Scrawl on the Wall 025

There was an old Cajun man who lived in the house next to mine, he'd sit on his porch and drink beer all the time, and sometimes he'd wink and tell me about the largest catfish in the world.

His name was Jerrold. Jerrold the Mutant Catfish.

The old Cajun man would take a long sip from his can, look at me with a strange sideways glance and say

"Boooyyyyy. That catfish. He was a mutant."

Plain, simple. Nothing to argue with. Just the facts.

The mutant catfish who could feed the whole bayou if he was ever caught.

Then the old Cajun would pick up a banjo, look over the precious object, turning it over in his hands to spy it from every angle, then slowly rest the instrument against his lap, look into the sky and say

"Shhheeeeit. Time for Jeopardy."

And then he'd place the banjo back and go inside, leaving me to wonder what the hell this ritual was all about.

The old Cajun man, a house full of cats, and the strange smell of rotting Chinese food, the most potent of my childhood memories in an apartment long forgotten and burnt to the ground.

We are all like the old Cajun man.

Drunk, and probably incapable of playing the banjo.