“I built this place to have something to identify with. Here I can be in my own world, with my temples and designs and the spirit of God. I can have my own spirits and my own thoughts.” — St. EOM ↗ The late Eddie
But it was not always this way. Back before cell phones and internet and GPS, my new bride, Stanwyck, got the wild idea — from Col. Hampton, decades before his death in May 2017 — to track down a rumor: Somewhere near a one-light town in Southwest Georgia, there existed one man’s vision of Paradise. If you could find it. We finally found Buena Vista — itself something of a triumph in those ancient days of primitive navigation, the mid ’80s — and stopped at a gas station and asked how to find St. EOM. We got a blank stare from the young lady at the register who turned to a woman frying chicken. “These people are looking for somebody called Saint Something.” The woman leaning over the fryer never looked up as she explained we were looking for “Crazy Eddie, that old fortune-teller man.” Mystery solved, we received directions, along with another reference to St. EOM as “crazy.” Forty-five minutes and several wrong turns, dirt roads and dead ends later, we came upon a hand-lettered sign: PHOTOS COURTESY OF CSU ARCHIVES
Owens Martin, above, who called himself St. EOM, created Pasaquan beginning in the late 1950s after he experienced visions of Pasaquoyan, a religion for the future for all people. HIs sevenacre art park in Buena Vista, Georgia, about three hours north of Tallahassee, features pagodas, temples, shrines and sculptures.
BEWARE OF BAD DOGS. BLOW HORN AND WAIT IN CAR UNTIL I COME OUT. Stanwyck, a woman not accustomed to waiting, got out of the car and headed for
a front door that promptly was flung open. Two enormous German shepherds flew from the doorway, followed by a howling old man with wild hair yelling, “You git back in that car ’fore them dogs eat you!” Stanwyck slammed the car door just as the dogs began leaping and scratching and snarling at her window. The Grand Pasaquoyan knocked on Stanwyck’s window. “What you want here?” We explained. “I hadn’t been feeling so good.” Stanwyck: “We brought some pot.” “Well why didn’t ya say so? Come on. Those dogs won’t bother you as long as you don’t carry any evil thoughts.” We handed over our botanical tribute and settled in for a chat. For the next 90 minutes, St. EOM told us his story, often in language that would make a sailor blush. Born into grinding poverty, Eddie realized that a gay man in the Deep South circa 1922 faced some serious challenges. He ran away from his hometown of Buena Vista to the streets of New York, making ends meet the best he could: prostitution, running gambling games, dealing marijuana, waiting tables, and notably, as a 42nd Street fortune teller. He had the knack, he said, of understanding what people needed to hear based on their “viberations.” Then one day, he said, “A voice in my head said ‘GO HOME,’ and I said ‘What?’
TALL AHASSEEMAGA ZINE.COM
November–December 2018
87