Crossroad Blues (The Nick Travers Novels)

by Ace Atkins

  CROSSROAD

  BLUES

  A Nick Travers Novel

  By

  ACE ATKINS

  Crossroad Blues Digital Edition

  Copyright 2011 by Ace Atkins

  Carrefour, Ltd.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or distributed in any form without permission.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Cover design by Mark Francis

  I went to the crossroad

  fell down on my knees

  I went to the crossroad

  fell down on my knees

  Asked the Lord above "Have mercy

  save poor Bob, if you please."

  Mmmmm, standin' at the crossroad

  I tried to flag a ride

  Standing at the crossroads

  I tried to flag a ride

  Didn't nobody seem to know me

  everybody pass me by

  -- Robert Johnson

  "Cross Road Blues"

  Travers: dweller at a crossroad

  -- New Dictionary of American Family Names

  For the Zen poets of Mississippi

  PROLOGUE

  August 13, 1938

  Leflore County, Mississippi

  Robert Johnson lay down his battered six-string, took a seat at the juke joint's bar, and wrapped his long fingers around a jar of corn whiskey. A layer of dust covered his creased suit like fallen sugar, and his throat felt like cracked mud. It'd been a long walk to the crossroads, a few miles outside Greenwood, where the juke's owner picked him up. Man made him ride in the back of his truck all the way to Three Forks.

  Johnson needed the money. He'd spent his last five dollars in an old boarding shack, two dollars for the room and three for the whore. It was worth it though, all that smooth, brown skin next to his tight and sore body. Almost forgot what that final loosenin' up felt like. Only a woman could pull those red demons from a man.

  The juke's owner refilled the dirty jar to the rim. Ain't that nice. Johnson tipped the brow of his fedora and took a big sip. Nothin' like free whiskey. It tasted like sweet gasoline goin' into his empty stomach, all fiery and warm. Bringin' your guitar to a juke was as good as bringin' cash. And besides, they all knew him 'round here. Wasn't like it was in Texas, where they treated coloreds almost as bad as Mexicans. Here they respected blues.

  "Where you been, Bob?"

  "Travelin'."

  "I's heard you made a record."

  "That's right."

  "They pay somethin' big fo' that? Fancy suit. Fancy hat. Man oh man. You doin' jes fine fo' yoself, Bob. Jes fine."

  "Yeah, jes fine."

  Johnson pulled the fedora lower over his bad eye and glanced down at the whiskey-soaked two-by-fours. Man must've gone crazy bein' so nice. Or maybe he'd just forgot about him sneakin' out with his wife las' time. His gray eyes didn't show nothin' though, so Johnson turned and watched a young guitar player pickin' out an old Charley Patton song. The metal plank of the player's high, tinny notes made Johnson cringe. He'd been there. Son House used to laugh when he heard him play.

  But Johnson learned.

  The blues came from all he knew, all he was. He put that lonesome feeling in each note. The longing. The losses. He rubbed his calloused, black hands together and thought of the place in his heart where the blues dwelled. Every day he'd worked on the farm. Every time he was beaten by his stepfather because of his smart mouth.

  And his wife, his dear, sweet wife--he could feel the edges of his heart open like a parched flower and tears well in his eyes. That was when the devil came into his life, and evil been followin' him around ever since. Sometimes when he was high, the world revolvin' all around him like the blades in a fan, he saw Satan. Watchin', followin', and waitin'. The devil wanted him. Johnson shook it off and walked outside.

  It was coal-black in the woods where the juke joint stood. A Dietz lantern dimly flooded light a few feet from the beaten steps and into the tall grass waving in the summer wind. He took a deep breath. Inside, it'd been like bein' high up in a loft throwin' hay--heat thick as cigarette smoke hangin' all about his head.

  Johnson found a tall bank of grass under a pine tree and unbuttoned his pants. He felt a cool breeze as the crickets and cicadas played a show around him. Lookin' for lovin'. He laughed at that, lettin' the last few hours of whiskey go away as he rocked on his heels.

  A dry, dead branch snapped behind him.

  He looked over his shoulder and buttoned back up. Nothin'. The crickets and cicadas had gone silent around the juke, only the pluckin' and wailin' of the man inside. He began to walk back. Maybe he'd play a little more for the folks. Give them a few songs he'd been workin' on as he made his way back from Texas. And if Honeyboy came later, they'd show them folks a thing or two.

  He looked to the edge of the pine forest. Couldn't see nothin', only the deep blackness of the woods at night and the flickerin' tails of fireflies, two clicks of the yellow neon tails. Another branch broke and he heard the shufflin' of feet on dry pine needles.

  Johnson could feel his heart pump and his arms quiver. He spun around in a circle lookin'. He never should've come back to Mississippi; should've just kept on movin'. Could've gone anywhere . . . Chicago, New York.

  "Psst, R.L.? R.L.?"

  Out of the woods walked a young boy. Small and stoop shouldered. Skin white. Features of a black man with pale, blue eyes.

  "Got-damn! Whachu doin' boy?" Johnson asked.

  "Sorry, R.L. Mista wanted me to be quiet. Tole me to wait till you left the juke."

  "Don't you ever sneak up on a man doin' his business. I 'bout wet all over myself."

  "Sorry."

  "Where's he at?" Johnson asked, glancing into a cotton field.

  "Just up the road there."

  The boy's light eyes looked away from the woods and down the dirt highway. There was a full moon, and its light shone off a black Buick Roadmaster, a silver Indian pointed proud on the hood. Johnson turned and walked down the road. Get this shit over with. He'd been runnin' from this man since Austin. He was tired.

  He could see the tiny red-yellow glow of a cigarette and a fat hulking shape in back of the car. Fat man couldn't drive. Shit, couldn't even fit behind the wheel. He had that boy do all his work.

  Johnson tromped on the dirt highway toward the car. The crossroads were bare. The front of the Three Forks store was closed with a padlock on the sun-faded front door. A rusty

  Coca-Cola sign creaked in the wind.

  The car's window was rolled down, and smoke floated out like hot, gray mist on the north road's shoulder. Inside, a deep, white voice said, "Thought you'd left me behind, huh, Bob? Thought you could leave our deal? But you and me keep together."

  Johnson was silent.

  "When you sign a contract with me, I own your soul . . . I own your ass. Now listen here. Takin' off with those records wasn't too smart. It takes money to make those things. I could find any nigga' in Mississippi to make those poor old sounds."

  "Those records are me."

  "You're not listenin' to me, Bob. I captured that sound you made, and I own it." The fat man shifted his weight on the squeaking leather of the back seat. "Boy, get me and Mr. Johnson a drink."

  Johnson could see the little albino boy trottin' down the dirt road like a dog. He heard the groan of windblown signs at the old grocery store and a rustle of cotton in the fields. Some bits of sandy dirt got in his eyes, and he turned away from t
he fat man.

  "I got your records, Bob. Got 'em right here in my trunk. All nine of 'em. Hidin' them in that nasty old boarding shack in Greenwood wasn't too smart. Not too smart at all. But I don't hold a grudge, Bob. 'Cause startin' tonight, you gonna be bigger than all of 'em. Blind Lemon Jefferson, Charley Patton. All of 'em. Yessir, you gonna be a legend."

  Johnson turned to leave.

  "I offered you a drink, Bob."

  Johnson kept walking.

  There a was a sharp click, an explosion, and a thud of dirt at his feet. Johnson stopped but did not turn around. This man was crazy. Get away from him. He used you, but bigger things are comin' up.

  The little albino was out of breath as he brought Johnson a shot glass of whiskey filled to the rim, with some spilling on the boy's shaky, white hands. His lower lip poked out and his eyes wide with fear.

  "Finish the deal, Bob," the fat man said. "Finish the deal."

  Johnson tossed back the whiskey and threw the glass far into weeds sprouting along the country highway. He turned and walked down the dusty, dirt road. Grit swirled all about his feet as he whistled a slow tune.

  Chapter 1

  last night

  New Orleans, Louisiana

  JoJo's Blues Bar stood on the south edge of the French Quarter in a row of old Creole buildings made of decaying red brick, stucco, and wood. Inside, smoke streamed from small islands of tables, drinks clicked, women giggled, and fans churned. Black-and-white photographs of long-dead greats hung above the mahogany bar--images faded and warped from humidity and time. Randy Sexton stared at the row of faces as his thick coffee mug vibrated with the swampy, electric slide guitar. He tapped one hand to the music and held his coffee with the other. The bucktoothed waitress who had brought the coffee shook her head walking away. This wasn't a coffee place. This was a beer and whiskey joint, order a mixed drink or coffee and you felt like a leper.

  JoJo's. Last of the old New Orleans blues joints, Randy thought. Used to be a lot of them in the forties and fifties when he was growing up, but now JoJo's was it. The Vieux Carre was now just endless rows of strip joints, discos, and false jazz--unless you counted that big franchise blues place down the street. Randy didn't.

  This bar was a New Orleans institution you couldn't replace with high-neon gloss. The blues sound better in a venue of imperfection: a cracked ceiling, scuffed floor, peeling white paint on the bricks. It all somehow adds to the acoustics of blues.

  Randy was a jazz man himself. He'd studied jazz all his life, his passion. Now, as the head of the Jazz and Blues Archives at Tulane University, he was the curator of thousands of African-American recordings.

  But blues was something he could never really understand. It was the poor cousin to jazz, though the unknowledgeable thought they were the same. Jazz was a fluted glass of champagne. Blues was a cold beer--working class music.

  His friend and colleague Nick Travers knew blues. He could pick out the region like Henry Higgins could pick out an accent: Chicago, Austin, Memphis, or Mississippi.

  Mississippi. The Delta. He sipped some more hot, black coffee and watched the great Loretta Jackson doing her thing.

  A big, beautiful woman who was a cross somewhere between Etta James and KoKo Taylor. Randy had seen the show countless times. He knew every rehearsed movement and all the big, black woman's jokes by heart. But he still loved seeing her work anyway; her strong voice could fill a Gothic cathedral.

  Her husband, Joseph Jose Jackson, pulled a chair up to the table. A legend himself. There wasn't a blues musician alive who didn't know about JoJo, a highly polished, dignified black man in his sixties. Silver-white hair and moustache. Starched white dress shirt, tightly-creased black trousers, and shined wingtips.

  "Doc-tor!" JoJo extended his rough hand.

  "Mr. Jackson. Good to see you, my friend, and--" Randy nodded toward the stage-- "your wife, She still raises the hair on the back of my neck."

  "She can kick a crowd in the nuts," JoJo said.

  Loretta sweated and dotted her brow with a red lace handkerchief to some sexy lyrics and winked down at JoJo.

  "Rock me baby.

  Rock me all night long.

  Rock me baby.

  Like my back ain't got no bone."

  They sat silent through the song. JoJo swayed to the music and smiled a wide, happy grin. A proud man in love. The next song was a slow ballad, and Randy leaned forward on the wooden table, the smoke making his eyes water. JoJo cocked his ear toward him.

  "I'm looking for Nick. Isn't he playing tonight?" Randy asked.

  JoJo shook his head and frowned. "Nick? I don't know. He's been tryin' to get back in shape or some shit. Runnin' like a fool every mornin'. Acts like he's gonna go back and play for the Saints again. No sir, he ain't the same."

  "He's not answering his phone or his door."

  "When he don't want to be found," JoJo said, nodding his head for emphasis, "he ain't gonna be found."

  "Could he be out of town? Maybe traveling with the band?"

  "What?" JoJo asked, through the blare of the music.

  "TRAVELING WITH THE BAND?" Randy shouted.

  "Naw. I ain't seen him. 'Cept the other day when we went and grabbed a snow cone. Started talkin' to some gap-toothed carriage driver 'bout him beatin' his horse. Nick said how'd he like to be cloppin' 'round wearin' a silly hat and listenin' to some fool talk all day. Skinny black fella started talkin' shit, but he back down when he got a good look at Nick. I'm tellin' you, man, Nick gettin' back in some kinda shape. Not much different than when he was playin'. You think he's considerin' it? Playin' ball again?"

  "I doubt the Saints will take him back," Randy said, raising his eyebrows.

  Nick had been thrown out of the NFL for kicking his coach's ass during a Monday Night Football game. He knocked the coach to the ground, emptied a Gatorade bucket on the man's head, and coolly walked into the tunnel as the crowd went crazy around him. Nick once told Randy he'd changed his clothes and taken a cab home before the game ended. He never returned to the Superdome or pro football again, and Randy never prodded him for the whole story.

  A few months after the incident, Nick enrolled in the masters' program at Tulane. Later, he earned a doctorate in Southern Studies from the University of Mississippi before sporadically teaching a few classes at Tulane.

  "JoJo, tell him to call me if you guys talk."

  "His band ain't playin' til . . . shit . . . Friday night," JoJo said. "Whatchu need Nick for?"

  "Got a job for him."

  "Yeah, put his sorry ass to work. Soon enough he'll be back to the same ole, same ole, drinkin' and smokin'."

  At the foot of the bar, an old man watched the two talking. A cigar hung from his mouth as he brushed ashes from his corduroy jacket lined with scar-like patches. His gray eyes darted from JoJo to Randy then back down to the drink in front of him.

  "If you talk to him, tell him to call me," Randy said, getting up to leave and offering JoJo his hand. He knew JoJo would find Nick. He was the man's best friend.

  Randy took another sip of coffee and stood watching Loretta. She had a drunk tourist on stage and was getting him to hold her big satin-covered hips as she sang the nasty blues. The old man at the bar watched her too, his face flat and expressionless. His black, parched skin the same texture as the worn photographs on the wall.

  Randy and the man's eyes met; then the old man looked away.

  "One of our colleagues left for the Delta a few weeks ago," Randy said. "He's disappeared."

  "The Delta? Lots of things can happen to a man there," JoJo said, looking him hard in the eye. "Nick'll help; he's a fine man."

  "Yeah, I think a great deal of him. He's a good guy."

  Chapter 2

  Nick Travers was drunk. Not loopy, hanging-on-a-flagpole drunk, but drunk enough to find simple enjoyment in the soapy suds churning in the Laundromat washing machine. It was two A.M. on St. Charles Avenue, and he sat sideways on a row of hard plastic seats--baby blue with fl
ecks of pink. He had three loads now in the machine as heat lightning shattered outside like a broken fluorescent bulb, a tattered Signet paperback of The Catcher in the Rye in his hands.

  "Goddamned phonies," he muttered, thumbing down a dog-eared page, waiting for his clothes in white boxer shorts and battered buckskin boots. His white T-shirt and faded jeans were in the wash, and there was no one around except a homeless man drinking whiskey from a brown-bagged bottle. A classic wino, even missing a few teeth.

  "You know what I mean, they screw it up for everybody," Nick said.

  The wino nodded.

  Nick liked the hard sixties decor of the place with its stainless-steel rims circling the glass of the washing machines and its occasional elevator music over a busted speaker. But now, he only heard the sound of the dry summer wind blowing Spanish moss on the oaks that canopied St. Charles Avenue like the gnarled fingers of an old man in prayer.

  An old black woman with her hair tightly wrapped in curlers walked through the open front of the Laundromat and saw Nick in his underwear and boots. She immediately turned and left. The wino watched her butt as she walked by him.

  "Get me a piece of dat," he said, his head bobbing as if he had no neck muscles.

  Nick turned to the washing machine. So this is what it had come to: washing clothes for enjoyment and talking to derelicts for a social life. Jesus, life changes in five years. Not that life was crappy now and all that sorry-for-self bullshit. Just different. Apples and oranges. Yin and yang.

  Sometimes he could hear the deep resonating cheers echoing from the Superdome and wished he was still in there, grabbing some sissy quarterback by the jersey and slinging him down. But then he thought about lacing up his cleats for a five A.M. practice and would smile. Yeah, life was simple now. Teach a few classes on blues history, play some harp down at JoJo's, and just enjoy life.