Miss Spellbinder's Point of View

Miss Spellbinder’s Point of View

A biography of the imagination

The Black Queen of the Atchafalaya

Shortly Before Miss Spellbinder Came to Know Her

  According to those who had seen and those who had not, Fat Satsuma Johnson, the reigning pie-eating queen of southern Louisiana, could stretch her mouth around a twelve-inch crust.

This often-publicized astonishment, along with her enormous size and legendary appetite, drew people into the carnival tent where she sat on a three-legged stool and demonstrated her remarkable ability “Her remarkable talent,” Miss Spellbinder called it.

  Although the stool on which Fat Satsuma worked was four feet wide and five inches thick, with legs of telephone poles and braces of steel, it wobbled considerably under her weight. Shortly before her final performance, she inspected the stool again, and again she told her carnival boss: “This ole stool will go down, and Fat Satsuma will go down with it. You better do something for her while you can.”

Vince Lambruso refused to listen. “The stool,” he said, “is a strong one. It will do you another thirty years, at least.”

  For thirty years Satsuma had been the major attraction at the Lambruso Carnival and for thirty years she had used every penny of her earnings to construct her family tomb, a mausoleum of marble walls and pillars, with spires and bells and benches and many rooms honoring her long-suffering ancestors. Many times in her career she had considered leaving the carnival for good but each time she had decided to stay, and for the same two reasons: her family tomb had not yet been completed; and she knew no other means of support except that of a pie-eating fat lady. The Lambruso Carnival was a secure job, and for that she was thankful. Not hurting for bookings, the carnival made annual appearances at the Napoleon and Bonaparte Fairgrounds, but during the rest of the year the troupe, consisting of a bone man, a sword-swallowing midget, a bearded hermaphrodite, two singing funambulists, and three dancing monkeys, traveled up and down the Atchafalaya River, docking in towns and communities where no other carnival would take the time to visit. Although most of the artists traveled by barge, Satsuma, for the purpose of free advertising, was transported from place to place in the bed of a pickup truck.

  Fat Satsuma the Black Queen of the Atchafalaya, was written in yellow letters on both doors, and across the tailgate: Her fame is as wide-spreading as her body.

  The truck was fire-engine red and equipped with the best shock absorbers on the market as well as a wrecker’s winch and cable strong enough to support Satsuma’s weight. On her way to the Napoleon and Bonaparte Fairgrounds and what would become her final performance, she sat on two thin mattresses of goose down. A third mattress was rolled up to support her back and pillows were tucked under each arm to prevent chafing and summer rashes. To the passing cars she waved and shouted:

  “Fat Satsuma sure does love you no matter what.”

  When the carnival stopped in the small towns and docks along the river, the Black Queen of the Atchafalaya sat inside a star spangled tent to display her pie-eating ability to no more than three audiences a day. But when she worked the Napoleon and Bonaparte Fairgrounds, she performed in the open air. Her three-legged stood was placed on the crest of a grassy knoll, and all around her spectators gathered by the hundreds. At the fairgrounds she had been known to give as many as twelve performances a day.

“Astonishing,” Miss Clarissa Spellbinder told a crowd of newspaper reporters during one of many memorial services. “There has never been anything like her. Never has been. Never will be.”

  At the end of her long and well-publicized career, Satsuma’s reputation was such that people lined up for hours, one pressed tightly against another, just to see the fat lady whose body practically concealed the stool on which she sat, and whose mouth was a cavern into which twelve-inch pies disappeared one right after another. She was the most famous sideshow artist the state of Louisiana had ever produced. A bridge spanning the Atchafalaya River had been erected in her honor. A commemorative arch, thirty feet wide and sixty feet high, had been commissioned by a devoted admirer, and a fancy chicken with plumes of black and gold had been bred in celebration of her fame. Her face was plastered on billboards and printed on envelopes, postcards and carnival tickets. Wherever she appeared, her name was spelled out in flashing lights. It was written in the sky by daredevils who worshipped her. A high school was named in her honor, as was a gospel choir, a marching bed, a four-star restaurant, and a Pentecostal temple. Wherever she went crowds gathered, tickets were purchased, trinkets were sold, autographs were auctioned off, and all to no avail, for neither she nor anyone else could persuade the Lambruso Carnival to provide her with a stronger stool. “Nothing can hold itself together forever,” she kept saying. “It’ll all be over before you know it. Just let me tell Sister good-bye before I go.”

  Early on that morning of Satsuma’s final performance, Sadie Baudelaire Johnson was released from jail. She had served a six-week sentence for slugging a veteran on parade, and before the day’s end she would be back in her cell for inciting a riot at the fairgrounds. “I’m just one more fancy, cigar-smoking nigger you’ll have to keep an eye on,” she told the jailer when he unlocked her cell. “And I’m not leaving until you bring me a barber.” The barber was summoned, and after he had shaved her head clean, she studied herself in the mirror. “I’m looking just the way I did when you got me,” she said. “All except my clothes. Now go find them. And they ain’t lady clothes neither, so don’t be bringing me no fancy brassieres and frilly panties, for this nigger ain’t putting them on.”

  In every box and closet the jailer, the barber and the county clerk searched for Sadie’s suit, hat, and shoes. Finally they turned up but not as she remembered them. “I ain’t going no where until my pants get pressed out,” she said. “I didn’t arrive looking like no tramp, and I ain’t leaving looking like one either.”

The county clerk, who was also a seamstress, fetched her iron, a board, a clothes brush, and a can of starch. Within the hour the pinstriped suit was pressed, the shoes were polished, and the hat was dusted. At last Sadie Baudelaire Johnson was satisfied with her look and ready to be let go.

  “Good behavior and this nigger ain’t never been bedfellows,” said Sadie. “I’m hitchhiking to where they’re showing off my baby sister, and I mean to stir up some terrible kind of celebration when I get there.”

Against their better judgment, four policemen escorted her to the nearest highway. There they gave her a ten-dollar bill, two cigars, and a bachelor button for her lapel. “We’re releasing you on good behavior,” one of the officers said. “Think you can remember that?”

  Twenty miles upriver, Satsuma awoke with a feeling of expectation. “I feel celebrated!” she exclaimed. “I wonder why that is?” Inside her dressing tent, she called for her purple tunic and sea-green turban. She called for her red Chinese slippers, her blue parasol, her long strands of Mardi Gras beads, her earrings, finger rings and bracelets for ankles and arms.

  While the bone man cooled her with a fan of ostrich feathers, the bearded hermaphrodite touched up her scarlet nails, and the sword-swallowing midget, working with the nimblest of fingers, laid out the jewelry on a low table. Responding to the midget’s constant demands, one of the two funambulists pinned jeweled butterflies on Satsuma’s long braids while the other fastened golden bumblebees on her turban and jade dragonflies on her shoulders. Then the little sword-swallower took over. Standing on the stepladder he wrapped strands of many-colored beads around Satsuma’s neck and arms. He instructed one of the funambulists to push the finger rings into place, the other to hang an amulet of cat-eyed marbles around Satsuma’s neck. Working quickly, the funambulists completed their assignment, and after the last anklet had been secured and the last garland of glass beads carefully rearranged, the sword swallower who was also a ventriloquist, called on the bearded hermaphrodite to steady his balance while he stood on the top rung of the ladder and placed a silver star on Satsuma’s forehead. Suddenly the three dancing monkeys costumed as Harem girls tore loose from their cages and came running into the tent. Discarding their finger cymbals, they leaped upon Satsuma’s braids and swung to and fro as if on jungle vines.

  “Don’t be letting monkeys swing on my hair,” she said in a commanding voice. “Today, I feel celebrated.”

After inspecting herself in several mirrors, she applied bright orange to her lower lip, her eyelids and cheeks. Then she pronounced herself fully dressed. “Satsuma is ready,” she told the midget. “Hold your monkey’s way over there, won’t you, please.” The dancing monkeys were held back while the pickup truck came forward to transport the queen in all her finery to the grassy hill where the three-legged stool was surrounded by an unusually large crowd. Some of the spectators had come from Napoleon and some from Bonaparte, but most of them had arrived from parts unknown, and had traveled to get there. Excitement was in the air. The day was very special; somehow it was more special than ever, but no one could say just why, not even Satsuma. “I wonder I just wonder,” she kept saying, “I just wonder what Sister is up to nowadays.”

While all eyes were riveted upon her, a steel rope was attached to a harness concealed by her robes, and four men operating a windlass hoisted her out of the truck and into the air as if she had decided to levitate for her own pleasure. Slowly she was lowered onto the stool, and when it received her with a quiver, the audience gasped in unison. Under the strain of her full weight, the stool tilted to the left. A leg sank a few inches into the soft earth. The audience gasped again. Ladies covered their eyes with purses and hands. Cameras clicked away. Reporters took notes. And Satsuma leaned to one side until the stool’s two remaining legs sank just enough to balance her weight.

  Feeling secure again, she flashed her broad smile. “Today, Fat Satsuma feels celebrated,” she announced. “Today, Fat Satsuma feels like Fat Satsuma!”

  The crowd had been waiting a very long time, and the first pie was late in arriving. When it was finally brought to her, Satsuma received it on the tips of her fingers. “Cherry!” she exclaimed, her mouth wide open, revealing for the first time that day her magnificent tongue, amazingly long, sharply pointed and strawberry in color. Seeing it flying from her mouth like a serpent, the audience leaned forward. A hush settled over the crowd as Satsuma slowly opened her mouth as wide as she could without assistance. Her tiny white teeth, separated by wide spaces, sparkled like a string of seed pearls, and the star on her forehead reflected the afternoon sun.

  Can she actually do it? Everyone wanted to know. Even those who had seen her at previous fairs had their doubts – which were soon dispelled. Extending her magnificent tongue, a tongue the likes of which Miss Spellbinder had never seen, not even in India, Bali or the Boca Islands, Fat Satsuma Johnson placed the pie as far into her mouth as it would go. Then the two singing funambulists, who sometimes doubled as her assistants, stepped forward. With wooden hooks they stretched her lips around the crust, and with both hands she crushed the pie into her mouth.

  That day the crust was particularly dry, and she chewed for a long time before attempting to swallow. Her cheeks bulged. Her eyes teared, and sweat poured from her face and neck. Suddenly she lifted both arms and threw back her head, a signal to the funambulists that she needed water.

  “Give Sister some water!” Sadie Baudelaire elbowed her way to a better view. “Make some room for this fist-fighting nigger, or you’ll be sorry. And while you’re at it, give my baby sister something to drink before she chokes to death.”

  The funambulists held a gallon jug of lemonade to Satsuma’s lips, and she took a few sips. Then she chewed loudly and swallowed. She signaled for more lemonade. She drank. She swallowed. And then she drank again. After she had washed down the last crumb, the funambulists stood to one side and led the applause.

  Satsuma received a thundering ovation with a smile that seemed to stretch all the way across her face and disappear under her turban. “Satsuma feels celebrated!” she exclaimed, but her voice did not carry over the cheering mob.

  After the applause died down, someone in the audience wanted to know how much she weighed, a question she refused to answer herself. “As of this morning, six-hundred and thirty-eight pounds,” one of the funambulists said, “but when she’s working, her weight increases rapidly. In half an hour she’ll eat another pie, and then she’ll weigh a little more.

  “But they’re not real pies,” someone remarked. “they’re made out of chemicals that dissolve in her mouth.”

  “Nobody knows how to believe anything anymore,” Satsuma signed.

  “Let me tell you something,” Sadie Baudelaire shouted. “Sister didn’t get that big by eating chemical ingredients. You go up there and eat a dozen of them pies every day, and you’ll see how real they are.” She came slugging her way through the crowd. Men or women, it made no difference, fell to the blows of her fists and feet.

  “Sister,” Satsuma shouted. “You behave yourself!”

  “Sister?” exclaimed an outsider. “It looks like a man to me.”

  “Sister, I said for you to behave yourself!” Satsuma shouted again. “Today I feel celebrated!” On seeing two policemen clubbing her sister on the head, a tremor shot through Satsuma’s spine and into the stool. “Merciful Lord,” she cried. “won’t somebody help me up?” While the funambulists were pulling her to her feet, the stool collapsed and Satsuma was flung head first into the screaming crowd. Off came her turban and her red Chinese slippers. Off came her Mardi Gras beads, her earrings, finger rings, bracelets and bows. Off flew the golden bumblebees and the jeweled butterflies. Even the silver star went shooting into the crowd.

  “Oh, Lord,” she moaned as she tumbled through the police barricades. “Why do you do Fat Satsuma so?”

  Clinging to her parasol, she rolled over three times and landed in a muddy ditch where she lay comatose, her face buried in the earth, her arms and neck severely scratched, her dress ripped to the neckline, and her forehead badly cut. The stunned spectators watched a rescue team attach a cable to Satsuma’s harness, and on signal from the funambulists, she was flown back to the truck. “Surely,” someone said, “we will never see her again.” Still unconscious, she was transported to the company barge where her wounds were treated by the sword-swallowing midget, who was also the company physician, but due to his diminutive size, he had never been able to instill trust in patients beyond the carnival.

  “You will be all right, my dearest dear,” the little doctor assured her.

“Carnival days has come and gone,” Satsuma moaned as the midget revived her with a foul-smelling ointment, which he applied with an artist’s brush to the rims of her nostrils. “Now Fat Satsuma can be just like everybody else.”

  “That, my precious being, is too much to hope for,” replied the tiny doctor.

And that, according to those who suffered from what Miss Clarissa Spellbinder diagnosed as the disease of the literal minded, was exactly what had happened on the day Fat Satsuma Johnson ended one life and began another. But within a very short time, Miss Spellbinder, recounting the event for the sake of those who – like herself – had not been there, would vehemently bear witness to the facts as she imagined them. On the banks of the Atchafalaya she asked a crowd of curiosity seekers to turn for a moment of silence and behold the fairgrounds: the grassy hill, the Arch of Satsuma, and the barely visible spires of the Baudelaire family tomb still covered with scaffolding. Leaning on her reputation as the world’s oldest living poet, she broke the silence with an account of Satsuma’s final hours in the carnival.

  “Rolling down the grassy hill, Frat Satsuma Johnson broke fingers, arms, wrists and legs, none of them her own. She rolled over a policeman and twisted his ankle, over a small dog and smashed it flat. She rolled over women and children, over nuns and bishops and priests. A sideshow midget, one of the most gifted physicians the medical profession had ever shunned, was so brutally disfigured by her enormous weight that no one could identify his body, not even after a noted mortician had attempted to reconstruct the face with beeswax, vellum, and human hair taken from another corpse.”

  Pausing for a moment, Miss Spellbinder uncorked her thermos and fortified herself with a life giving potion – fish broth and red pepper with a splash of whiskey and a pinch of salt. After satisfying her thirst and regaining her strength, she continued her say: “By the Gods who bore witness to that event, and by the River Styx and whatever measure you wish me to use to measure the truth, I swear upon what I have just stated.” A paroxysm of excitement spewed from her once-perfect lips and dampened the dark veil, which she wore to protect herself from the cruel Louisiana sun, disagreeable odors, and her listener’s thinly disguised contempt.

  According to Miss Spellbinder’s acute inner eye, Satsuma, while rolling down the grassy hill, had been pursued by a howling mob, the likes of which could only be found at the race tracks, a Pentecostal revival, or an opera house. Behind the screaming mob came twelve bridegrooms decked out in hats and tails, each believing himself to be the chosen one. By then, policemen were trying to control the stampeding crowd by firing pistols into the air, but the people – running in all directions, some to escape, others to get a better view of what had just occurred – could not be controlled. Ambulances eased their way through the crowd, and behind them came the red pickup with Satsuma’s rescue team – five strong men who understood the physics of weights and balances.

  According to Clarissa Spellbinder, who was no stranger to strange events, Sadie Baudelaire was tied to a tree. Cold water was thrown in her face, her feet were packed in crushed ice, and two wind machines were turned on full blast, but nothing cooled her temper. “Somebody go see about Sister,” Satsuma pleaded from the bed of her truck. All at once she was mobbed with admirers demanding souvenirs. While she lay there stranded on her back and unable to lift an arm, they stole her slippers, her finger rings, her earrings, bracelets and bows. Then they came at her with scissors with which to take a lock of hair, a fingernail, a toenail, or a swatch from her garment. After the souvenir hunters came the photographers, and after the photographers came the oral historians, and after the historians the autograph seekers moved in for the final kill. “I can’t sign my name at a time like this, Satsuma cried, and then she passed out again. The engine roared. The truck parted the crowd. And the angry spectators, throwing rocks and bottles, chased it through the fairgrounds. The driver cut his own road to the river, and at the docks he steered across a narrow ramp and onto the carnival barge while penurious members of the angry crowd gathered on the banks of the river to demand their money back.

  In years to come, after everything that could be said had been said and repeated many times over, Satsuma would look back on her last day in the carnival and sigh:

  “Who knows why Miss Spellbinda had to tell it the way she did. But I sure am glad she had it in her.”