Marshall Ramsey

Guardian angels come in all shapes and sizes.  Little Kevin’s was bigger and greener than most. And had one giant eye and horns.

He was a seven-foot monster. And his name was Magwazine.

Magwazine spoke in a tongue only one other person could understand. He communicated with a series of grunts and guttural sounds.  It was a language invented by little Kevin himself.  Thanks to a series of ear infections, Kevin’s speech had been delayed. (And then after time, abandoned all together.) For nearly over two years, he heard the world like a person three-feet underwater.  Fluid had congealed in his inner ear causing developmental problems with his speech. Kevin’s world became a world of his own.

And it was a world that frustrated everyone not in it.

Kevin’s parents sought out every expert they could find. Tests revealed the need for more tests.  And those tests led to even more tests.  The final diagnosis was as confusing as Kevin’s speech.  The doctor’s were confounded — “He has a massive reception language (words that he understood) but just can’t speak.”  By the time he was two years old, he had created his own little world.  And in that world, he met Magwazine.

Magwazine and Kevin played in their world every single day. They ate picnics of blueberry pies under the purple sky.  Rain clouds of lemonade and taffy soaked the land with sweetness.  Roses and daisies lined the roads they ran along.  They played tag. They built sandcastles in the white, powdery sand.  Yellow birds sang beautiful songs. Sunbeams warmed them as they napped beneath the giant blue trees.  It was an ideal world full of imagination and wonder.

Kevin loved Magwazine. And Magwazine loved little Kevin.

Every night, Magwazine would read Goodnight Moon as Kevin drifted off to sleep. Magwazine would just sit there, watching and thinking how much he loved his little friend.  A moonbeam crept in the window and hugged the monster and the boy. Magwazine’s heart was as full as the moon outside.

No one in the outside world could see Magwazine.  No one in the outside world could understand Kevin.  And neither really cared.

On Sunday night, Magwazine once again read “Goodnight Moon” to Kevin as he slowly drifted off to sleep.  Magwazine kissed his little friend on the cheek and pulled his covers up to his chubby cheeks.  Another day of play had come to a close.

Magwazine watched as the moonbeam snuck into the room like a tabby cat, creeping stealthily across the room. Little Kevin was well protected.

Three o’clock in the morning brought deep sleep and smoke.  An electrical fire had started in an outlet in the guest bathroom, starting a small fire that quickly grew out of control.  Alarms screamed and Kevin’s parents leapt out of bed.  The father ran outside and saw flames shooting out of the roof — right over where Kevin’s bed was.  His mother quickly ran out behind and screamed when she saw the flames.  Smoke billowed.  Kevin’s father ran toward the door in Kevin’s room. The intense heat pushed him back.

Magwazine saw the smoke trickle in and block the moonbeam.  He knew something was wrong and quickly went into action.  He wet a shirt with a glass of water and put it over Kevin’s nose. He then pulled the him down to the floor, where the oxygen was.  Seconds turned into minutes.  The flames knocked at the door.

Sirens filled the night air as the fire department arrived.  Kevin’s father repeatedly tried to get closer to the door as the smoke began to obscure the house.  The fireman pulled him back as Kevin’s mother collapsed on the ground sobbing.  “KEVIN!!!” she cried.  And what they saw next left them as speechless as their son.

Through the smoke came a giant green monster with one eye and horns. And in his arms was a little boy wrapped securely and carefully in a blanket.  Magwazine carefully handed Kevin to his father, grunted a guttural growl and kissed his friend on the cheek.  And then he turned around and walked away.

Several fireman and two stunned parents watched in silence as guardian angel walked into the darkness.

His father put Kevin down. The little boy ran over to his mother and leapt into her arms. And then he did something that even would have surprised Magwazine:

He spoke.

“Mommy!”

“Daddy!”

Then, two words were followed by a third.  Little Kevin looked into the darkness and saw his friend.  “MAGWAZINE!!”

And that’s when a horned, one-eyed monster blew his best friend a kiss and disappeared in the darkness of the night.

The End.

In the late summer of 1996, our apartment phone rang in San Diego, California.  A man with a very Southern accent said, “Hello, may I please speak to Marshall.”  It was the first time that I heard Clarion-Ledger Editorial Page editor David Hampton.  I had applied for the job as editorial cartoonist.  He was inviting me to Jackson, Mississippi for an interview.

A 1/3 of my life has passed since then.  Fifteen years later, I handed him my Sunday cartoon (about him) and said goodbye.  I still can’t believe come Monday he will not be my editor.

In those 15 years, I showed him thousands of rough cartoon ideas. (Until I was made part-time, that was seven cartoons a week times about three roughs per day.)  Day in and day out, I’d hand him the sketches and he’d pick the one he wanted to go on the editorial page. He never gave me ideas. I wouldn’t have taken them. But I respected his opinion. And advice.   Although we may have disagreed with politically, his main requirement was that I do my best work.  Under his supervision, I was named a two-time Pulitzer Finalist. He deserves some credit for that. You find a good editor and you stick with him (or her).  David was worth sticking around for.

David is a passionate man. And a stubborn one.  I didn’t always agree with him and at times, he frustrated me as a boss. And I’m sure I frustrated him as an employee. If he didn’t want to hear something, you could tell. Managing a department with talented, self-assured people couldn’t have been easy. I used to call him the “ego whisperer.” But I can count the times we had serious disagreements on both hands.  Over 15 years, that’s not a bad track record.

David cares deeply about Mississippi. About Jackson. About education. He likes to harvest deer. He’s close to his brothers and loves baseball. He’s a good Christian who lives his faith. And I’ve met no one who cared more for The Clarion-Ledger.  Leaving it pains him.

And knowing he won’t be there Monday pains me.  Change happens.  I get that. But change without my editor will be hard to fathom. The Clarion-Ledger has lost a big part of its soul.  Thanks, David. It has been an honor working with you.

Representative Mumford T. Bumford (Bum to his friends) loved serving in the Mississippi Legislature. He wasn’t sure if it was the free lunches, free dinners or occasional free breakfast. But he knew that his waistline had grown more in the past four years than his rural, hilly district.  It was afternoon, the House was just starting to get to work — he had to pass some bills putting more “guv’mnt” in the lives of the folks. He had spoken to the local Rotary at lunch preaching about the evils of guv’mnt.  If he had thought about it, Bum would have noticed the irony of preaching against himself.  But irony was a word Bum didn’t worry about much.  There were good legislators in the Mississippi Legislature.  Bum wasn’t one of them.

His opponent in the last election had come up with the catchy slogan, “Throw the Bum out.”  If the poor fool had been in the right party, he might have had a chance doing just that. But politics were politics and Bum was able to hide behind the accomplishments of others and raise a bunch of money.  He won a squeaker and got to go back to Jackson. Like the Honeybadger, Bum didn’t really care. He liked the per diem, the mileage, the lobbyist paid-for dinners and being away from his wife for four days a week. Bum prayed for Special Sessions.  The Legislature was his full-time part-time job.

The Gold Eagle on the top of the Capitol had a better chance of flying off into the sunset than Bum ever being in the leadership. He secretly pined for a leadership position, but he knew the Speaker was on to his game.  So he sat in the back and soaked up the perks of the job.

He’d walk down the halls of the Capitol and would swear the portraits of the Governors were mocking him. What did they know anyway?  Who needed the Governor’s Mansion anyway. Although he’d love the pardon power. And the state plane. That’d make going to a bowl game to see Ole Miss, State or Southern Miss that much easier.

The representative from the district next to his hustled past his desk with a pile of papers.  “Amateur,” Bum scoffed. The boy was a freshman and had high ideals about improving education, Medicaid and whatever cause of the day he got suckered into.  Bum took a sip of his free coffee and started wishing it was deer season again. He felt the warmth of the Chamber wrap her arms around him. Sleep visited him. He soon started nodding off.

A tap on the shoulder woke Bum up.

“Wake up Bum.”  It was the ghost of his father.  His father had been a long-time legislator, Secretary of State, Auditor and then Governor.

Bum peed a little in his pants. His father had died 30 years ago of a massive heart attack. Too much free fried catfish dinners had been his downfall.  To say his appearance was unexpected would be to say that Katrina was destructive.

“Boy, I ought to turn you over my knee.  You’re pissin’ away the chance to make a difference in this state.  You tell your constituents lies, boy.  Lies.  You say you love Mississippi and then you don’t do squat.  You’re in power, boy. Here me? Power.”

Bum, not a big fan of being preached to by dead fathers, woke up. He knocked his coffee over on a bill that was sitting on his desk.  “I gotta go to the little Legislator’s room,” Bum announced to no one.

He walked out of the chamber door again and there was his father’s ghost again, blocking his way.  The ghost pointed his finger at Bum’s chest.  Bum felt his heart grow cold.

“Boy, I’m not done with you.” The Ghost took his son to his district 20 years in the future.

Hydrogen cars whirred past on the four-lane highway that ran by the plant. Except the plant wasn’t there.  It had left for China ten years ago. The local high school was run down and men walked down the street with no place to do.  Bum and the ghost walked down the street into the small down that was the county seat.  Businesses were shuttered.  It was high-noon and the square was as quiet as a tomb.  “Where is everyone?” Bum asked his father. The sky was gray and the buildings were devoid of any color.

“They left when the jobs left.  You know how I felt about Guv’m’nt.  I hated it as much as you say you do.  But these folks didn’t need Guv’m’nt. You gave them Gov’m’nt.  They needed leadership, son.  Your leadership.”

“But how?”

A car ran through the ghost, scaring the crap out of Bum, who had to jump out of the way.

“Engage, son. Work with the business leaders. Help the kids in school learn to love education. Be an example.  Recruit industry.  Do what you can on the floor of the House to help your folks. Commit your life to your community. They’ve committed to you by re-electing you. Quit proposing only show legislation just to pander.”

Bum, thinking he must still be asleep, tried to wake up.  But he couldn’t.  This must be gas from the free lunch he had eaten a couple of hours ago.

“Show some backbone, son. And no, this is not a dream.” His dad’s ghostly finger poked Bum in the chest again.

Suddenly the colors brightened. Downtown was vibrant.  Industry had appeared.  Small businesses flourished in their town.

“What happened?”  Bum asked. “Why is it nicer?”

Because this is what it will look like if you will get off your butt and get to work.

Bum woke up when the Speaker slammed down his gavel.  He looked down at the legislation in front him and for the first time in ages, read it.  Like Maverick at the end of Top Gun, Bum Bumford engaged in the fight.  Sure, he’d still enjoy a free meal with the best of them. But he had work to do.  He’d prove that one man can make a difference — even a Bum.

As he walked down the halls of the Capitol that night, Bum stopped and looked at the portrait of his father hanging on the wall. And for the first time, he notice a slight smile on the old man’s face.  Bum said, “Thanks dad,” and headed out to dinner.  And at that moment a lone Mississippi legislator began on a path of making a huge difference in the state he loved.