Nat got a job running the cleaning machines at a particularly grungy emporium called the Veiled Woman. He chose it because even with a lot of people talking all at once, the place sounded quiet. It had obviously been used for something else at some point in time. It was run by a guy who always wore the same greasy blue jacket with the initials LJ on the front. Though all the “clients” called him LJ, he insisted Nat call him “Proprietor.”
The Proprietor’s machines sat on a wide raised part of the floor. Nat thought this was unique and clever, a good way to keep an eye on what was going on in the tattered seats that faced the raised area. The large area that overhung the seats was a total mystery, as were the seats in small raised pockets off to the side. Why have places where it would be hard for the Proprietor to see what was going on without swiveling around? Who could afford to screen all that area, to say nothing of cleaning it?
The Proprietor just chuckled when Nat brought this up to him one day when things were slow with only about a hundred people in the chairs.
“You’re a good one, you are,” smiled the Proprietor.
Once he had some months of practice under his belt, Nat felt confident enough to ask about playing music for pay in addition to cleaning.
Referring to the drug users, the Proprietor snorted, “They’ve got their own music.”
“This will come close to breaking the law,” Nat almost whispered. “It will attract a whole new group of people. Some might not be addicts, just users.”
LJ tried not to show excitement. How was it that this youngster could come to him offering the holy grail of emporiums, to bring users among the addicts? Could it be real? LJ smiled, realizing he had nothing to lose.
It took some weeks before word got out that you could hear a live musician at the Veiled Woman. The crowds began to grow slowly and virtually none of the new clientele threw up on themselves or passed out in a puddle of their own urine. The Proprietor was able to hire a young woman to clean when Nat was onstage, where he began to spend most of his time.
It’s inevitable that a place that attracts people who use and abuse drugs is frequented by a fair amount of artists in general and musicians in particular. The VW was no different. There were even musicians or ex-musicians who admitted, albeit cryptically, that they had experience with the guitar. Some even admitted to owning an instrument themselves and praised Nat for being brave enough to go “public” even if it was in a place the authorities were unlikely to disturb. One particularly wizened woman whose spine curved over her thin straight legs and reminded Nat of a question mark was still agile enough to roll on her back while playing the guitar, could play the instrument behind her head and behind her back and pluck solos with her teeth.
She also had theories about why music sounded different north of the Caribbean, how one set of white people had sent families to take over the land from the people they found there versus how another group of whites had sent mostly soldiers, young men who would be away from “home” for years.
“Sex. Everything’s different when you know the sex in the music,” she said at the end of her lectures on the Caribbean Divide in the music.
Though he could speculate on the meaning of this, he decided it was not as important as learning as much music from her as he could in the time she had left on the planet.
There was another deadline pressure building slowly that was wholly unknown and perhaps unknowable as far as Nat and millions like him were concerned. Nat saw the tip of the iceberg on a battered, half-broken hand screen the Old Woman had scammed from a desperate addict. She had dropped the screen rushing to the latrine. It began a story about a heretofore unemployed Scientist who had found a way to make a living by curing mostly rich people of the earworm problem from the odd pink bird. The Scientist cured the earworm by putting those who had it into a deeper sleep than they had had since childhood. The earworm left by the odd pink bird began to fade with the first treatment. By the third session of deeply induced sleep, their minds were clear of the obnoxious repeated sound.
“Good for them,” Nat thought, as the Old Woman returned, looking relieved.
What Nat didn’t know, the part of the story that was developing far below the screens, was what else the Scientist was doing with the people he cured. He was scanning their brains to try to understand, as any appropriately curious person would, why these particular people had been susceptible to the earworm in the first place.
This is where the news story became odd. In fact, it didn’t seem quite like a news story. He couldn’t quite place it.
“. . . and this is where the findings differ. Researcher Dimear spoke at length on his personal memories of people performing music onstage aided only by mechanical amplification and sometimes not even that.”
“What one recalls is the lack of power and effectiveness of the so-called live performances versus . . .”
Here, the screen failed for moment. Then there was another media person speaking.
“. . . modern tools that Ellington or Mozart would not only have praised but would have used themselves. It would have let them open up deeper parts of their work. I almost laughed when these folks claimed some connection between the earworm and live music . . .”
The Old Woman put her hand on his head. “Get off that damn screen, fool. Ain’t nothin’ but shit on there.”
“But you finagled your way into one.”
“I’m old. They cain’t change me. You want to wind up with them wires in your head so you cain’t never turn it off or you want to make some music? You let me know.”
***
Nat was able to persuade the Old Woman to perform with him, much to the delight of the users, the addicts, and, as the crowd grew, total nonusers. The addicts were in fact being crowded out even as Nat and the Old Woman performed songs of the great Tommy Johnson, whose repertoire she’d been reluctant to cover given the audience’s substance abuse.
“What you wanna learn that shit for? He was just like these fools we play for.”
Cryin’ mama, mama mama
Know canned heat killin’ me . . .
If canned heat don’t kill me
I won’t never die
With Nat going full time to performance, LJ made the Girl who was a part-time cleaner a full-time cleaner and increased everyone’s pay. This proved useful in paying for the fines and food and uniforms when the authorities arrived and took the performers to jail for unlicensed live performance.
Nat had been only vaguely aware of the laws designed to keep things a certain way. The way his lawyer eventually explained, the “Safe Distance” statute was that the world was becoming more crowded and so it didn’t do to excite large crowds of people. Live music, especially live “popular” music derived from the blues, tended to get people excited, unlike even with the most spectacular events and specials. Very large crowds could walk away from holograms and go relatively quietly into the night.
None of it really made any sense to Nat. He’d known all along that he was doing something illegal or at least close to being illegal. But he had no clear idea why it was illegal and the lawyer’s explanation did little to clear that up. People who had come to hear him and the Old Woman were moved by the music of Robert Johnson, Blind Lemon Jefferson, and Charlie Patton, and, as crowds had done centuries ago, synchronized their movements to the music, somewhat akin to the way performers did in holograms these days. But no one was overly excited. In fact, the addicts became, if anything, more contemplative, if one can use that term to describe people whose mental states didn’t allow much bladder control.
The non-addicts did tend to get a bit loud, the older ones shouting requests and the younger ones clapping and stomping to the beat. But it was only a little wild, and the fact that it had gone on for some months had led Nat to believe that it would go on as long as LJ opened the doors and made sure the addicts used designated lavatories. LJ even moved his observation booth from the raised floor area and gave it over completely to Nat and the
Old Woman.
Nat had felt especially good about the news gram pick-ups. This, he thought, would confer legitimacy. What it did was to no longer allow the authorities to ignore them even if they were much lower priority than serious criminal enterprises such as the Urban Food Alliance or the Anti-Poverty Association suspected of hacking and entering bankers’ homes and coercing them into all manner of subversion. Even with such goings on, there was still, somehow, news screen time and prosecution resources for an undereducated, mostly self-taught musician playing the work of people who had been but a generation or so removed from the auction block. There was also still plenty of room for him in the prisons.
***
The smell of the prison, the sound and the drained color, all hit Nat at once. There had been one room, a processing room that clearly at one time had been as clean as the medical facilities of the rich. Only the light colors of the walls remained. It was the room where they were inoculated, supposedly, against the hazards of their assigned jobs.
Everything smelled like oil or plastic that was overheated, on the verge of catching fire. There was that and body odor from the inoculations.
Nat began in a cell with six others, one of whom was mentally ill and prone to attack others. The guards would swoop in, grind the glass of the emergency doors with a swift opening, and sedate the prisoner. The sedation would last for a day or so before he attacked someone again. Everyone was nursing a bruise or a cut, sustained mostly at night or just before sunrise and work. Some were so tired from lack of sleep they slept through at least part of the attack.
After a few months, seven, perhaps nine, Nat was moved to a cell with only four people including him. Two more people replaced him in the other cell. There was no mentally ill person in the new cell. There was a person with some power. The Prisoner had no bracelet monitor and his “uniform,” though prison issue, was barely distinguishable from regular clothing.
Nat tried to hide the fear and disappointment in his smile as he greeted the Prisoner first and then the others.
“What you scared of?” the Prisoner spoke in a melodious husky voice, probably altered. “Extra work for extra reward. What’s the problem?”
During the day, Nat’s job was to mix and apply chemicals to scrap plastic, turning it back into its organic components and making oil in the process. No one knew what was happening to the oil, only that a small percentage of it was burned for energy in remote places. The process of converting plastic back into oil produced the burning smell that permeated everything and that no one ever got used to. Scientists whose pensions didn’t allow them to retire studied why no one ever got used to it. The research was endless. People had nightmares about the smell and dreams about escaping it.
With the move to the new cell, Nat had an additional and “unofficial” job. Hours before or after the regular shift, the transparent walls of the cell would become gray and opaque. Everyone but the Prisoner would be fixed for temporary blindness and deafness. When they could see and hear again, they would be seated at equipment used to make the drug AT. It had a long, official, technical name no one but scientists used. Everyone else called it AT or “Away Time.” The drug and manufacture of the drug were both official and unofficial rewards and punishments.
The inmate Nat replaced had refused to make AT. He’d seen his mother disfigured and killed by the drug. He tried to reason with the Prisoner and authorities. They all stared at him as if he’d not spoken and then pronounced sentence upon him as if he wasn’t there. The next day, he was swapped into the cell where Nat had been with the mentally ill attacker.
One of the concessions to prison “security” was that inmates couldn’t use the latest devices to produce AT. The somewhat primitive devices they had to work with meant that operators had to wear goggles and gloves. Fumes from the process slipped behind the eyewear they were given. Stinging, tearing eyes helped them stay awake. It was good to be awake, as mistakes, especially creating overly potent mixtures, were punished with stints in regular cells, or worse.
Lack of sleep began to wear on Nat. The days and nights were hard enough to distinguish through the many layers of the prison’s glass. He ceased to be self conscious about having to pee and shit in front of whoever was awake when it came time to relieve himself. Some days, the faucet in the cell didn’t work and they had to simply rub their hands on their clothing in an attempt to clean them before eating. The worse part of that was if they’d been creating AT or converting plastic and they could not clean their hands properly until the faucets were working again.
Every once in a while, sometimes at night, an inmate would begin trembling uncontrollably, succumbing to the chemicals that he’d inadvertently ingested. It seemed to take the guards forever to arrive. Sometimes, if the afflicted inmate had angered the cell’s Prisoner, the guards would be waved off and the suffering would go unattended. Those who could would turn away from the violent shaking. Those in the cell would put their hands over their ears in a vain attempt to avoid the penetrating, guttural cries.
Nat saw this happen to the man with whom he’d been swapped. Right after a meal, the man in the cell where Nat had been began trembling. People turned away from the gut-wrenching convulsions. Nat found himself caught, wanting to turn away but horribly fixated, almost not believing that anyone could tremble so violently. The Prisoner stared as well, but he was angry, hard as rock. Nat finally was able to turn away when the gray-green liquid drained from the shaking man’s nose and ears. When the guards arrived to administer to the trembling man, one of the men in the cell waved them off. The Prisoner in Nat’s cell finally turned away.
“He’s just waved the guards off to get back at me,” the Prisoner scoured.
The next day, the man who had had the convulsions was returned to the cell with Nat, the Prisoner, and the three others. There were now five in the four-person cell. The man recovering from the attack slept on the floor. Indeed, for a while, all he did was sleep.
***
Nat was not large when he entered prison. But he began to lose weight and develop a cough. His throat was rough. Another man in the cell noticed him coughing and asked if he could sing. Nat calmly replied yes, turned his face in the dark to cry silently into the foul bedding, and fell into the deepest sleep he’d had in months.
He awoke with the voice of the Old Woman in his head and began to sing along with a Robert Johnson song she’d taught him.
Got to keep moving, Got to keep moving
Blues falling down like hail, blues falling down like hail
Mmm, blues falling down like hail, blues falling down like hail
And the day keeps on remindin’ me, there’s a hellhound on my trail
Hellhound on my trail, hellhound on my trail
The man Nat replaced began to stir.
“That’s hoodoo music. What you singin’ that hoodoo music for?”
Nat had no idea what the man was talking about. But he was very glad the man seemed too weak to get up from the floor, as his face was contorted with fear and anger.
The Prisoner, on the other hand, liked Nat’s singing.
“I don’t know what you singing. Maybe you know something else to sing.”
Nat continued singing Robert Johnson, though he began to recall some Bessie Smith and, later, some Big Maybelle.
Candy,
I call my sugar Candy
The other men in the cell dropped their heads or slumped against the wall.
“Go back to the other stuff about the hound dog or the heart like a rock in the water,” the Prisoner quickly demanded.
Nat tried to smile and said he was tired of singing, needed a rest. The Prisoner tried not to show he was angered. Why should some asshole refusing to sing anger him? The Prisoner slept badly and awoke early, and even though he felt horrible and exhausted, he got the other men up to begin processing AT. The man Nat replaced was now able to sit up. But he was still disoriented and the Prisoner didn’t bother to assign him a processing station
.
Nat’s eyes stung from sleeplessness and stung more from the process. He tried to be more careful than usual. One of the other men, an older man, was struggling to stay awake. Nat dared not interrupt his own work to rouse the sleepy man. All he could think to do was sing. A curious song came to him. It was one of the songs he’d had to almost beg the Old Woman to teach him. She said she thought it might have been a prison work song.
Ain’t no hammah
In dis lan’,
Strikes lak mine, bebby,
Strikes lak mine
He sang loud enough to be heard through the breathing mask. The sound surprised everyone. The older man woke up. He even chuckled to himself. He tried to imagine why anyone would sing about pounding a nail, something he recalled from his youth seeing his grandfather do, or maybe it had been an uncle.
The old man’s lightened mood calmed the Prisoner even as the song dredged up the ever present anger that he struggled with in order to keep production levels high. He knew full well what the song was about. He had talked to old prisoners who had been part of an experiment, a return to breaking rocks, actually recycling cement. The guards had been so entertained by the novelty that they’d bet on which inmate would pass out first in the process of hammering virtually nonstop. There had been all sorts of injuries, with the men blind from sweat and disoriented from exhaustion.
The Prisoner decided to let everyone off early, or perhaps the singing made the time go by quickly. Who could know?
Nat was still singing when the cell went transparent. As the stations were folded, the other men became aware of the man Nat replaced. The man was trembling, but not as he had been when gripped by the sickness. His eyes were open. Flecks of white spit jumped from his lips as he struggled to speak.
The Official Report on Human Activity Page 13