Ghost Ballad
Ever since I got this job at the new riverboat casino downtown, I’ve been thinking about these Mississippi ghosts swirling their fingers in my mid-shift smoke. I’m the type of woman who’s thorough, so I’ve been spending Thursdays at the library on 14th street. You should see the microfiche they’ve got in there. Like anybody who’s got a thing for ghosts, I’ve got my favorites. Get this:
In September 1832, Myrna Kessler, the only known Jewish woman riverboat hand died on the banks of the Mississippi. Called “Kess,” she hid the fact that she was a woman by only pissing at night.
And now, 2009 — she haunts that giant movie screen by the casino: she flickers the pixels like slow river waves. Have you seen this screen from highway 70? The size of a building, it shouts only advertisements. Drivers get distracted when a white woman with teeth the size of minivans eats a hamburger that could crush your house. An Asian woman eats the word “Asia” with four-story chopsticks.
I’ve seen Kess’s ghost against this screen many times. But it was only in the microfiche that I found she was famous (in her time) for strength and meanness.
Where Kess came from nobody knows, but she was a man of the Lord. Tied His name to her head every morning at sunrise and punched anybody who looked at her crosseyed with the wrath of the Old Testament. The other riverboat-hands were godforsaken, baptized only by Mississippi mud and their momma’s moonshine. Kess wore God’s vengeance round her neck like a yolk, never ate catfish or took the hat off that fuzzy head — the newspapers speculated that religion was the sole source of Kess’s meanness. Little did they know it was mostly about waiting out that nighttime piss. And she howled as she peed, like no sound made by man or woman, like an orgasm but inverted. You can still hear it on the barges up by Choteau island.
Yeah, I’ve been reading all about it on the microfiche at the public library, AND I’ve heard it, so I know.
Kess could cuss in six languages, not counting the secret lawless howl of somebody who has waited sixteen hours for a piss (while unloading barrels off barges, even). Strong as hell for a little guy, cleanshaven, fine and rugged features, both. Never after the ladies, but seemed to have one in every town anyway. Dirty, but shit — look at that water.
In the middle of the Mississippi, between Missouri and Illinois, there used to be a sandbar called Blood Island. People had duels there because it was outside of both state’s jurisdiction, a kind of no man’s land. Kess was found there next to another man, both equally dead. Her secret womanhood put her story in the papers, though the true nature of the duel was never discovered. I’m not done with the microfiche and I’m looking for a medium or two — I’ll let you know if I figure anything out.
In the meantime, tomorrow try driving down Highway 70 at sunset, and look up at that giant movie screen by the casino. There you’ll see the ghost of Myrna Kessler muddying the pixels, tits taped up with a gunnysack. Ghost body rising up from the riverbank just after sunset, right when I take my cigarette break, silhouette taking up the full 5-stories, black against the giant screen. You’ll slow down to see her shadow piss standing up, triumphant.
–> nicky