Vernon “Possum” Tatum

Vernon “Possum” Tatum was born in Whistle, Louisiana, in a year that's nobody's business, to a mama who worked nights and a daddy who was mostly a rumor. He got the name Possum at an age when you can't fight a nickname, on account of playing dead whenever medicine came out, and he has been playing various things ever since — dead, rich, calm, and one time, briefly, a Boudreaux.

He has worked at Dewey's Pawn & Gun & Notary since he was eleven years old, where he learned to read gold, silver, and people, in that order of difficulty. He carries a jeweler's loupe on his keychain the way other folks carry a rosary, and for about the same reasons. His best friend is a large gentle man named Biscuit, his truck is named Charlene, and his Papaw's duck sits on a shelf behind the counter at Dewey's with a little brass plate that says NOT FOR SALE. ASK US WHY.

People ask. That's how these stories got loose.

Vernon writes them down when the shop is slow, which in Whistle is most of the time. He mails new ones to folks on his letter route before anyplace else gets them, because the post office in Whistle is also the bait stand, and loyalty matters.