WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.510 align:middle line:90% 00:00:00.510 --> 00:00:02.190 align:middle line:84% I had a lot of preconceived ideas 00:00:02.190 --> 00:00:06.420 align:middle line:84% about what racism was going to be-- 00:00:06.420 --> 00:00:09.930 align:middle line:84% how it would manifest itself-- when I went to Baton Rouge. 00:00:09.930 --> 00:00:13.760 align:middle line:84% And fortunately I was wrong, but it was there. 00:00:13.760 --> 00:00:16.670 align:middle line:84% It was just more subtle than I expected. 00:00:16.670 --> 00:00:18.690 align:middle line:84% At the end of the three years I went to 00:00:18.690 --> 00:00:21.570 align:middle line:84% up to northern Louisiana to do a residency 00:00:21.570 --> 00:00:24.660 align:middle line:84% and spent the day with a friend driving 00:00:24.660 --> 00:00:26.400 align:middle line:90% around Winnsboro, Louisiana. 00:00:26.400 --> 00:00:29.340 align:middle line:90% And this story comes from that. 00:00:29.340 --> 00:00:33.870 align:middle line:84% The friend owns the largest defunct worm farm 00:00:33.870 --> 00:00:36.270 align:middle line:84% in North America, which you'll all 00:00:36.270 --> 00:00:39.990 align:middle line:84% be happy to hear he's turned into a writers' colony. 00:00:39.990 --> 00:00:42.330 align:middle line:90% You too. 00:00:42.330 --> 00:00:44.790 align:middle line:84% "Music for the Dark Earth: Fiddling for Worms." 00:00:44.790 --> 00:00:47.610 align:middle line:90% 00:00:47.610 --> 00:00:50.730 align:middle line:84% "Some days he'd rubbed two pegs together 00:00:50.730 --> 00:00:55.170 align:middle line:84% until they made a greasy hum like rain. 00:00:55.170 --> 00:00:57.810 align:middle line:84% The sound of moles gnawing the dirt squaring, 00:00:57.810 --> 00:01:00.930 align:middle line:84% the song soils sing before a quake, 00:01:00.930 --> 00:01:04.680 align:middle line:84% and the brown bodies would hang above the ground in a kind 00:01:04.680 --> 00:01:08.520 align:middle line:90% of confusion or ecstasy. 00:01:08.520 --> 00:01:10.230 align:middle line:90% They were dry. 00:01:10.230 --> 00:01:12.210 align:middle line:84% The farmers showed me the way worms 00:01:12.210 --> 00:01:16.080 align:middle line:84% made love in concrete coffin shaped beds on mattresses 00:01:16.080 --> 00:01:18.930 align:middle line:84% of moss and peat, slipping under the rubber 00:01:18.930 --> 00:01:26.190 align:middle line:84% collars of each other, joyous, shy, nervous, taking turns. 00:01:26.190 --> 00:01:28.770 align:middle line:84% Androgynous worms, their pale lava 00:01:28.770 --> 00:01:31.230 align:middle line:84% rising like dew on black earth, he 00:01:31.230 --> 00:01:34.020 align:middle line:84% told me about the sweet spot in the warm dirt 00:01:34.020 --> 00:01:37.800 align:middle line:84% where he found the wild ones, night crawlers a foot long. 00:01:37.800 --> 00:01:40.410 align:middle line:84% How he'd worked day and night, the plastic sky 00:01:40.410 --> 00:01:43.320 align:middle line:84% dripping on his neck, and preached on Sundays. 00:01:43.320 --> 00:01:48.310 align:middle line:84% 16 years old, reeking of worm sweat. 00:01:48.310 --> 00:01:51.220 align:middle line:84% He drove around his slow Louisiana Baptist town 00:01:51.220 --> 00:01:54.730 align:middle line:84% the square garlanded with green metallic bows and red noels 00:01:54.730 --> 00:01:56.350 align:middle line:90% though it was October. 00:01:56.350 --> 00:01:58.750 align:middle line:84% There was one movie house, The Bijou, 00:01:58.750 --> 00:02:01.780 align:middle line:84% of course, first floor expensive, gummy, 00:02:01.780 --> 00:02:03.310 align:middle line:90% for whites only. 00:02:03.310 --> 00:02:07.940 align:middle line:84% Blacks sat in the rafters for a quarter. 00:02:07.940 --> 00:02:10.789 align:middle line:84% Filmy bayous surrounded the blank brown cotton fields 00:02:10.789 --> 00:02:12.500 align:middle line:90% and flooded with white heron. 00:02:12.500 --> 00:02:15.860 align:middle line:84% Once a Black man walked by a white girl and she ran. 00:02:15.860 --> 00:02:17.360 align:middle line:90% He never said hello. 00:02:17.360 --> 00:02:19.160 align:middle line:84% The citizens dragged him from prison 00:02:19.160 --> 00:02:20.870 align:middle line:90% and burned the man alive. 00:02:20.870 --> 00:02:22.400 align:middle line:90% That's an old story. 00:02:22.400 --> 00:02:23.990 align:middle line:90% This one's new. 00:02:23.990 --> 00:02:29.480 align:middle line:84% A Black boy sat in that same prison five years innocent too, 00:02:29.480 --> 00:02:33.350 align:middle line:84% and when the town freed him he headed for a Victorian house 00:02:33.350 --> 00:02:35.930 align:middle line:84% he'd watched each night like television. 00:02:35.930 --> 00:02:38.990 align:middle line:84% The illuminated window of an 80-year-old couple. 00:02:38.990 --> 00:02:43.190 align:middle line:84% He knifed them both, raped the woman, as felons are legend to. 00:02:43.190 --> 00:02:47.570 align:middle line:84% If you tend worms your whole life, dig in their beds, 00:02:47.570 --> 00:02:51.050 align:middle line:84% stir the eggs, sort the dark segmented bodies, 00:02:51.050 --> 00:02:54.410 align:middle line:84% you'll lose the pattern of your own flesh. 00:02:54.410 --> 00:02:57.830 align:middle line:84% The whorls of your fingers will vanish. 00:02:57.830 --> 00:03:00.050 align:middle line:90% A worm can eat anything. 00:03:00.050 --> 00:03:04.970 align:middle line:84% Two by four, dog, human, I know this world said the farmer. 00:03:04.970 --> 00:03:07.760 align:middle line:84% I've listened to worms my whole life. 00:03:07.760 --> 00:03:09.380 align:middle line:90% Stirring in slime. 00:03:09.380 --> 00:03:14.190 align:middle line:84% I know where we come from, and despite all our slick designs, 00:03:14.190 --> 00:03:16.370 align:middle line:90% I know where we return. 00:03:16.370 --> 00:03:19.640 align:middle line:84% This town's passed more than once 00:03:19.640 --> 00:03:23.050 align:middle line:84% through the slippery tunnels of worms."