by Jim Dodge
‘Thought of that,’ Double-Gone said, ‘but “open-heart”? “Floodlight?” Sounds like serious surgery. But I dig yo’ drift. Now check this out: The Gospel Wallop Church of Eternal Bliss.’
We went on and on, riffing back and forth, a playful speed-rave ring-shout, trading solos over whatever tune he’d dropped on the box. Nothing stuck, but we had fun.
The sun was trying to come up when we stopped for fuel and donuts at a Gas Mart outside Austin. Frost sparkled on the oil-stained cement of the pump bays. The donuts were stale the week before, so we ate some more speed to cut the grease. I was beginning to feel gone and gritty. The pale dawnlight scratched my raw eyes, and my neck and shoulder muscles felt torqued down tighter than the nut on the Caddy’s flywheel. I needed a long hot bath and a good day’s sleep. I was looking forward to Houston.
Double-Gone was shuffling records as we fishtailed off the frost-slick on-ramp back onto the highway and I took it up to cruising speed, the needle locked solid between the nine and the zero.
‘This indeed be the Lord’s bounty,’ Double-Gone chuckled, tipping a record to read the label in the strengthening light. ‘Yes, oh yes! Head full o’ volts and some good boogie fo’ the box and a short so boss it could be the Lord’s chariot driving to the Pearly Gates. I catch what yo’ doing besides some widow’s memorial gift or some such?’
‘The memorial is the paper cover. And she was a spinster, not a widow. I’m delivering it to the man who moved her. You’re holding him in your hands there someplace: the Big Bopper.’
‘The Bopper?’ Double-Gone looked dubious. ‘Thought the Bopper went down with Holly and that Valens cat.’
‘Exactly. He died just before she was going to ship this Caddy here off to him. Had it all crated up and ready to go. Put it in a warehouse when she got the sad news.’
‘Man, that is sad.’ Double-Gone patted the dash consolingly. ‘Machine like you all caged up in some dark corner.’
‘Then when she died,’ I continued, ‘her jerk-off nephew scored it from the estate.’
‘Yo’ breaking my heart.’
‘The nephew’s up to his nuts in gambling debts. He and this low-life by the name of Scumball – he’s the brains – insured it at top value as a mint collector’s item or cultural artifact or some damn thing, and I was supposed to make it look like Grand Theft Auto before I totaled it.’
‘You wreck, they co-lect – that the gig?’
‘That was the gig. I stole it and kept going. And here we are.’
‘I’m digging it.’ Double-Gone nodded. ‘And speaking as a humble servant of the Lord, my heart tells me it’s righteous in His eyes.’
‘Glad you and the Lord agree.’
‘’Course I don’t feature the Law’s gonna pump yo’ paw and give you a good-ol’-boy slap on the back and cut you loose, ’cause there be good reasons that lady holding the scales got a blindfold over her eyes. And those two cats back home prob’ly ain’t overwhelmed with joy …’ fact, maybe they dialing the number gets answered by the kinda people like to hear bones snap.’
‘Yup, that’s the kind of noise they made when I told them how it was, but I got the goods to take ’em down with me, and I made real sure they understood how it was.’
‘That is: if yo’ alive. But say these goons wreck you and this lovely chunk of automotion? They collect and yo’ be wrecked.’
‘First they have to find me, then they have to catch me.’
‘And they don’t know where yo’ going to, right?’
Oh, fuck! Harriet’s letter. Cory Bingham had read it, and I told Scumball I was taking the Caddy where it belonged. How specific had I been? But the sudden dark lash of dread-squeezed adrenalin had locked the memory vault.
‘Yo’ looking ill,’ Double-Gone pointed out.
‘Well, they might figure it out, but I’d call it long odds on short money.’
‘These cats connected?’
‘Connected to what?’
‘I mean,’ Double-Gone said patiently, ‘do they have friends, family, or business associates here in the Lone Star state that Ma Bell could put ’em onto faster than even you can drive?’
‘I don’t know. One of them, maybe. But hey, they’re looking to take in forty or fifty grand at the outside, and that’s an expensive effort you’re talking about.’
Double-Gone was shaking his head. ‘I know some cats whose souls so twisted they’d snuff you for a six-pack and the giggle. Cats like that everywhere. Then you got those jus out to make a name or impress the Man. It ain’t always the money; the Man’s got to save face an’ set good examples fo’ the boys.’
‘Reverend, you’re not lifting my spirits.’
‘First yo’ spirit gotta understand what is. We ain’t jus talking ’bout yo’ ass, dig? What about the Bopper’s people? You give ’em this fine automobile, you might be givin’ ’em the gift o’ grief.’
‘Wait a second,’ I said, sensing the misunderstanding, ‘I’m taking it to the Bopper himself.’
Double-Gone blinked. ‘Say what?’
‘The Big Bopper. I’m delivering this car to him, with love from Harriet, ashes to ashes and dust to dust.’
‘The Bopper dead, man, crashed and burned.’
‘I’m hip.’
Maybe my tone was a little sharp, because Double-Gone’s response was icy on the edges. ‘Well now, you hip that the dead can’t drive?’
I laughed with relief. ‘Listen, I forgot you don’t have the whole picture, and damn near forgot I do. See, what I’m up to is this: I deliver the Eldorado here to the Bopper’s grave, soak it down with a gallon of high-test, stand on the hood while I read Harriet’s letter – kind of a eulogy – and then it’s up in flames.’
Double-Gone pinned me with a bulge-eyed stare: ‘Yo’ sick, man.’
‘Ah,’ I replied, ‘but wait: I not only deliver this lost gift of love, and honor the power of music to move us and complete another connection in the Holy Circuit, but my two scuzzy friends also collect their insurance money.’
‘I’m hearing you, but they don’t know that. Far as they know, you got it parked on Sunset and Vine with a FOR SALE sign taped up in the window.’
‘Wrong,’ I said. ‘They do know it. I told them I’d wreck it, but it was going to take a little longer than usual.’
‘Why sure,’ Double-Gone took on a look of feigned innocence, ‘they ain’t saying to themselves, “Well here’s a speed-cranking daddy with a two-monkey habit running loose with our fifty-G pay-off machine, our income fo’ sure on the line and, should the Law come down, maybe our asses, but George say be cool, don’t worry, and you know ol’ George wouldn’t think of anything like a paint-and-plate job or a side-street discount or even keeping it stashed somewhere fo’ a steady blackmail income. Naw, shit man: we trust ol’ George. Sure, we’ll do like he say and hang here cool and make no whatsoever effort to bust his fucking chops.”’
‘Double-Gone, I got the perfect name for your church: The Come-Down Tabernacle of the Grim View.’
‘Lord give us eyes so we could dig it all, not jus what we want to see. Besides, man, it breaks my po’ heart to picture this fine, high-styled piece of fast machinery wasted in flames. And it would be double-sadder, a true burden o’ sorrow, if you happened to be sacked up in the trunk.’
‘Wasn’t that long ago you said what I’m doing is righteous in the eyes of the Lord.’
‘No doubt about it, but being righteous ain’t no excuse fo’ bein’ dumb.’
‘You think I’m being dumb?’
Double-Gone nodded once solemnly. ‘’Fraid I’d have to cop to that.’
‘Well, man, looking at it through the Lord’s eyes, tell me a smarter way.’
Double-Gone grinned. ‘Now George, you know I never claimed to that. Only total fools think they looking through the Lord’s eyes. Ain’t you never dug the Book of Job?’ He slapped the Bible on the seat between us. I felt the sermon coming.
‘Now ol’ Job was a truly ri
ghteous cat with all this wide-flung real estate and livestock and a loving wife, not to mention seven boss sons and three daughters so good lookin’ make yo’ teeth chatter.
‘But Satan hanging around the scene, strutting to and fro in the earth and bopping up and down. Lord spots him and says, “Hey Satan, dig my servant Job. He loves me like he should and does no evil.”
‘Satan says, “Well sure, no shit and no wonder: you got him covered up with goodies. Take them away and Job’ll spit in yo’ eye.”
‘Lord knows that’s jive, so he tells Satan, “Do what you want to convince yo’self – just don’t touch his flesh.”
‘No sooner said than Satan lays it on Job hard: sends these goons to rustle the mules; drops a gob of fireballs on the servants and sheep; blows a horrible wind outa the mountains that flattens the eldest son’s house where the sons and daughters partying and they all wasted. Now what do you think Job says to all this ruination and heavy grief? He say, “The Lord gave, and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name o’ the Lord.”
‘The Lord’s loving it. He tells Satan, “Hey, I told you my man was cool.”
‘But Satan comes back with the big scoff: “Well fuck, why not? Didn’t hurt him none. You put some pain on Job’s own frame, he’ll curse yo’ name as a ratprick bastard; can count on it.”
‘The Lord tells Satan, “Go ahead; his ass is yours – jus spare his life is all.”
‘Now Satan’s got it tight when it comes to putting the serious torment on folks, and he smotes Job with horrible pus-bubbling boils from wig to toes. It’s an agony so hard makes piss dribble down yo’ leg. Job’s wife flips out when she digs the pain he’s in. She tells him, “Job, curse the Lord and die. This ain’t making it.”
‘But Job don’t budge. Tells her to hush her fool mouth. Tells her, “Shall we receive good at the hand o’ God, and shall we not receive evil?”
‘Then a bunch of Job’s buddies shows up to comfort him. Job’s all naked and pus-runny and covered with ashes, and when they clock how monstrous his hurt be, none of ’em can speak fo’ seven days. But Job’s boils eatin’ him up something fierce, and he commences to snivel and bad mouth ever being born, and generally lays it down that he’s a righteous cat that never crossed the Lord and can’t believe he’s done anything to deserve such bad action. But dig this close: he don’t ask the Lord to end the suffering. No. All he prays for is the strength to endure it. That’s righteous.
‘But his buddies be getting in his shit, saying stuff like, “Job, my man, you musta sinned else the Lord wouldn’t be on yo’ case. ’Or like, “You getting worked over for thinkin’ Job mo’ righteous than the Lord.”
‘Job calls ’em what you been calling me: “miserable comforters.” But he won’t cop to being a sinner ’cause it ain’t the truthful fact. His buddies all whipping on him hard, telling him to repent and trust the Lord and Job’s jawing right back at Elihu and Eliphaz and Bildad and them other cats to bug off, he ain’t got nothin’ to repent for, always trusted and obeyed the Lord, and near as he can dig he’s getting fucked over fo’ no reason.
‘Then all of a sudden – bam! – the Lord’s voice comes roaring out the whirlwind, and He gets down. What he lays on Job and his buddies runs like this: “Maybe yo’ getting fucked over – but hey, yo’ mine to fuck. I am the Lord! You get whatever it is you get and what you get is yours, high times or bad blues, good luck or tough shit. I gotta maintain a harmony so far beyond yo’ experience that it’s fucking pathetic.”
‘But jus to make sure, the Lord lays it down in all His beautiful sweetness and light, puts it right in their faces: “Do you know the treasures of the snow? Do you make the tender buds open in bloom? Is it you that feeds the baby lions? You that makes sure the ravens have food or divide the waters so them big ol’ hippos have rivers to loll in? Can you bind the sweet influences of the Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion?” Ooowheeeee, I love that one – he’s talking stars, man. And the Lord goes wailing on: “Is it you that lets the heart understand? Did you give yo’self life? Do you really think you knowing better than me what’s what and what ain’t? That you got more than a few pitiful clues what it’s all about? What I am? Well, get hip: no fuckin’ way.”
‘Now when a man lays it down, liable as not it’ll bounce back up in his face. But when the Lord lays it down, it stays down – and Job, he copped on the spot, saying “I was blind, but now mine eyes doth see. Do what Thou wilt. I can dig it.”
‘So the Lord healed his boils like that and no scars neither, and gave Job back double all his camels and she-asses and other livestock, plus ten more children – seven boys so tall and strong they coulda whupped ass on the Celtics, and three daughters so fine you immediately jump to hard. And if that wasn’t fair enough, He let Job live another hundred and forty years so he could play with all his grandchildren and their children and on and on like that fo’ many sweet and swinging generations till Job cashed out, being old and full o’ days.’
I spoke right up: ‘How does that make me dumb? You didn’t hear me claiming I saw through the Lord’s eyes either, did you?’
‘See?’ Double-Gone sounded exasperated. ‘Yo’ taking it personal. Yo’ putting yo’self in the way. Point is, don’t even try to understand the Lord’s will; jus follow.’
‘I’m hearing you,’ I said – a little testily, I suppose – ‘and I’m all for it. I guess I don’t know what His will happens to be.’
‘Finest thing that Bessie woman ever preached me was “quit trying and stop denying.” Feel it. Feel it like you feel music. Like you feel sunlight on yo’ skin. Like it feel when you lie down with a sweet-lovin’ woman. I swear, you white folks damn near a lost cause.’
‘Not much I can do about the color of my soul,’ I said, jaws tight.
‘You know why the Lord gave black folks so much soul?’ Double-Gone asked, his tone suddenly playful.
I wasn’t feeling playful. ‘No. Why?’
‘To make up fo’ what he did to our hair.’ His dazzling smile, combined with the pink flash of his hat, almost made my raw eyes water. ‘’Course,’ Double-Gone continued, ‘it ain’t really the color o’ the soul that matters, though having some cultural heritage is a mighty help when it comes to feeling the spirit move.’
What I was feeling again was the babble rising in my brain so bad I wanted to scream. But I took a deep breath. ‘You still haven’t told me how I’m being dumb.’
‘George,’ Double-Gone said quietly, ‘yo’ being dumb because you getting in yo’ own way. You dumb because you got the man and the music confused. You dumb because you got so high an’ mighty on yo’ own righteousness that you didn’t cover yo’ ass – them others be foolish dumb, but that’s dangerous dumb, getting so sucked up in yo’ own wild wonderfulness that you don’t take care of business. The Bopper buried in Houston?’
The question, erupting in the litany of my idiocies, caught me by embarrassed surprise. ‘Well, you know, actually I’m not sure where he’s buried,’ I hemmed, then hawed, ‘I assume Sabine Pass – that’s his hometown – or maybe Beaumont.’
‘But you don’t know for sure.’ This wasn’t a question.
‘I’ve been moving fast lately.’
‘Not knowing where you going – tell me that ain’t dumb. Lazy dumb. You think jus ’cause you on the journey that the Lord gonna do all the work?’
‘No,’ I agreed. ‘I was calling it “sloppy dumb” to myself right before I saw you standing beside the road, that hat of yours warming the night.’
‘Hope to shout. Be a little awkward turns out the Bopper’s sixed in San Jose. But I’d imagine those two cats you cut on know jus where to send them flowers. People like that pay some mind to details; them that don’t, they pay the dues.’
‘Gotcha, man, loud and clear. But you’re telling me what I already know, which maybe isn’t much for a dummy like me. Tell me a smarter way. I’m all ears.’
Double-Gone shifted his weight slightly and leaned toward me. �
�I was you, no way I’d get near the Bopper’s grave. I dig high, and I groove on risk, but when I see ’em together, like in high risk, I stop for a close look, and what I be looking fo’ is a way around it.’
‘Not much glory in that,’ I said. This sounded poor, but it usually does when you’re defending your ignorance.
‘George,’ Double-Gone said sadly; ‘even money says goons be waiting at the grave to hand you yo’ ass on a platter and bring yo’ little romance to an ugly end. You go on ahead and you liable to join the Bopper, and on yo’ stone they’ll chisel, “This man looked to suffer.”’
I felt the first brush of a hustle. ‘And what are you looking for?’ I asked as pointedly as possible.
‘Man,’ Double-Gone huffed, ‘don’t shine the light on me when I’m sneaking up. Breaks my rhythm.’
‘Even money says it has something to do with confusing the man and the music.’
‘You on the beat, George. You do dig I don’t got my heart in it to push the point – I don’t like bad-mouthing the dead,’ specially if they was so wild alive – but I don’t think the Bopper’s yo’ man. Got my reasons. Number one is like I say: if they gonna hit ya, his grave’s the place. Number two, I ain’t convinced the Bopper deserves it. That’s cold, I know, but there it is. He only made it once, and that was some diddley novelty number with fun and joy, but nothing deep. Here, let me drop it on the box and you can hear––’
‘No need,’ I cut in. ‘I heard it already and I’m hearing you. But I’m not delivering it to the Bopper as a reward for musical excellence or a pack-train of hits; I’m delivering it because it was meant for him, Harriet to the Bopper, soul to soul, the way love’s supposed to be.’
‘Now you jus got to know that ain’t true.’ Double-Gone was adamant. ‘That spinster woman never laid eyes on the cat. He sneak up and do her doggie-style in the dark, she wouldn’t even know it was the Bopper’s bop.’
‘She was moved by his music. That’s good enough for me.’
‘Hallelujah brother, I’m hearing that. But you got to ask yo’self jus where that music coming from.’