"SOUTHERN STORIES"

SUMMARIES FOR TWELVE THIRTY-MINUTE TELEVISION PROGRAMS

OLD DISMAL Deborah Noirey, her son Tommy, and husband Elmo visit Deborah's psychic Aunt Mary, who lives on a houseboat in a swamp. Aunt Mary tells a story-about Old Dismal, a sinkhole once used for drowning runaway slaves that later became the scene of several mysterious murders after a modern luxury hotel was built nearby.

THE FUNERAL A taxi driver takes Deborah Noirey to a funeral at New Orleans ’ famous St. Louis No. 1 Cemetery on Basin Street. He witnesses the traditional jazz funeral for a respected alderman, followed by a mournful but eventually jubilant street procession that includes blank-faced zombies like Desmond Stacker. The taxi driver becomes obsessed with Deborah and falls to her voodoo. (This program will showcase the music and folklore of funerals.)

THE REMEDY MAN Deborah leaves her psychically-suppressed son Tommy with a benign voodoo expert or "remedy man" living beside the Mississippi River levee south of New Orleans. Tommy is first afraid but later taunts the remedy man as a fake; the old man can't get his spells to work right, but eventually he teaches Tommy the art of magic — and the responsibility of wielding it.

(Part 1 of a three-part series)

LA CHASSE GALLERIE After a mother-son argument, Deborah sends newly-trained Tommy to a remote Cajun village to investigate complaints of "chasse gallerie" or ghostly sounds late at night. Because he uses magic to help people, Tommy is deluged with requests by local people to save them from bad luck and omens. Even though Tommy gives them "gris gris" objects to ward off evil, his skills are tested as he has to personally investigate a "revenant" or roaming ghost that haunts houses in the area. Tommy finds the ghost — and learns that it's his departed grandfather!

(Part 2 of a three-part series)

LOUP GAROU Werewolf, a human turned into a hideous animal, is known in French-speaking South Louisiana as a "loup garou." When Tommy returns to the remote Cajun village with his father Elmo, the streets are eerily quiet and empty; no more ghostly sounds. And when they return to the haunted house deep in the woods, Tommy cannot locate the "revenant", Elmo's father's ghost. Just as they decide to leave, a werewolf attacks Elmo, and the loup garou turns out to be the departed grandfather seeking revenge. Elmo's magic is rendered useless by the possessed animal, and many local people are under its vengeful influence. Thus only Tommy can save his father and resolve the family enmity crisis.

(Part 3 of a three-part series)

THE BOGEYMAN Tommy's grandfather, now a reformed ghost, tells a tale about "the bogeyman" and how he handles bad children.

"SOUTHERN STORIES": TWELVE THIRTY-MINUTE PROGRAMS (Continued)

JAYHAWKERS Elmo tells Tommy about 12 Civil War deserters who preyed on families of Confederate soldiers — until the war ended.

THE GHOST RACE Deborah and Elmo take Tommy to a family reunion held on the grounds of an old plantation in the country. Tommy befriends a crippled boy who doesn't believe in the supernatural. The other children at the reunion are ordinary kids, so they are skeptical of rumors about the legend of the ghost horse race. Tommy and the other kids investigate and witness the race one night. The crippled boy later explains his brother was killed racing him on a horse years before, and his body was never found.

THE WEDDING Deborah and Elmo tell the story of Evangeline to Tommy one night after dinner, which leads to questions about their marriage, and anecdotes about how they were married. Tommy learns that his mother and father weren't married by a priest or a judge, but by a family doctor, a rural family healer.

THE HEALER Tommy travels to New Orleans by bus to meet the mysterious doctor who wed his parents. The healer lives in the French Quarter and only heals people there if they ask for help. (However, he is unable to heal himself — especially from his own mainline cocaine addiction.) He asks Tommy what he has come for. . Tommy wants to learn how to heal people. The healer explains that that first Tommy must listen to stories of famous French Quarter ladies to learn about the kind of people Tommy will have to heal.

(Part 1 of a three-part series)

1140 ROYAL STREET Tommy hears the wicked tale of socialite and sadist Madame La Laurie, the prominent New Orleans woman who led a double life: on one side, a charitable benefactor of the less fortunate, and on the other side, a sadistic torturer of slaves kept prisoner in her attic. Those tortured cries still fracture the midnight stillness near "the haunted house on Royal Street."

(Part 2 of a three-part series)

VOODOO QUEEN Marie Laveau, perhaps the best-known witch of New Orleans history, was a mulatto, someone with a half-white and half-black heritage. Her father was a plantation owner and a member of the legislature. Marie was a hairdresser by trade and used her voodoo expertise to make love potions and a variety of other spells for her customers. Her notoriety came primarily after death, however; believers mark an "X" on her tomb in St. Louis No. 1 cemetery for wishes and "XX" to put a hex on someone. After the stories, the healer tells Tommy the secrets of healing: a prayer from the heart purifies the sin of the wicked, but the healer absorbs that sin. The healer then dies before the boy's eyes -- but not before asking to be buried with long sleeves to cover the needle marks on his pale white arms.

(Part 3 of a three-part series)