Ham-Fisted Doofus

After I finished reading the Apocryphal Gospels during the 11-day blackout, I turned to BLACKWATER by Michael McDowell, which seemed like a good, creepy thing to read in the dark. I had been previously impressed with the author's deep geographical and metereological understanding of the Gulf Coast of Alabama as displayed in his novel THE ELEMENTALS, so it was extra sad that in BLACKWATER, he misspelled the name of my hometown Bayou La Batre. One character suggests moving there as part of a scheme of vengeance, to which her husband replies, "What would you and I do in Bayou le Batre, that old place?" Which, if I am being honest, is something we used to ask ourselves, if only from time to time. The answer was to go down to Schambeau's or Red's Drugs and look at the new comic books! And to wander around in Schambeau's and wonder why Mr. Schambeau (his first name was Crum!) regularly stocked Purina Monkey Chow. Did someone in town own a monkey? If so, who? An unsolved mystery to this day! Truly, Schambeau's was a wonderful grocery store to stir the imagination. Well, when I first opened BLACKWATER, the title page popped right out in my hand! It simply removed itself from the book in what seemed, given the circumstances, an ominous sign. I was reminded of when McNeil called me a "ham-fisted doofus" because I once broke an egg in my hand in an attempt to remove it from its carton. This led McNeil to come up with the idea of chickens who lay eggs with edible shells. I could have sworn I "blogged" about both the thing he called me and his egg idea, but it turns out I put those two tantalizing pieces of the McNeil puzzle into two separate unpublished novels. Well, the hell with it. Here I am giving away these remarkable tidbits for free! I give up. Note for historians of the future: an email search indicates that McNeil called me a "ham-fisted doofus" on May 6, 2019.