For the last 15 or so years, I’ve been the neighborhood Tarzan. Whut? Yep, for years I’ve been the mystery Garden District Tarzan. It started after evening call to prayers one night….we have a small mosque deep in the neighborhood, don’t ask, even I don’t know how it got there. Even been here longer than I have. Anyway, from time to time the clerics get a little jumpy with the volume (think turn it up to 11) and we’ll politely ask them to turn it back down, they always comply.

Slac, just what in the hayell do mooslims and Tarzan got to do with one another? Well, friend, I’ll tell ya. That night on my back porch after the call, I just answered…in the only way I thought they might hear. A deep penetrating, rumbling baritone Tarzan yell. Ive sung everything from opera to broadway to bluegrass, it’s safe to say my voice carries. I don’t know why I did it, home alone sittin on my back porch having a drank, it just came out. Didn’t think anymore about it…til about a week later.

We porch sit and gab with a lot of neighbors in the hood when the weather is nice and we just happen to be doing so when one of the ladies expressed her puzzlement over a facebook thread about Tarzan last week. What in the heck are they talking about? Linda heard it and she said it sounded like Carol Burnette when she used to do that yell on her tv show. Millie said it sounded like a crazy person. Bev said it sounded like a recording to her. I almost copped to it then and there but the conversation was moving along so I let it lie…Slac said, who’d ever heard of such?”

Later that night, it occurred to me, I could have some fun with this. The key was not to be seen, not even Mrs Slac could know…she’d spill the beans. Anyway, over the years, most often at night, you’ll infrequently hear a voluminous, gutteral Tarzan call echoing through the trees. I could be out walking the dogs or just walking myself sometimes, I’m careful to spread it out ya know,don’t wanna rouse suspicion. Sometimes an fb thread will pop up about it sometimes not. But it has remained a neighborhood mystery for all these years. Well today, I’m working from home…stepped out on the back porch to stretch my body and mind and I just let one go. Glorious it was, it’s probably been six months or so. About 15 seconds later, neighbors kid walks out his back door…he gets home from school about that time. He says , hey Mr Slac…dyoo hear that? I said yep, I came out here to see where it was coming from….but I couldn’t tell. He says, they’ll catch that guy some day…to which I agreed and went back inside.

A little mystery is good for people. I don’t know why I’ve done it for so long…it’s just kind of amusing. It’s to the point, if I confessed, nobody’d believe me anyway. Y’all don’t tell.