Little Milton was belting out “They Call it Stormy Monday” from a jukebox in the corner.
Four white-haired men, all in their early seventies, all musicians, all wrinkled and irrelevant, had the distinction of being Maria’s boys. Jerry, a guitarist for Son House and Skip James during their resurgence in the 1960s, who had eventually been forced by arthritis to put down his Strat, was the most talkative and the biggest flirt. Tall, thin, soft-spoken, Sid, who built and played cigar box guitars, said the least. He was a recent widower, and she worried about him the most.
“Why don’t you work at Tan Fannies?” he asked.
“Tits’re too small, ass’s too white.”
As she had expected, her boys were shocked to hear such language coming from their Maria. Gasps, whistles, and grunts accompanied wide eyes that immediately darted to her tits and ass.
Maria Bella had been serving catfish and collards and chicken and trash burgers and mud cake at Junior’s for a few years now, was liked by everyone, adored by these old men who met daily for leisurely meals, unrushed conversation, and a bit of flirting, but she was still an outsider—a stranger in a strange land, and always would be—just the way she wanted it.
Junior’s had all the trappings of a juke joint—random, catch-as-catch-can furnishings, mostly wobbly tables and hand-me-down vinyl chairs, the booth Maria’s boys were in was the only one; a small stage where blues was occasionally played; a couple of pool tables; a bar; cheap booze; strings of Christmas lights strewn around the room; and walls filled with blues memorabilia—but the four old, arthritic men in the booth were the most authentic things in the joint.
The old wooden door in front creaked opened and a young, white tourist walked in wearing catalog clothes and an awestruck expression, and began looking around like he was still at the museum that no doubt brought him to town.
“God, I love it when you talk dirty,” Jerry said.
Beneath Maria’s big brown eyes, her perfect white teeth peeked out from a repressed smile.
“That’s almost as good as a lap dance,” Lefty said.
“Better,” Jerry said. “I’ve gotta rush home and change my damn Depends.”
Part of what would forever keep Maria an outsider was her mystique, the way she just showed up in Clarksdale one day, took a waitressing job at Junior’s, rented a vacant house trailer in the Sunflower Mobile Home Park, and kept to herself, spending her free time at the Carnegie Public Library or the AA meeting in the musty meeting hall of the AME church.
“You’ve got plenty to work with,” RD said. “You look about a billion times better than the best Tan Fannies has ever had.”
“Ah, that’s so sweet,” she said.
She looked over at Sid for a response, but he didn’t say anything. He was smiling, though, which was an improvement, and for an instant there seemed to be the hint of a spark in the old blue eyes behind the small glass lenses.
Jerry said, “You could work anywhere. If not Tan Fannies, how ‘bout Ground Zero? Anywhere but Junior’s. You’re the only reason we come in this dump.”
She smiled. She would’ve liked to work at Ground Zero Blues Club, but with Morgan Freeman being a co-owner, it was too risky, too many cameras, too much exposure, too much press, too many filmmakers shooting docs about the blues. It was too bad, too. She could’ve used someone like Mr. Freeman in her life. There was a stately decency about him, a goodness behind the rounder twinkle in his wise eyes.
“Junior done sucked her in,” RD said. “Now she can’t get out. Should’ve started somewheres else when she first come to town.”
RD, who actually favored Morgan Freeman a bit, was the only African-American in the group. He had played bass for Maria’s all-time favorite blues musician, Howlin’ Wolf.
The tourist fed the hungry jukebox and Robert Johnson’s “Cross Road Blues” began to play.
“Real original,” Jerry said in the direction of the tourist, but not directly to him. “Nice choice. You just come from the big blue guitars or are you on your way? It’s not really the crossroads you know. Hell, it ain’t even a crossroads.”
“What did bring you to Casablanca?” Sid asked Maria.
Her full resplendent smile was as breathtaking as it was unexpected. She rarely smiled, and this was the first full-wattage version the men had ever seen. There was an essential sadness beneath her beautiful exterior that permeated everything she did—even her restrained smiles. As RD put it, “She the only white woman I ever did know to truly have the blues in her soul.”
“My health,” she said. “I came for the waters.”
The whole town wondered where Maria came from and what had brought her to Clarksdale. Her boys made a game of guessing, each continually searching for new and clever ways to ask the young woman who seemed to have read every great book and memorized every good line from every great film.
“Waters? What waters?” Sid asked. “We’re in the desert.”
“Desert?” Lefty said. “Fuck he say?”
“What he say?” RD asked.
“Sid’s lost his goddam mind,” Jerry said. “Losing Gwen was too much for him. Sent him over the—”
“Sid,” Lefty said loudly. “We’re in Mississippi. Big ass rivers full of water everywhere you turn.”
“We’re repeating lines from one of the best films ever made,” Maria said.
“Oh,” RD said. “Old Bogart movie. What’s the name of—”
Jerry turned to him, exasperation on his face. “He just said it. Casablanca.”
“Did he? I missed it.”
Over near the entrance beneath the strings of antique Christmas lights that hung year-round, two businessmen were growing weary of waiting to be seated. Maria knew it, could sense it in their body language, but didn’t rush this, her favorite part of the job.
“I’ve often speculated on why you don’t return to where you came from,” Sid said. “Did you abscond with church funds? Did you run off with a senator’s daughter? I’d like to think you killed a man. It’s the romantic in me.”
Even though she knew the line, knew what was coming, a twitch at killed a man gave her away.
She could never be a poker player, Sid thought.
A glimpse. Just a glimpse, but a real revelation. Maria was still a mystery. Sid still didn’t know much about her, but he knew she was a killer. If Gwen were still here, she’d say he didn’t know it, just suspected it, but she’d be wrong. He knew it. What he didn’t know was what he was going to do about it.
“SHE KILLED SOMEONE,” Sid said.
“Huh?”
He and Lefty were shuffling down State Street past a carwash where a small group of young black men were putting the finishing touches on an enormous purple Cadillac.
“Maria. She’s hiding here because she killed a man—or a woman.”
“RD’s not the only one who’s lost his goddam mind. Where we headin’?”
“Hicks. I wanna take some tamales home.”
“Good idea. Maybe you haven’t completely lost your goddam mind.”
Next to Sid, Lefty looked even shorter than he was, his rounded, slightly hunched shoulders subtracting further from his already diminutive stature.
“I never would’ve used the Casablanca line if I thought she’d really killed someone.”
“Maria’s not a murderer,” Lefty said.
“I’m tellin’ you, Left, she is. I saw it in her eyes.”
“I’ve known a few in my time. Maria ain’t one.”
Though no one knew for sure exactly, Lefty, who was never much of a musician, was rumored to have worked for one of the families in Chicago before the blues and old age brought him to Clarksdale to stay. Bagman, enforcer, driver, even errand boy, he’d’ve seen a hell of a lot more killers than Sid.
“She is. I’m telling you.”
“So what if she is?”
“Well,” Sid said, pausing a moment, “I don’t know.”
They padded along in silence for a while,
raising their swollen and misshapen hands to wave at passing cars, nodding to approaching pedestrians.
“I want you to find out who she is and where she came from,” Sid said.
Lefty shook his head.
“I know you know people.”
“If I ever knew people—and I’m saying if, they’re all dead.”
“Come on, Left. What I ever ask of you?”
“I don’t know. Why you wanna know?”
“Just curious. Bored. Nothing better to do.”
“Whatta you gonna do with the information? Don’t wanna see Maria get jammed up. I like her.”
“Nothing. I swear. I’m just dying to know.”
ON A CLEAR SEPTEMBER DAY IN 2001, Maria Bella ended the life of Nancy Most. It was a long time ago now, but in her memory it was always as if it just happened. She hadn’t intended to do it, didn’t know she was going to the moment before she did it. No one could argue premeditation. And no one ever would. No one in Clarksdale, Mississippi, even knew who Nancy Most was, and as far as Maria knew, no one was looking for her.
But now Sid knew. She’d seen it in his eyes. She knew it. What she didn’t know was what she was going to do about it.
Life could be so random. One morning, Nancy Most was working her mall job at Ann Taylor Loft, going about her life, unaware how little of it there was left, and by lunch she was dead. She was an addict, a user in every sense of the word, a woman who traded on her good looks and wicked hot body to get what she wanted. She’d hurt so many people, done so much damage—but did she deserve to die? Maria thought so. Fate had left the decision up to her, and she’d chosen. Since then, she’d thought about it often—nearly every day—but she didn’t regret what she’d done. Given the same circumstances, she’d do it again.
“WE GOIN’ ON A LITTLE ROAD TRIP,” RD said. “Go with us.”
Lunch on a Thursday, and Maria’s boys were in their booth. Sid still looked at her funny—though only when she wasn’t looking—but the others acted just the same.
Bessie Smith, who died not far from here following a car accident, was on the juke moaning out “Muddy Water.”
“Where?”
“Jackson.”
“Jackson?”
He nodded. “Subway Lounge. We all played there back in the day.”
“Everybody did,” Jerry said. “It was a real juke—not like this place. Not like all the shit they’re tryin’ to market to tourists—that ridiculous Crossroads sign, fuckin’ casinos, corporate owned blues clubs.”
“Buckets of beer,” RD added. “Authentic blues, anyone could sit in with the band—House Rockers, King Edwards. Everybody there was there to hear the blues.”
“Weren’t competin’ with a bunch of goddam slot machines while you played,” Lefty said.
Jerry cleared his throat and Maria could tell he was about to break professorial and, if true to form, tell her shit she already knew.
“Real jukes started as a place for black sharecroppers to escape their painful existences in a time when Jim Crow kept ‘em out of the white joints,” he said. “On the outskirts of town in shacks or somebody’s house, they offered cheap entertainment, a chance to socialize and share each other’s burdens. Hell, these poor bastards were still essentially slaves and were only off a day and a half from Saturday afternoon til Monday morning.”
RD added, “It’s why the blues ain’t just music, gotta be caught, not taught, and jukes not somethin’ some corporation can do.”
Maria said, “Didn’t they tear the Subway down a few years ago?”
“It and the only place I could stay in back when we’s on the road,” RD said.
“It was in the bottom of the old Summers Hotel,” Lefty said.
“Tell her about the time you got the room in the white hotel,” Jerry said, but continued before RD could respond. “He went to this place in—where was it? Some town that only had a hotel for whites. Knocks on the door, middle of the night. Got no rooms, manager tells him. RD goes around the corner to a bar, calls the hotel, changes his voice, pretends to be a white man named LeRoy, tells the manager he needs a room for a guy he’s sending over. No problem, manager says. RD goes back a few minutes later, tells him Mr. LeRoy sent him, gets a room.”
“What’s there now?” Maria asked.
“Huh?”
“Since they tore it down? What’re you going to see?”
“Where it was.”
“You’re driving three hours to where something used to be?”
“Who knows,” RD said, “we might bring some instruments and our own buckets of beer and make some music.”
“Sounds great, but ‘fraid I’ll have to pass this time.”
“She don’t want to hang out with a bunch of saggin’ old men,” Sid said.
He can’t even look at me, Maria thought. Sure as shit doesn’t want me along for a road trip.
Bessie’s moan gave way to the haunting whine of Skip James’ desolate voice accompanied only by the simple sound of an acoustic guitar on “Devil Got My Woman.”
When RD finished his burger, only the onions remained on his plate. Jerry slid the plate toward Maria. Looking from the onions to her, he raised his eyebrows and wondered if he’d given her enough to work with.
She thought about it, then smiled. “There was one scene you did write.”
“About the onions?”
He was obviously pleased with himself. The others turned their attention to them, attempting to figure out what book or movie was being quoted.
“Yes.”
“Does Henry mind onions?” Jerry asked.
“I know this,” Sid said. “Henry. Henry. Who is—”
“He can’t bear them,” Maria said. “Do you like them?”
“Is it possible to fall in love over a dish of onions?”
Maria nodded at Jerry. “Well done you.”
“You’re the one to be commended.”
“I know it,” Sid said. “Is it a movie or a book?”
“Both,” they both said.
Maria added, “It’s a scene about a movie in a book that was turned into a movie based on the book—which makes it a scene from a book in a movie, in a movie based on a book.”
“The fuck?” Lefty said.
“The End of the Affair,” Sid said, snapping his arthritic fingers.
“Impressive,” Maria said.
He didn’t look at her—hadn’t since he saw the confession her eyes had made.
“Better than Casablanca,” Jerry said.
“HOW OLD YOU THINK MARIA IS?” Lefty asked.
Sid shrugged.
Lingering after the others had gone, the two elderly gentlemen with nowhere to be were standing out on the sidewalk in front of Junior’s.
“Younger than she looks. There’s something in her eyes. I’d say she’s had some hard years. Mid-thirties?”
“Eighty-four.”
“Goddam. I was wrong, she’s aged well.”
The two men were silent a moment. When Lefty didn’t say anything else, Sid said, “Seriously?”
“I’m serious.”
“Left, that beautiful young woman in there’s not eighty-four.”
“Maybe not, but the woman whose identity she stole is. Or would be if she weren’t dead.”
“She killed an old woman and took her identity?”
“All I know for sure is Maria Bella lived most of her life along the Outer Banks, taught school, ran one of those little lighthouse gift shops. During the months leading up to her death, she had a live-in companion who helped with cooking and cleaning and offered her some much needed company—a pretty blonde girl who appeared out of nowhere to apply for the job.”
“How long ago was that?”
“Just before she showed up here.”
“Where was she before she came to live with the real Maria Bella?”
“Should know in another day or so.”
Sid nodded, thinking, his gaze drifting up, away. Far away.
<
br /> “Just curious, right, Sid? Not gonna do anything about it—no matter what we find out?”
“Right. Just wanna know.”
“Then stop lookin’ like you’re figurin’ on some kind of goddam plan.”
“WHY WON’T YOU LOOK AT ME?” Maria asked.
Sid made eye contact with her for the first time in several days. “I look at you. I’m looking at you right now.”
They were seated at a round wooden table near the fiction section in a dimly lit back corner of the Carnegie Public Library. On the table in front of Maria, two stacks of reference books blocked Sid’s view of the notebook she’d been so feverishly scribbling in when she looked up, saw him, and insisted he join her.
“You know what I mean,” she said. “Ever since you saw my reaction to the line you quoted, you look at me differently.”
He didn’t say anything at first, then, “What’re you researching?”
“Just something for a little project I’m working on.”
“A project?”
“It’s nothing. Really.”
He squinted to make out the titles on the spines of the books across the table from him. He made out Crime Scene Investigation and Arson something or other.
“I’m not who you think I am,” she said.
“How do you know what I think?”
“Even if I did some horrible things in the past, isn’t it who I am now that counts?”
He nodded, but there was no conviction in the gesture.
“Don’t people deserve a second chance? Don’t we all need one from time to time?”
“We do.”
There was an innate gentleness in Sid that shone through his weary, watery blue eyes even behind his glasses, but Maria couldn’t find the compassion she was searching for.
“I’m not the person I was, and I’ll never be again. Can’t that be enough? Can’t you just accept me for who I am now?”
“I just want to know your story,” he said. “That’s all.”
“You know it. It began when I got here.”
“Then your back story.”
“Why? Why does it matter?”
He shrugged.
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