“That what’s botherin’ you?”
Willie needed to shut up. He could see it in the way his friend’s lips had pressed together and the way his muscles bunched up around his shoulders. But Willie was not so good at silence. “I don’t give a damn about it if you don’t. But you dragged Luella into your shit, didn’t you?”
His answer came in a low growl. “Don’t go dizzy over Luella. That’s all I got to say.”
“That ain’t right, and you know it.”
Jackwash stood, arms folded and mouth clamped shut.
“A man ought to take care of his woman.”
“What do you know about it?” Jackwash’s face twisted with anger. “You been alone all these years. What makes you an expert?”
“I know what’s right and what’s not. And so do you.”
“Don’t tell me what I know.”
“I’ll say whatever I want. We’re family.”
Jackwash nearly choked. “Family? White boy, has you got a mirror?”
“Don’t,” Willie said.
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t act like we haven’t been best friends all your breathing life.”
“Friends don’t sniff around Luella like a dog trippin’ on his tongue.”
Jackwash knew. Once said out loud, the accusation couldn’t be ignored. “I never touched her,” he said.
Jackwash stared past Willie, his face suddenly blank again. “We done.”
“Done.” Willie stepped back and tilted his head, looking at his friend. He tried to smile. Part of him understood he was saying goodbye to his oldest friend, maybe forever. “I’ll be seeing you.” His voice came out in a croak.
“Abyssinia.” Jackwash did not smile back.
CHAPTER TEN: MERCANTILE GOODS
“It’s easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle
than for a rich man to make a blues record.”
~Hugh Laurie
1969
Fort Collins, Colorado
Both of them were up before dawn. Kennedy, who’d slept in the bed this time, woke feeling refreshed and ready for the day. Willie, who’d slept (or not) on the couch, was in the kitchen making breakfast. He had the window over the sink open. Kennedy could hear birds on the lawn, chirping the sun up. Willie had some eggs floating in bacon fat on the stove. A stack of toast slices sat on the table, next to a greasy napkin piled with bacon.
“Say, I forgot to tell you,” Kennedy said. “I busted your cactus plant when I was cleaning yesterday.”
“I noticed,” Willie said. “No matter. I think the thing was dead anyway.”
“At least half-dead.”
“Yeah. Hard to tell with a cactus. You want your eggs flipped, or straight up?”
“Straight up, I guess.”
“What time do you expect this Newport fella?”
“Lunchtime is what they said.” Kennedy sighed. “Long time to wait.”
Willie smiled. “Nah. Been waiting forty years. I can wait a few hours more.”
“Which songs are you gonna play?”
“I guess I ought to play Bitch Train. That’s what brought him here, right?” He scooped two fried eggs from the skillet onto Kennedy’s plate, shoveling them with a spatula. Flakes of something black covered the eggs.
“What’s this black stuff?” Kennedy asked.
“Scorch from the bacon,” Willie said. “Don’t worry. It tastes good.”
“You should play Sins in Blue, too.” Kennedy popped an egg yolk with a piece of toast. “That’s a great song.”
Willie grunted.
Kennedy took a bite. Eggs, basted in grease. Pretty good, really. “What’s that mean? A grunt doesn’t mean yes or no.”
“That song isn’t like the rest of my music,” Willie said. “If he’s expecting Bitch Train, a blues-jazz blend isn’t going to impress him.”
“Why did you name your song Bitch Train anyway?”
“I didn’t.” Willie sat down to his eggs, smashing them with a piece of toast, sopping up the yolk and bacon fat. “At first, I called the song Misery Train. I changed the words and the title the day I recorded it.”
“Why?”
“Because I was drunk and angry, and that’s the sort of thing I did back then.” He chewed a little and swallowed. “I’m a milder sort, now. Even-tempered and all.” He finished with a half-grin that made Kennedy laugh.
“Are you going to play the real song, or the version you recorded?”
“The version I recorded. Your eggs are getting cold.”
“You’re right. I don’t want them to coagulate.”
Willie laughed. “You’re a funny kid. You know that?”
“Funny or funny looking?”
“Now that you mention it, your head is shaped wrong.”
“I’m sorry I ever told you about that!” Kennedy sat back in mock exasperation. “My parents had terrible taste in names.”
“What name would you have if the choice was yours?”
That one stumped him. Kennedy thought of people he’d known growing up. Travis Bunch was the quarterback at his high school. His first name was pretty cool—an athlete’s name. Johnny was a guitarist’s name—Johnny Winter. Johnny B. Goode. “I don’t know,” he said finally. “I never considered it, because I didn’t have much choice in the matter.”
Willie shook his head. “Name don’t make the person. The person makes the name.”
Kennedy thought and then laughed. “Bullshit. If your daddy named you Francis, you’d have never played guitar.”
“I’d have played,” Willie said. “Might have played church music instead of the blues, though.”
“Francis Johnson, the man with one dick name.”
Willie stood and headed for the sink. “Enough nonsense. We need to clean up these dishes.”
Kennedy groaned. “You’re all business.” He glanced at the sink. “How many damned dishes did we get dirty?”
Willie turned on the tap to fill the sink.
“Can’t I sit here a minute and let those eggs settle?”
“Work first. Play later.”
“So says the man who avoided working for the first thirty years of his life.”
Willie nodded, not looking back. “True. But I learned better along the way. That’s something you’ll have to figure out. It’s not enough to work when you feel like it. You learn to work when you feel like crap. If you don’t, you won’t be able to work when you’re my age, because you’ll feel like crap every single day.”
Kennedy considered mentioning Willie’s drinking then but thought better of it. Instead, he asked, “So, what changed you?”
Willie glanced over his shoulder. “I’ll answer as soon as you move your ass out of that chair.” When Kennedy stood and grabbed plates from the table, Willie continued. “Easy answer would be the army. If your country goes to war and you enlist, you grow up mighty fast.”
“Did you enlist after Pearl Harbor?”
“Nope. I waited three months, hoping we’d whip the Nazis and Japs right away. Didn’t happen. I wasn’t eating regular by then, so I signed the papers and off I went. Free meals and all.”
“Why weren’t you eating regular?”
“The music dried up.”
“What do you mean?”
Willie stopped washing the dishes and turned around, leaning back against the sink. “If I’m going to talk, you’re going to clean.”
“I’m doing
it,” Kennedy said, taking dishes to the sink.
“Scrape them plates into the trash first.” Willie shook his head. “Didn’t do dishes at home, did you?”
“No. Mom did them.”
“Man needs to know how to cook and how to do dishes and laundry. Otherwise, he’ll get the idea that a woman’s purpose is keeping house. You think that and you’ll end up alone.”
“You live alone,” Kennedy grumbled. When he looked up, he saw pain in Willie’s expression. “Hey, I’m sorry. I’m being a brat.” Willie looked away. “What did you mean when you said the music dried up?”
“I overstayed my welcome,” Willie said. “You can relate to that, can’t you?” He cleared his throat. “After Prohibition, big-city nightclubs took the place of the jukes and membership clubs. The owners wanted their places to be as classy as the white folks’ clubs, so they hired full bands and headliners. In the rougher neighborhoods, crime chased out the white patrons, and I wasn’t welcome any more. Meanwhile, the white roadhouses and bars became a little less tolerant of the music I played.” He closed his eyes and shook his head.
“What?”
“I’m remembering one place in particular. East Texas. I played about a song and a half, and some big bucket of peanuts starts hollering at me to stop playing race music. I had been drinking some—”
“No doubt.”
“Am I gonna tell this story?”
Kennedy sat down.
“At any rate, I was less than polite. Next thing I know, I’m flat on my back, bleeding from the mouth, and that big son of a bitch had my guitar in his hands. He raised it up to smash it, and I called out to him to stop. I said, ‘Don’t do it. My friend give me that guitar.’ He handed it over and said, ‘All right, then. But get on out of here, trash.’”
Kennedy sat silent.
“I notice you stopped cleaning.’
Kennedy stood up. “Was that the same guitar that’s in the living room?”
“Very same one,” Willie said. “Held on to it ever since Jackwash gave it to me.”
“I don’t get it. Why didn’t the guy smash it?”
“It was the Depression,” Willie said. “Folks didn’t have much, so they respected what little there was to go around.”
“So, you couldn’t play for white folks either?’
Willie gave him a rueful smile. “Some of it was my fault. I never did know how to keep my mouth shut. I said or did the wrong thing in enough places to keep myself generally unwelcome. By the time the war came around, I’d pretty much given music up for good.”
“Then the army changed you?”
“After the war, I discovered that I worked harder than everyone around me. Caught me by surprise. I think sometimes I knew how to work all along—I was never shy about practicing the guitar. Anyway, I had no trouble finding work. I still couldn’t hold on to a dollar, but I didn’t worry about that.”
“And you kept the guitar.”
“My Aunt Beatrice kept it for me during the war. First night home, I wanted two things—a bottle and that guitar. She left me alone that night. Even let me drink. I was so grateful that I told her I’d say a prayer for her. She said . . .” He paused to laugh. “She said, ‘That’s fine, but I don’t imagine the Lord takes much stock in the prayers of sinners.’” He met Kennedy’s gaze. “And now here we are, and you know most of the story.”
“What happened to Jackwash?” Kennedy asked. The question was out of his mouth before he could stop it.
“He died.” Willie glanced at the kitchen clock. “This Newport fellow could be early. We need to move.”
When the house had been properly tidied, Willie sat on the living room couch, waiting.
“This is the part I hate,” Kennedy said.
“Get used to it,” Willie said. “Adult life is made up of long periods of waiting, interrupted by short bursts of disaster.” Kennedy nodded as if he understood exactly what Willie meant.
Noon came and went, and Willie began to show signs of impatience. He bounced his leg up and down as he sat, and let out a loud sigh every once in a while. At one o’clock, he asked, “Are you sure he was coming at noon?”
“He said around lunchtime.”
“Did you give him the right address?”
“I did. I’m sure of it.” Kennedy sat still for a moment, and then repeated the address out loud, adding, “That’s right, isn’t it?”
“Yup,” Willie said.
Minutes dripped slow like molasses. The room was steaming, and Willie opened the door to cool things off—then shut it again to keep out the flies. “I been through this before,” he muttered.
Kennedy sat, sulking. Did Willie think he made the visit up? That’s what he’d think for sure if the man didn’t show. Where was he, anyway?
“I been through this before,” Willie repeated.
• • • • •
1934
New Iberia, Louisiana
Alan Lomax and his father John had come to bayou country in hopes of recording authentic French-speaking Creole blacks. The music was unknown outside of the state, and for the two archivists, the prospect of uncovering new, unheard music was intoxicating.
John spent his days wherever they boarded, writing another book, so Alan did most of the recording. If he turned up anything special, John would return with his son and record more. The duo financed their project with book income, along with speaking fees and grant money. Their recording equipment, stored in their car, came from a Rockefeller Foundation grant—including a 300-pound recording machine that cut aluminum discs, two 75-pound batteries, a vacuum tube amplifier, a mixing board, and a microphone. Whenever possible, Alan drove his roving studio right up to the home of the person he was recording, or to a sleepy nearby business with enough room to cut a disc.
The sight of Alan’s rig often drew a crowd. While recording a local accordion player, a bystander approached Alan with a tale about the “greatest guitar player alive.” The bystander was drunk, and other onlookers were quick to mention that he’d served time for manslaughter, which had the opposite of the expected effect. John took special interest in the man’s opinion, as he believed that music should be studied from a social and cultural perspective. People on the margin of society carried special cachet with Alan Lomax.
“Man’s name is Willie Johnson. You want a real recording, you needs to record Willie. I see’d him last night. I plays myself, but this man? Plays the blues like the devil crawled up behind him and helped out with an extra set of fingers.”
Alan made arrangements to record this bluesman extraordinaire on the following day, with the help of the owner of the mercantile, who also provided certain supplies to a nearby juke. The juke’s owner knew Willie, though he didn’t think much of him.
Alan promised to meet Willie at noon, a commitment he couldn’t keep. When he woke up that morning, he found his left passenger-side tire flat. His dad helped as best he could, unloading the equipment so they could jack up the car and put the bald spare on. By the time Alan was done sweating in the dirt, he was two hours late.
• • • • •
Bullshit. Record a record, like a radio star? Some story.
Willie tapped on the store owner’s counter. “You got something to drink back there?”
“You know I don’t have nothin’ like that. Prohibition.” The owner had a mustache and beard, fine as frog’s hair. His store was a little shabby—everything in Louisiana was shabby during the Depression—but not the man’s facial hair. That was straight, white, and perfect.
Willie tapped again. “I’m in a bad mood. I walked here from Lydia, and it’s
hot out. I need a drink.”
“How ’bout lemonade?”
“How ’bout I shove my guitar up your ass?”
“You’d do that to your guitar?”
“Might as well,” Willie said. “It ain’t doin’ me no good today.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out some coins. “In lieu of violence, I might be persuaded to pay you.”
“Fair enough,” the owner said, pulling a bottle from under the counter. During the exchange, he’d kept a straight face, but the creases at the corners of his eyes gave him away—he was enjoying himself. “Go ahead and drink from the bottle. This batch will kill any disease you’re carrying.”
Willie slapped his money on the counter, took a pull, and winced. “Damn!” he said. “This liquor makes a fine revenge on any man who threatens you.”
“I wasn’t worried, Willie Johnson. I heard you can’t fight for shit.”
“There’s many a man that’s beaten me down who’d agree with you.”
“Women, too.”
Willie laughed. “What’s your name?”
“Melvin Guidry.”
Willie held out his hand. “Willie Johnson.”
Guidry shook his hand. “Pleased to make your acquaintance.”
Willie took another drink. “Nice shop you have here.”
Guidry glanced out of the dusty front window and shrugged. “As you can see, business is slow.”
“You seem like a good ol’ boy. I’d buy something off the shelf, but I think all my money’s going to this liquor.”
Guidry counted the coins and then looked at the bottle. “I’ll tell you when you’re done,” he said.
The money ran out just as Alan Lomax arrived. By then, Willie was drunk.
Having spent years in jukes and after-hours clubs, he was no stranger to playing while intoxicated. Lomax, however, seemed nonplussed.
“You’re Willie Johnson?” he asked. His thick eyebrows arched up on his forehead like two fat caterpillars. He pursed his lips and shook his head.
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