ou remember them little black jockeys that refined people used to stick out in their front yards. Well, when the civil rights movement come along and they commenced to hang folks who had them--and rightly so, if you ask me--they lost popularity and begun to be replaced by them great big shiny blue reflecting balls setting up on little white pedestals. Now, myself, I never cared for them little black jockeys. And I thought them blue balls was right tacky and said as much to some out-of-town company we was having who had been passing for friends for years. They run right out and bought me one.
I had to put it up. They was friends, even though they was perfidious ones. I put it up in the back yard where nobody could see it. Well, I could see it. When you set on the screen porch where I set a lot, you can't help but see it. When the sun strikes it in a certain way, it sends out spikes of blue light that draws your attention.
If you set and contemplate it, sometimes interesting things happen. The light may begin to pulse. You may hear a strumming of harps and maybe a choir of virgins going "Aaaahhhhh." You may feel yourself rise up and float out through the screen and across the yard and right into that blue ball. And once inside, you start to know stuff. Pretty soon, you get to know everything. What is and was and is to be, you know it all and understand it all. Then, after a while, you find yourself back in your chair on the screen porch and you don't know nothing no more nor understand nothing neither, but you feel good anyway.
Or maybe the lights will begin to flash to a rhythm and you hear somebody who sounds like Mahalia Jackson singing one of them hard driving gospel songs and the spirit will rise up in you and you'll have a vision and throw your hands up and prophesy, saying things like, "Behold, I see the New Jerusalem!" and "Streets with no potholes!" and "No more Kathy Lee Gifford!" Good things. Things that gladden the heart.
And one time I saw a shimmering light shooting straight up from that blue ball and out stepped a man, shimmering too. "What's your name?" I said. "Puddin tame," he said. "Ask me again and I'll tell you the same." So I jumped him and we commenced to wrestle. I done all right 'til he caught me in a thigh hold just like he done old Jacob. He never did tell me his name but his tee shirt had YHVH printed on it. Old Jacob held out for a blessing. All I got was a bad hip. But it was fun!
I told my friends who had give me the blue ball my experiences with it and thanked them for it. Blamed if they didn't go out and buy one for theirselves. They set it up and contemplated and meditated and for all I know stomped around and hollered and cried. But didn't see nothing. Not even a glimmer. And I'll tell you why. For the thing to work, you got to be pure in heart. And they was perfidious!
