Tales of the Klondyke – Walt

VICKSBURG, Miss. (VDN) — Let me tell you about Walt. He was in his late 50’s or early 60’s when I bought the Klondyke. He was a fixture in the early days and had been a part of the Klondyke most of his life. Someone told me he helped build the current building when he was young. He did some work for the people I bought from who happened to be the the 3rd owners of that building. I was the fourth.

A place called The Klondyke Service Station was at that location in the 1930’s, or that is when it first showed up in local records. There has been a boarding house, gambling hall or eatery at that location all the way back to the days of the Kangaroo Pirates who infested the hills just north and east. More on that in another story, anyway, the Miller family bought it, expanded it, built a house and workshop out behind it, and raised their family on Glass Bayou. Don Miller sold his share to Louis Miller, Sr who sold it to V.K. Miller. It was sold from the Miller family to Eddie and Janelle Cook, who then sold it to me.

Walt was born before Civil Rights and took some strong medication for schizophrenia, which made him slur his speech, and he couldn’t always walk straight. A poor man of color in Mississippi in those days had enough challenges.

People who knew him since his youth told me he was a very good student, very smart, and they all thought he would become an engineer or lawyer or something. But in his late teens it became clear there was a malfunction, and he was sent to several hospitals trying to figure out what was wrong. They finally found the schizophrenia, and the medication they put him on made it all but impossible for him to keep a job or do much beyond exist. Regardless, the former owners kept him around and gave him concise orders to do this or that.

It took several years before Walt trusted me enough to talk to me on his level. When he finally did, I met a very kind person who knew his situation and made the best of it. He got money from the government every month and would invariably run out of it before the month ended. That meant he was out of cigarettes, food, and about everything else. I’d feed him, make sure he had cigarettes and beer. He didn’t drink a lot. I never saw him drunk, but he liked to have a beer. When he got his check at the first of the month, he’d pay up, and we’d be even and start the process all over again.

The more I got to know him, the more he would open up to me. That eventually turned into him doing things around the store and making a couple of extra dollars. One day, these two young guys came in, and later I realized they had acted a little strangely. We were busy, and when it cleared out, they were both still there, and I didn’t remember making eye contact with either, something I tried to do with everyone who walked in the door. The cook was taking out the trash, and I was alone at the register. One of them walked to the door, and the other started to walk towards me. They had me. He put his hand in his pocket, and at about that time, from out of nowhere, Walt put his hand on the kid’s shoulder and walked the very surprised young kid painfully toward the door. The other kid – I say kid, they were in their 20s showed his full face and wide eyes. Walt “escorted” them both out the front door.

I didn’t see Walt the rest of that day, and the next day, he didn’t acknowledge that he had done anything, nor did he bring it up. I never saw those two young men again, and Walt was a new person in my eyes. He had my back for no more reason than he was treated respectfully and allowed to be a part of the Klondyke. But that didn’t stop him from being a problem. He thought it was funny to stop up the toilet and would watch me unclog it. It took me a long time to realize the toilet was clogged when he was mad at me. Honestly, I think someone else told me that. He was often mad at me because I wouldn’t give him a free beer or pack of cigarettes. Walt was hard of hearing and often lost in his thoughts. Because he was hard of hearing, he didn’t realize that when he passed gas, the rest of us could hear it.

When the Great Flood hit in 2011 and put the Klondyke under water, Walt had just gotten out of another spell in the hospital. They kept him for months trying to get his medicine dialed in. He was different this time; he wasn’t the same Walt. There was a vacancy in his eyes (like two holes in the sky). As the flood waters rose and closed off access to the store, we were putting out sandbags and Walt came sloshing through the water, walked in the store and asked if we could sell him a lighter. I was caught off guard. The Walt I knew would have started bagging sand or helping someone, but this new version needed a lighter, and that was all he could muster. I didn’t have any lighters; the store inventory had been moved to storage, and we were preparing for the worst. Without emotion, Walt walked on past us down to the corner, heading to the next closest store to buy a lighter.

A crowd had gathered at First North and Washington, watching us place sandbags and looking at the sight of a few feet of water covering Washington Street. Firefighters were in a boat near the intersection with First North, checking things. Walt became the center of attention for the crowd as he used the fence on the property south of us to help him navigate the flood waters. He inched his way closer to get his lighter, and when he was past the fence, he started to run through the water. I don’t know if he was tired of being in the water or putting on a show for the crowd or what was going through his newly chemically altered mind. As he ran, something tripped him, and he fell, becoming completely submerged in the floodwaters at First East and Washington. The crowd all looked his way as did the firefighters, and there was a collective smirk about the poor guy who just fell into the water. A few seconds later, Walt had not come up. That collective smirk changed to concern, and in what seemed like hours but was only a few seconds, someone in the crowd finally started towards him, as did the firemen in the boat. Whoever got to him first pulled him up. He was non-responsive. The firefighters started the process of bringing him back, and at some point, he started breathing again. An ambulance was called as a precaution, and they took him to the hospital to make sure he was alright. Walt hated the hospital because they wouldn’t let him smoke or drink a beer.

I was relieved and angry at the same time. The Walt I knew would have known better. He would have been helping place sandbags and, if he could, would have pushed the flood waters away for us.

One time at the end of the month, Walt was eating a lunch plate on credit, and he was enjoying it. It was his favorite thing we cooked. He would take a bite, chew it way longer than was necessary or appropriate, and savor the bite long after it was gone. He took that lunch on credit for everything it was worth. Part of me thinks he did that partially to make me feel good and show his appreciation. As he was savoring what was obviously the greatest meal he had ever eaten, a friend of his walked in the back door and sat across from Walt, who got up to get his friend a drink, on his credit. Walt stopped by the register to ask me for an extra plastic fork.

Walt did it all the time, sharing his last bite, even his favorite meal, with you. I saw him do that with cigarettes as well. If he had two cigarettes left, one was yours if you wanted it.

It knocked the wind out of me the next day after he fell in the flood waters to learn he died in the hospital, the only person to die in the Great Flood of 2011. A news station from Jackson interviewed me about it, and I was the lead story, crying on camera about losing this guy who, over the years, infuriated me but somehow became dear to me. At his funeral, a couple of weeks later, as we passed his open coffin and headed back to our seat, his mother, who lived in another city and was well into her 90s, put her hand out to speak with me. She smiled softly and pulled me in for a hug. She looked me dead in the eye and said Walt told her not to worry about him because Dave at the Klondyke kept an eye on him. Her 90-year-old smile and grateful eyes took away my ability to speak and reduced me, once again, to tears, this time in front of a packed room of mourners. I still mourn Walt and the promise of a dignified life butchered by an uncaring disease. But more, I fondly remember his sheepish smile and am grateful God allowed me to be a part of his life.