Ray 3

In 1966, when I was eight-years old, Dad bought 160 acres in the hills outside of Greenwood, Mississippi. It was only later he learned that on Steen Hill Road, which ran through his land, sat a little log cabin that straddled his north-east property line. That is where his and my obsession with Ray Azel began. 

Dad talked to everyone who would listen about his problem. He talked to his Carroll County neighbors, he talked to a lawyer, and he even once had a long sit down with the sheriff of Carroll County. I remember him talking on the phone to a lawyer and that is when I began to fear Ray because the term "adverse possession" was used over and over. I was only eight and didn't know the law then and now, fifty-three years later, I still don't know the law. But at the time, I thought they were talking about demons or something involving a Ouija board. So I would go to bed most nights and imagine Ray out there on Steen Hill sacrificing goats, drinking blood, and worshiping the devil. That's how I come to be so afraid of him, that and all the stuff I heard over the years. After that, the mere mention of his name made my heart race with fear and trembling.

One day on our way to go bird hunting, Dad stopped the truck to talk to Ellis Roberts whose daughter I later married. Ellis owned (and still does) Hillbilly Heaven, 300 acres about one mile from Hodge Ski Lodge. Yes, they discussed Ray. Ellis said he knew an old man who swore he knew Ray when he (the old man) was a little boy. And he was not the only one who said stuff such as that. Word was that Ray has been living on Steen Road as long as anyone and his daddy could remember. 

We went to see the old man, Roy Sims, who lived not far from where the gravel road that Hodge Ski Lodge and Hillbilly Heaven are on joins Humphrey Highway. We went to his house and heard his story with our own ears. Roy Sims, who claimed to be eighty-eight years old at the time, said he started deer hunting Steen Hill Road with his dad when he was a mere boy of ten. Ray Azel was there then and according the Mr. Sims, "He looked exactly like he looks now. I seen him over the years and he ain't never changed not none."

Yes, that is a direct quotation, and I know what you are thinking. But when you hear something that outlandish, whether you believe it or not, you don't forget. Not only that, but Mom had given me a little 5 X 8 notebook for Christmas the year before. I think I was supposed to write my school assignments in it, but of course I never used it for that. Instead, that little book slowly came to contain a fifty page collection of hand drawn Cooties, hunting records (I killed five squirrels with a .410 shotgun in 1966), and information about Ray. Yeah, I wrote stuff down from the tender age of eight, and I still remember that old man standing at the open window of Dad's pick up truck, smoking an unfiltered camel cigarette, and telling us this as if it were the gospel truth. Even then, I had my doubts, but I wrote down nonetheless and I wrote a whole lot of everything I heard. I still go back and read some of those old, yellowing, journal entries from my early boyhood. I have those words in quotation marks, and I read then again just yesterday. 

To answer your next question, no, I did not make good grades in English or any other subjects for that matter. I never liked school much until I grew up. Although I did not score well on my English tests, my teachers always liked my writing even when I made Fs in their classes. Once, in high school, one of my English teachers (I think we had two that year) walked up to me and said, "We think you have talent in writing." And then she walked away as if that mere announcement would make the difference, would turn me into the student I could have been, should have been. It didn't work. I was too stupid for that to work. I needed guidance, not an announcement, but an announcement was all I received.

But I wrote from an early age, and Mom, seeing me utilize the notebook, bought me others and gave me re-filler paper and pencils, and I even had a fountain pen which I used to stick to the back of my schoolmates shirts and make big ink blobs that never washed out. She gave me these things even when it wasn't Christmas or my birthday. Slowly that one notebook became two, then three, then twelve. 

While I was still new at the writing stuff, I became suspicious that Mom was reading my writing while I was at school. To find out if she was, I started a new notebook and on the first page I wrote:

    doo doo
    pee pee

Boy did I get in trouble for that. But at least I knew. The odd thing about all of that was Mom wanted to know how I knew how to spell "doo doo" and "pee pee." "Gee, Mom," I said, "I go to school."

I'll tell you some more stuff later. Write now (yeah, just checking if you are still paying attention) I need a refill of coffee, and I feel the urge to finish a novel I started last week. Don't worry, I ain't gunna forget anything because I have my notebooks. The question I struggle with is how much to tell.

Next time I think I'll tell you what the sheriff had to say when we went to see him.