My friend Johnny Jennings was raised in the little Mississippi Delta town of Tutwiler, which during his boyhood years consisted of little more than a main street and a few stores, among them the Five & Dime, Etta’s Hot Tamales, Thornton’s Thrift Shop, and DGB Funeral Parlor, owned by Messrs. Diggs, Graves and Berry.
Because Johnny and his pal Freddie were ghoulishly interested in embalming, they’d climb atop Thornton’s, across an alley from the mortuary, and peer through the window as morticians prepared cadavers for their final journey.
Early on, they discovered a way to enhance the experience and terrify passersby with lugubrious sound effects.
When shipments of shoes arrived, Mr. Thornton tossed the shoebox packing tissue into trashcans behind his store. The boys stuffed handfuls of it in the gutter and pushed them downward with a stick, until they had packed a dozen or so wads
in it, and set fire to the top wad.
As the bundles burned slowly, the gutter belched eerie, gurgling, vibrating, hooting sounds. The lads loved it, but passersby fled, certain the sounds emanated from the funeral parlor’s temporary residents, supine on cold marble slabs.
One October night, when the mortuary’s only resident was a knife-fight victim, the boys indulged in their diabolical diversion.
They prepared the gutter pipe, set it to playing, and watched morticians working on a body the victorious knife fighter had converted to a stabbed, sliced, mutilated bloody corpse.
But even for these ghouls, the gore was too much, so they clambered down and went to Freddie’s house, seeking more civilized entertainment. Then the siren sounded.
Volunteer fireman O. Z. Rice lived nearby, and the boys hopped in his truck as he sped to the conflagration … Thornton’s store.
Unbeknownst to the juvenile arsonists, Mr. Thornton had repaired his roof, and some of the inflammable tar had drooled down the gutter. The tissue paper ignited it, and in turn the tar set the store ablaze. Fortunately, firemen dowsed it before too much damage was done.
Two weeks had passed since the fire, and Johnny and Freddie were strolling down the road to Johnnie’s house one night when Marshal Buddy Claud Coins, a hulking, intimidating lawman whose penetrating, knit-browed stare set lips quivering and knees knocking, eased up beside them. Sticking the long arm of the law out the window, he thumbed them into the back seat.
“Boys, the insurance man said it’ll take pretty close to $2400 to repair the damage to Thornton’s store, which y’all nearly burned to the ground.” Instantly, the boys burst into tears … all the confession Coins needed.
Marshal Coins, the boys’ parents, and the insurance man got together, decided the culprits were too young to have criminal records, and worked out a plan to compensate Mr. Thornton.
When I asked Johnny how much his dad’s share of the bill was, he said, “I ain’t for sure, but judging by the whuppin’ I got, it run pretty close to $2400.”
Jimmy Reed is an Oxford, Mississippi resident, Ole Miss and Delta State University alumnus, Vietnam Era Army Veteran, former Mississippi Delta cotton farmer and ginner, author, and retired college teacher.
This story is a selection from Jimmy Reed’s latest book, entitled The Jaybird Tales.
Copies, including personalized autographs, can be reserved by notifying the author via email (.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)).
My friend Johnny Jennings was raised in the little Mississippi Delta town of Tutwiler, which during his boyhood years consisted of little more than a main street and a few stores, among them the Five & Dime, Etta’s Hot Tamales, Thornton’s Thrift Shop, and DGB Funeral Parlor, owned by Messrs. Diggs, Graves and Berry.
Because Johnny and his pal Freddie were ghoulishly interested in embalming, they’d climb atop Thornton’s, across an alley from the mortuary, and peer through the window as morticians prepared cadavers for their final journey.
Early on, they discovered a way to enhance the experience and terrify passersby with lugubrious sound effects. 
