my search for jesco

Combing the West Virginia Appalachians to find an elusive mountain dancer is a disturbing way to spend a Christmas, but I went anyway. After viewing the documentary "The Dancing Outlaw," I was speechless. Something in this strange man compelled me to risk my very life to find him.

The movie revealed a city limit sign that read "Peytona." Calling 411 in West Virginia was my only hope. "I'd like the number for two Whites please." She nasaled a Charles and a Wayne. Hmmm, betcha it ain't Charles. The hook up to Wayne started with an odd "bug taking a shit" ringtone on his end. As I was about to hang up, Wayne answered and affected quite haughtily that he was Jesco's cousin. He offered to happen on to me and the friend I took at Peytona Baptist. The church is right across the holler from Jesco's trailer.

I had invited a stunningly beautiful hillbilly-baiter (who has never figured out that I'm in love with her and is the only person I've ever known to misconstrue 100% of what I say 100% of the time). She was a purdy-un, she would get me into their world. For the sake of anonymity, I'll refer to her as Miss Construe.

We packed my Canon, a thermos of java and a couple of extra coats. It was 250 miles to the little town. Once you take the Peytona exit, it's just seconds before the aesthetics of shame. Junk cars and trash barrels are landmarks, as are rebel flags and oblong blood spots on the pavement. There are hundreds of trailers on the back side of long winding creeks. Rickety wooden suspension bridges grace the litter strewn mud-lawns of each home. As we drove in deeper, I could hear the faint voice of Robert Stack narrating our journey. Sort of like God showing me and St. Peter on the map where I messed up. We stopped at an inconvenience store in Peytona to ask how to find the church. Silent stares had us nervously bragging that we were going there to find Jesco. "You mean ya'll come all the way up pier to see that idiot?," the owner whined. Making an unnecessary purchase, I gravel-tripped back to my little truck. It was easy to imagine him on his base station CB, giving all his Rectal Raper Club buddies the up river word of our journey through Peytona.

He mumbled directions in "get you gutted" indifference. Two wrong turns and a one sheep cattle drive later, we were at the church. The parking lot, of course, sat Wayneless. Ten minutes late, where was he? Finally, a greaseless, deer-dented 65 Ford pick-up sputtered in, stereo full blast. The truck coughed and choked when he cut it off, but the Southern-Rock played on. Two newly shined shit kickers touched the ground beneath the opened door, it was our man Wayne. The olfactory olio of Brylcreem and gingivitis caught us upwind. He drew out some Camel Filters, balling his tatooed arms to create odor three. Exhaling a post-homicide hubris, he ogled a prison spent probe at Miss Construe. I broke the lust-spell by beseeching just which trailer belonged to Jesco. He slow-pointed afar with a bent finger,which had me tracing his eyes to a tiny grey single-wide that sat off alone in a pine thicket. We let him know it was our intention to go there alone, so would he please accept twenty bucks for his trouble and "thank you very much." He told us that Jesco may not be home and he'd hang back at the church to see if we needed "anyfing" else out of him. As we crossed the road, I focused him out of the corner of my eye in the rearview. Pinching my incisor to a bottom tooth, I mumbled God . .odd . .damn!

If a strange vehicle comes off the road, locals go inside until it's long gone. The curtains don't move a quarter inch, but they're watching. Even the police don't come down unless there's a body. Splashing through mudholes that decricked our necks, we came to a shut gate with a huge sign that read: "Please Enter, My Gun Is Lonely." Miss Construe grabbed my sleeve in bug-eyed fear,begging me not to go in. I stepped into my camera strap and told her I was going up to the trailer, no matter what. I slammed my door hard to show invitation. It was around a hundred and twenty yards from the gate to the front door. An inch of snow covered the ground. Gun-shots pealed in the distance. The locals had probably cornered a coon, which kind, I didn't know. There were no footprints anywhere. I glanced back at Miss Construe giving me a last time look. At least she cared. My instinct was to strip down to Ned Beatty skimpiness, underwear and camera. Maybe that would embarrass him too much, to have shot "pantie man" in his driveway. Keeping my jacket loose while looking side to side, I wheedled the courage to walk the last hundred feet to his door. A small sign sat in a yard tire, "How Bad Can You Be And Still Go To Heaven?" Miss Construe was slumping in bullet dodge mode, keeping an eye on my knocking hand. When my trembling fist touched the metal, I thought of Robert Ballard at the bottom of the Atlantic. Even if I die, I am here. Listening for a creaking floor, there was only silence. I pulled a fifth of Jack Daniels out of my bag and set it atilt in the snow, behind the steps, "Merry Christmas Jesco. . ." A few pics later, I walked back to Miss Construe. "Steve, let's go!"

We met back up at the church with Wayne. He suggested we try to find Jesco's sister on the other side of the mountain. "She'll know where he is." We followed him to a gravel driveway that had a stream running over it. Wayne offered to let us take his truck across and leave mine on the road. Once we got to the stream, he turned left into it! It was more than odd that we were driving up a deep stream with the water an inch or two below the windows. After two hundred feet of expecting to drop in a sink-hole, he turned his volume up as though increasing traction! The truck motor died (but the music played on). There we were, stuck in icy water in the middle of winter and the middle of nowhere. I shortened my camera bag straps, wrapping it high around my neck. Wayne went out his window and put Miss Construe on his shoulders. The freezing water retracted my scrotum about rib high. We waded through to dry land and I offered to take Wayne home, to hell, to anywhere, just get me out of here. We left his truck in the stream. Riding in shocked silence, we dropped him off at a bar in Peytona. As I sat soaking wet and shivering, I sent the mildly dampened Miss Construe in a store to buy me some dry socks. We drove on home. During a bad cold, I thought to myself, Wayne, wherever you are, you don't know nowheres.