The Legend of Bubbles Brown
There are some that say the valley cracked open the day Bubbles Brown was born, the heat from the center of the earth itself boiling that Tennessee soil until the mud it became bubbled out such a putrid smell his mother pushed him out in disgust. Others say it was he that bubbled out of the earth, born straight from a Florida swamp, no true mother at all. Those that knew him young said that was a load of bunk, and he got his name playing with his own fart bubbles in the washtub. Who can say why they called him Bubbles? Everyone gets a name somehow, and one way or the other, he got his.
Now, Washboard Ben is another story. He didn’t like people to know, but he was blessed with the name Bronislaw Siborski. Conman. Drifter. He made his name selling magic washboards across the Appalachians to rubes who believed him when he said they’d cut the laundry work by four. There are more than a few men who would have gladly had his hide if he’d ever passed through again, but Ben was smart enough to never give them the chance.
By the time I met Bubbles, Ben was long gone, and Bubbles wasn’t long for the world. A decrepit old ancient leaning on branch because he couldn’t afford a proper cane, he did his best to talk of the old days while he still had some remnants of the memories left.
To call Washboard Ben the villain in that story it to misunderstand him entirely. Ben weren’t no villain, least not as I could see. Wrong place at the wrong time, maybe, but who ain’t that been true for? No sir. If there’s a villain in this story, it was the Alligator King, and as far as I’m concerned, he got what he had comin’. There are those what say I killed the man and those what say ‘taint so. As for me, I don’t rightly know if I did or I didn’t. All I know he was livin’ when last I saw him, and I can’t say more than that.
Now let’s see. This was back in aught nine, and Ben and me, we’d been roadin’ together for some time. He had his way and I had mine, but we always found a way to get along somehow. His game was good, ain’t nobody could deny, and more times than half he’d work his way into some fancy house with the simps drooling all over him, practically beggin’ him to take their money or marry their daughter, or even both. Sometimes he’d bring me along and I’d get a taste of that sweet life while the gettin’ was good, though mostly I let him go solo. See, sooner or later they’d run him out of town, usually with a shotgun that was just as likely to miss him and hit me by mistake. Most times I was smart enough to find my beds elsewise, though never without company, to be fair. One way or the other, though, we always seemed to catch up somewhere down the road.
Course, Ben couldn’t hold onto a nickel to save his life. Gambler. Drinker. Taking the pretty things out like he had all the money in the world. Win big, spend big, back at the poor house by morning. That was Ben. Rich simps or not, he was always broke soon enough and looking for a new mark.
I know it was winter, ‘cause we’d been skirtin’ the swamps for a bit, and ain’t no way we’d a bothered with that if we hadn’t been runnin’ from the ice. Chicago ain’t no place for a man without a bed any time of the year, but when that frozen wind comes flying off the lake, you run and run fast, even if it means fighting the winter mosquitos, which we certainly were.
I recall catchin’ up with Ben at a lonely diner on the A1A. I was more hung than usual, so to speak, and couldn’t do much better for myself than a cup of mushroom soup. Ben, though, he was flying high with a full three egg breakfast and all the fixins. Bacon and sausage piled high. He was smilin’ something fierce as he dropped more cash on the counter than had been seen around that place in some time.
“Get something substantial for yourself old friend. This one’s on me. I tell you this is a good day. A goood day. And make no mistake, these suckers got plenty more for the taking.”
Now maybe I’m mixing this story up with another. Hell knows I’ve been known to do that, but if I remember right, that was the moment he told me about him. Rich and dangerous, the Alligator King was no one to be trifled with. Only a fool would’ve done what Ben did. But I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Ben would’ve been more the fool if he hadn’t tried.
It weren’t my first time round those parts and I’d heard the stories, of course, but no sane man would’ve believed them. A man talk to gators and them listen? No sir. When Ben said the man got his name and fortune from sellin’ hides, I had no cause to doubt. The simpler story’s more often the true. That’s what my uncle always said. Not that it made the man any less dangerous. A man don’t get rich in the swamplands without taking power the hard way, and everyone knew that man had power.
Way Ben told it, he’d made his way into the nest with his usual fast talk and had convinced the King that there was a whole lot of money to be made on the coast. Ben made like he’d been holding onto some land he’d fallen into by way of a rich old Aunt, but he didn’t have the care to hold onto it. If someone had the means to put a little something into it, that someone could get a whole lot more out of it. It was money for the taking. An investment a true king would never pass up. Same time, Ben says, the old lady meant a lot to him, and he didn’t think he could ever sell it to just anyone. Course, the Alligator King fell for it, soup to nuts, and kept Ben around for some time gettin friendly in the hopes he might convince Ben to sell.
And he introduced Ben to the princess.
And Ben worked his magic.
By the time Ben and I shared breakfast together, he had a down payment in his pocket, which the King thought he’d given in kindness to his future son-in-law, a kid of wealth and promise who was taking a trip to the coast to put things in order, soon to return. Of course, it weren’t no more than a ploy to give himself time. Now he had full pockets and was plottin’ with me about how to get them fuller.
It were supposed to go down like this. Ben would introduce me to the King as his brother. I’d thank the man much for his interest but tell him Ben ain’t got no right to sell. I’d say we shared the property fair and square and, apologies to the king, I weren’t selling no how. When the man returned that he’d already given Ben a down payment, I’d shame Ben out loud and demand he return it. Ben would say something about how he don’t got it, and I would pretend to be in a pickle. Then, telling the man he had us over a barrel, I’d agree to sell the land after all, except for a higher price than my fool brother had asked for, and, of course, the rest of the money up front. He’d haggle, but we’d make a deal, I’d produce the forged deed, take the cash, and we’d walk away with fat wallets, never to return. That was how it were supposed to go down.
Problem was we took too long. Ben figured he should stay away a week or two, make it seem like he really went to the coast to check on the property, meet his family, get the deed, all that. Same time, he figured the King would get a little nervous about maybe Ben running off with his money, making him twice as happy and trusting when Ben came back. If he’d come back in a couple of days, might’ve all worked out. Would it were.
The Princess, see, she got excited about this big old family mansion on the coast she was about to be the Lady of, and decided she should go down and surprise her fiancé. She talked Daddy into taking her down for a look, who learned the truth soon enough. By the time Ben and me walked in like brothers, the jig was already up, and now it were the Alligator King stringing us along, instead of the other way round.
Everything seems like it’s working, the King’s holding the forged deed and turning toward the safe to hand us our winnings, when the Princess walks in and says, “Daddy, I haven’t even shown Ben the garden. Surely, your business can wait while we can show these gentlemen some proper hospitality.”
“My own sweet Princess,” says the king, “how right you are. Gentlemen, I hope you will forgive me. I was so excited about our transaction I forgot what it means to be a gentleman myself. Tabatha’s right. We should retire the garden and enjoy the pleasures of my home. Our home. There will be time enough for business later.”
Whether there were or weren’t time for business later, I can’t say. What I can say is he had a whole other idea of business than I did.
See, it weren’t no garden. It were a muggy, buggy, hot and musty swamp at the end of a long walk, dark and twisty and a long way from the house. I’m slappin at skeeters and waving ‘em away with my hands. Ben’s doing the same, but it weren’t no good. This was their home, not ours. Then I look up at the royal family, my own hands swishing back and forth in front of my face to forge off the skeeter attacks, and they’re just sitting there like nothing’s wrong. Like they’re immune or something. Like they’d spent their whole life in mosquito swarms and it weren’t no different than sittin’ on the beach with a gentle breeze coming off the sea.
The King has us right where he wanted us. He could see we was scared, and he gave a hearty laugh.
“Nothing to be afraid of boys. They won’t hurt you.”
Something about the way he said that made me shudder. I looked over at Ben, but he was still swattin as if to save his life. I looked back at the Alligator King and saw something I couldn’t quite make out. Like his shadow had moved. Then I saw a second shadow where it didn’t belong, and I got a chill. Soon enough the shadows started creeping along the edge of the swamp where they had no right to be, and I could see them growing into the lumpy gators they’d always been.
I looked over at Ben in terror, but he was too busy lookin’ for an exit. No such luck. If the path we came down was still there, it sure enough couldn’t be seen. In panic, I looked back at the Alligator King, but he was just smiling, leaning back in his chair, lighting up a fresh cigar. The princess did no less, though without the cigar if memory tells right.
Now I knew gators were supposed to be slower on land than in the water, but I weren’t taking no chances. Not in the dark. Not in the swamp. I figured if my end had come, I’d have to face it head on, not running away with my back turned only to get dead soon enough anyhow. When Ben looked back at me with the what do we do now look, I just shrugged. I figured it was all over and there was nothing for it but let the end come.
Never in my life have I been without my six-string, and this day weren’t no different. I leaned over and pulled it out, gave it a quick tuning, and strummed the song my daddy taught me when I weren’t nothing but four or five. Just an old lullaby meant to give salutations to the reaper when he come, and thank him for a fine life. Something about havin’ no trunk with him, and that when he’s ready, you’re ready. Something like that. That song don’t got no words, but the reaper knows what it means, anyhow. So my daddy said.
Ben, well, he feels it along with me and the two of us just spell this song together, waiting for the end to come.
What happened then, well, I can’t rightly say. The gators had surrounded us, and the biggest, baddest one of all had pushed a little past the circle, aiming to have the first taste, I suppose. I look him dead in the eye, as best I could in the dark, and he looks right back at me. Except, it’s not with hunger. More like understanding. Like he could hear the song and know’d the words, maybe. Like his own Daddy done sing it to him and he couldn’t figure how a dumb human like me could know it. Maybe.
I was starting to think the song might put him off awhile, but it wasn’t going to last forever. I looked over at Ben and I could tell he was thinking the same thing. He starts tappin’ this new rhythm on the side of his chair, and I think maybe I can try something else. Something new. Just make it up a bit. I start thinking of the words I want to say, what I want to tell this giant gator, the real King, and just let my fingers do the talking.
I tell him that this is a rough old world. That man and gator alike got but a short time and nothing for it but to make the best of it. That at least we got a world where we can live free. At least we can do as we please. That we ain’t got no masters to cage us up and hold us back. To tell us what to do and how to be. That was the song I sung after the lullaby was over. The song I sung as I looked back between the real King of the Gators and that self-styled Alligator King who thought he were the one in charge. Words the gator could understand but the man could not.
Slowly, the circle got wider. The gators backed off just a bit. Not entirely, mind, just a bit. I thought, maybe I was close but not close enough. That maybe I needed one more song to seal the deal. I looked back over at Ben and he slipped me into something a little darker. Something about revenge. About crushing those who would crush us. About the power of a people to rise up and tear down their tyrants. And all the time I’m looking right at the Alligator King who can’t understand a word, knowing the true King of the Gators is looking at him too, just wondering if maybe he’d been following the wrong man all along.
That gator nodded to me and turned toward his master, the circle reforming to follow him to his new prey. Ben smiled in relief, and morphed us into a Cajun beat. I pushed my fear away and smiled at the gators. Without a word but only the strumming of my fingers, I sang of what came next. Of the travels me and Ben would do. How we would see the ocean and the mountains. How we would go deep in the forest and humble ourselves before the vastness of the desert. How everywhere we’d go, we’d sing of the proud King of the Gators, how he led his folk to freedom, and of the paradise he now reigned over, deep in the swampland. And I sang of how the road would light up before us to show us the way, which it surely did, even as the gators turned away to leave us be.
We sang as we walked, our backs turned to the carnage that maybe was coming, but we never rightly saw. No sir. Last I saw the Alligator King, he were alive, and his daughter, too. Ben and me never looked back.
As the old man finished his tale, I asked if he still knew the song. The one his daddy taught him. The one for the reaper. He said he surely did and played it for me with a truth no man could deny. If the grim reaper had not been listening before, surely, he was then. Surely, he would be drawn from his slumber to hear the heartbreaking song of a man who had been ready for death from the day he was born, who called on the reaper not as a god, not in fear or prayer, but as an old friend he knew would come and visit when the time was right.
I left the old ancient with his branch as I wished him safe passage. He asked passage to where, but I didn’t say. I figured he knew well enough.