by George Wier
I had a woman named Julie
She was the joy of my life
Had a woman name ‘a Julie
I went and made her my wife.
Now I’m drowning my sorrows in whiskey,
And cocaine is taking my life.
No she ain’t my baby,
Ain’t my baby no more.
I’m sayin’ she ain’t my baby.
No not my baby no more.
That woman she’s the reason
Life ain’t worth livin’ no more.
She waited till I was deep in debt
And all the money run dry.
Yes she helped me to get deep in debt
And all the money done run dry
Then she run off with Mr. Bill Travis
And all I want to do is cry.
Well I’m sayin’ she ain’t my baby,
Ain’t my baby no more. (No more no more.)
I’m sayin’ she ain’t my baby.
No not my baby anymore.
That evil woman she’s the whole reason
Life ain’t worth livin’ for sure.
He played and sang three more songs while the rest of us drank our cokes and our beer—and Julie a small glass of wine—and then he got up and took a bow to a standing ovation. It does a body good to stand up every few minutes.
Next up was Ms. Phyllis Symone, a very young, very sultry-looking Filipino woman who had come to the States to learn how to sing the blues. And for what I heard as we sat there, taking it all in, she’d learned quite a lot.
There was one line from a blues tune she’d written—her second and final song—that struck me as salient, and caused me to shudder.
When you’re carried along by the river of life
You have to grab hold of somethin’
—Somethin’ that’ll save you—
And when the river is running too fast
You’d better grab, I say you’d better grab hold to,
You better take hold to the hand of a friend.
As the final strains of the song faded away, I was the first to stand and start clapping, loud and strong.
I looked at Hank, and he raised an eyebrow to me, then smiled.
I glanced at Julie, and she nodded. It struck me then that she knew all about it. She knew everything. But she merely smiled at me, and this caused the lump that was forming in my throat to rise and become painful.
“I love you,” she mouthed to me. And, of course, I silently said the same back.
Phyllis Symone stood up from her stool, released her guitar, bowed and waved, and a very large grin spread across her face. Every person in the room stood and clapped.
Next, we listened to Deuteronomy Jones. Jones was a bluesman in the old style. He could have been a first cousin to John Lee Hooker in that he wore a loud Hawaiian shirt, Bermuda shorts, amber sunglasses that reflected all the lights on the stage back at us, a small straw hat with fishing lures sticking out it this way and that, and he had a low, baritone voice so raspy that he could have spent an hour that evening gargling gravel and sandpaper.
Deuteronomy sang about surviving to become an old man, when it was plain to him at an early age that he wasn’t supposed to live so terribly long. I pegged the man for his early sixties, and wondered about his background as I listened.
What’s the use of growin’ old, if’n you can’t sing the blues?
I say what’s the use of growin’ so old, if’n you ain’t gone sing the blues?
My momma told me early on, the way you actin’, son,
You ain’t gone live to thirty year old—naw, you ain’t gone live.
When Deuteronomy was done, he stood up from his keyboard, his ropy muscles rippling in his light brown arms and legs, carefully removed his hat, and bowed to the audience. The loudness of the applause was a complete counterpoint to the quietness with which everyone had listened.
Last up, of course, was Cottonmouth, and he sang just the one song: The Saigon Blues. Cottonmouth’s voice was that of a true bass, with the ocean-depth clarity of Tennessee Ernie Ford and the remarkable reverberation of Luciano Pavarotti.
Took eight weeks to get through boot camp,
Caught a plane to Bangalore.
Then they flew me on to Saigon
Fifth Ward boy on foreign shores.
While I’m there I tried some singin’—
What’s a black man who ain’t singin’?—
When there’s much nothing else to do.
Ain’t no way I won’t be singin’—
‘Course I will, that’s what I do—
I’m a singin’ the Saigon Blues.
When there’s rain down in your skivvies
And it’s comin’ down in buckets
There’s no countin’ on your blessings
Ain’t no straight way back to town.
Only good luck and reflexes has ever saved a fellah,
And a hot one in the chamber
Once again and for good measure
I’m sure singin’—always singin’---
I’m sure singin’ the Saigon Blues.
Back a base camp I’m a eatin’
And my sleep be full of dreamin’
And my dreams be full of bleedin’
Of my friends who ain’t no more.
There’s no point in my complainin’
There’s no friendly man explainin’
All the reasons that they sent me out
And brought me back once more.
‘Cause once more I will be traipsin’
‘Cross the Mekong Delta rainin’,
Rainin’ fire and death and leanin’
On my last c-rations store.
Time for me to get to singin’
There’s no other blues I’m meanin’
Get to singin’—just start singin’—
Get to singin’ the Saigon Blues.
When Cottonmouth was done, he stepped down from the stage to thunderous applause, walked over and shook Hank’s hand and hugged him, stepped up to Julie and kissed her on the cheek, then stepped past her and grasped me in a bear hug. He lifted me from the floor, and people around us started laughing.
“Put me down, you ox,” I said, barely able to breathe. “Ribs. Ribs.”
He put me down, held me at arm’s length, and said, “Thank you, Bill. Thank you for my life. I only wish Jimmy was here tonight.”
I glanced over at the bar, and at that moment, the lights above it flickered.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I’ve got a feeling he’s been here all along.”
*****
During the long drive back home we had kids sleeping in the back seat.
“You do have quite the effect on people,” Julie said, and reached over and rubbed at my neck.
“I don’t mean to,” I said. “Truth of the matter is, I believe it to be the opposite. I let them affect me. Sometimes a little too much.”
“I don’t know,” she said after a pause. “I don’t want you changing, now. We started a little late, but I kind of like how things are going.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“You. Me. The kids. Even your little adventures. I’ve never once asked you to slow down.”
She had unwittingly hit upon something, but the more I considered it, I’d never known my wife to do anything without knowing every side to it, from the way she put on her jeans and make-up, to the every word that came from her lips.
“I’m afraid,” I said.
She laughed. “You? Afraid of what?”
“That. Slowing down. And...you know.”
“Getting old?”
“Maybe.”
“No matter how old you get, I’ll always see you as that guy in traffic, acting all cool and rolling your window down and looking over at me.”
“I did the Mississippi thing when I did that.”
“What Mississippi thing?” she asked.
“I counted to myself. Like this: One Miss-iss-ippi. Two Mis
s-iss-ippi. Three Miss-iss-ippi. Then I looked at you.”
She punched my arm. “You didn’t.”
“I did. I promise.”
“Oh, I swear.”
“What?”
“This was your plan all along. Find a girl, get her pregnant, convince her she was in love with you, then run off into the blue every few weeks or months and live the kind of life you always wanted.”
“Uh huh. That was my plan all along. Maybe some day I’ll have that.”
“Play your cards right, someday you’ll have me.”
“All right, you two,” Hank’s voice said from the back seat. “Don’t you know how you got all these kids in the first place?”
“Shut up, Hank,” Julie and I said together.
“I love you, too,” he said.
Finis
AUTHOR'S NOTE
W hen I was very young, my father took me on a tour of blues joints in the Houston area. You see, my father was one of the original Hellfighters. He worked directly under Red Adair, Boots Anson and Coots. Some of my earliest memories are of him going off for weeks at a time to fight oil well fires in the Gulf. I would throw a wall-eyed fit whenever he’d go off like that. Later, while working for Brown & Root, he had his back broken on an oil well platform during a hurricane, and thus had to “slow down” a bit. Therefore, he went from longshoreman to truck driver, and drove a rig for Skerlock Oil Company, headquartered out of Houston. And before all of this—I don’t remember any of it, because I was far too young—we lived down in La Marque, right on the Houston Ship Channel. So, I suppose it should be no surprise that my father would know Houston, and know it well. Maybe a little too well, if you take my meaning. If you’re an old-timer, and lived during those times—you would have to be in your eighties or nineties, but I’m sure there are a few of you still around—and were around the Houston area, chances are you met him, and if you met him, why, you knew him. His name was Nelson Wier, and he was a force of nature.
When I was no more than seven, my father took me to some of the back street dives, little more than juke joints, with clouds of blue cigarette smoke and loud “colored” music filling the air. My father loved those places. For my own part, I was instantly enthralled.
Since that time, I have loved The Blues.
From my point of view, it was a matter of course that I would be accepted by the many people I visited in those back street blues joints, even though, technically speaking, I’m whiter than an unbaked flour cracker. At that early age, I suppose I was already closing my eyes and moving my head to the backbeat, lost in the mood, ducking with the changes, and showing it all on my face—that other place, apart from my sleeve, where I wear my heart for all the world to see. Possibly, I looked ridiculous. But I felt the music. It was the most real thing I’d ever heard, and it literally moved me.
My father passed away on September 12, 2007. He never got to hold one of my published books in his hands. He never met nor got to hold his great-granddaughter. He never got to see me sign a book or speak before a crowd of fans. But all that’s okay. You see, he got to know me, and he instilled in me so many things that without him, there would be no Bill Travis. There would be no great love for Texas. Without him, life would have been dull, beyond belief. Instead, because of him and his influence, life has been indeed rich.
Far from a simple tribute to my late father, I wanted to convey, here in this little Author’s Note, a little something more than is evidenced by the foregoing story.
The blues isn’t simply music, or a genre of music. It is a way of life for many—and that path is not limited to people of color by any means.
Fast forward to about 2003, when I laid down the titles to no less than twenty-one Bill Travis adventures. When I got to Trinity Trio, the alliteration bug set in, and the next one had to be alliterative as well. My whole life was right there in front of me that day. I could pick and choose anything. But one thing came through at that exact moment. The blues. I had to write about the blues. Houston, of course, sprang into mind. Those old blues joints with their blue cigarette smoke and gently clicking billiard balls, and...that wonderful sound. You can’t think long about Houston without thinking about Buffalo Bayou, and thus the title sprang full-blown like Athena from my forehead. I wrote it down without batting an eye.
And guess what. Just the other day, I unearthed that original piece of paper with all those titles on it. The order may have changed, somewhat, and a few of those titles have changed a little, but they’re basically still there, and Buffalo Bayou Blues is written there, plain as day. Would anyone like to have that piece of paper? I’m thinking of either framing it or auctioning it off.
So what’s there to write about the blues? Well, for one thing, a good half a dozen mystery writers have made writing about the blues part and parcel of their career. Guys like Tim Bryant, whose Dutch Curridge character hails from Waco during the heyday of the blues ear, specifically the later forties and early fifties. Then there’s Ricky Bush, whose books have ‘blues’ right in the titles, such as Howling Mountain Blues and The Devil’s Blues. And there are many more, but these two come to mind most readily. So, the blues have not only been done, they’ve been done well. And wouldn’t you just know it, the blues are rife with such sentiments as, ‘My woman done gone and done me wrong’ and ‘He kilt her right then and there.’ That is to say that lust and betrayal, heartbreak, suicide, murder and a host of the world’s other evils are inherent within the blues. The blues sing out with them. They tell the story of—well, Houston, and Texas, and everyone who has ever drawn a breath in either or both of the two. But mostly, the blues just sing.
I find it the easiest thing in the world to write about this topic. It’s something like breathing. It just flows on out there, and I don’t even have to think about it. The one thing that gave me pause, however, was that it would be all too easy to fall into caricature. This is a valid and salient point: there’s a subtle form of—well, let’s call it what it is—racism, where instead of showing a side of life or the accurate mirror-image of a culture, or a subculture, one instead takes the easy way through and paints in broad, cartoonish strokes, and without meaning to do so, instead invites ridicule. To make certain I have not in any wise done this, all along while writing this slim volume I have tried to remember perfectly the intonation of voice, the aspect of people’s faces, the undertones that show what is not said and not even hinted at about their lives, how they move, their intrinsic values; their goals, hopes, and yes, their failures to obtain them. These, as much as the lyrics and the spaces between the notes, are the important things, and I hope that what I have written here has rung true.
I hope you enjoyed this little excursion to a side of life that is seldom written about, seldom visited, and even rarer, brought up to the surface and exposed. Because, as Bill would likely tell you, there’s nothing done in the dark that won’t sooner or later be exposed to the light of day.
So, the blues.
I do have a little commentary about Houston and rain. It seems to me that whenever I go there, it comes a deluge. I don’t know why this is so. Perhaps I’m a thunder god and somewhere along the way have forgotten that fact, and the storms simply follow me wherever I go. But no, that can’t be it. I can leave Austin on the driest, hottest day of the year, take Highway 290 to Houston (or maybe take 71 down to I-10, and thence on into the big city) and as soon as I get inside the Beltway or the 610 Loop, I know I’m going to get pummeled. This has happened every time I’ve traveled to Houston in the last two years, and I have witnesses to this fact. Far be it for me to employ any kind of deus ex machina in one of stories—and maybe I did, inadvertently, but if I did so, at least it rained on friend and foe alike—because I know it sure seems that way. No, this was not my intention. Houston, factually, gets pounded. There’s a reason (and I’m not sure what that reason is) that Houston was built on a swamp. Even Republic of Texas President Mirabeu B. Lamar complained about it. The Capitol of the Republic was at one
time in Harrisburg (the heart of Houston), where lived General Sam Houston, the vanquisher of Mexico’s Generalissimo Santa Anna and the victor at the famous Battle of San Jacinto. Lamar and Houston were political enemies—the two men hated each other’s guts—and Lamar hated the swamps of Harrisburg almost as much as he detested the man Houston himself. So he had the Capitol moved to Austin, and here it remains to this day. All by way of saying that Houston (the city) is, geographically-speaking, built at exactly the wrong place. It gets regularly deluged by floods and it finds itself getting sucker-punched by hurricanes. I mean, criminy, it’s forty miles as the seagull flies from the Gulf of Mexico! The hurricanes come through, lay waste to Galveston Island, move inland then hang a hard right and lash the Port of Houston with a cat o’ nine tails...with stunning regularity. So, this was no deus ex machina. Far from it. It happens. If it happens, then it’s not deus ex machina. There. I rest my case.
Okay, I guess that’s about it.
For the die-hard among you—the faithful ones; those who keep coming back for more, and more, and still even more—this book was for you. It’s my privilege to know you and to write for you. Thank you for giving me every chance along the way to make good my word. You’ve been good to me, and you have my undying devotion.
Therefore, all my love to you and yours.
And as always, all the best!
George Wier
Austin, Texas
May 1st 2017
BOOKS BY THE AUTHOR
The Shelby Knight Chronicles:
Errant Knight
The Reluctant Templar (forthcoming)
The Bill Travis Mysteries:
(in chronological order)
The Last Call
Capitol Offense
Longnecks & Twisted Hearts