Me on The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature

So my story with the ridiculously long title "The Ostrich that Cured Johnny Cash of Drugs & Booze Dies of Old Age" is up on The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature. The magazine is, of course, named after the fact that all good Southern lit has dead mules in it. Blood Meridian, for example, has hundreds...maybe a thousand. My story has none. But it does have dead ostriches, so that should be good for something. Also, The Dead Mule asks for a Southern Legitimacy Statement. Mine includes my much loved, infamous relative Steve Renfroe, who I also, probably incorrectly refer to as Stephen Renfroe.

Andre Dubus III Thinks I'm Black

My good friend Melody Clayton was disappointed that my story about the Renfroe name did not also include my run-in with Mr. House of Sand and Fog Andre Dubus III. And as she is half of my target audience, here it is:

Once upon a time, in the wilds of Florence, SC, at an afterparty for a literary reading (one of the primary reasons I go to readings), I got in a conversation with Dubus. He was holding court. He'd been the main reader that day and did a great job. He's worked as an actor, and you can tell--he has that natural but worked on charisma. So he was blitzed on moonshine (no joke) and ranting on about being disappointed that Speilberg had tamped down the depressing end to Sand & Fog. He got on to how he hated the irony of current fiction and how it's played for laughs. When he asked me about my writing, I told him I play it for laughs. He laughed because he didn't believe me. Our little group seemed to get on well with him and as he was heading to the bathroom and to remingle, he asked our names. Craig, I said. Last name, he asked. Renfroe. Renfroe? he said. I confirmed it. With a look that held no distaste but only concerned confusion, he said, Renfroe's a black name. And wandered off to pee.

Probably this isn't a fair story to tell since he was wasted. And I don't think he was being racist. But it hits home when I think of that bastard Stephen Renfroe leading the Ku Klux Klan in his town. I'm not playing this for laughs.

Black Sheep

As I mentioned, but have not bitched about nearly enough, the semester has started. The first week is buried. When I teach the first day, I do one of those lame ice breakers so we can get to know one another (and so I can try to get their names…which I still haven’t). This time I had them tell a story about their name. My story is that Renfroe is commonly misspelled by pretenders to the Renfroe moniker as Renfro or Renfrow. I tell my students that my aunt did genealogical research after marrying into a family that came over on the Pinto or something. My aunt eventually gave up in despair (finding only drunks and nobodies), but not before discovering Stephen Renfroe in a book called Stars Fell on Alabama. He was from a rough family. Became sheriff. Was the head of the town’s Ku Klux Klan (I leave this bit out for the students—that’s hard for me to bear), and most amusingly to me a horse-thief. But not a good one because he kept getting caught. His friends helped him escape jail and would leave him a mule as getaway. The problem was he’d steal the mule. So before the last posse could find Stephen Renfroe, his friends hanged him. Supposedly, the relatives that moved away changed the spelling of Renfroe to avoid connection to him and his kind. Apparently, my ancestors were fine with it.

I’ve told this story many times, but this time I happened to Google him to find the book again and ran across this magazine article in Alabama Heritage. So I ordered it.

And then, I found this other book. Which I haven't ordered yet.

My father is named Stephen Craig Renfroe. I am Stephen Craig Renfroe, Jr. I have always believed and will always believe it is coincidence. And what’s in a name, blah, blah, blah. It’s hard, though, not to worry about the sins of the fathers, genetic dispositions, and Calvin’s Elect. I’ve always feared I was doomed from the start.

This is where Stephen Renfroe met his doom. At the end of a rope, swinging from a chinaberry tree.