Hi Everyone. Me again. The Historical Society just announced an exhibition of
Mudgap’s own local storyteller, Willie Porter. We don’t have recordings of Willie himself but several old
timers from Camp Rockman remember Willie’s tales about his Uncle Nap and bring them
alive for our microphones. To publicize
the exhibit we’re posting one of Willie’s shorter performances, first published
by the Lodestone Chronicle on President Martin Van Buren’s birthday in
1966. Herewith, “The Panic of ’37,”
by Willie Porter.
The
Baldwin Mogul locomotive rattled over Hobo Hill and shrilled to a stop beside a
red lettered sign: “Excursion Train Owned by Lownde Salvage Yard.” From within the Independence Day crowd
a fanfare of flamboyant whiskers spotted the engineer dismounting the cab. “William Cody Porter?”
Swirling vapors billowed away. “I’m Willie Porter.”
“I’m
President Martin Van Buren and I have a bone to pick with you.”
Willie’s
gesture was interrogative.
“
You Porters are named for famous people, right? George Washington Porter, Andrew Jackson Porter, Napoleon
Bonaparte Porter, your son, Teddy Roosevelt Porter, and your grandfather,
Martin Van Buren Porter. Don’t
deny it.”
Willie
wobbled his feet as if standing uncertain ground. He was certain of the year,
1965. “Are you a ghost?”
“
A ghost? Here’s what I am.” Van Buren moved closer. “You tell frontier stories about your
Uncle Nap, right? “
“From
my Grandpa Marty,” Willie nodded.
“One
about the Grand Canyon?”
Willie
flapped his elbows up and down like a pumping bumbershoot. “Where Uncle Nap rides down on his old
mule, Gracie, and hollers, ‘Here we come!’ and hears the echo four days later,
coming back up? “
Presidential muttonchops fluttered. “That’s me, Porter, an echo.”
Willie
knew that didn’t make sense.
“Echoes repeat what’s already been. You never rode a train to Mudgap, New Mexico nor talked to
me before.”
“Ah! Words!” Van Buren shivered his
sideburns in the dry mountain air.
“It’s the spirit that echoes, not your paltry creature snatchings.”
Willie
shifted one steel-toed shoe a few inches.
“Your
Grandpa Marty was named after me.
Right? And you joke about it.
Right?”
“Well.”
“You
say, ‘Not the best Porter naming because Van Buren was called Martin Van Ruin
after the panic of ‘37.’ “
Willie
rose onto his toes and scrunched his shoulders. “That’s the way Grandpa Marty told it.”
“Are
you sure it was him?”
Willie
shrugged his guilt. “Maybe it was
Grandma Harriet.”
“I
knew it. An educated woman,” Van
Buren accused, expanding with supernatural pliability. “And did she mention me organizing the
Democratic Party to counterweight the slavery question?”
“LBJ’s
party? Claims to be the most
hopeful sign since Christ?”
“Well,
he’s a Texan. I never wanted them
in the Union anyway. And this New
Mexico, Polk’s work.”
“She
said you were against Lincoln.”
“Did
she tell you I formed the Free Soil Party to settle slavery without a war?”
Willie
flared his right elbow out to get perspective on this idea and sidled his feet
a little. “Sounds like someone’s
shining up his history.”
Van
Buren’s muttonchops disheveled as he grabbed Porter’s shoulder. “Porter! I’m trying to help you! Truth only matters to the living. We exanimate can’t escape it.”
“Well,
I…” The moment swerved.
Willie’s
son Teddy rushed onto the platform with the whole family. “Dad! How was the run from Las Cruces?” The Salvage Yard’s clamoring tribe
blundered behind him, a manifold of peculiarities including Willie’s old boss,
Ruel Lownde, plus relatives and workers.
“Dad,
who were you talking to?” Teddy asked.
“President Van Buren,” Willie asserted.
“That’s
who I thought it was!” cried Ruel’s eccentric cousin.
Teddy
laughed. “I don’t think we have time
for one of your stories today, Dad.”
He led the crowd to the Fourth of July celebrations at Arrieros Park.
Ruel
Lownde whispered to his old friend. “What’d Van Buren want?”
“Something
about truth.”
“Truth,”
Ruel nodded. “It’s fragile but
enduring.”
Willie
sneaked a glance visioning splendid side-whiskers in a sun-glared coach. Teddy was right. There wasn’t time for
one of his stories today.
