by Ace Atkins
I wondered where he was now as I turned off the highway and drove along Jackson and past the chain restaurants and superstores and corporate apartments that had descended on the small town in the last few years. I longed for even a decade ago, when my teacher and I would hit the back highways near Oxford, destination unknown, searching for blues men who’d disappeared into small towns across the state. The homogenization of a place so unique, so American, made me sick to my stomach.
I’d heard about a planned Super Wal-Mart that wanted to rape acres of nearby woods and a freakin’ Applebee’s that wanted to bring potato-skin cuisine to northern Mississippi, and even of the slack-eyed retirees that longed for three-hundred-thousand-dollar condos with five-foot setbacks along rolling acres of golf courses.
I knew that’s why I seldom came back. I wanted to remember the Oxford I once knew. Greasy biscuits at Smitty’s. Samurai films at the Hoka. Blues bands at Syd and Harry’s.
It had been years since I’d made it over to the Blues Archive for any work, but that was the first place I drove. I wanted to make the most of my time while I helped Abby. Maybe I could find out something about Clyde that wouldn’t have me going back to that asshole Cook again.
Earlier that morning, I’d left a message for Ed Komara, a friend of mine who ran the archive, and another message with a woman who worked at the Commercial-Appeal library. I knew the woman from hours of research at the paper’s morgue and had recently helped her get some B. B. King tickets through JoJo – a long-time friend of the legend.
In return, the woman said she’d pull any clips on Eddie Porter or Clyde James and fax them to Ed’s office at Ole Miss. I told Abby all this wouldn’t take too long and then we’d search for her cousin who she couldn’t seem to reach on the phone.
But a weird thing happened when we started talking about Clyde James and my work as a tracker. It was all Abby could talk about. She asked me about a million questions on the drive down and even had me play some of his music that I’d burned onto a CD.
“So this is what you do, look for these singers.”
“Yep.”
“And he was known? Famous?” she asked over my noisy muffler.
“Number-one hit in ‘sixty-six. Then, he just dropped out.”
Abby sat silent for a moment as we rounded the curve by The Grove and headed to Farley. She pulled her hair into a ponytail and sank it back through the loop in her Ole Miss hat. She wore the sweatpants and T-shirt like some kind of uniform.
“Can I help?”
“I think we just need to get you settled,” I said.
“I want to help,” she said, and nodded as if just making up her mind right there. The shadows from the oaks played over her face as we darted in and out of the sun. We parked on the street and went inside.
The university housed the Blues Archive in the old law library, a space a good size larger than where I worked at Tulane. At Tulane, we only had a small cluttered room for studying separated from the actual library, mostly dedicated to jazz. At Ole Miss it was almost all blues. Two floors that included more than 20,000 photographs (some the only ones in existence), 7,000 records donated by B. B. King himself, and even the financial documents of the old Trumpet Record Label. Posters, memorabilia, back issues of Living Blues, and old newspaper clippings.
As soon as we walked in the door, I saw a table by the staircase already loaded with magazines and manila files. A black woman in a dashiki nodded to me as she talked on the phone.
I recognized the familiar logo of Bluff City 45s with its fanned hand of aces, jacks, and jokers. A can of Community Coffee sat on top of the folders. It would be empty. Always Ed’s price for help. A Post-It note said he had to catch a plane to a conference in New York and call him if I needed anything else.
Abby sat down at the table and waited for me to pass her a file.
“Hold on, don’t you need to try your cousin again?”
“I used to help my dad with his cases. I’d go through depositions to find out any inconsistencies. He said I was better than any of his paralegals.”
“Well, this isn’t exactly like that. Really, it’s not too complicated. I’m just going to read through some articles and make notes of people Clyde worked with.”
“Why not ask people you already know?”
“Better to know everything for yourself.”
“They lie?”
“They do. And they forget.”
“Then what?”
“Then, after I get you settled, I’ll go back to Memphis and start my search again.”
“You really believe he’s alive?”
“Yep.”
Must’ve been about thirty seconds after I sat back down, after grabbing a couple of Cokes from a vending machine in the hall, that I sorted out the gold from the mud. Two articles on the Eddie Porter/Mary James murder investigation sent from the Memphis paper. A couple of shorts. The first dated March 1969. It quoted the police director, guy named Wagner, as knowing what happened to Porter and James but that he couldn’t press charges because “the south Memphis community wouldn’t cooperate.” There was no indication as to what the hell that meant. The second had more:
Memphis – The Shelby County District Attorney’s Office said it will not bring charges against a local singer in the deaths of two Negroes killed last year.
Detectives had targeted Clyde James in their early investigation. His past criminal record includes burglary.
James worked in a musical group that also featured victim Edward Porter. The other victim was James’ wife. A spokesman for the district attorney’s office said although James was at home at the time of the shootings, several people were questioned about the murder.
The case remains active, he said.
I wondered how this small detail passed by Loretta. Shit. And no wonder Cook didn’t want to talk if he was close to Clyde. I put on headphones and placed a 45 on the turntable. “Pouring Water on a Drowning Man.”
Abby read through the clip, made a few notes on a legal pad she’d borrowed from the librarian, and waited for me to pass the headphones. I did.
“Like it?” I wrote on the legal pad.
She nodded and closed her eyes.
I continued to read through the bios on Clyde. Still the same. The early days with the Zion Ramblers, the crossover to secular music, and the first releases for Bluff City. Found a nice press release about Clyde, his relation to Loretta, and his early days as a bricklayer in south Memphis. Writer tried to tie in the manual labor with laying the groundwork for success.
I began searching through another pile and found a publicity shot of Clyde. He was smiling and wearing a sharp leather jacket. But the smile showed just a trace of an upright curve and the eyes seemed hazy and out of focus, like he’d been caught at an awkward moment. Like someone had intruded on his sadness.
I took off the headphones and looked back through a few magazines. Nothing. Small profiles. A few record reviews.
Abby passed me a yellowed piece of paper, holding the edge like you would a dead fish. She seemed afraid she’d tear the worn newspaper print. And, at first touch, I knew why: the paper was brittle and thin, almost translucent.
I unfolded the article and lightly flattened it smooth with my palms. Abby smiled. Proud of her find. Article was stamped on the back as coming from the Tri-State Defender, a black paper that was a subsidiary of the famous Chicago Defender. It was an editorial on the Porter-James murders called FACING FACTS NOT EASY FOR SUPERSTAR.
It’s been two years since someone took the life of a talented man and a beautiful young lady. Still, no one has been found guilty by those who call themselves our police. To those who’ve had previous experience with our local guard, they will recognize the apathy. But as one who knew Eddie Porter as few did – I was his pastor and the first to hire him to play organ in our little church – I’m enraged that perhaps the problem lies even further from police and into our own community.
Porter’s supposed “friend,
” soul shouter Clyde James, was home at the time of the attack. Still, Mr. James told police he didn’t see anything. Both his wife, who I’m told was carrying his child, and Porter were killed by gunfire. How does a man not hear gunfire in a quiet neighborhood on Rosewood Avenue? How does one not hear violence in one’s own home?
I wanted to ask these questions myself to Mr. James, but it seems nobody can find the superstar. It seems that he’s been going from bar to bar leaving reality far behind. I’ve even heard rumors of drugs.
If you read this, Mr. James, stand up. Tell what you know to Mr. Wagner and the police.
I’m told on good authority that at first Mr. James claimed he saw two white men leave his house and drive away in a station wagon. Now it seems that he’s changed his story.
Stand up, Mr. James. Stand up.
The story was written by a local preacher by the name of O. T. Jones and was followed by an advertisement for his Sunday sermon. A black-and-white rainbow had been crudely drawn over a church steeple. The motto read: THE FREEDOM TRAIN NEVER STOPS.
“He killed them, didn’t he?” Abby asked.
“You know, I don’t care. All this shit is telling us is maybe why he split. But I’m just trying to find him. If I were profiling him, I’d probably go back to Memphis and see if I could take a look at the Eddie Porter murder file. Tracker lesson number one: Use your public record.”
Abby was tearing the corners off a yellow sheet of paper. In my rush to make the most of a side trip from Memphis, I’d forgotten what this girl had been through. Her parents had been killed and I was sitting around discussing another pretty nasty murder like it was an old movie. I felt like a complete asshole.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“For what?”
“We need to go.”
I returned the records and clips to the librarian and watched her as she walked to the caged doors and locked away Clyde’s legacy. I looked up at the walls covered in old juke house posters and concert bills. Howlin’ Wolf. Little Milton. Even a musical festival in Memphis with a big picture of soul legend Rufus Thomas eating a hotdog bun loaded with a harmonica.
“My daddy never let me listen to this kind of music,” she said as we walked down a wide staircase, almost as if she were talking to herself.
I asked her why.
“Said it was an embarrassment to our state.”
“What do you think?” I asked.
She seemed surprised by the question.
Chapter 24
AS WE WALKED under a tunnel of cedar trees, purple shadows dripped over the tin roof of the stables where Abby’s cousin, Maggie, worked. Abby scooted ahead in a brisk walk, but I lagged behind, watching a magnolia leaf fall in spindly patterns. The air was heavy with dust still lingering from my truck’s tires. Somewhere a woodpecker knocked the hell out of a tree while a squirrel foraged through a pile of bricks covered in green moss.
I whizzed a pebble into the woods and followed Abby into the long building where ragged light caught dust motes in a yellow swath. Down the rows of horses, making brimming sounds with their lips, I heard a woman talking. The air smelled of manure and old leather.
The woman was thin with muscular arms, dark tanned skin, short black hair, and brilliant green eyes. She was a head taller than Abby and wore blue jeans and a gray T-shirt. Ancient brown boots. She had the kind of rapid, quick look that processed your appearance and computed her decision within seconds.
She hugged Abby very tightly.
Abby broke away for a moment and grabbed my hand, pulling me forward. I introduced myself. The woman didn’t say a thing; she looked at me as if I’d just whipped it out and pissed on the stall floors.
“My fly isn’t open? Is it?”
“It better not be,” she said. Sweat stained the front of her T-shirt and a smudge of dirt traced the edge of her jaw. A worn-out pair of Texas show boots, decorated with red roses and cactus, sat by the stall door.
“May I ask what in the fuck a man your age is doing with Abby?”
“She’s helping me with my yard work. Sometimes she plays dominoes with me and feeds my cats.”
Inside, a black quarter horse with a white star shimmied its head from side to side. The woman frowned, strong commalike creases around her mouth.
“What the fuck, Abby?”
“Maggie, calm down. It’s not what you think. He’s helping me.”
“Helping you do what, doll?”
Maggie looked down at my boots and up at my face. I grinned like a giddy criminal in a prison lineup.
“It’s a long story, Maggie. Listen, we really need to talk. Do you know a woman named Ellie?”
“No.”
“Think hard. Said she knows you through her boyfriend. Said y’all had a time at some crawfish boil.”
“I’ve never been to a crawfish boil. That’s for stupid yahoos from Louisiana.”
I smiled. “Exactly.”
“I tried to call,” Abby said.
“Well, sometimes the phone company gets a little pissed when you’re late,” Maggie said.
“You about done ’round here?” Abby asked.
“C’mon,” Maggie said, walking across the smooth brown dirt to the back of the stables. I rested my arms on a battered wood gate and smoothed the white star on the horse’s forehead.
“Nick?” Abby asked.
I turned and she motioned me to follow them. I have to admit I watched the way Maggie walked. Enjoyed it. She sure could wear a pair of jeans. There was something earthy and honest about her. Always had a thing for women who said what was on their minds. Don’t know why. It just seemed like everyone I’d ever really given a damn about could handle herself just as well without me.
“Never told me that she was mean,” I said.
Abby whispered: “She’s pretty, isn’t she?”
“I hadn’t noticed.”
At the second-to-last stall, Maggie stood back with a wide smile across her lips. Abby turned to the stall and, within a couple of seconds, started crying. I moved closer and saw her arms around the neck of a chestnut-colored horse with a black mane.
Maggie kept smiling until she noticed me again. Her eyes narrowed and she dug her boots into the brown dirt. As she continued to beat me in a staring contest, she said sweetly to Abby, “You want to head over to Taylor? Only thing open on Sunday.”
“That okay, Nick?” Abby said.
Maggie kept staring.
I narrowed my eyes back at her and said, “Love to.”
Old Taylor Road stretched out from Oxford like a familiar song. The road bent and twisted over gentle curves framed by barbed-wire fences as a tired sun dipped low through the pines. Cheap student apartments soon became crooked farmhouses and dilapidated trailers. I’d lived near here for two years but hadn’t been out this way. I followed Maggie’s Rabbit convertible until I was sure we were lost. I thought maybe she was playing some kind of joke on me, now with Abby safely riding with her, or was taking me somewhere where we’d meet a few of her redneck cowboy buddies.
But then we arrived in a loose, brittle collection of storefronts and cottages. Blue and orange light scattered through oaks and slid down onto the tin-roofed shotguns. I pulled in front of an old building with a wide, crooked porch that seemed out of a black-and-white photo from the Depression. Three men sat on a two-by-eight stretched over some rusted paint cans. One played Dobro. The other a fat acoustic bass.
“Evenin’,” the Dobro player said.
“Howdy,” I said. I liked saying howdy.
Inside, we took a seat at a heavy wood table covered in a red-and-white-checked tablecloth. Maggie brought in a six-pack from a cooler in her car and pulled off two cans. Slivers of ice fell off the aluminum.
“Maggie,” Abby said.
“Oh, well.” She pulled off another beer and placed it in the center of the table. “Sorry.”
The ceiling was wood and sagged along ancient slats. Floor was wood, too, scuffed as smooth as glass. Graff
iti covered the walls and gallons of pepper sauce, quarts of cayenne pepper, and fat industrial jars of mayonnaise filled a stocking shelf.
Men in overalls. Women with two-hundred-dollar snakeskin purses. Gray-headed farmers and frat boys. Place was packed.
“Abby said you’re going to help her,” Maggie said, popping the top of her beer.
“I’ll try. Mainly I just want to make sure she’s safe.”
“She’s safe,” Maggie said. She lit a cigarette and blew smoke across the table. Muddled static of conversations filled the room.
“You don’t have to impress me,” I said. “You’re tough. I get the idea.”
“She doesn’t need any more help. You’ve done what you needed to. You brought her back to me. Thanks. I’ll buy you dinner. You drink that can of beer, have a good meal, and then head out. All right?”
Abby closed her eyes and mashed her fingers into her temples.
Maggie didn’t say a word for about thirty seconds. A waitress came over and we all ordered the same thing, catfish with pecan rice. I finished the beer and tried another smile on Maggie. It was a good one, too, the kind that made women cling to my back.
“You have something on your shirt,” she said.
I wiped some hot sauce from my T-shirt pocket.
“To the left,” she said.
I wiped away some more dried remnants of red pepper sauce I’d used at breakfast.
“Messy eater,” I said.
“No kidding. I’m sure all the women are impressed.”
“You’d be surprised.” I turned up my nose. “Do I still smell manure?”
Abby spoke up: “Am I not here? Both of you shut the hell up.”
Both doors were open and a breeze washed through the room as if coming from a machine.
“Maggie,” Abby said. “Yesterday morning I went back to Oxford for some of Daddy’s papers and some woman followed me. She pretended like she was a friend of yours and took me to this old gas station where these men grabbed me and took me to a casino in Tunica. I didn’t want to tell you. I didn’t want to worry you, but, Jesus, sometimes you can be so fucking hard on people.”