Fishing With Charlie Deaton

a world full of isms

I learned about all the isms in school because we needed a way to compare one day, one thing, one song, one painting, one story, one play, to another. The world is all a-flutter about Jonathan Yeo's portrait of King Charles, but good luck naming all the isms that influence him.

Modernism was over by nineteen eighty, which sucks outright because I rather liked that one. Postmodernism probably spent its last cherry by twenty-ten. I don’t know what era we’re in now. They’ll probably call it the “internet” or “cellular” era. I’ve always tried to accept current perspectives and new ideas, but there’s never been a moment when I didn’t feel like a man stranded outside the stream of time.

I get called a liberal a lot. I don’t think that’s accurate. I can’t think of the last time I told anybody my pronouns. Some people just call me Maurice, some others call me fat bastard, motherfucker, old guy, young fella, just take your pick.

I became a Republican when Ronald Reagan swore that deregulation would lead to financial stability and that providing incentives for people to work would end poverty. It didn’t work out that way. Reagan’s deregulation led to the destruction of a good quarter of Mississippi’s financial institutions. The Resolution Trust Corporation burned through Jackson like Sherman’s army. Don’t get me started.

Mississippi is too poor to benefit from political extremes. I keep trying to tell people that. A place like New York can say they’re culturally diverse. Mississippi has two; the problem is they’re getting close to about the same numbers. Nothing breeds contempt like realizing that if we had fair elections, they’d be split down the middle. Every time I see other cultures in Mississippi, Indians or Mexicans, I think to myself, “y’all hurry up and have more children! Just shoot up here amongst us! One of us got’s to have some relief.”

That’s a reference to a story Jerry Clower told. For some reason, I’ve been writing a lot about him lately. If pressed, I’d say William Faulkner was my favorite Mississippi comic storyteller. After him, I find myself fascinated by Tig Notaro and laughing at and with her quite a lot. Neither of them really seems like Mississippi to me. Jerry Clower does.

I was fed political moderatism in the crib with my apple juice. The child of five generations of Methodists, I don’t know that I had a choice. They used to call my daddy “kingmaker.” He absolutely despised the term, but they’d ring the bell every four years, and he’d pick which of the old racehorses headed to the gate he’d ride to victory. Not all of them won. Some did, but some just ran, then ran again, and talked about running a third time, but their friends talked them out of it.

There came a time when the United Way held a roast of my daddy to raise money. They invited his best friends to roast him. We all laughed, “Boy, they don’t know what Daddy’s friends are capable of, are they?”

Leon Lewis refused to do it. That doesn’t surprise me. Mr. Lewis had a better sense of decorum than anybody I ever met. He was also one of the most outright kind and gentle people I ever met, except his wife, Miss Jane.

On deck were Ben Puckett, Rowan Taylor, and Brum Day. Just the prospect of what these three men could say about my daddy made me blush and giggle with anticipation. Nobody can cut you down like people who have loved you for thirty years.

Ben Puckett mostly talked about Daddy’s rough personal style, lack of manners, and lack of athletic skills. All of which were true. Daddy had some of the strangest, most wonderful adventures with Ben Puckett. When Camille hit, Ben Puckett wanted to stay in his house on the coast. I doubt if he thought he could protect it, but he’s the kind of man who might want to stare into the eye of God in person. Hurricane Camille afforded just the opportunity. Daddy had the phone company set up a Watts line between his bedroom and the kitchen in Ben Puckett’s Pass Christian house. My only memory of Camille is watching the flood waters creep up on our driveway and sitting in the corner of Daddy’s bedroom while he talked to Mr Puckett on the phone.

One day, I’ll have to write down the stories Daddy and Ben Puckett told me about the day the FBI came to Jackson looking for who killed Goodman, Schwerner, and Chaney. One Spring in 1975, Ben Puckett and Roger Stribling flew back to Jackson in the same model plane Daddy had. The plane went down. Ben Puckett’s back was broken in three places, but he lived. Roger Stribling did not. They were both in their thirties.

Next up was Frank Day. Brum had this sort of steely-eyed, no-nonsense reputation, but he had a wicked sense of humor and could be a lot of fun. Daddy knew Brum from Ole Miss. Everybody was anxious to see what dirt he might dig up. Brum put his presentation folder on the podium, reluctantly put on his glasses, and began reading his prepared remarks. Only he didn’t.

“It seems my secretary has given me the wrong speech,” Brum said, taking off his glasses and closing the folder. I actually loved Cathy his secretary, most people did. I’m sure she was mortified. Brum then proceeded to do the thing nobody expected him to do. Off the cuff, without his prepared remarks, Brum delivered the kindest, sweetest oral narrative of his life with my Daddy. People spontaneously applauded when he finished.

Knowing that Rowan Taylor had been Daddy’s best friend for twenty years, they saved him for last. Rowan’s secretary had NOT given him the wrong speech. Daddy met Rowan when the great kerfuffle happened because the Justice Department was taking over the Jackson Public Schools. Rowan spent a big chunk of his life trying to suture the wound left when ninety percent of Jackson’s white population abandoned the public schools.

Many people had reservations about Daddy's inclusion in the “Capitol Street Gang.” Several, including my uncle Tom Hederman, thought that just because he’s Boyd Campbell’s nephew didn’t automatically grant him admission. At the behest of Bob Hearin, Rowan took Daddy under his wing. They were inseparable ever since. Even though Rowan went to Mississippi State, he was a good friend of Millsaps. He was such a good friend; he was named our second-ever Life Trustee after Eudora Welty.

Much of Daddy’s life with Rowan involved politics. Most of Rowan’s comments that night concerned the three failed attempts Daddy and Rowan spent trying to get Charlie Deaton elected Governor of Mississippi. Deaton himself was red with laughter.

When Charlie Deaton retired, the Clarion Ledger twice mentioned his “matinee idol good looks.” His friends had a field day with that, but there was something to it. A member of Kappa Alpha, Charlie Deaton might be the most attractive man to ever graduate from Millsaps College. His nickname in the legislature used to be “night train” for reasons I won’t explain.

One year, Daddy, Ben Puckett, and some guys from Entergy arranged a fishing junket for members of the Mississippi Legislature to Hackberry, Louisiana. My job was carrying ice, mixing drinks, chauffeuring Glen Deweese, and doing any goddamn thing the Senator asked of me. That last part was emphasized because Deweese was the roadblock in an education bill that the entire rest of the party wanted.

There were little cabins at the fish camp with a toilet, shower, and three bunk beds. In my cabin were Robert Wingate, Rowan Taylor, Daddy, Charlie Deaton, and me. One night, all the younger members of the house were anxious to take Deaton into the metropolitan Hackberry area and see what there was to see about this Night Train business. Deaton was in his fifties at this point but still looked chiseled and tanned like a Greek god.

I don’t know what it’s like now, but they used to call the Mississippi legislature a “boys club.” It was. My charge, the Senator, was older than the others and turned himself in early with a cigar and a toddy, so I went with six members of the Mississippi House to a speak-easy with Charlie Deaton. Only six or seven buildings were standing in Downtown Hackberry; it was one of them.

A country bar, much of my party was anxious to see how the local buckle-shiners would react to Nigh Train Deaton. “Buckle-Shiner” is a phrase I won’t explain if you don’t already know it. The selection of available women that night was pretty disappointing. I’m sure Hackberry has more to offer. The waitress, however, was remarkable. I’m not sure how she got her jeans on. I’m sure pullies and levers were involved.

I was the only party member her age, but as big as I was, I might as well have been invisible. She almost immediately noticed Deaton’s chiseled jaw and piercing eyes, as expected. Whenever she delivered new long-neck beers, she’d touch his shoulder. She never touched mine. The other members of our stag party expected him to drag this woman off and prove himself worthy of his reputation, but Deaton was a perfect gentleman the entire night, and Charlene or Darlene, or whatever her name was, went home alone.

When we returned to the cabin, all the others were disappointed they never saw the great “Night Train” in action. I wasn’t. Charlie Deaton was the perfect gentleman, which was my experience with him my entire life. Whatever his reputation meant, my experience with him was always different. Deaton brushed his teeth and prepared his tackle for the next day’s fishing. “Those boys should pay more attention to their job.” He said.

Hackberry, Lousiana, sits on the shores of Calcasieu Lake, a brackish estuary on the Gulf of Mexico—a perfect environment for Redfish. For the fishing part of the expedition, we’d put congressmen with congressmen and lobbyists with lobbyists and then mingle afterward. The point of this trip was not to change anybody’s mind or get any work done but to glad-hand and establish friendly relationships.

My boat would hold the guide, Rowan Taylor, Daddy, Charlie Deaton, and Me. Robert Wingate rode in a boat with some Entergy guys and most of the whiskey. Everybody I knew said Charlie Deaton was the best sportsman in Mississippi. In Mississippi, “sportsman” means somebody who hunts and fishes, not somebody who plays golf, pickleball, or tennis, although he did.

Deaton’s tackle box looked like a surgical table. He corrected me three times on my casting technique. I don’t know how many of y’all have been fishing for redfish, but they can be as long as your arm and fight like hell. Fishing was alarmingly good that day. We started throwing back fish that weren’t enormous. Deaton started trying every rig and bait he had to achieve different effects. He showed me how to work his rod so it looked like my bait was an injured fish, limping along on the surface so one of those big ole’ redfish would jump out of the water to get it. It was an impressive sight.

No matter how much whiskey you had the night before, you go fishing early in the morning because that’s when they bite. As the sun starts to climb across the sky, they don’t bite so much. As the Louisiana sun gained intensity and the fish quit biting, we stopped for a ham sandwich and a beer in the boat.

“Did your daddy ever tell you about Ivan Allen?” Deaton asked.

“I’ve met him!” Whatever story Deaton was gonna tell, I wanted him to know I was listening.’’

“Ivan Allen once said that there was no way for Atlanta to move forward if they continued to hold the nigras down. There are just too many of them. I want you to remember that. Mississippi’s like that. Mississippi can’t move forward unless we all move forward.”

I said I understood. I didn’t actually understand for another twenty years. I’m still working on it.

“What do you want to do with your life, Boyd?”

“Whatever he says, I should, I suppose,” I said, pointing with my thumb at Daddy.

“You’re not your daddy,” Deaton said. “Find out what you are. Don’t be limited by what somebody else wants of you.”

We went home with our limit of redfish, including our portion of our guide’s limit, frozen in vacuum-sealed bags. I gave about five pounds out of my portion of fish to a girl I was trying to impress.

In the fullness of time, Daddy died, and Charlie Deaton retired. In retirement, Deaton devoted his life to Ducks Unlimited and other causes, trying to preserve the Southern Wetlands. Honoring his efforts, the Nature Conservancy named a three-thousand, three-hundred-acre area in South Mississippi the Charles M. Deaton Nature Preserve to preserve the habitat of Mississippi fish and fowl in perpetuity.

I’m still working on that business of finding out what I am. I’m pretty sure part of what I am was embossed by the memory of fishing with Charlie Deaton.

Charles M Deaton Nature Preserve