Many Places At Once Volume 2, Issue #13, “The Curious Case of the Mutating Ghost of Chief Slacabamorinico”

Joe Cain served as a private in the Civil War, and after the war he wound up in New Orleans. The Carnival season was suspended in Mobile in 1861 due to the War (though New Orleans had continued the tradition.) Later, in 1865, Mobile was taken over by a demoralizing Union occupation. Arriving back in Mobile the next year, Cain and a handful of fellow veterans paraded through the streets with Joe on the back of an old coal wagon dressed as a Chickasaw Indian, in stark defiance of the restrictive Union powers.

Chief Slac was born, and his gift to Mobile was its heritage. The Order Of Myths was soon to follow in 1867, from which springs 100% of Mobile’s Mardi Gras traditions. Their emblem –Folly chasing Death around the broken column of life– came to symbolize Mobile’s Lost Cause, which pervades the culture to this day, whether Mobile remembers this or not.

Nearly a century later, the mystic societies had undone much of the democratic celebration of Mardi Gras in Mobile. The affluent retained membership to these societies, leaving the plainfolk with mere spectator status. Julian Lee Rayford (known as Judy), a prominent area novelist and folk historian, took great pride in Joe Cain, publishing the history of Mardi Gras titled Chasin’ The Devil Round A Stump in 1962. He saw that despite the fact that the generations in his wake were still caught in the ripples from Cain’s actions, his place in the lore was mostly forgotten. To rectify that, Judy had Cain’s body interred and moved to the Church Street Graveyard from Bayou La Batre.

Upon the arrival of Cain’s remains, Mobile hailed the return of a mythical hero, and from then on, the Sunday before Fat Tuesday was designated Joe Cain Day. The Joe Cain Procession, or the People’s Parade, was established as a chance for the “common man” (aka non-society members) to join in the parades.

In the years since the institution of Joe Cain Day, the event has mutated into a macabre and ridiculous celebration involving conspicuous consumption of alcohol by rowdy revelers. It has also spawned a still-growing number of new mystic societies, starting with Cain’s Merry Widows in 1974. The merry widows are a point where hard history passes the baton to wildly mutating legend: Joe Cain had one widow, Elizabeth Alabama Rabby Cain, who survived him by three years. But the twenty Merry Widows are married to the myth of Joe Cain, their fallen chief. Every morning of Joe Cain starts with their arrival at Church Street Graveyard in a bawdy display of theatric mourning which devolves into an argument among the widows about which was most beloved. This definitely sets the tone for the day, and it’s where my day started in observing Joe Cain this year.

Sunday, February 10, 2013 was a bleary and overcast day, the air heavy with the ever-present possibility of rain. After seeing the Widows’ display at Church Street Graveyard, I hopped on my bike and rode to 906 Augusta, Joe Cain’s Mobile residence, along with the throng of observers. The toast and eulogy of Joe Cain was already wrapping up when I arrived, but there I saw the historical fact and surreal pageantry mix in real time. On the front porch of Cain’s home stood masked roysterers throwing beads, toys, and MoonPies at the throngs gathered around the white picket perimeter, transforming the house into a stationary parade float. Folks danced in the street, donning costumes, juggling, drinking. The civic pride was infectious, though it was contrasted by the barely-contained debauchery.

I was disappointed at having arrived late to the eulogy, and still trying to gain some perspective on the surrounding melee, I resolved that it was currently noon, I hadn’t had a drink yet, and this was no way to celebrate, so my comrades –Modmo cameramen Kris Skoda and Joshua Cane– hi-tailed it around the corner to Callaghan’s Irish Social Club, a ground-zero for much of the day’s alcohol stockpiling. We sat and did a number on a number of beers while waiting for the Joe Cain Procession to start. It was there that I learned of other subsequent societies that have sprung into existence, further morphing the memory of Joe Cain. The Mistresses of Joe Cain contrast the Merry Widows by wearing all red, the “other women” of Chief Slac. And starting last year, the “Secret Misters” betrayed the hitherto unknown omnisexual appetites of Joe Cain, parading in flamboyant attire nearing drag.

By the time I biked to the procession, it was already underway. I was once again disappointed I’d dropped the ball but also at what I found when I arrived. Part of Joe Cain Day’s wildly inaccurate lore involved Judy Rayford pocketing Joe Cain’s skull for the trip from Bayou La Batre to Mobile, thus beginning the tradition of Joe Cain’s designate leading the People’s Parade. The “history” I’d gleaned and the romanticism I’d cultivated had me expecting a ramshackle and motley collection of paraders on foot or repupurposed junkers, which was dashed when seeing what I perceived as a parade similar to all the others with the exception that no one wore masks. I got pelted in the drunken face by a handful of beads at one point, and, feeling as though I’d seen enough, made way back to Callaghan’s, for more drinking and to await the arrival of Grayson Capps and the Lost Cause Minstrels.

Capps’ band takes their name directly from Joe Cain history; The Lost Cause minstrels were Cain’s band of former-Confederate musicians who paraded with him from 1867 onward. Capps gets the hand-me-down name honest, given his mystique as a Southern-roots radical who weaves songs redeeming a host of downtrodden Southern characters, including “Ole Slac,” a tribute to “the king of Chickasaw, bringin’ back the Mobile Mardi Gras.” For the last three years, The Lost Cause Minstrels have staged their own mini-procession to Callaghan’s for a now-traditional performance.

For the first time that day, I was there on time to participate. Starting at a house down the block (belonging to a handful of my regular football season barbeque pals), Capps and crew get dressed, shoot the shit, and take the edge off before leading a chorus of “Ole Slac” toward the bar. I hugged some necks, had a spirited (and nerdy) conversation about Doctor Who with the Minstrels’ bassist Christian Grizzard, and enjoyed finally being in the right place, the right time, and right frame of mind.

After leaving Callaghan’s, I may have lost a couple of hours in my stupor, but was able to make it to the homestretch downtown that night, to Haberdasher (where I had my first Bloody Mary), then the Alabama Music Box, for the late-night show, featuring a super surprise performance by the elusive textural titans The Westernlands, Mobile’s perennial punkers Criminal Class USA & The Hush Hush Revolution, and the Pine Hill Haints, another band married to the morbid mysticism of Joe Cain, having contributed to the lore themselves with “The Merry Widows of Joe Cain.” It was their tenth year observing Joe Cain Day in Mobile.

Haints’ principal songwriter, Jamie Barrier, is definitely an active participant, writing what he calls “Alabama Ghost Songs” for his band, an arrangement of fiddle, washboard, wash-tub bass, brush-snare, banjo, and guitar. They definitely conjure the exhumed, haunting spirit of the Gothic South, equal parts country-punk and William Faulkner. Before the show, he and I had a chat about how he felt that Mobile had forgotten its history when compared to New Orleans’ adherence to its Dixieland Carnival roots.

I can’t help but disagree. Joe Cain Day, persistently mutating history in all directions, is a perfect mask for Mobile to wear. In the decade I’ve lived there, this city has attempted to transition into the 21st century on shaky legs, and its growth is apparent in the way that we aren’t beholden to our past, instead taking bits and pieces, grotesquely morphing others, and displaying evolving attitudes through the lens of our nihilistic celebration of the eternally Lost Cause. Like the unyielding Chickasaw, we may change with time, but we haven’t surrendered.

For the lazy, I also present to you the first episode of MANY PLACES AT ONCE‘s documentary series, TL; DR.

Many Places At Once: TL;DR #1 from ModMobilian.com TV on Vimeo.

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In a fit of rage, Modmo’s newest contributor Josh Beech attacked and murdered Mod Dib in December of 2012. Then, thanks to an epic rite of cannibalism, he absorbed all of Mod Dib’s powers and memories. He lives in Gulf Shores.