Illus. from “Life on the Mississippi”
Monday
I was just explaining to my very smart brother at the university of Iowa—David teaches finance there—about the various literary con artists that Donald Trump resembles. When I mentioned the King and the Duke in Huckleberry Finn, he said he thought Trump was more like the keelboat shout-boasters. I was instantly impressed.
That’s because these boasting contests very much resemble the boasting we hear from the president. He has the highest IQ, his response to Hurricane Maria rates an A+, he saved the American economy, he has been the most productive U.S. president in history, his inauguration crowds were the biggest ever, and so on. The fact checkers have been going crazy over all the false claims, and journalists, policy makers, and others wonder why people can’t see through all the falsehoods.
But seeing him engaged in shout-boasting would explain why his fans go along. No one believes the boasters either. They just love their effrontery.
The episode, which appeared originally in Life on the Mississippi, was meant for Huckleberry Finn. Twain’s publisher dropped it from the latter, worried that people would think they were getting the same book twice. In recent years, Twain scholars have argued for its inclusion in Huckleberry Finn.
Here’s a sampling of a shout-boast brawl that breaks out on a raft:
Then [one of the contestants] jumped up in the air three times and cracked his heels together every time. He flung off a buckskin coat that was all hung with fringes, and says, ‘You lay thar tell the chawin-up’s done;’ and flung his hat down, which was all over ribbons, and says, ‘You lay thar tell his sufferin’s is over.’
Then he jumped up in the air and cracked his heels together again and shouted out—
‘Whoo-oop! I’m the old original iron-jawed, brass-mounted, copper-bellied corpse-maker from the wilds of Arkansaw!—Look at me! I’m the man they call Sudden Death and General Desolation! Sired by a hurricane, dam’d by an earthquake, half-brother to the cholera, nearly related to the small-pox on the mother’s side! Look at me! I take nineteen alligators and a bar’l of whiskey for breakfast when I’m in robust health, and a bushel of rattlesnakes and a dead body when I’m ailing! I split the everlasting rocks with my glance, and I squench the thunder when I speak! Whoo-oop! Stand back and give me room according to my strength! Blood’s my natural drink, and the wails of the dying is music to my ear! Cast your eye on me, gentlemen!—and lay low and hold your breath, for I’m bout to turn myself loose!’
All the time he was getting this off, he was shaking his head and looking fierce, and kind of swelling around in a little circle, tucking up his wrist-bands, and now and then straightening up and beating his breast with his fist, saying, ‘Look at me, gentlemen!’ When he got through, he jumped up and cracked his heels together three times, and let off a roaring ‘Whoo-oop! I’m the bloodiest son of a wildcat that lives!’
Then the man that had started the row tilted his old slouch hat down over his right eye; then he bent stooping forward, with his back sagged and his south end sticking out far, and his fists a-shoving out and drawing in in front of him, and so went around in a little circle about three times, swelling himself up and breathing hard. Then he straightened, and jumped up and cracked his heels together three times, before he lit again (that made them cheer), and he begun to shout like this—
‘Whoo-oop! bow your neck and spread, for the kingdom of sorrow’s a-coming! Hold me down to the earth, for I feel my powers a-working! whoo-oop! I’m a child of sin, don’t let me get a start! Smoked glass, here, for all! Don’t attempt to look at me with the naked eye, gentlemen! When I’m playful I use the meridians of longitude and parallels of latitude for a seine, and drag the Atlantic Ocean for whales! I scratch my head with the lightning, and purr myself to sleep with the thunder! When I’m cold, I bile the Gulf of Mexico and bathe in it; when I’m hot I fan myself with an equinoctial storm; when I’m thirsty I reach up and suck a cloud dry like a sponge; when I range the earth hungry, famine follows in my tracks! Whoo-oop! Bow your neck and spread! I put my hand on the sun’s face and make it night in the earth; I bite a piece out of the moon and hurry the seasons; I shake myself and crumble the mountains! Contemplate me through leather—don’t use the naked eye! I’m the man with a petrified heart and biler-iron bowels! The massacre of isolated communities is the pastime of my idle moments, the destruction of nationalities the serious business of my life! The boundless vastness of the great American desert is my enclosed property, and I bury my dead on my own premises!’ He jumped up and cracked his heels together three times before he lit (they cheered him again), and as he come down he shouted out: ‘Whoo-oop! bow your neck and spread, for the pet child of calamity’s a-coming!’
These boasters may have been based on the semi-legendary figure of Mike Fink.To see Trump operating out of this tradition helps explain why not everyone dismisses him as a pathological liar. Of course he doesn’t believe everything he says, one imagines his supporters saying. He’s just engaged in modern-day shout-boasting.
So bow your neck and spread, America, for the pet child of calamity’s a-coming!