Death of a Blues Angel Read online

  Sally-Rose stood up and took Deke's plate away. “I think you're done eating, Mr. Reporter."

  Blue Otis was nodding at him, his face a little grim. “You sure talk a lot for somebody don't know dick about nothing."

  Sally-Rose was back, hands on her hips. “Let me tell you something right now, boy. You try and bring that Black Power nonsense in here, I will stomp your sorry ass into the ground. We support Dr. King and his Doctrine of Nonviolence at the Blues Angel, like all good Christians should. I don't know what family means in West Texas, but that boy's mama, Miss Anne Hurt, delivered every one of my babies. When she needed to get him out of Miss'ippi, she turned to family, people she could trust to keep him safe."

  James cleared his throat and gave her a look, and Sally-Rose fell silent. “Deacon. Deacon and the Angel. How ‘bout that. Sounds like a song. Most reporters, they would ask questions first. Do a little research. You're welcome to go back to the Post and tell my old friend Bruce Charters that you were such a self-righteous asshole we kicked you out before you got your story. And he can send someone else."

  The table was silent then, until Rafael started tapping the edge of the table and humming a four beat, and soon the old men were nodding their heads to his rhythm. He grinned, started singing:

  Oh, I'm feeling so sick and bad,

  With my worried old black heart,

  Deacon, I'm feeling so sick and bad,

  That I wish I was a Black Indian reporter

  And every day I'd talk instead of work.

  Oh, that would make me so glad.

  Blind Pete took up the next verse.

  Deacon, I wish I was a Baptist Preacher

  With a nice white Baptist church

  Mt. Zion on the Hill, and I could rest inside

  In the cool shade, and I wouldn't have to work.

  Blue Otis raised his hands like he was singing praise in a church.

  Deacon, I'm feeling so sick and bad

  That I wish I had me a jug of corn liquor

  I'd sit in the shade of that nice Baptist church

  Mt. Zion on the Hill,

  And drink from the jug of corn liquor,

  Wait for some angel with blue eyes,

  Come down and play for me.

  Rafe was laughing now, pushed back his chair and climbed up on the stage. “I'll play for you.” He picked up a battered arch-top guitar, dark-red colored wood, fixed a piece of metal pipe over a finger on his left hand.

  Sally-Rose took the rest of the plates, stacked them with a little more vigor than was necessary, then marched back to the kitchen after giving Deke one more dark look.

  Blue Otis pushed back his chair and pulled his napkin out of the neck of his shirt, wandered up to the stage and started pulling harmonicas out of a brown paper bag. “Boy, let's do one of those Levee Camp Moans. You remember? That old Son House blues. Since you trying to steal his lyrics to impress some reporter. And you ain't doing a very good job at it, neither. Don't you know how to make a rhyme?"

  Rafael laughed out loud and started playing, but he didn't look at Deke again.

  Blind Pete Watson was shaking his head. “James, maybe Rafe is right. This ain't a good time to have some smart-ass reporter hanging around."

  James looked at him and sighed, pulled his napkin out of his shirt and put it on the table, looked over at Deke. “Pete, we got to make sure the boy has his chance. We all getting too old.” He turned to Deke. “You haven't made much of a first impression."

  * * * *

  Blind Pete was up on the stage now, and he had fitted an old green glass bottle neck over his finger to show Rafe a slide. Rafe stood at the microphone, the guitar against his crotch, but the two old men with him had sat down in straight-back wooden chairs to play.

  Blue Otis had a harmonica jammed against his mouth, the other side of it close against the microphone. It seemed to Deke that the missing front teeth were designed so he could play that harmonica, make it sound like a heart torn to bits and weeping in pain.

  "How did Blue Otis lose his front teeth? It wasn't on purpose, was it, so he could play harmonica?"

  James Hurt leaned back and studied him. “Well, I admit I don't know how reporters generally behave, but that surprises me, your first question should be about Blue Otis’ teeth."

  Deke felt his cheeks redden, ran his tongue over his own front teeth.

  "Prison. He got them knocked out by the butt of a guard's rifle. Blue Otis never has known when to shut up."

  "Why was he in prison?"

  "Murder.” Deke felt his eyes go wide. James shrugged. His attention was drifting away to what was happening on the stage. “Ask him, he'll tell you the story. Oh, no. Here he goes again."

  Rafe was singing Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood, his voice gritty and dark. “He's good. He sounds like that guy, what's his name? Eric Burdon."

  James nodded, a little reluctantly. “Rafe likes the new stuff. I guess it's okay, he wants to try a few songs. Those boys call themselves Animals, I don't know what that means, but they sing Tobacco Road. That's a good blues."

  Deke grinned behind his hand, and James turned a sharp eye on him. “That boy's been hanging on my leg since he was a baby, watching everything I do. When he was two he started reaching for the guitar strings. But this rock-and-roll, it's liable to distract him from his real music. Blues is real music. It's been around forever. This rock-and-roll, it'll never last. It don't have no history, no foundation."

  "You worked for his family?"

  "Sharecropper. His daddy never came home from the war. That was Jacob. Rafe looks so much like him. Jacob was a pilot, wild to fly. I think sometimes I'll look up into the sky and see him flying by in one of those little planes he loved. But Rafe's lucky in his mama. Anne, she's a level-headed woman. She was a nurse during the war, and after that she came home and trained to be a midwife."

  "She takes care of the Negro sharecroppers on her husband's land? That's sort of old-fashioned, isn't it? For white people to be taking care of all the poor black folks? She give out little baskets of food at Christmas?” Deke could hear the sneer in his voice. Mississippi lived a hundred years in the past, and nobody even seemed to notice, or care. And now these old men had brought their little white prince up here, expected Deke to shove the crown on his head. What was Bruce Charters thinking?

  James pulled out a cigar and lit a wooden match. “She sure does. Hams and pickled peaches and sweet potatoes. We all eat good at Christmas. Everybody is real glad to have them baskets. After Rafe's father was killed, she turned inward a bit. Anne wasn't from Miss'ippi, and she's never really fit in. She only had Rafe, didn't seem like she was looking for another husband, but she was a woman who needed work, and people to take care of. So we looked after them, and she looked after us."

  "And Rafe?"

  "Rafe, we loved him, our little angel. He grew up with a bunch of granddaddies, and they all played the blues. None of the other boys feel it in their hearts like he does. We taught everybody who wanted to learn, but he was the only one."

  Sally-Rose brought a bottle of Teacher's and a handful of little glasses to the table. James handed Deke the bottle, and he unscrewed the top and filled up the glasses. James climbed up on the stage, handed glasses of whiskey to Blind Pete and Blue Otis.

  Rafe turned and looked at him. “Where's mine?"

  James started dragging a couple more wooden chairs over. “You want to sing those pretty rock-and-roll songs, you can drink you some beer. You drink whiskey, your voice gonna change. You'll sound like a man, and then you won't be able to sing nothing but the blues."

  He sat down behind Rafe, picked up an arch-top guitar that was bigger than Rafe's, the top a rich ebony wood. He pushed the other chair toward Rafe.

  "Thanks, Uncle Jimmy.” He sat down, pulled his guitar across his lap.

  Blue Otis looked across at Deke and winked. “Bluesmen, we got to sit down to play. Otherwise we haven't had enough whiskey to do the songs justice. What you think the
blues about?"

  Deke shrugged. “Musical expression of the black man's struggle against oppression since coming..."

  "Oh, fuck, boy.” Blind Pete finished his whiskey and set the empty glass next to his foot. “Every time you open your mouth, you sound dumber and dumber. It's about love gone wrong. It's about a bad woman digging your heart out of your chest. The kind of woman who would take your name, then fuck your friends, give you their children. Like that."

  "That's right.” James was nodding. “You see the difference?"

  "It's personal,” Rafe said, looking at him for the first time since supper. Deke felt those wild blue eyes down into his belly. “The blues, it's about what's happened to you, not what's happened to the people.” His foot started tapping that rhythm, a few notes on his guitar, and within seconds the three old black men had picked it up, four right feet tapping together, four heads moving like they were limbs of the same body. “You got to smell it, you know what I'm saying? And it smells like sweat and spunk and blood."

  Rafe moved into the song, a John Lee Hooker called Boom Boom, and Deke could smell it coming off his guitar, men fucking. And Rafe stared right into his face, looking hungry, boom boom boom boom.

  He was surrounded by those old men like a pearl in a dark oyster, and Deke was furious with him suddenly, he didn't know why, but he couldn't stand up and kick the chair over and leave because Rafe's rough honey voice and bottleneck slide had turned his cock to stainless steel.

  * * * *

  One AM, and the old men were still playing strong, like they could go all night. Rafe was looking a bit worn. He'd changed out of his gravy-stained T-shirt, but the new one was soaked through with sweat, and when he'd gone up to the bar to get another whiskey for Blue Otis, somebody had given him a sharp elbow and he'd slopped half of it down his chest.

  The Blues Angel was packed, bodies crammed tightly against each other. The women looked like tropical birds in their brightly colored dresses, bright lipstick, and the men with them were slick, pretty silk shirts, sharp edges on their hats, gorgeous socks and wing-tips shined to within an inch.

  Everybody was awed by the old men, and Deke started to understand that they were a kind of living legend among bluesmen, with performances and recordings from back in the twenties that were still being talked about. But while everybody respected the old men, only the women were inclined to give Rafe a fair listen, and the women were mostly staring at his silver blond hair or his ass when he bent over in his jeans.

  The men turned pointedly away while he was playing, talked a little louder than they needed to. Rafe noticed, but the only thing Deke saw was that his blue eyes got more somber as the night wore on. James was starting to get mad, like he'd personally been disrespected. And Deke guessed in a way he had been. Deke wasn't any expert, but with his eyes closed he couldn't tell who was playing. Rafe was really that good. And the audience seemed to hate him for it.

  Mr. James Hurt stood up, set his guitar upright on the stand next to his chair. “This next song a blues written by Blind Pete Watson and Rafael Hurt called Man Running."

  Rafe stepped up to the microphone. The lights turned his hair a strange, beautiful silver, and the sweat running down his face looked gold. He and Blind Pete played their guitars like the same blood was flowing through their hands. Rafe started singing, his dark honey voice rough now after hours at the microphone.

  Sometimes a man's got to turn and fight,

  And sometimes he's got to run.

  It's a hard road, running,

  Dark and long and straight down into hell.

  Rafe was looking out over the crowd, looking for someone. When he found Deke, he nodded a little, kept his eyes fixed on Deke's face, sang the song to him.

  They can make me run,

  But they can't make me run alone.

  Give me shelter, give me hope,

  And you wait for me, wait for me.

  Next time I'm running,

  I'll be running to you.

  That rough voice, and Deke had to close his eyes, the music like hot melted butter running over his skin. And when he opened his eyes again he smiled at Rafe, gave him a little ‘come here’ gesture with his hands before he could stop himself. Come here, come to me, run to me, and Rafe smiled into his eyes.

  Blind Pete took up the next verse.

  Sometimes a man got to turn and fight,

  He still want to be a man.

  Let them spill his blood

  Deep into the black dirt he call home...

  The crowd was still when they finished, and after a moment Blue Otis stood up. He was weaving a bit, had to hold onto the back of his chair. “Blind Pete Watson and Rafael Hurt. Singing the truth, brothers, you got ears to listen. Singing the truth, singing the blues.” Then he stuck his harp into his mouth, played the beginning of a funny little train song, much loved back in the thirties, and the strange silent tension was broken.

  Rafe came up to the bar, and Sally-Rose poured a single small glass of whiskey. “That's for Blue Otis,” she said, but Rafe hadn't taken two steps back through the crowd when he got another hard elbow in the chest and spilled the whiskey on the floor. He leaned back over the bar to talk to Sally-Rose. She gave him a rag to wipe his hands, then brought up four green glass bottles of Coke from under the counter and popped the caps off.

  Rafe took them up on stage, had a brief word with his old men when he passed them a Coke. He pushed back through the crowd and leaned up next to Deke, took a long swallow from his bottle. He passed it over without a word, and Deke tipped it up to his mouth and handed it back, loving the sweet burn in the back of his throat. Why would anyone drink whiskey when they could drink ice-cold Coke?

  Rafe looked at the camera slung over Deke's shoulder. “You gonna just carry that thing all night? Mama Rose will put it under the bar for you, you ask her nice."

  Deke shook his head. “That's okay. She's still mad at me. Besides, somebody comes after you with a knife or something, I want to be there to get a picture of it."

  "Ha Ha. Very funny.” His smile was a little sour.

  "You can always just make records, Rafe. Wear a hat down over your face for the album cover. Nobody would know you're white, listening to you play."

  Rafe shoved away from the bar. The music and the noise from the crowd in the Blues Angel was so loud they'd had to lean close to each other to talk, and Rafe leaned over now and spoke into his ear. “Am I gonna have to kick your ass before this deal is done, man?"

  "Kick my ass? You're not quite such a nice, respectful boy when your old men aren't listening in.” Rafe grinned at him, his face looking a little reckless and wild. He must have drank enough whiskey to take off the edge like a proper bluesman.

  "Yeah? I could take you on. Come on, man, you got the balls? Put up your dukes.” Rafe was holding up his fists, a little golden boxer, and Deke laughed out loud at the ridiculous picture he made.

  "You gonna take a chance, mess up your pretty hands? How you gonna play that guitar then?"

  Rafe stared down at his hands like he'd never seen them before, open and closed them into fists again. He had calluses, and a couple of new blisters that had popped, smearing blood on his fingertips. Deke reared back in shock. “What did you do?” Deke reached for his hands, studied the bleeding fingers, then turned around and spoke to Sally-Rose. “Mrs. Johnson, you got an ice pack or something? He's bleeding. He's hurt his fingers."

  Sally-Rose looked at Rafe's hands, laughing, then she reached under the bar and handed Deke his own little bottle of Coke. She looked at Rafe. “That reporter, he don't know nothing about the blues, sweet baby. You gonna have to teach him everything."

  Rafe pulled his hands away, laughing a little under his breath. “You don't get a little blood on your guitar strings, you ain't playing worth shit."

  Deke looked at the man who slid in between them with a sinking in his stomach. Elroy Macallister was one of the music writers at the Post, a light-skinned black man with a razor-sharp
slash of a moustache and a nasty pen. He gave readers what they wanted, and what they wanted was dirt. He didn't have anything good to say about old blues musicians, come up from Mississippi with their battered guitars and mouth harps in a sack, hands rough from working the land. Men who didn't play until their work was done, then sat out on their porches in overalls and bare feet, tapped out a blues, sad songs about a hard life. Deke didn't think he had ever read a review by Elroy that didn't have a bitter, ugly note, like a piece of sour fruit. And he saved his most virulent comments for the white musicians trying to play jazz or the new rock-and-roll. Deke wasn't sure, but he didn't recall that there had been very many white guys trying to play the blues.

  Elroy had written a piece so beautifully nasty about Eric Burdon and The Animals at Wembly in 1965, singing Boom Boom, that he'd gotten a little fame for being a smart ass. Deke had laughed just like everyone else, reading Elroy's description of Eric Burdon trying to dance, but he thought it had gone to Elroy's head, and now he wasn't funny anymore, just nasty. He'd had nothing good to say about that group from England called Cream, supposed to be blues or rock or something. But Deke didn't like Elroy being here. If anyone was going to write something nasty about Rafe, it was supposed to be him! And he sure didn't want to read one of those ugly-bitter stories about these three dignified old men who loved Rafe, who believed in their music and believed in their boy enough to give him his shot.

  Elroy and Rafe were staring at each other with dislike, and Deke got the feeling they knew each other, or at least had met before. Elroy turned around, gave Rafe his back, and Rafael put two fingers up behind his head in a little V, devil horns.

  "What you doing here, Mr. Hard News Reporter? Something happened at the Blues Angel Mr. Bruce Charters knows about I don't? Cause the black music in DC, that's my business."

  Deke looked over his head at Rafe. “What do you think about that new group Cream? They're English, right?"

  "Yeah, they're good. I like their guitar. Eric Clapton, he's a blues guitar, man, his hands, they're all over that thing like he don't know whether to play it or fuck it."