Musings:  Wildman Wiley the Gunfighter; Rocking and Swatting, and the Bleak Future of Little Country Churches

I am a person of little intelligence and few talents, but I am blessed with quick hands.  When I was in elementary school I took violin lessons for three years.  I liked to play the presto pieces like The Flight of the Bumblebee. If I had been born in 1847 instead of 1947, I would have probably been an Old West gunfighter

Yessir, I can just see it now:  Wildman Wiley: that’s what they would call me because all good gunfighters had a nickname.  Wiley was a perfectly acceptable name in the 1800’s.  I have probably told you I looked it up on the internet and found it peaked in popularity in 1890 – when it was something like the 25^th most popular male name in the US – and has been falling out of favor ever since. I am the last of a long line of Wileys.  Anyway, there I stand in the dusty cow-town street clad in my white hat, polished boots, fringed chaps and yoked shirt with pearl buttons. With his back against mine, stands the villain Black Bart, clad in (what else) black. All of the citizens are hiding behind rain barrels and upturned furniture for protection from the lead that was about to fly.

The only other person present is calling the cadence. Black Bart and I walk in opposing directions as he counts out the paces.  At the count of “ten” we turn. No one sees my gun hand move, yet the crack of a .45 resounds in the street, and flames and smoke erupt form my person.  My holstered pistol is still smoking.  Black Bart’s hand instantly flies to the .45 caliber-sized hole in his forehead, dead center between eyes, and blood oozes between his fingers as he melts to the ground, dead, but with the look of stunned surprise on his still open but lifeless eyes.

I walk over to Black Bart, spit a stream of “Bull of the Woods” juice onto his ugly, dead face, and then kick dust onto him.  Townspeople rush from hiding and exclaim, “Wildman Wiley has killed Black Bart!  Our town is now safe for civilized people.  Three cheers for Wildman Wiley:  Hip, hip, hooray! Hip, hip, Hooray! Hip, hip, hooray! Hip, hip, hooray!”  In response, I would just scuff the dirt with the toe of my boot and say, “Shucks, t’weren’t nothing.” But the crowd would hoist me onto their shoulders and proclaim me sheriff by acclimation.

Yep, that is the way it would have been, if I were not born out of time.  As it is, I have to wreck my vengeance on flies.

I hate, detest, abhor (and any other synonym you can think of) flies.  They are annoying.  Try to sit on the porch and read on a fine summer day, and a fly will buzz around your face and pester the stew out of you.  And they are filthy vermin.  That fly that just lit on your sandwich probably had his last meal from a pile of dog excrement. I hate flies.

Shane, my son-in-law, thinks he is hot stuff because he can shoot them on the wing with a rubber band.  Ha! Where’s the challenge?  He is armed.  That is no better than using one of those new-fangled fly pistols that shoot salt.  I am strictly a bare-handed man. I just reach out and pluck one from the air and slam him to the floor so his filthy little body burst asunder.  If that does not do the trick, I grind him with my boot heel until the gore seeps around the edges.  If I am feeling especially sporting, I won’t catch the entire fly:  I will just pluck off a wing as he flies by, so that he cork-screws to the ground like a helicopter with a broken tail rotor, where he will continue to turn tight little circles on the floor until I dispatch him in the afore-mentioned fashion.

Sometimes, a fly will have the audacity to land near me.  If it is behind my hand, I simple dispatch him with a quick backhand flick.  If he lands on the wall in front of me, I cup my hand and smash it over him with such force that the concussion makes mush of his brains and they ooze out his ears.  Likewise, if one lands on the table in front of me, I cup both hands on either side and bring them together with such speed and force that I concussion-kill the fly before he even knows what hit him – and my hands never touch the filthy beast.  Sometimes, just for sport, I will cock my middle finger under my thumb, sneak upon the unsuspecting creature and thump him so hard that he will fly across the room and smack into a wall and slide down to the floor.  Guess what happens next!  I hate flies.

I think I get my fly-killing ability from Cook  Anderson, he was deadly with a fly flap.  He had plenty of opportunity to practice his craft, for his hog-pen was just across the road from the front porch of his house.  On a fine summer day, especially if the wind was blowing from the direction of the hog pen, Cook would sit in his front-porch rocking chair, fly flap in hand and have at it. The dead bodies would mound up around him.

I am sure the parishioners at Fairfield Baptist Church, right next to his hog pen, cheered him on. Many prayers ended with “And may Cook’s aim be true.”

Fairfield Baptist Church was a beautiful white clapboard building – a true Southern classic -- until the congregation became prosperous and bricked it up.  Now it is just one more non-descript brick building.  The folks at Soule’s Chapel Methodist did better.  They applied white vinyl siding to their building. I suspect my Aunt Emily Lou had something to do with it. She was from “up-north.”  She married my Uncle Johnnie and moved south and quickly adapted to Southern ways and was much loved in the community, She was a bit eccentric, but remained a gracious lady who appreciated such impractical things as beauty and tradition. She donated the church bell because she said “Every church should have a bell.” The church retained its character and the vinyl saved on painting, but, alas, the congregation died off and moved away until so few were left they shuttered the doors.  It is today a deserted and silent sentinel, guarding the graveyard where rest the bones of my ancestors. Yet, Fairfield Baptist thrives.  There never were as many Methodists in the community as Baptists.  I guess it was just easier for the Methodists to lose their critical mass. Families of those buried in the graveyard formed an association, accept donations and pledge to maintain it.

The Mississippi countryside is dotted with abandoned little churches that stagger, blind and broken-backed, across the landscape.  They served their purpose in the day when labor-intensive row crops were common, farms were small and families were large. For a while, young families were moving out into the country, fleeing decaying cities, but they maintained their association with larger churches, which have more programs to offer.  Now, sociologist tell us the demographics are changing, with more people choosing to rebuild inner cities to, one again, make them safe and convenient – bad news for the remaining little country churches.

When Cook and Appie died, the family sold the “old home place” and divided the proceeds.  Hurricane Katrina uprooted the big red oak and it fell smack across the house, crushing the roof.  I figured that was the end of it, but somehow the owner got the tree off and repaired the house.  I am told they are Hispanic. They enclosed the front porch where Cook happily wiled away summer Sunday afternoons rocking and swatting.  The old house now looks like a cracker-box, with a new roof, placed end-wise on the lot.

Many churches in Laurel were abandoned as neighborhoods sank into decay, but have reopened with Spanish names.  It sure would be nice if some of the new residents of Rainey Community, with names like “Gomez” would buy the old building while it is still usable, give it a Spanish name, and restore it to its intended use.

I fear the worst.  It will probably be vandalized, the windows broken and roof will begin to leak.  The old building, that once resounded to the urgent pleas of a country pastor to come forward and receive Jesus as the little choir raised to heaven the plaintive notes of “Just as I am,” will slowly return to the dust from which it came and only foundation stones and an abandoned cemetery will mark this as once-sanctified ground.

R.I.P., Soule’s Chapel United Methodist Church.