⚓The Little Boy from Big Mamou / September 2025
~ Fiction ~
Roman à clef, cher!
Created AI-free
by Leonard Earl Johnson
of Lafayette and New Orleans, Louisiana
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Yours Truly in a Swamp
September 2025
Dedicated to September 3, 1947 / August 22, 2025
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📖
✍
Yours Truly in a Swamp
September 2025
Dedicated to
September 3, 1947 / August 22, 2025
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by
Leonard Earl Johnson
© 2025, Leonard Earl Johnson, All Rights Reserved
Best viewed for color contrast on a computer
or phone screen with a black background.
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The Sunset Limited pulls along very slowly creeping beside the Intercoastal Waterway, near Côte Des Allemands. The name is French. In English it means, Coast of The Germans.
In German it would be, Küste de Deutschen.
Everyone uses the French name. It is on a state signpost, though it is not an officially incorporated settlement.
There are some homes, and a few stores fronting the railroad and waterway. One with a shingle bragging: "Yes, We Have Alligator Meat."
There are three bridges crossing Bayou Des Allemands, where it opens out to the Gulf of Mexico/America/Trump. Two are for automobiles and one for the railroad.
This is where Balthazar once watched three boys of mixed race mooning the passing train. One boy was blond with white skin, another dusky Mediterranean mixed, and the third black.
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| Côte Des Allemands |
"That was integration Homer Adolph Plessy never thought about," Balthazar remarked to two red hatted tourists from Texas, who looked at him like he might be speaking Martian.
The mooning inspired Balthazar ~ a little known fisherman poet ~ to pen barroom ballads which he often sings into convivial free wine, and sometimes a boot out the door.
He took this morning's opportunity to share one of those bawdy ballads:
🧜♂️ 💀 🧜♂️
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THE BOY BEHIND THE ALTAR,
The Little Boy from Big Mamou
by Balthazar Beauregard
© 2025, Leonard Earl Johnson / All Rights Reserved
He was just a little boy from Big Mamou,
and that's way out in Acadia.
There a man with a long black limousine
filled him up with amphetamine,
and led him to the hot side of The Swamp.
He was wined, dined, and charming.
His intention was alarming.
So he say, 'au revoir, Acadia.'
Like Jean Lafitte he roamed about
till he came to New Orleans and he found out,
the one you call 'mon cher' ain't your 'mon père'.
He was young, hung, and lanky,
and he loved hanky-panky.
Every night opportunity would knock.
And now that he's known at the Whitney Bank,
he's goin' back home and genuflank
to the one who done him wrong,
the one who done him wrong,
the one who done him wrong
in Big Mamou!
𝅘𝅥𝅰🎵𝅘𝅥𝅯
Then someone broke his heart on Bourbon Street,
and he ups and leaves Louis-e-an.
Like a lost Cajun he bum-and-roam,
till an East Village slum become his home.
And he laid New York for Louis-e-an.
He was young, hung, and lanky
and he loved hanky-panky.
Every night opportunity would knock.
And now that he's known in the finest clubs
he's goin' back home and snub the studs,
the ones who done him wrong,
the ones who done him wrong,
the ones who done him wrong
in Big Mamou.
Then someone broke his heart on Bourbon Street
and he ups and leaves Louis-e-an.
Little lost Cajun he bum-and-roam
Till an East Village slum become his home
and he laid New York for Louis-e-an.
He was young, hung, and charming,
His intentions were alarming.
He took up Daddy-farming in New York.
And now that he's known for finding his stay
up with the stars on ole Broadway,
he's still that little boy from
Big Mamou
𝅘𝅥𝅰🎵𝅘𝅥𝅯
His landlord adored him
and was like a papa toward him,
till he learned what he earned alone at night.
And now that he's known in saloons and bars,
he's movin' back south with six fancy cars,
to the ones who done him wrong,
the ones who done him wrong,
the ones who done me wrong
in Big Mamou!
I mean the one who done me wrong,
the one who done me wrong,
the one who done me wrong
in Big Mamou!
💜💚💛
❤ ❤
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When Baltazar finished the train car passengers held their breath. There was no murmur, no shuffle. Nothing stirred but the poet-fisherman stepping down from his imagined microphone...
And the Conductor calling,
"Lafayette, next stop!"
👀 😁 👀
............................................... Next Month's Column 
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posted by LEJ's Louisiana | 1:16 AM
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