The Cujo Wars (To Jersey or Not to Jersey)
We moved back to Virginia when I was round about eight, and our family were among the first folks in the development. In fact, the only person on the block lived next door and we knew him simply as "the colonel." As the name suggests he was retired military, living out his last years with his trophy wife. I would often, while playing Indiana Jones in the yard, see them walking down our street -a golf club for a cane, his cigar a permanent fixture on his lip. I think cancer got him, but I hate saying that because as Rilke says, "Lord grant each person their own personal death." I translate that as somebody having a meaning beyond the statistic. The way that Blanche Dubois says she will die of "eating an unwashed grape." Or the way that I always though I would die from a tick I brought home from the woods when I was a boy. I had explored those woods pretty thoroughly then. And by the time the colonel passed away -not only had the neighborhood bloomed up, but I had met my best friend, and we had discovered Cujo.
Cujo was a mammoth hollow tree just down the creek a ways. You could fit four kids inside that tree easy. It was damp and dark inside, but altogether amazing to us that nature could create such a thing. We spent part of every day in the summer, cooling off inside the shelter of that tree. Once, after an Autumn and Winter had passed, we went back to cujo only to be chased out by an owl we had woke up. How did cujo get its name? Because when we were walking beside the creek and discovering these things, my friend said to me, "This reminds me of cujo, man."
"What's cujo?" I says.
"You don't know Cujo?"
"No."
"It's this book by Stephen King about this alligator in the creek."
So, we named the tree after a book by Stephen King about an alligator in the creek called CUJO. Now, that version of the book doesn't exist so far as I know, but that tree was real. Though part of me wonders if it really was. Childhood being such a strange spell and all. And once that spell's broken, it gets a lil' hard to tell some things. But we named it CUJO nevertheless, as we had discovered it. This wouldn't matter except for what happened after the colonel died.
See, a new family moved in. They were from Jersey, and were comprised of the parents, the twins, an older brother you never saw, the grandmother and "Chipper." Now they also discovered a big hollow tree in the woods that they called "nine arm." Now NINE ARM was nothing other than CUJO. And so began the CUJO WARS.
Acorns fights, fisticuffs, truces, spying and vandalism ran rampant. Now, you could take the twins on a good day, but Chipper was a tougher matter. His real name was Mike. He was older, overweight, and if he sat on you, it knocked the wind out of you. Mike was formidable, and to be feared. But the twins were devilish, and troublemakers in their own right and had given away his kryptonite. His kryponite was the name Chipper. One had to use it sparingly because it created such wrath, but it worked like a charm. If you called him by Chipper, he would flush with shame and try and beat you up. But the shame won out and you could master him.
And the cause of the shame was the grandmother. She called him Chipper, and she was his weakness. She was senile and would oft be wondering the yard, thinking she was still in New Jersey. A little boy could happen upon her in the woods, as though they'd come upon some strange witch who was lost and just needed help getting back to New Jersey. She was lost, of course. Lost in that netherworld of the twilight of age. But she honestly had no idea that she was in Virginia. And Mike would always have to take her back to the house. She called him Chipper all the way home.
So, I guess she thought Virginia looked like New Jersey. But if she really thought that, she wouldn't have become so bewildered. And I guess in Jersey they call it NINE ARM, but I call it CUJO. And damnit, we discovered it in the first place. We were the native americans and here were these Jersey pilgrims calling something by another name and trying to take it over for themselves. But when you're a boy, you understand the power of a name; be it CUJO or Chipper. And names do have power to ward away those who would make everything the same. And I guess in their own way, they give each their own personal death. The colonel was the colonel, Cujo was Cujo, and Chipper was the mojo you could weild like a magic spell. Those were our "berries of hurting" to quote Shelktone's childhood wizardry. I think writing songs is just an extension of using words in that way. When they rhyme, somehow that's magical. I'm still learning what mojo's inside the name HUCKLEBERRY SLIM -but I know its got some, and that's enough for me. It sounds to me like those folks in Vermont found some kryptonite in the word Jersey too. In some ways, huckleberry to me, is just trying to Virginia New York City. But like Chuck Berry says the old folks say, "You never can tell."
Cujo was a mammoth hollow tree just down the creek a ways. You could fit four kids inside that tree easy. It was damp and dark inside, but altogether amazing to us that nature could create such a thing. We spent part of every day in the summer, cooling off inside the shelter of that tree. Once, after an Autumn and Winter had passed, we went back to cujo only to be chased out by an owl we had woke up. How did cujo get its name? Because when we were walking beside the creek and discovering these things, my friend said to me, "This reminds me of cujo, man."
"What's cujo?" I says.
"You don't know Cujo?"
"No."
"It's this book by Stephen King about this alligator in the creek."
So, we named the tree after a book by Stephen King about an alligator in the creek called CUJO. Now, that version of the book doesn't exist so far as I know, but that tree was real. Though part of me wonders if it really was. Childhood being such a strange spell and all. And once that spell's broken, it gets a lil' hard to tell some things. But we named it CUJO nevertheless, as we had discovered it. This wouldn't matter except for what happened after the colonel died.
See, a new family moved in. They were from Jersey, and were comprised of the parents, the twins, an older brother you never saw, the grandmother and "Chipper." Now they also discovered a big hollow tree in the woods that they called "nine arm." Now NINE ARM was nothing other than CUJO. And so began the CUJO WARS.
Acorns fights, fisticuffs, truces, spying and vandalism ran rampant. Now, you could take the twins on a good day, but Chipper was a tougher matter. His real name was Mike. He was older, overweight, and if he sat on you, it knocked the wind out of you. Mike was formidable, and to be feared. But the twins were devilish, and troublemakers in their own right and had given away his kryptonite. His kryponite was the name Chipper. One had to use it sparingly because it created such wrath, but it worked like a charm. If you called him by Chipper, he would flush with shame and try and beat you up. But the shame won out and you could master him.
And the cause of the shame was the grandmother. She called him Chipper, and she was his weakness. She was senile and would oft be wondering the yard, thinking she was still in New Jersey. A little boy could happen upon her in the woods, as though they'd come upon some strange witch who was lost and just needed help getting back to New Jersey. She was lost, of course. Lost in that netherworld of the twilight of age. But she honestly had no idea that she was in Virginia. And Mike would always have to take her back to the house. She called him Chipper all the way home.
So, I guess she thought Virginia looked like New Jersey. But if she really thought that, she wouldn't have become so bewildered. And I guess in Jersey they call it NINE ARM, but I call it CUJO. And damnit, we discovered it in the first place. We were the native americans and here were these Jersey pilgrims calling something by another name and trying to take it over for themselves. But when you're a boy, you understand the power of a name; be it CUJO or Chipper. And names do have power to ward away those who would make everything the same. And I guess in their own way, they give each their own personal death. The colonel was the colonel, Cujo was Cujo, and Chipper was the mojo you could weild like a magic spell. Those were our "berries of hurting" to quote Shelktone's childhood wizardry. I think writing songs is just an extension of using words in that way. When they rhyme, somehow that's magical. I'm still learning what mojo's inside the name HUCKLEBERRY SLIM -but I know its got some, and that's enough for me. It sounds to me like those folks in Vermont found some kryptonite in the word Jersey too. In some ways, huckleberry to me, is just trying to Virginia New York City. But like Chuck Berry says the old folks say, "You never can tell."
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