The Mystic Dick

the lives of third-generation mississippians

Dick Wilson was my friend. Everybody in Mississippi knew that. Not very many people knew how deep that pond ran. We were both third-generation Mississippians. I think both of us were sixth or seventh generation Mississippians, but we were third generation Mississippians—of note, and that last bit tells the tale.

You’ll hear fairly often that, by the third generation, whatever made great families great had run out. Third-generation kids get made fun of quite a bit. I don’t know if that’s a fair assessment. Whatever gifts God gave the first generation, the second generation might be something entirely different by the third. The third-generation kid might be even more gifted than the first, but since his gifts lie in other areas, people might consider them a failure.

Dick had a gift for music. He could play several instruments. His singing voice was remarkable. His knowledge of music is where he really shone, though. Dick’s music collection was worth more than some houses in Eastover. That’s not an exaggeration. I never once asked if he had a recording of something, and he said, “No.” I tried to talk him into leaving his music collection to Millsaps, since we had the Millsaps-Wilson Library. No, he preferred this little school in Oxford that plays football sometimes.

God only knows what would have happened if Dick devoted his life to music, as was his greatest wish. He didn’t, though. He became a lawyer because being in one of Jackson’s bigger firms was potentially more important than being the President of Mississippi Power and Light Company, which is what his dad did.

Like Dick, I didn’t have the same gifts my father had. Like Dick, I hid it as long as I could. I might have done a better job at hiding it than dick. When I went to Millsaps, I’m pretty sure Dick threatened the Alpha Mu Chapter of KA to give me a bid. I’m sure he mentioned my dad was chairman of the board, and my name was on the cafeteria wall. I always knew some guys resented my silver-spoon ass for being there, but I found my way, and I made some friends.

I’m told that Dick was an extraordinary lawyer in certain areas. I don’t know enough about law to tell if that’s true. Dick resented the bullshit that young associates had to go through to get their name on the letterhead, so he got an office in Highland Village and hung up his shingle. Rumors floated that he was lazy, drunken, and surly. I’m pretty sure he could be drunk, and maybe even surly, but that was fairly common among young lawyers at the time. He was never lazy.

There’s a legend that says Doug Stone once traveled to spend the weekend with Dick. Dick procured a half gallon of Mayflower Gumbo, a pecan pie, imported cheese, and two bottles of whiskey, and they rewrote the KA bylaws in a weekend. I don’t know how true that is. I believe the part about the whiskey, gumbo, and cheese, but I imagine there might have been some correspondence back and forth for a few weeks before meeting in Jackson to assemble their work, a couple of weeks before the KA convention. They ran it by former Knight Commander Cheney and then current commander Taylor before presenting it to the floor. KA has always been lousy with lawyers.

I loved Doug Stone. He was one of our regular customers at the Office Supply Company in Columbus. The Columbus store was always one of my favorites, even when the town started to wane and it became less profitable.

Doug, Dick, and Knight Commander Reynolds Cheney had all been Irwin Province Commanders. Doug was one of the court commanders as long as I can remember. I used to sit between him and Dick at KA Convention. We would whisper things between us that might make your momma blush.

Hearing all these military titles, people have always assumed that Kappa Alpha Order is built on some fantasy version of the Confederacy. There’s not a single word about the Confederacy in KA. We are basically modeled after twelfth-century knights, translated through nineteenth-century romantic language. Philosophically, we are about as old as the Ottoman Empire, but from different perspectives.

The KA Laws had to be rewritten. It was a crisis, and we couldn’t patch it anymore. Any, even the smallest hint of racism or segregation had be removed. I’ll be honest with you, in earlier versions of the Bylaws, it was pretty bad, but I will maintain we weren’t any worse than any other Southern Fraternity, but we were the only one associated with Robert E Lee and stubborn about flying the Confederate flag.

Dick, Doug, and Knight Commander Cheney all agreed on one thing. The bylaws had to be written so that nobody could judge us, and nobody could hurt us in court. Literally three brilliant guys, it’s mostly worked out just that way.

Third-generation kids are known for the excesses. Excesses in food, smoke, drugs, overly lavish spending, and disreputable women. Dick chose them all except the disreputable women. I chose them all, except for overly lavish spending. A night with Dick could be as genteel as a nineteenth-century drawing room comedy, or a bawdy brawl at an Irish pub. I didn’t really have a preference, as long as I was with dick.

Dick knew everybody made fun of his weight. It cut him deeply, but not so deeply that he gave up pecan pie and Pop Primos Caramel Cake. The boys thought Dick never knew they called him “The mystic pitching mound,” but he did.

The “mystic” part came because everybody knew Dick was the top living expert on the Kappa Alpha ritual. Dick soon learned I had an interest in it, too. You had to sign your name in blood and offer up a kidney to get a printed copy of the KA ritual, what we call “The Customs.” Through Dick, I had five at one time. Each had subtle changes as the ritual evolved. We discussed and tracked down everything that referenced what was written in it, paying particular interest in biblical and literary references. However you imagine the KA ritual in your head, I can say you’re probably wrong. I can also say it’s genuinely beautiful.

Dick was my cousin Tommy’s best friend. Tommy was third generation, too. I never knew Tommy. He died before I was born. Dick didn’t know that I knew he visited my Aunt Bernice Hederman at least once a week, especially after my Uncle Tom joined Tommy.

A lot of people thought Dick was too fat to ever take a wife. He fooled them. Dick married the one person in Jackson who knew more about music than he did. Sometimes she would hyphenate her name, Senter-Wilson, but to most people she was just “Lestah!” I’m told Lester had a freakishly broad vocal range, but she settled on mezzo-soprano. Lester died last January. The last time I heard her sing, her health was failing. She couldn’t remember my name, but she remembered her notes.

Following a KA Convention in Dallas, Dick asked if I would ride with him to Shreveport, pick up Lester’s car, and drive it to Jackson. Lester’s teacher was in Shreveport, and she had flown to New York to perform. If I picked up her car and took it to Jackson, then she could just fly into Jackson rather than Shreveport.

Dick said I could listen to her tapes. She had two beautiful cassette tape cases. Expecting to find a treasure trove of music, one was almost entirely tapes on vocal exercises she could do while the car. The other was filled with books on tape. I picked “The Odyssey” and drove to Jackson.

Thoughts and feelings about the Confederacy began to slowly change. Then they began to rapidly change. I wrote impassioned letters about how KA should keep up, but they were met with mixed responses. There wasn’t much I could do about the Alpha Upsulon chapter at Ole Miss, but I still had influence at Alpha Mu at Millsaps.

One day, on Bid Day at Millsaps, Kiese Laymon’s girlfriend told him a bunch of KAs called her a “nigger,” and threatened her. Kiese, being a gentleman, stormed out of his dorm room with a baseball bat to confront them, knowing he was outnumbered. Later, I would admonish him for bringing the half-sized baseball bat. Technically, it was a weapon, and that’s why he got in trouble; it was for the weapon, but honestly, he would have done better going into a fight with twelve guys naked than a half-size baseball bat.

Getting a sports cameraman to film him while he confronted the KAs, the issue became huge. Shortly after dinner, I got a call from Dick.

“I heard it wasn’t just KAs.”

“There were some Sigs too.”

“I heard they were painted purple.”

“Some were, some were painted black, some were green, some were yellow.”

“Were there really that many Confederate flags?”

“Oh, yeah.”

Only a few people knew I was only about fifty yards away when this happened. As it unfolded, I decided to let it unfold without my influence, because it was time to confront the Confederate issue.

A few weeks later, George Harmon called me into his office.

“You know who Ruben Anderson is?”

“What the hell, George. OF COURSE I know who Ruben Anderson is!”

Actually, that’s a lie. I said, “Yes, sir.”

“We’re gonna bring Judge Anderon in to work on this Kiesse thing.”

I could feel Bill Goodman’s fingerprints all over this. Bill was second generation, like my Uncle Tom and my Daddy. Bill and Daddy grew up in Methodist Youth Fellowship together. Bill was so devoted to Millsaps that he broke his arm trying to ride a mule through campus when he was a child. I have no idea what he did to piss off the mule. Joe Lee Gibson worshiped Bill “Gutman.” If you never heard of Joe Lee, I have a friend who wrote a song about him.

The thing a lot of people didn’t consider was that, at the very core of his being, George Harmon was sick to death of Greek Letter fraternities. As he and Bill detailed their plan to deal with the Kiesse situation, I said to Bill, “This is a trap, isn’t it?” He told me to never say that again. Sorry, Bill.

Everybody on every side had lawyered up. That’s not unusual. Bill Goodman and George Harmon worked out a plan, almost guaranteeing one of the KAs would break the agreement, get expelled, and then everybody would feel like justice was done.

At the chapter meeting, almost none of the actives had any clue who I was, other than that my name was on the building where they ate three squares a day. I told them that this was deadly serious, and if they fuck up, they will be gone.

Things didn’t turn out as planned. Just like with the half-sized baseball bat, Kiese didn’t use his best judgment. He was caught on camera stealing a library book. I asked him why he had to fucking do it on fucking camera.

Word spread quickly. Ignoring it and giving him a pass might mean retaliation from the KA lawyers, and honestly, everybody agreed to the same thing. It wasn’t fair to hold the KAs to it, and not Kiesse.

Again, I kept my mouth shut. I figured this needed to play out exactly as it was. The schools “liberal reputation” would take a hit, but since our “conservtive reputation” had taken a million hits, I figured we could live through it.

The head of security called me backstage to say Chokwe Lumumba was sneaking around campus. Brent asked, “Why the fuck is security calling you backstage?”

I love Brent, but I just said, “I need to handle this.”

As I suspected, Lumumba was Kiese’s lawyer. Lumumba was not a great lawyer. Not compared to Bill Goodman. A dozen Lumumbas couldn’t take one Bill Goodman. Security was flipping out because Lumumba had been involved in a police shooting twenty years before.

Again, I advised calm. Let Lumumba know you’re here, but don’t detain him, and don’t run him off. In this, I had more confidence in the staff members than in the head of security. Bill Goodman agreed. George Harmon said, “Goddamnit, Boyd, why does this have to happen?” I didn’t have an answer. I knew he didn’t care for fraternities, but I wasn’t ready to say “kill them all.” Neither was Bill.

I fell in love with someone with a troubled mind. A blonde, I can’t say I actually was in love. I was in love with trying to help her, although she was a lot of fun to be with and a generous lover. Love means something else, though.

I asked brother Dick to rewrite my will so that, if anything happened to me, she’d get a hundred thousand dollars as quickly as possible. Though dead, I wanted to continue my commitment to her. Other lawyers might try to talk me out of it. Dick repeated something secret to KA and agreed. I’m pretty sure he was against it, though.

The last time I saw Dick, he had lost most of the weight, but was using a walker. He and Lestah! were going to the fancy new sushi place downtown. I had put on all the weight he lost. It was my fifth year in self-imposed exile. My hair grew down my back, and my beard grew down my chest. My eyes were hollow and red. Bell’s Palsy made my janky eye even more janky. I hid in the shadows until he was inside. I didn’t want him to see me that way.

Usk aram fidelis, Brother Dick. I miss you more than you can imagine. When you see your Dad and Doug, send my regards.