Tommye Lu Foresman Pritchartt: A Talented Lady

Photo by Howard Pritchartt, Jr.  Tommye Lu Foresman, 60 years old.

 My father's third wife was Tommye Lu Foresman from Alligator, Mississippi.  Yes, there really is an Alligator, Mississippi up in the Delta.  My father and Tommye Lu had an ⏤ let's say, interesting ⏤ relationship.  It was all love/hate and drama.  They both enjoyed a good argument.

And Daddy was enchanted not only by pretty women, but especially pretty women who sang and played the piano.  Lots of fights accompanied by lots of music.

They would have these huge fights that echoed off the walls of the huge house they inhabited in the country.  Once, when I brought my baby girl home to visit,  they were having a particularly lively argument.  They sounded like dinosaurs fighting, and the house shook with fear.

"Oh, shut up, you sonofabitch!"

Once Daddy said she got mad at one of her sons and called him a sonofabitch. He would remember and fall into helpless gales of laughter.

I had begun to think bitch and jackass were terms of endearment.

When you grow up in these environments, you don't realize how unusual it is.  You think all parents are like that.  But on a trip home and seeing my daughter's little chin quivering, I demanded:

"If you two don't stop shouting, I'm taking Annet and staying someplace else.  It's scaring her."

They were well behaved the rest of the day.

Daddy told me that once their friend Martha Curry had been out visiting.  As often happened Daddy and T Lu got into it.  Finally, Martha said, "Look. I've got to go."  I'm sure she just wanted out of there.

"No! No," screamed TLu.  "You can't leave me here with him.  He'll kill me!"

"No, he won't," said the all-suffering Martha."

T-Lu had met Martha the day she was supposed to marry Daddy and ⏤ in true T-Lu style ⏤ had forgotten to make a hair appointment.  She came running into the salon in her wedding dress, begging the stylist to do her hair.  Martha offered her her own appointment and they were fast friends after that.  Daddy and TLu hosted a wedding at their house for her daughter's wedding.

(Back to the fight)

"Well, then listen," said Tommye Lu, "...if you haven't heard from me in two hours, call the sheriff."

Martha dutifully promised she would do so and drove home where it was quiet.

A few minutes later, the fight is over and forgotten about.  They BOTH did that.  You'd think they'd never speak to you again and five minutes later, it's over.

"We were having champagne out here on the front porch," said Daddy, the corner of his lip slightly curled.

"All of a sudden we hear this, 'WOOP! WOOP! WOOP!,  and red and blue lights flashing."

'Oh, my God!  I forgot to call Martha!" Tommye Lu exclaimed.  And there was the sheriff, waving and laughing at the nicest domestic violence call he'd ever received.

Sometimes their fights would get so bad, they'd each go to a lawyer and have divorce papers written up, ready to use them at a moment's notice. They kept them in separate bank boxes. Daddy went so far as to buy Tommye Lu a house downtown in the garden district.  He called it "Her Pouting House."  They could fight and she could go stay at her pouting house for a week or two.

Tommye Lu liked to talk while she prattled about the house.  But my father really enjoyed his solitude. He also had his own little hideaway.  Just a few feet into the woods, Daddy put a small metal shed.  He brought a cot into the room. He had a window-unit air conditioner for summer and a space heater for the winter.  He covered the windows with cardboard so she couldn't see the lights at night.  

See, Daddy knew that Tommye Lu was scared to death of snakes and would never, ever, not even once, step into those woods.  So even though it was but a few feet from the house, she never knew about it.  He would lie on the cot, read the newspapers, listen to a portable radio, pass wind and open a can of sardines and eat an onion.  Or a can of Spam.  Eddie Albert had nothing on Howard Pritchartt for the joys of farming.

Then one day I got a call from Daddy, saying he'd been on the tractor all day and his lower leg was swollen and hurting.  So he went to see Dr. Tillman the next day who told him it was a blood clot and he had to be admitted and stay perfectly still.  He would send him up to Jackson by ambulance the next day.

The night before they were to leave, Daddy said he was lying in bed. 

"Tommye Lu had been upset all day because she'd dropped a mirror and it broke.  She believes that stuff and had been upset all day."

Tommye Lu had just stepped out of the shower and was walking toward Daddy when she suddenly stumbled and grabbed her head.

"Baby?  You all right?"

"I'm really dizzhzhhhy," and one side of her face went limp.  She'd always had high blood pressure, and they both knew what had happened.  He rushed down to her side where she lay, naked and afraid.  She looked up at him and pulled his face down to hers and gave him a long, hard kiss.

"She was just lying there, naked.  She looked so beautiful, but we both knew this was bad."

Despite the divorce papers, the fights, the disappointments and the joys, the fun, the laughter, the good times and the bad, there was still so much love.

"Where the hell is the ambulance?" he cried.  

It had been 45 minutes.  He called again. They said they were having trouble finding it.  This was before Garmin, iphones and google maps.  Finally, an hour and a half later, they arrived and had her flown to the hospital in Jackson and admitted in ICU.

Meanwhile, Daddy had his own blood clot and was riding by ambulance to the same hospital.  He was on one floor; she was on another.  

"They won't let me go see her," he said, pulling at my arm.  I'd just flown in from Los Angeles.  I'll go up and check on her and I'll be back." 

This went on for several days.  My stepbrothers, Tom and Ed Foresman, were by her side the whole time.  But after a few days, they told us she was beyond help.  I had to leave Daddy in the hospital.  I can't remember why now but I had to get back for something.

A couple of weeks later, Daddy was up and walking, and Tommye Lu passed quietly away.  I remember it was in October.  1995, perhaps?

I'd never seen real grief before that day.  It shocked me.  I'd been there when his parents, his friends, would pass away.  But I'd never seen his shoulders so slumped, his face so downcast. He was shattered in every way.

"I never understood it before," he said. "I understand it now."  

He would read the names in the funeral register, over and over noting who hadn't come, hadn't called.  To him, friendship was sacred.  I don't think he ever forgave them.  At least it gave him someone to be angry at.

One night he was going through pictures.  "I remember this day," he said "It was cold outside. We'd had an ice storm.

I woke up and looked outside.  She was out there holding King Cat (her Siamese) and was wearing a fur coat.  God, you know that was the only thing she had on?  Nothing else.  The sad, faraway look in his eyes spoke of a morning spent doing intimate, unspeakable things, a fire burning in the fireplace while the trees snap and drop branches and fall all around the forest, and thinking that life is just perfect.  And it was.  For awhile.

Conflagration

 

Conflagration

It rained yesterday. Strange.

I thought it would clean the air

but it smells more like ash than it did

before.

No scorched earth, I begged. Let’s

do this right. For once, do something right.

And so far, it’s worked. But

last night you showed your hand,

just a little. And I realized this

fragile peace hinges on my willingness to pay.

I slept uneasy. I’m so close. It’s

nearly done. Hang on. But when I

look out the window, I can’t

tell if it’s sunrise or fire

coming over the ridge

to light the way

or destroy us.

We’re officially a disaster.

Our home. This marriage.

And the world looks on

like rubbernecking drivers

on a crowded freeway.

They talk of mopping up the mess.

Starting fresh. But the air still smells

like smoke. Like a dragon sleeping

in its cave, waiting.

The rain doesn’t wash it all away.

Just brings it to the door.

November, 2007

29Joe Collins, Jessica Fleming Crawford and 27 others

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Inside Out

Outside

Doves the color of dust.
Dust scattered with seed.
Birds eat as though
nothing has changed.
Chatterings
continue unabated.


Inside

Movements have disturbed
old dust 

that settled, quiet

over time
on unmoving things until
we'd almost stopped seeing them.
Silence
after the roar.


Outside

In the aftermath I wait,
wincing at the insistent sun,
and fear the naked air.
Turn away, look back as
this rusted truck takes
roads long denied.
Dust lingers in its wake.

    ~ Elodie Pritchartt, 2007

Hiding Out in Clarksdale

I've always wanted to "disappear," to go someplace where no one knew me, and I could be anyone I wanted to be and do anything I wanted to do.  After I moved back to Mississippi, I decided to rediscover the Mississippi I'd left nearly 30 years before.  

So I got into my car and drove, wandering through parts of the country by myself that I've always wanted to see, stopping along the way to take photos and see places I remember from my youth.

I found this one street off a cotton field with a couple of old storefronts, all crumbling and abandoned. One had the remnants of a bar with broken pottery still sitting on the counter top. The other was just the shell of the building, open to the sky with trees and vines growing up the floor and walls. 

I stepped inside the door to get a better shot when it sounded like the building was falling down on top of me. I ducked as a huge owl swooped down out of the rafters over my head and into the tree behind the building. 

 I checked into a charming bed &breakfast, and into

a little room in a garage behind a big old house once owned by a man who owned a 20,000-acre plantation and killed almost every bear in the state. It's a beautiful house, reminiscent of an English country cottage, right in the middle of town. 

They've got 12 acres surrounded by Days Inn, Burger King and other tacky establishments. A little piece of heaven in the middle of town. There were three other couples staying at the house. Very nice folks from Kentucky, off on a road trip of their own. They had the whole main house to themselves, while I took the room in the garage. 

That night I went to a liquor store to buy some wine. The security was so tight, I had to pass the money through a slot in the wall, and they passed the wine through a bigger slot. 

"Are you here for the Blues thing?" the lady behind the bulletproof glass asked me. 

"I didn't know there was anything happening," I replied. "What's going on?" 

"Oh, a bunch of women came in a little while ago saying some woman's in town who's famous -- a singer. They wanted little bottles of wine they could put in their purses." 

Ha! 

So I went to have dinner at a fine restaurant where the food was sublime. I saw the other couples from the B&B there, and went over and introduced myself. 

"What are you doing in town?" one of the husbands asked me. 

"Oh, I'm just here for a little quiet time," I said. "I want to do some writing and photography." 

They were very cordial and invited me for breakfast next morning. Then I went to see the Blues lady. Definitely a hit with the menopausal crowd, of which I realize I'm a member. It was so odd, being in this Blues dive with a bunch of old yuppies with lines around their eyes, wearing their dainty PTA clothes and grinding to the lyrics: 

"Baby, you got somethin' in your toolbox that I aine' got in mine,
Maybe you could use it to show me a good time."

While I was there, the other couples came in. They'd driven all the way from Kentucky just to hear this woman sing. 

I was standing at the bar when one of the women came up to get a drink. I smiled and said hello.

I had a couple of margaritas and watched the crowd, and went home early (around 11 p.m.) The other couples staying at the B&B stayed out 'til about 1 a.m., and looked a little raggedy this morning. But they were nice folks, asking me about my book business and getting all excited when I showed them the book I found at Goodwill by Captain Kangaroo that was signed. 

"Oh, my God! I LOVED him!" 

I did, too. Was it so very long ago? Well, I guess maybe it was. 

That day, I moved over to another B&B that is a little bigger and has more atmosphere. I woke up the next morning to the mournful sound of a train whistle on the tracks. I love that sound, even while it makes me kind of sad. It makes me feel like a child again, all tucked safely into bed and hearing that whistle, feeling secure in the bosom of my home and wondering about the lonely souls out there riding on the rails. 

Someone told me later that the tracks are now defunct and no trains ride them except for the one engine I heard that's owned privately by this fellow who just loves trains. He drives it about a mile down the tracks and back every day, blowing the whistle like a kid with a toy. God, I love small towns.

That morning I walked across the parking lot to have breakfast at this little dive that serves the best scrambled eggs, grits, bacon and toast in town. While I was there, I saw a wizened old Black man with loaded dice playing tricks on a couple of tourists, and bragging about all the places he's been. While I ate my food a cat jumped up on the counter and started eying my plate. 

"You better watch him real close," said the waiter behind the bar. "He sneaky."

 

I wondered if the health department knew about Catty Can (his name). Pretty soon, Catty Can tried to make a move and I swatted at him and said, "Nope! Not today, partner." 

He gave me a wicked, disgusted look and lay down on the counter, waiting for another opportunity until the waiter snuck up behind him and grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and tossed him onto the floor. 

The days passed. I drove all over the state, enjoying my solitude and my newfound sense of freedom, feeling powerful and introspective. I think every woman should take a road trip by herself at least once in her lifetime. 

It's a trip.

March, 2008