Phone rings. I answer with a lighted joint in my hand. An old man’s voice says, “Hello?” at the same time I say, “Hello?” He makes a little joke and then I laugh, but I think: Who is this? Then he says something else funny and I realize it is Mr. Polk! I laugh and say, “Mr. Polk!” And he says he was in town and was gonna come to my reading, but he had to get back to Tuskegee. I say, “I knew it was you,” and he says, “No you didn’t. You thought it was JOHN HENRY.”
That cracked me up.
I am going down there in September. “Bring a couple of changes of clothes,” he says, “and we’ll take a couple of pictures.” I laughed, but he was serious, so I will. I’ll take my white silk dress and the black-and-white-striped stuff. Angel whites and prison stripes.
Soon come . . .