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On The Road to Kingdom Come
by
bj max

Ashport river bottom is located in Lauderdale County, Tennessee along the Mississippi River and is really more of a place than a town. It is renowned for producing mega-tons of high quality cotton but in the sixties it was best known locally for its honky-tonks and juke joints. Ashport was a rough and tumble place in those days, a place where one could get neutered on a Saturday night without even trying. Those river rats did not play. Nelda Mae Yoakum, a tough as nails three hundred pound nightmare with a wooden leg once told me while holding me at gun point, "We bury our problems over here"! I didn't doubt it for one bit. 

How did I get in such a predicament? Well if you've got a minute, come on up here on the porch and I'll tell you. The lady mentioned above ran a honky-tonk called The Backwater Saloon and like everything else in Ashport bottom it was built on stilts. The floor was a good six feet off the ground and there was a double flight of stairs leading up to the entrance. This odd architecture was necessitated because of heavy spring rains and the snowmelt up north. This caused the Mississippi to overflow and back up into the low lying bottom lands. This backwater could get as high as three feet and it flooded everything with the exception of the roads that were built on causeways. 

During these floods The Backwater Saloon was completely surrounded by water so Nelda Mae enlisted a few local fishermen with boats to transport her patrons from the road out to her establishment. Farmers would park their pickups on the shoulder of the road and then wait patiently on Nelda Mae's makeshift ferry to haul them out to the saloon. It was the only honky-tonk I've ever been in where you could get thrown out and drowned at the same time. 

It was kinda' fun cruising those causeways during the spring surrounded by all that water. Your reflection on both sides of the road amplified your speed and multiplied your numbers making you feel like you were racing along with some bad assed motorcycle gang. The backwater extended all the way to the bluffs some ten miles from the river and you would think everything would be closed but no, life went on. As I've already mentioned everything was built on stilts and because there was nothing to do until the water receded the honky-tonks were boomin'.

One memorable Saturday a few of my heathen friends and I rumbled in, gunning our engines and raising a ruckus making sure everybody knew that we had arrived. We managed to find a few slots between pickup trucks, squeezed our Harley's in and parked. The water lapping at the shoulder of the road dictated an inelegant dismount from the right side that was not cool but necessary. After parking we were soon standing alongside an improvised dock waiting on the ferry. 

Within minutes a little skiff came putt-puttin' out of the trees. The pilot cut the engine and the boat slipped silently up against the causeway. A couple of tipsy farmers stepped out and we stepped in. After paying the pilot a dollar he eased the boat around and the little three horse Johnson motored us back through the trees toward the music. As we drew closer Patsy Cline's latest hit got proportionately louder, blaring an invitation across the water to come on in boys, its party time. 

After docking at the foot of the stairs the pilot held onto the railing while we stood to disembark. I was the last one in line and just before I took the stairs Nelda Mae came screaming out onto the landing, pointed a nickel plated .45 automatic down at me and told me in no uncertain terms that if I stepped out of that boat she was gonna' blow me to Kingdom come. My two buddies, half way up the stairs, suddenly didn't know me from Adam and bolted through the front door to safety putting distance between them and the man on his way to Kingdom Come. 

While I stood wobbling in that boat with my hands up begging Nelda Mae not to shoot I racked my brains trying to figure out what this was all about. What I really wanted to do was run but I was surrounded by water so I put my hands out in a protective stance while trying to maintain my balance and asked what in the world had I done to make her so mad. She screamed and spit at me, bared her teeth like a rabid dog, called me all kinds of dirty names and said I knew exactly what this was about and threatened to shoot me again. "Please don't shoot me MS. Nelda." I begged. "I ain't worth shootin'. Just ask anybody." 

Now I've done a lot of things in my life that I probably should have been shot for but to get blown away on the stairs of The Backwater Saloon for something I didn't do, well that just wouldn't fair. And I really didn't have a clue what this was all about. I pretty much got along with everybody and couldn't imagine why she was so fired up. She finally cooled off though and didn't kill me but screamed at me to get the hell out of there before she changed her mind. 

On the way back to the road, not only had she scared me but she scared the pilot so bad he wouldn't even speak to me. I was a condemned man and if you show the least bit of sympathy for the condemned you might be condemned yourself. Bewildered, dejected and mad I climbed out of that skiff, saddled up and left just as fast as my rat bike would accelerate without flying all to pieces.

Turned out it was all a terrible misunderstanding. Seems Nelda's sixteen year old niece was spending a couple of weeks of her summer vacation in the country with her Aunt. Somehow she ended up in a car with this jerk whose name was, you guessed it, Billy. Seems Billy the jerk tried to take advantage of her, she fought him off and when I arrived this little gal had just ran crying up those stairs to Nelda Mae. After telling her aunt what Billy tried to do Nelda Mae naturally assumed it was me and flew into a raging fit. In the meantime, ever the lucky one, I caught the very next boat and arrived right in the middle of this unfolding drama. And you know the rest. 

The bar maid couldn't believe that I would do something like that and her disbelief and the niece's description of Billy the jerk convinced Nelda that I had been wrongly accused. So, a couple days after being exonerated I got a phone call inviting me to come over to The Backwater Saloon the following weekend. Sounded like a trick to me but when Nelda herself came on the line asking my forgiveness, I decided to take a chance. Glad I did because when I walked in the door that Saturday they surprised with a catfish dinner and all the trimmings. And I was smothered with more apologizes, hugs and kisses and the sweetest tears from the niece who just couldn't get the words out about how sorry she was for almost gettin' me killed. 

Nelda Mae is gone now but to this day I am still beholden to her for not gunning me down that Saturday afternoon so long ago. Thank you MS Nelda, wherever you are. 

This article was originally published in Minnesota Motorcycle Monthly Issue #136

BJ & Ron Ayres, author of Against the Wind, Madison, AL