In his prime, Jaybird was a lady’s man, but the woman he tried hardest to attract paid him scant little attention — and none at all when his money ran out. Her name was Sallie Mae Jones, and he told me about her once. Even after so many years, my old black mentor got misty-eyed just thinking about her.
His story began with two hundred feet of steel cable. The Army Corps Of Engineers was excavating a drainage canal not far from Jaybird’s home, and ever so often the machinery’s cable would fray and be replaced. The worn cable was left on the canal’s banks.
A rumor floating around claimed that Fitler Steel Company was paying $2.50 a foot for used cable. Without verifying what he’d heard, Jaybird decided to sell some of the old cable to Fitler. He spliced together two hundred feet of it, and planned to drag it to Fitler under cover of darkness.
The canal’s path intersected Highway 82, which ran straight past Fitler. Strong and energetic (and with Sallie Mae dancing in his mind’s eye), Jaybird was certain he could make the burdensome journey alongside the highway with little difficulty.
To prevent the cable from abrading his skin, he wrapped layers of jute cotton bale bagging over his shoulders and under his armpits, secured loops in the cable ends, slip his arms through, and headed out, dreaming of Sallie Mae’s smile when he flashed $500 in her gorgeous face.
The journey wasn’t without incident. At one point, he crossed a narrow bridge, which wouldn’t have been a problem had a truck not appeared out of nowhere when he was halfway across. Horrified that his ticket to Sallie Mae’s heart would get entangled in the truck’s undercarriage and drag him to a gory death, he ran as hard as he could. The cable barely cleared the bridge before the truck zoomed by.
Will power never possessed a more persistent practitioner than my beloved friend, and shortly after dawn, he staggered up to Fitler’s front office. A man with a tape measure determined the cable’s length, and handed his customer $50. When Jaybird demanded to know why he wasn’t paid $500, the man pointed to a sign: steel cable, 25 cents per foot — not $2.50 as Jaybird had heard!
Exhausted, the young man plodded homeward that Saturday morning, but was still determined to call on Sallie Mae at sundown. Her eyes lit up as they always did when she saw money, and she shouted, “Oh, lover man, that’s just enough to buy that new pair of shoes I’ve been wantin’! Now, how much you got left to take me to the big dance tonight?”
Scowling at the sight of his empty hands, Sallie Mae stuffed the money in her purse and slammed the door. Broken-hearted, Jaybird wandered off into the darkness, listening to Sallie Mae sing a verse from an old song:
Nothin’ from nothin’ leaves nothin’
You gotta have somethin’
If you want to be with me.
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)).
