Ode to Billy Joe

I am determined to rewrite Bobbie Gentry’s Ode to Billy Joe as a novel. Ever since my 11th grade English teacher, Mrs. Haynes, had the entire class write essays on what we thought she and Billy Joe were throwing off that bridge, I’ve been bothered by that story. And now, almost half a century later, I have figured it out. You see, if you listen closely to the song, and visualize all of the things her mother says, you (or at least I) get a very different picture. It makes me start wondering about the relationship between mom and Brother Taylor, for instance. And do Mom’s questions not sound a bit like an inquisition? Listen closely to her, and then add things like a piercing look, and an unstated accusation, like “What do you know about that, girl?”, and then “What’s happened to your appetite?” , as though she is probing for an admission of some sort. Maybe it wasn’t a virus that Papa caught that did him in. Could it have been clearing the way for Brother Taylor? Okay, I’ve got to write it. Northern Mississippi, 1964, here I come. Oh, and Carmen Haynes, if you’re reading this (and I hope you are), I am convinced it wasn’t something existential, like their combined hopes, dreams, and future plans they were throwing off that bridge. They had their escape plans made and laid, and were just waiting. All they were really doing was pitching rocks at turtles. The only thing of note that was pitched off that bridge was Billy Joe, and I’m betting that Brother Taylor was the one who did it. Can you change my grade to an "A"?