Photograph by Everett Collection Inc. / Dreamstime
In the winter of 1902, Doc Hottum buried a man alive in a vacant lot at the corner of Union and Second Avenue. He’d built a coffin and dug a grave. e man was naked save for a bedsheet wrapped around his thin body. e man held Hottum’s hand as Hottum helped him into the casket, slipped the lid over the top, and he and two other men nailed the coffin shut and used ropes to lower himinto the ground. ey covered the coffin with dirt while the man’s wife stood to the side and held her hands in prayer and chanted in a low hum. Hottum faced us and took off his hat and spoke: “We all know our Lord God is the measure of all things. But watch this man as he defies the angel of death. And in seven days, which is the interval in which the Lord does his work, watch this man not only come back from the dead, but do so with a direct trans- mission from the Lord God Himself.”
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We had come to trust Hottum. Ever since he garnered our attention and climbed onto the train bridge in a swimsuit and cap and waved as we gathered on the bluffs. He’d then stiffened his body and dove straight into the swirling waters of the Mississippi. We gasped, thinking him mad. We had believed it impossible to survive that leap until the little black dot of Hottum’s head poked through the brown water. We cheered him as he slithered up the bank and stood and bowed to the crowd. Soon thereafter, Hottum’s face showed up on posters in all the shop windows, and we flocked to his events: We watched Battling Bill Nelson bare-knuckle box in vacant warehouses; watched the swim- mers glide through the Mississippi for the 10-Mile River Race. We went to dance marathons at the Cotton Exchange, saw traveling minstrels and magic shows on the riverfront,and even watcheda woman scale the Scimitar Building and swan-dive into a net below as we cheered.
But here Hottum had promised us the Lord God Himself. For seven days, we milled about the grave. We set up crude tents and slept in the dark alleys between the tall buildings. We burned newspapers in metal drums. Some of us prayed and fasted. Some of us drank kegs of beer and
On the seventh day, Hottum sold just over one thousand tickets to see the man return from the grave with his transmis- sion from God. Even Mayor J.J. Williams refused free entry and insisted on paying the 25 cents to watch the resurrection. We gathered around as best we could, trickling in the alleys between the looming concrete buildings. Dusk was setting in. Shadows pooled and the electric lights sizzled and popped over the murky glow of the work- men who set about digging up the coffin. No one spoke. Not even the sound of a striking match broke the silence as the workmen pulled up the casket and pried open the lid. Hottum and another man reached in and pulled the man out and set him on the ground, but the man was stiff and unyielding to the men’s prodding. They laid the artist on the ground, and his wife, dressed in colorful linens for the resur- rection, went to him and stroked his hair and tried to lift his head. We gaped at the dead man. He and his wife were traveling artists, and he had been trained to endure such confined spaces. The traveling artist’s wife wept and offered her husband warm milk and crackers in some vain attempt to resurrect him from the dead. When he would not rise, the traveling artist’s wife stood and gazed into the crowd with trem- bling eyes, as if it were us who’d killed him. We murmured and milled about and fidgeted our hands and waited until, one by one, we began to leave. We left Hot- tum, the woman, and the corpse there in the vacant lot as night sparkled on the river. We went to our homes in silence.
No one asked for their money back.
GRANT GERALD MILLER lives in Memphis with his wife, A.M., and their son, Max. He holds an MFA from the University of Alabama, where he was an assistant editor at Black Warrior Review. His work has appeared or is set to appear in numerous literary journals, includingHobart, Nimrod International, The Sonora Review, 8 Poems, and others.
SHORT AND SWEET (or not-so- sweet), the Very Short Story Contest welcomes entries of up to 750 words, maximum. Writers are encouraged to incorporate the city into their work. Winning stories will be published in Memphis and archived on memphismagazine.com. Whereas the ction contestwas in the past a once-a-year event, the Very Short Story Contest will recognize ten winning entries annually, every month except February and August. The Very Short Story Contest is presented by Novel, Memphis’ newest independent bookstore, where each winning author will be honored with a $200 gift certificate.
Entries must be no more than 750 words, must be original, and may be submitted to fiction@memphismagazine.com.
