“You know it is.”
“You a little thinner than the man I used to cook for.”
“You got no room to talk.” Luella wore a housedress that did little to hide her wasted frame. Her arms were matchsticks. The closer he got, the worse they looked—scarred and riddled with abscesses. Her skin had a yellow tint, or was that just the sun? She smiled, and he could see that her gums had receded.
“You heard about Jackwash?”
Willie nodded. “Where’s he buried?”
“Don’t know and don’t care,” she said. “When he died, he left me without a damned cent of my own. Had to come back home on my own.” She leaned forward. “Do you know what it’s like for a woman alone on the road?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Well, you can imagine, can’t you?” Her eyes were red and wet.
“Who killed him?”
“That’s the question, ain’t it? He knew everybody in that town, and they knew him, so there was plenty of people with good reason to kill him. He was a bad man.”
“He was my friend.”
“He didn’t have nothin’ nice to say about you.”
Willie looked away. This wasn’t the woman he remembered.
“I’m surprised to see you come around,” she said. “I been home for weeks.”
“I just heard about it.”
Her gaze drilled into him like the sun overhead. “When they told me Jackwash was dead, I thought to myself, well, that Willie Johnson will show up now. He’ll come save ol’ Luella and take her away from this damned place. I waited for you to come.”
“How was I supposed to know that?” Willie said. “I seen you once in four years, and you were none too happy to see me that one time.”
“I was happy,” she said. She sat back, her head against the stained wood behind her. She patted her hair and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “But I was with Jackwash, and he was a jealous man . . .” She closed her eyes, a wistful look crossing her face. “He didn’t want nobody to talk to me. Kept me under lock and key.”
“You looked pretty free to me.” He remembered watching her flit from place to place in the club, smiling and laughing. She’d been so beautiful, and for what?
“I didn’t have nothin’ to my name. Not a dime.”
“Maybe he didn’t want you to waste it on junk.”
In the silence, Willie heard the drone of insects. He listened for birdsongs, but there were none.
“That much is probably true,” she said. “So, you gonna stand there, or come up here and sit by me?”
“I’m fine where I am,” Willie said. His head swam in the heat. He’d loved her—he loved her still—and this was how she ended up? She had his heart in her hands. Instead, she chose Jackwash, and needles, and ended up in a shack with newspaper pasted over broken shingles. She could have been with him.
He closed his eyes. And what would that have gotten her? Holed up in a corner room at Aunt Beatrice’s, talking about broken dreams and trying to earn a living in a country dying around them. He clenched his fists until his fingernails cut into his palms.
“You still play?”
He nodded. He was too upset to speak.
She swallowed. “I still sing.”
He didn’t answer.
“I was thinkin’ you and I could get together. I could sing, and you could play guitar. We could make some money—”
His laugh interrupted her. “Yeah, because folks will be glad to spend their last dime to see a white boy and a colored junkie play the blues.”
His words struck her like a fist, and she shuddered. “I just thought . . .”
Willie waited.
She swallowed, and it looked like it hurt her to do so. “Come in out of the sun, Willie.”
“I don’t think so.” He would rather stand there, stewing in his own sweat, than step on that porch.
“There was a time,” she said, speaking slowly as if weighing her words, “when you seemed to like me a little. Like you might want to be with me. Remember when you were sick? I took care of you, and we used to talk a lot. We talked ’bout everything. I miss that. I really do. Seemed like you liked that, too, didn’t you?”
She looked so frail and so old. How could she have let this happen to herself?
She patted her hair again. “I guess I’ve changed. I’m not so pretty as I once was.”
The anger bubbled over, and he spoke without thinking. “No, you don’t look the same. Fact is, looking at you now, seein’ how spent you are, I can’t believe you were ever beautiful.”
She bowed her head. She might have been crying, given the way her shoulders trembled, but she wouldn’t look up, so he couldn’t be sure. He waited a moment before turning away.
On the way home, he thought of all the things he’d done in his life. He’d used his knife in anger. Drank himself into a stupor. Stolen a time or two. Danced with the devil more than once. But none of that had bothered him. This, though, was different. The weight of the sin he’d just committed pressed down on him and made him sick.
He could go back and apologize. But he kept on walking, one foot in front of the other. When he reached Beatrice’s, he grabbed his guitar and headed out of town. By midnight, he was in a boxcar, moving north.
• • • • •
1969
Fort Collins, Colorado
“Two days later, I turned around,” Willie told Kennedy. “Caught a southbound freight and rode it straight back. Jumped the train in the middle of the night, with nobody to thumb a ride from. Walked eight miles in the dark. Got there as the sun was coming up on the third day. I had it in my head to make things right, but it was too late. She was already buried.” He paused to finish another glass of whiskey. In the time that it took to tell his tale, he’d finished half a bottle. When he spoke again, he slurred. “She hung herself.”
Kennedy said, “You don’t know.”
“Don’t know what?”
“Don’t know if she killed herself because of you. She might have done it anyway.”
Willie closed his eyes. “You’re wrong. I know.” He reached behind him, fumbling for his guitar, nearly knocking it over. Leaning out, he almost fell off the stool. “That’s what the song is about,” he said. “It’s about killing the only woman I ever loved. Killing her, just the same as if I put my knife to her throat.” He started to play Sins in Blue again, but he’d had too much to drink, and he couldn’t finger the chords. He stopped, started over, and then stopped again.
“You don’t have to play that,” Kennedy said.
“Yes, I do. I need to play this song now, play it for her.” He tried again, and fumbled again, dropping his pick. When he reached down to grab it, he tumbled off the stool, knocking the whiskey bottle over in the process.
“God damn you,” Willie said to himself.
“Just let it go.”
“Might as well,” Willie said, struggling to his feet. “Been playing the blues my whole life, and all I got to show for it is a guitar give to me by a dead friend, and a song I can’t play about a dead woman. Fuck.”
“Stop it, Willie.”
“Stop it yourself.” Willie grabbed the guitar by the neck and swung it around, smashing it on the floor, snapping it in two. The body, still attached by the strings, hung from the neck in his hands. He seemed surprised. “Well,” he said. “That’s that.”
CHAPTER TWELVE: THE N&R BAR
“Audiences like their blues singers to be miserable.”
~Janis Joplin
1969
Fort Collins, Colorado
Kennedy fed quarters into the pay phone and waited for the operator to make the connection. He’d hoped his mother would answer, but of course, it was his father’s voice that he heard—hard as hickory—saying, “Hello?”
“It’s me.” Pause. “Kennedy.”
Silence. Then, “Are you all right?”
“Yes. I’m calling to say so.”
“Where are you?”
“Fort Collins, Colorado.”
“Colorado? Out west Colorado?”
If he’d been talking to Willie, he’d have said something smart like, “No, Colorado, Maine.” But this was no time for sarcasm. “Yes, out West.”
“What the hell . . .” His father’s voice trailed off.
“I came out here to try to work out a music deal with an old musician I discovered. The deal fell through. Anyway, I’d been thinking about that instead of calling.”
“Does this have something to do with that race music you listen to?”
“Willie is a white man.” Kennedy knew he was prevaricating, but it seemed fitting that Willie’s skin color—never much a benefit to himself—save Kennedy some difficult explanations.
“Willie who?”
“Willie Johnson.”
“Sounds like a colored man . . .”
“In more ways than one,” Kennedy said. The joke was out before he could stop it. He leaned into the pay phone booth, whacking his head on the frame.
“What was that?” his father demanded.
“I whacked my head,” Kennedy said.
“Well, be careful.” Pause. “Do you have any money?”
“Some.”
“If I cable you some money, will you come home?”
“I’m coming home either way,” Kennedy said. “If you’ll have me.”
“Do you have any idea what you put your mother through?” His father’s voice rose, colored by that sharp edge that never failed to grate on Kennedy. “Do you know what this little adventure of yours cost her?”
Kennedy counted to five before answering. “That’s something I can’t undo. But I’ll try and make it up to her as best I can.”
When his father spoke again, the edge was gone. “Call me back in ten minutes. I have to figure out where you can pick up money.”
Kennedy mumbled his goodbye and hung up.
Standing outside of the grocery, he glanced at the 24-hour burger joint across the street. The building looked like a glass cube wearing a stucco hat. The day was cooler than it would be come afternoon, and Kennedy’s stomach rumbled. He didn’t need to save all of his cash. A burger or fried chicken for breakfast sounded wonderful. He made his way across the street and to the front door, but the closer he got, the more overpowering the smell of grease became. By the time he reached the threshold, he’d changed his mind.
A big black bird perched on the crosswalk sign behind him seemed to regard, then dismiss him with a single caw.
What time was it? Was he really up this early? Back home, he never missed an opportunity to sleep in on the weekend. Behind the burger place, a young man hosed the pavement, cleaning in preparation for the day’s business. Seemed like it would be fun to work in fast food. Did employees eat free? In a college town, a lot of cute girls came in to buy lunch. The work couldn’t be too hard. He could put some money aside. Not for college, though. No way he was going to spend thousands of dollars on a piece of paper. If he wanted paper, he could unroll some in the bathroom.
What was he going to do, then?
Do what you love.
Can’t make any money at that.
The first voice was Willie’s. The answering voice was his father’s. Where’s my voice? he wondered. What do I want to do?
He knew the answer. Knowing where he wanted was the hard part. That being decided, he would have plenty of time to figure out the rest.
Back at the pay phone, his father explained where to pick up the cash he would wire. The stern-edged voice had returned. His father was, after all, a no-nonsense sort of man. Kennedy waited until the instructions had finished and said, “Got it.”
“Well, then. Hurry home. And keep us posted.”
Kennedy hesitated. He had something more to say, but his mouth was suddenly dry. “Umm.”
“What?” Impatient now.
“I’m sorry. Sorry I didn’t call. Sorry things got out of hand between us.”
For a moment, Kennedy wondered if his father would apologize for breaking his records. Or punching him in the eye. His father’s voice had gone husky. “You and I will be fine. Just make sure you make amends with your mother.”
“Can I talk to her?”
“Yes. She’s been waiting her turn.”
• • • • •
Willie slept through the alarm clock. His head ached, and his knees were swollen. He struggled to the bathroom, bouncing off the door frame because he couldn’t walk straight. He was halfway through his morning piss when he remembered the guitar. The pang of sorrow that followed was real. He’d loved that damned thing. A fitting end, though. World’s worst bluesman, shunned by blacks and whites alike, puts an exclamation point on a pointless career. Good thing I still have my day job.
Kennedy was nowhere to be found. Perhaps he was headed home. Good. The boy needed to mend fences before it was too late. Before leaving, he’d cleaned up the mess Willie had made of the living room, perhaps in place of a goodbye note. The guitar pieces were bagged, sitting on the kitchen table. That was good, too. Willie was loath to part with the thing, even in pieces, being that it was all he had left of Jackwash and Luella.
The walk to work just about spent him. His hip was on fire, and his kidneys hurt. He’d been drinking too much, and if he was going to survive another workweek, he was going to have to stop. The morning sun was already hot. Sweat soaked the neckline of his shirt and trickled down the small of his back—the price he paid for waking up late.
On that subject, he wondered if he still had his day job after all. Seemed like Mrs. C had been looking for a reason to fire him for months. By being late, he might just be handing her a good reason on a platter.
He hadn’t yet punched his timecard when she poked her round face through the office door and called him in. “I need to talk to you.” She wore enough makeup to mask any emotion, so he wasn’t sure what to expect.
Her office was tiny, which only emphasized how large the woman was. She wore a white institutional uniform, better suited to a nurse. Her lips were crimson, and cobalt blue shadow ringed her eyes. She tapped her manicured nails on the desk. “I’m pretty annoyed with you.”
Willie sniffed. The office smelled of the worst perfume he could imagine.
“Sorry I’m late—”
She interrupted. “Your little friend didn’t show up yesterday.”
Willie frowned.
“Rodney. Your little trainee. He didn’t bother to come to work. He called in just before I was leaving for the day with some cock-and-bull story about feeling sick. I fired him.” She sat back and exhaled. “The little shit called me a bitch!”
Willie nodded, trying to hide a smile.
“Anyway, everyone pitched in to help, but the laundry is a mess.” She narrowed her blue eyes and leaned as far forward as her huge frame and tiny desk would allow. “I would have called you in to work, but you don’t have a phone.”
“Yes, ma’am. I’ve been meaning to get one, but money only goes so far.”
“Oh, don’t tell me that. You have plenty of money. You make almost two bucks an hour.” She shook her head. “Y
ou need to get a phone. It’s the twentieth century. People need to be able to get ahold of you.”
“That kid wasn’t going to work out anyway.”
“I know. All he did was flap his lips about how hard he worked, but on your days off, nothing got done.” She sat back and wiped sweat from her forehead. “It’s hot in here. You’d better get to work. There’s a lot of laundry waiting for you, and the girls wiped out the clean sheets and towels an hour ago. Why are you late, by the way?”
“Had family in town. Had to see him off.”
“Well,” Mrs. C said, making a show of tidying a pile of papers. “You shouldn’t let your personal life interfere with your career. A man your age should know that.” Willie spent a frantic hour loading laundry in the big machines and folding what clean linen was ready for use. Then, while moving the laundry from maid to maid upstairs, Willie’s hip buckled, and he went down hard. His knee was already swollen, and he would surely need a taxi to get to work the next morning.
But he wouldn’t call in. He didn’t want Mrs. C questioning his health.
As the day wore on, Willie had multiple opportunities to bemoan the liquor he’d had the previous evening. No matter. Halfway home from a ten-hour shift, he stopped for a beer at the N&R, a tiny bar next to the hotel on Walnut. Something to take the edge off a whiskey hangover that simply would not go away.
As he sat in the dark, the radio played Honky Tonk Women by the Rolling Stones. He’d heard that the Stones would be coming to Fort Collins that fall, playing in the new college gym. He closed his eyes and listened. The drummer hammered on a cowbell like his life depended on it. Crazy damned song.
The bar was nearly empty. Acquiring a liquor license hadn’t been the boon the owners might have imagined, and Willie wondered about tiny neighborhood places like the N&R. Newer, bigger establishments were opening every day. The world was changing fast. Things Willie loved were sure to go away. They always did.
What would happen when he couldn’t work anymore? How would he live? Glancing around the empty bar, Willie decided that there was no use thinking about it. The time to think about the future had passed thirty years earlier. When his body gave out, he’d be done. What would happen would happen.
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