Richard Paul Evans: The Complete Walk Series eBook Boxed Set

by Richard Paul Evans

  Wilson’s son, Wilson Jr., and his bride, returned from a honeymoon to England fascinated by British architecture. Apparently their excitement was contagious, because shortly thereafter all the town’s buildings were either built or retrofitted with Tudor elements, giving the town a distinct and charming British appearance.

  I finished my meal of split-pea soup and pork ribs, then camped the night behind a screen of trees in the park next to the restaurant.

  CHAPTER

  Twenty-six

  For centuries the spiritually seeking have asked God for a sign. Perhaps that’s why there’s so many of them planted out front of southern churches.

  Alan Christoffersen’s diary

  The next day marked two weeks since I’d resumed my walk. Unremarkably, I passed more cotton fields and walked through a string of small towns: Bassett, Joiner and Frenchmans Bayou (the latter town so named because no one could pronounce the French name the original French settler had given it).

  My route led to Highway 77, which I reached just before sunset. I ate fried chicken and Baskin-Robbins ice cream I bought at a gas station, then stopped for the night at the small town of Clarkedale, making camp on the far side of the railroad tracks that ran parallel to the highway. I set my tent too close to the tracks, and when a train whistled in the middle of the night, I woke, all but certain my life was over. I slept fitfully the rest of the night, anticipating the advent of another passing train, which never came.

  Early the next morning I reached a town with the biblically inspired name of Jericho. Appropriately, the first street I passed was Praise the Lord Boulevard. Perhaps not so appropriately, the first building I passed was the Jericho Liquor Store. I was always surprised to see more than one church in a town with so few residents, and this town contained many. I walked by a church sign that seemed especially apropos to my circumstance:

  Are you on the right road?

  I should write something about church signs. Walking from Seattle—the third-least Christian city in America—to the pious southern roads of the Bible Belt, one of the things that stood out to me (in addition to the sheer number of churches) was the phenomenon of church signs. Pretty much all of the churches had signs or marquees. Some were designed to lure people to their meetings, while others were sermons unto themselves. A few of them bordered on the bizarre.

  As I had with the Wall Drug signs along Interstate 90 in South Dakota, I decided to dedicate a few pages of my diary to writing down some of these messages.

  Walomart is not the only saving place.

  God’s last name isn’t “damn”!

  Stop, drop and roll won’t work in Hell.

  You have one New Friend Request.

  From Jesus. Confirm or Ignore.

  Santa Claus never died for anyone.

  Don’t make me come down there.—God.

  Read the Bible.

  It will scare the Hell out of you.

  Yes, our A/C is out.

  But there’s no A/C in hell either!

  Free Coffee. Everlasting life.

  Membership has its privileges.

  Life is a puzzle.

  Look here for the missing PEACE.

  Forbidden fruits create many jams.

  God is like TIDE soap.

  He gets the stains out others left behind.

  Why pay for GPS?

  Jesus gives direction for free.

  Honk if you love Jesus.

  Text while driving if you want to meet Him.

  What is missing from CH**CH? U R

  There are some questions that can’t be answered by Google.

  Be an organ donor.

  Give your heart to Jesus.

  Sign broke. Message inside.

  People use duct tape to fix everything.

  God uses nails.

  Prayer isn’t the only thing that can bring you to your knees.

  For all you do, His blood’s for you.

  Then there were some that could only be described as bizarre.

  Don’t let worries kill you.

  Let the church help.

  Jesus said, “Bring me that ass.”

  To ERR is human. To ARRRRR is Pirate.

  Face powder may get a man, but it takes baking powder to keep him.

  God does not believe in Atheists.

  Therefore Atheists do not exist.

  Midnight Mass and Toga Party. B.Y.O.B.J.

  (Bring your own Baby Jesus)

  7 pm Hymn singing. Come prepared to sin.

  Keep using my name in vain.

  I’ll make rush hour longer.—God

  Before noon I passed through Marion, a town with a sizable population, then changed roads to Interstate 55 leading to Memphis.

  The road into Memphis wouldn’t have been easy even if I had been at my physical peak. I had a long and difficult day walking, more than twenty-six city miles. Despite my exhaustion, I kept on because I didn’t feel safe enough to camp anywhere. The outskirts of Memphis are a blighted landscape of gutted buildings and stockyards.

  When I finally reached the city, I booked a room at the first hotel I came to, the Super 7 Inn Graceland on Brooks Road. I could tell that it was a rough area from the inch-thick, bulletproof partition between me and the angry-looking Indian man working at the reception counter.

  Once I was in my room, I found Paige’s phone number and called, but my cell went straight to voicemail. I wondered if her grandmother had died. I left my phone number for when she was ready to talk. I wondered if I would ever hear from her again.

  I was too exhausted to leave my room, so I ate an entire box of Pop-Tarts and fell asleep.

  CHAPTER

  Twenty-seven

  Elvis may have left the building, but some of the audience have kept their seats.

  Alan Christoffersen’s diary

  The next morning both my head and body ached, which I attributed to pushing myself too hard the day before. Still, I got up earlier than usual, as I planned to put in a normal day of walking but also wanted to take the time to see Graceland, Elvis Presley’s mansion, which had been turned into a museum.

  I took a quick shower, dressed, then fled the dumpy little hotel.

  It wasn’t hard to find Graceland. In Memphis, all roads lead to Elvis. At the first block I made a right on Elvis Presley Boulevard, then, following the abundant signage, walked a little more than a mile to Elvis’s mecca.

  I have a confession to make, one that I fully realize may lessen me in your eyes. I don’t really like Elvis’s music. Before you abandon me on the side of Elvis Presley Boulevard, let me clarify my position. I’m not saying that I don’t like Elvis. I do. Actually, I like the idea of Elvis. And I think that if more people were completely honest, they’d admit the same thing. Elvis is much more than his music, he’s the image, the flash, the iridescent sparkle of rhinestones, the entire American dream wrapped up in a lip-curling, pelvis-gyrating, hunk-a-burnin’-love. Elvis succeeded because we wanted him to succeed—a God-fearing young man from a sharecroppers’ shack speaking out for a generation of American youth with an ingratiating “yes, sir,” and “yes, ma’am.” Of course the fact that women, young and old, found him insanely good-looking didn’t hurt any.

  Only in walking through Memphis can one truly realize the extent of the adulation bestowed on the young man from Tupelo who sold a billion records and inspired ten thousand impersonators. Elvis was more than an entertainer—he was divinity in rhinestones. It would not surprise me in the least if someday, perhaps a century from now, a religion springs forth from his legacy. The Church of Elvis. Its followers would wear pompadours, dress in holy white leather rhinestone-studded robes, and resolve to “love each other tender.” The theological possibilities are endless. Hell would be referred to as the Heartbreak Hotel, and at funerals the Elvisian minister would say, “Brother Jones has left the building,” “He’s joined the choir,” or “He’s off to the Graceland in the sky.”

  Graceland wasn’t open yet, so I ate breakf
ast at the adjacent Rock & Roll Café, then waited outside the park in a growing line of Elvis fans. When I got inside the visitor center, I bought a ticket for the whole tour, which included Graceland, Elvis’s auto museum, and his two airplanes.

  Graceland is marvelously kitsch, preserved in full seventies splendor, with a black baby grand piano on white carpet, red fur, leopard skin, a jungle room with an indoor waterfall, and stained-glass peacocks. Words like “gaudy,” “garish,” “tacky” and “tasteless” come to mind.

  McKale would have laughed herself silly. She would have said something like, “It looks like a Liberace nightmare.” I just thought it was cool. The experience was worth the admission. Heck, it was worth the walk to Memphis.

  After the Graceland tour, I took the shuttle over to the auto museum and planes. The Elvis Presley Car Museum houses more than thirty of Elvis’s vehicles, including his famous pink Cadillac, Stutz Blackhawks, a 1975 Dino Ferrari, two Rolls-Royce (one black, one white), a six-door Mercedes limousine, Harley-Davidson motorcycles and the John Deere tractor Elvis drove at Graceland.

  Elvis also had two airplanes. His largest, the Lisa Marie (named after his daughter), was a 1958 Corvair 880. Elvis spent nearly a million dollars remodeling the plane with a living room, conference room, sitting room and a private bedroom.

  Not to be outdone by Graceland’s kitsch, the airplane has leather-topped tables and suede chairs, a television and telephone, gold-specked bathroom sinks and 24-karat gold-plated safety belts.

  His second plane was a smaller Lockheed JetStar, less impressive, but also customized by Elvis with a yellow and green interior.

  Finally, succumbing to the commercial allure of the shrine, I broke down and purchased a Graceland T-shirt, then set off, walking south down the bustling boulevard back to Highway 51 South. An hour later I crossed the state border into Mississippi.

  CHAPTER

  Twenty-eight

  Some towns, like people, seem to attract history. I suppose this is as much a curse as it is a blessing.

  Alan Christoffersen’s diary

  Over the next six days I followed Highway 51 south to Batesville, then walked east on Highway 278. Tolkien wrote that easy times do not make good stories, which is why I have little to write about that part of my journey. The pleasant exception was my stop in Oxford, a historic town between Batesville and Tupelo.

  Oxford is a picturesque college town, home of the University of Mississippi (aka “Ole Miss”) and laden with history.

  During the Civil War, Oxford was invaded by Generals Sherman, Grant, and Andrew Jackson Smith, the latter of which left his mark by burning the buildings in the town square. Oxford is also the hometown of American writer and Nobel Prize Laureate William Faulkner, who based several of his novels on the small town.

  In 1962, Oxford gained national attention twice, first when Faulkner died, then, later that fall, when Mississippi state officials attempted to prevent James Meredith, a black man, from entering the university.

  U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy ordered federal marshals to escort Meredith to school. In response, thousands of protestors rioted, damaging property and killing two men, one of whom was a French journalist sent to cover the affair.

  President Kennedy responded by mobilizing the National Guard, which restored order to the small town. Meredith enrolled without further incident and eventually completed his degree, though he was constantly harassed and spent the rest of his time at the university with U.S. marshal bodyguards who escorted him from class to class.

  Today, Oxford is a vibrant, charming town patterned after its British namesake, with a bustling town square complete with London-inspired double-decker tourist buses and red telephone booths.

  Encouraged by the temperate weather, I spent a leisurely day in the town. I rode the double-decker bus, ate lunch in the town square at the Ajax Diner, browsed books at the famous Square Books bookstore, then spent the rest of the afternoon at Rowan Oak, Faulkner’s home turned museum. I thought it might be interesting to camp somewhere on the twenty-nine-acre estate, but discovered that the site was as well guarded as it was maintained. I spent the night closer to the highway.

  I suppose it was destiny that my road south led through Elvis’s hometown of Tupelo, a route I traveled in reverse of the path the King took to global stardom. Five days from Memphis I exited the Appalachian Highway into Tupelo.

  Tupelo is a sleepy, brittle town, little more than a memorial to Elvis’s life. Not surprisingly, its downtown was decorated with vinyl banners silk-screened with heroic-sized images of Elvis’s face.

  Less heralded than the King’s birthplace is the site of the Civil War Battle of Tupelo, a standoff between Union General Andrew Jackson Smith and confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest. At that point in the conflict, the tide had already turned on the South and it was the last time Forrest’s troops would see war.

  It was dark when I reached the city center, so I ate dinner at Romie’s Barbeque and booked a room at the Hilton Garden Inn.

  CHAPTER

  Twenty-nine

  Today I walked through Tupelo, Elvis’s birthplace. Those who wish a magnified life should remember that no one is born great. No one. Every entertainer began in the audience. This is encouraging. Elvis began life in a sharecropper’s shack. Lincoln, a log cabin. Jesus a manger.

  Alan Christoffersen’s diary

  The next morning I ate the hotel’s complimentary breakfast, which, in addition to the standard fare, also included grits. After breakfast I walked to Elvis’s birthplace.

  Elvis’s home was tiny, a sharecropper’s shack, about a tenth the size of the museum built to celebrate it. In its day the home cost $180 to construct and was built with borrowed money. The Presley family lived there until Elvis’s father, Vernon, was sent to jail for eight months for forging a check (he had altered the amount from $4 to $14) and the home was lost. Elvis repurchased the home and property the same year he bought Graceland.

  I didn’t spend much time in Tupelo, just long enough to get the rest of Elvis’s story, then, avoiding the interstate, headed south on Highway 6 toward 278, then east, crossing into Alabama. My route led me through two of the most peculiarly named towns I had encountered, the neighboring municipalities of Guin and Gu-win. I sensed there was a story there, so I asked an employee of a Guin gas mart how the towns got their names. I was told that the town of Guin, with a population of less than a thousand, was seeking to annex the neighboring town of Ear Gap. (Really, who comes up with these names?) The owner of the drive-in theater in Ear Gap—a justifiably influential man in a town of less than a hundred—was about to put up a new sign at his theater, so he lobbied to change the town name to Gu-win, close enough to Guin that he wouldn’t have to change his sign if the annexation went through. The town’s name change succeeded, but the annexation failed.

  Highway 278 intersected with Interstate 78, a busier, but better-constructed road, which took me southeast into the heart of Birmingham. I walked through Homewood (the site of Red Mountain with its famous Vulcan statue—the largest cast-iron statue in the world) and Vestavia Hills, stopping for the day in Hoover.

  Birmingham is Alabama’s largest city and, like all metropolitan areas, wasn’t the easiest walking. Still, Birmingham has a welcoming southern ambience that made me glad to be there. I considered staying an extra day, but eventually decided to keep on walking.

  If someone had told me what I would encounter on the next leg of my journey, I never would have believed them.

  CHAPTER

  Thirty

  Those willing to trade freedom for certainty are certain to find the cure worse than the ailment.

  Alan Christoffersen’s diary

  My next target destination, Montgomery, Alabama, was a little more than ninety miles south of Birmingham, which, health willing, I could make in four days at a reasonable pace. Departing Birmingham from Hoover, I walked twenty miles the first day to the little town of Pasqua, then, feeling strong, fol
lowed up with a grueling twenty-four miles to Clanton and almost sixteen miles the third day to a tiny dot on my map called Pine Flat. Actually, I didn’t quite make it to Pine Flat. As my day wound down, about a mile before I reached my day’s walking goal, I had one of the strangest and most frightening experiences of my entire walk—one that haunts me to this day.

  In the flammeous, retreating light of a fading day, it took me a moment to be sure of what I was looking at. Or maybe it was just my difficulty in believing it. There, in the middle of nowhere, about twenty yards back from the road near a grove of dogwoods, a woman was tied by her wrists to a tree. She was young and reasonably attractive, in her mid-twenties, with long, golden hair that rested on her shoulders. She was partially obscured by the tree, and had it not been for the bright yellow T-shirt she wore, I might not have seen her at all.

  I couldn’t make sense of the situation. The woman wasn’t struggling nor did she seem distressed. I briefly looked around to make sure there wasn’t anyone else nearby before I crept toward her.

  When I was ten yards away, I asked, “Are you okay?”

  I startled her. She looked at me warily. Silently.

  After a moment I said, “You’re tied up.”

  She didn’t respond.

  “Do you need help?”

  Still nothing.

  I looked around me, then walked closer, wondering if she were perhaps deaf. “Would you like me to untie you?” I said, making gestures to my own wrists.