet into the curve that I had sat in once a week for as long as I could remember and always after a little boost from PawPaw. Hi Ho Silver! I say. The branch swayed gently up and down and I was riding in my saddle like the Lone Ranger on Silver.

I feel stronger than I ever had before; I realize I may be able to reach the next branch. I stretch and grunt but can not reach it. Today was not my day. Instead, I grab some moss and yank it off and hold it on my chin and look straight into PawPaw’s good eye and say I look Craig now. PawPaw chuckles and reaches up and grabs his own beard and puts it on; we laugh with each other like two old men who are best friends and know all the best jokes between us.

He put his beard back on the tree and reminded me we have to get cookie dough and get back home before Wendy showed up. I kept my beard and reached out my arms. PawPaw swung me over the saddle and onto the ground. We held hands and turned to the store. We paused at the Plank Road red light until it turned green our way and then we walked across to the convenience store. PawPaw pushed the big glass door open and I put on my moss as a disguise just like The Lone Ranger would wear a fake beard so he could take off his mask and look like just another old man in town. The bell above the door rings and the man behind the counter looked at us.

“Well hello there, Mr. Ed,” he said. “Who got with you today?”

It’s me! I exclaimed as I lower my disguise.

“Wow!” he said. “I didn’t recognize you, Mr. Jason.”

I put the beard back on and he gasps and tells me it’s a good disguise. I tell him The Lone Ranger is a master of disguise and I am too. We chat while PawPaw gets a small carton of Blue Bonnet milk and chocolate chip cookie dough in a tube covered with drawings of elves living on a tree that was like my tree but smaller and without branches that swooped down.

PawPaw picked up a six pack of Miller pony bottles and steps beside me. Without being asked the man reached up and brought down a pack of Camels and put it on the counter by the beer. He gave us two plastic bags to carry things home, one for PawPaw and one for me. PawPaw carries the milk and ponies and I carried the cookie dough made by elves like the paintings Craig made at home.

I don’t recall if I saw cars flying down Hooper Road on the walk home. I remember seeing many over time racing past our gravel driveway or accelerating to get through the traffic light at Plank Road before it turned red (that was before the days of smart sensors; to get caught at a red light meant having to wait several minutes for it to turn green again). But I don’t recall whether or not I saw on the road that Saturday morning; all I know is that I walked home carrying cookie dough and PawPaw walked between the road and me and that I was care free and it had already been one of the best days of my life, if not the very best ever; and the day had only just begun.

Go to the Table of Contents