Delta Blues

by Carolyn Haines

  Nick belly-laughed deep and hard, which made me nervous.

  “Nah! I’m a Lakers fan. You know what everybody is saying … Showtime is back! Ko-babay is the shit! Man, I love L.A. My kind of town.”

  “College football is more my thing, Nick. You know how it is down South. Following the SEC is like going to church. Only, we eat more barbecue while we’re doing it.”

  “I hear you, Kidd. Right up my alley. Nothing like a good barbecue. Well, you gonna invite me in or do I have to stir up some more shit?”

  It was then I noticed that nothing in the room was out of place. Everything was just like it was before he blew in. Except for one small detail. My ribs still hurt.

  “Hey! Mi casa, su casa.” I feigned casualness, though I don’t think Nick bought that act for a second.

  I sat down next to Lil as Nick sashayed in and shut the door behind him. I opened the guitar case and looked her over to make sure Lil hadn’t been damaged in the maelstrom of Nick’s patented “Shock and Awe” entrance. She looked just fine. I shut the case and mulled my options. There didn’t seem to be many.

  Suddenly icy, insistent fingers traced ripples down my neck, and I again became aware of another presence in the room. And I didn’t mean Nick. It was weird and eerie, yet oddly, it felt safe, reassuring. The feeling kept getting stronger. Unfortunately, Nick’s bombastic presence didn’t give me the opportunity to further explore the sensation. Whatever “it” was.

  “Well, Kidd, this ain’t exactly the Ritz Carlton, is it? Last I checked, you’re still a viable, classic act that people pay good money to see. What’s the deal with staying in a dump like this?”

  “My reasons aren’t exactly in your line of work. Trust me, you wouldn’t give three shits and a giggle for why I’m back in Clarksdale.”

  “Don’t count on it, Kidd. You might be surprised.”

  Nick’s response was cryptic, and worrisome, but I had no time to suss it out. At the moment, I had all I could handle agonizing over the impending disposition of my immortal soul.

  God knew I was a mostly unrepentant sinner, but I was silently praying my ass off, hoping that His mighty hand would reach down from the heavens into that hotel room and pluck the Devil out by his Johnny-boy and deposit him directly back into hell.

  In short, I was looking for a sign, any kind of sign, that I would be let off the hook. Like it was a bad dream, or a waking nightmare.

  All I could think was that I was well and truly fucked! I’d come into the world alone, and now it appeared to be a mortal lock I was going out the same way. With nary a witness or a loved one present to preside over my imminent, untimely demise.

  “You’re lonely, aren’t you Kidd?” Nick asked in the tone of a therapist. “You were born lonely, son. Not even your mama wanted you. Three bad marriages, countless women, and none of them wanted you either, did they?”

  From the corner of the room came something that sounded like a softly moaning sigh. It didn’t seem like Nick had heard it, but I sure as hell did. This scene was getting weirder by the minute.

  “I’m my own in-house expert on lonely,” I said. “So what?”

  “Think on it, Kidd,” the devil commanded.

  And I did.

  Night after interminable night, during every tour, in hotel rooms all over the world, post-gig depression would set in and trigger bouts of insomnia. I’d always known I was destined and doomed to lead a life of crushing solitude.

  Just as regularly, I was drunk and/or coked out of my head, often in the company of a parade of star-fucking bimbos of all colors, creeds and nationalities who thought it’d be hip to score a notch on their garter belts with a raucous-voiced, guitar-slinging, heavy-hung, bluesman. Go back to the roots, kind of, if you get my meaning. But after the hellish childhood I’d lived with Sadie, and then being abandoned by her when I was ten years old, I didn’t trust women any further than my next loveless, inevitable assignation in yet another hotel room in some podunk town.

  I knew what loneliness was. Or so I thought. But I also knew, deep down in my gut, that a lifetime of guilt was the engine of my despair. And that despair fueled my playing, cost me my family life, drove me to drink and drugs, and made me a lying, cheating fornicator of the first rank.

  Nick watched me closely. The merest wisp of a sardonic smile creased his rugged, redbone features. He enjoyed my discomfiture and probably was already reveling in the fact that I would soon be just another faded inkblot in his ledger of damned souls.

  I’d survived abandonment, near starvation and drug addiction to rise to stardom. I was going down fighting. That’s all there was to it. Regrettably, I could foresee no obvious path to victory over the devil. I was in way over my head. Yet, I couldn’t help speculating there was something more going on underneath the surface here. It struck me that he was being extra vigilant with me, and it nagged at me like a persistent toothache. Nick had me dead to rights, and we both knew it. What was he worried about?

  “I’ve been meaning to stop by long before this, Kidd. But you know how it is. One thing and then another. And next thing you know, it’s what … forty some years later?” Nick winked. “Truth is, I’ve been pretty busy lately. Business is booming!”

  “Yeah,” I replied, a slight edge to my voice he instantly picked up on. “This day and age it must be easy pickings for you.”

  Nick nodded, affably enough. “I’ve never underestimated man’s greed. Or his need to be the best at something. Just like you, Kidd. Remember?”

  Ok, we were getting down to the nut-cutting. Nick was making his play. I had to do something, anything, to delay the inevitable. So, I countered with a confident rejoinder of my own.

  “I was always the best. Even before I met you, Nick. And you know it.”

  “You’re still the best, Kidd, and you’ve got the hardware, rep and money to back up that claim. And you can thank me.”

  Nick’s smugness was really getting to me, but I saw an opening. So, I went for it. “You just admitted I was the best, then and now. So, how do I know you were actually responsible for any of my success? Can you prove it, Nick? Maybe it was just a matter of time before I hit it big. Maybe I never really needed you.”

  Nick gave me a quizzical look. My breath caught in my throat. Hope, however slight, flared in my breast like a flickering candle.

  “You’re the best. No argument from me. But that’s hardly the issue, is it, Kidd? You signed on the dotted line. And now you’re mine.”

  That persistent nagging doubt mushroomed into full-fledged suspicion. Nick was toying with me. But not like a cat that plays with a hapless mouse before the kill. This was different. Like the devil knew something about me I didn’t know he knew. And he was only waiting to spring the trap shut.

  Why?

  I made a snap decision to go diversionary until I could figure out Nick’s game. “I bet you didn’t know that practically every Southern black bluesman and woman of note stayed here at the Riverside at one time or another. It’s like a shrine to the Blues. People come from all over the world to stay here. Hell, this room was John Lee Hooker’s favorite. He was a mean-ass, wild motherfucker. Man, I’ll never forget the first time I opened a gig for him.”

  I could see I hadn’t exactly thrown Nick off stride with my new tactics. He knew I was up to something, though he was unsure of what shape the ploy would take.

  I continued, “About a mile and a half right down the road, that’s where Robert Johnson made his pact with you. Isn’t that right?”

  Nick’s eyes narrowed and flashed, registering barely discernible annoyance. I’d touched some kind of nerve when I mentioned Robert Johnson’s name, so I hit it again. “You know, I never asked you about Johnson back when we first met. I always meant to but never quite got around to it. You know, what with one thing and another.”

  Damn, did Nick flinch when I paraphrased his line? Things were definitely looking up.

  “So, I wanted to ask whether or not you actually did that whole
crossroads thing with Johnson. You know, the famous ‘Hellhounds On My Trail’ shtick.”

  Nick said nothing, but I swear one of his red eyes twitched.

  “Legend has it you met him at midnight at the junction of Highways 61 and 49,” I went on. “You did your thing, and then he went off and did his and became an enduring legend, et cetera. Is that true? I ask because I want to know if I’m the only motherfucker dumb enough to go for your deal?”

  “Are you jivin’ me, Diamond? Because, if you are, you’re way out of your league, boy.”

  Nick’s voice was even and low key. I would have felt better if he’d lost his cool. I had the nasty sensation thin ice was cracking beneath me. I was twisting the dragon’s tail, but I had nothing to lose. “Instead of the crossroads, you came to my hotel room in L.A. Right after the Grammys that year. Remember?”

  Nick sounded bored. “What’s your point, Diamond? Stalling won’t work. You know what I’m here for, so let’s get to it.” He reached inside his suit coat and brought out a folded, red leather packet sealed with black wax. His gaze never left mine as he tossed the packet onto the bed where it landed next to my guitar case.

  “You like to gamble, don’t you, Kidd?” Nick didn’t wait for an answer. His fleshy, wet red lips slit into a feral smile. “I’ve got a pair of aces in the pocket, boy, and another one on the river.” He nodded at the packet on the bed. “Read it and weep. It’s all there, signed and sealed in your own blood.”

  My ass was most decidedly in serious jeopardy of frying for all eternity. I pressed. “The question still stands. Am I the only bluesman who went for your bullshit? I think I deserve to know that before we complete our business.”

  “Well, Diamond, you seem to be hell-bent on this line of inquiry.” Nick took a seat, supremely confident. “I guess if I was in your shoes I’d do the exact same thing. But that’s none of your business. It’s strictly on a need-to-know basis. And you don’t need to know.”

  “I want an answer.” I was really pushing the envelope.

  Nick creeped me out with that nasty grin of his. “What makes you think you have a choice in the matter, Diamond? You gave that up long ago. Today is the last day of the rest of your life. Get used to it. Now read the damn contract, sign it and let’s get this shit over with.”

  “What’s the rush? You going to a fire?” As bad a fix as I was in, I was heartened to know I could still crack wise with the Devil. For all the good it would do. “Besides, I don’t believe you, Nick. I think you won’t answer me because it would invalidate our ‘deal’—which I still don’t think is legal, in any case, because there’s no real proof you did what you say you did on behalf of my career.”

  I stood up and paced about the room. It was surreal. Here I was debating with the Devil in Clarksdale, Mississippi, in an effort to keep my soul from going to everlasting hell. The only thing missing was a studio audience.

  The crazy thing about this whole mess was that I never really believed in God until I did my deal with the Devil. I figured if there was a Satan, or one of his acolytes, who could make my dreams of being a star and music legend come true, then, by rights (and what little I had gleaned from my Grandmama’s unrelenting efforts to read Scripture to me) there had to be Satan’s opposite … God. But even after closing the “deal” with Nick, I’d never believed anything substantive would happen in my then-moribund chosen occupation.

  I didn’t think Nick was for real, not at the time. I was grasping at straws when I drunkenly called on the Devil. That early in my career I was playing brilliant, if unappreciated, lead guitar while backing up a has-been blues legend. We’d spent years knocking around on the “chitlin’ circuit” until our partnership revitalized his all but flat-lined career. He was being given a lifetime honor on the Grammys while I was stuck, once more, playing in the background with zero recognition for years of stellar work.

  I had the right stuff all right, but no one seemed to recognize that except me and a few of my friends. It was maddening to know I was just an adjunct to someone else’s success. Just another guitar-slinger from the Delta with outsized dreams, while all around me other people enjoyed the fruits of their labors.

  When Nick promised me the world—recognition of my talents compared with the likes of Jimi, B.B., Stevie Ray, T Bone, John Lee, and Muddy—and he held out a contract to sign, in my own blood, I did it; even though I never quite believed Nick could affect my career in any meaningful way. But, I thought, what the hell, I’d cast my soul to Satan long before that so what could be the harm in taking a shot that Nick was the Devil. I had everything to gain if he was for real, and very little to lose, either way.

  Within a week of signing the contract, I was offered a festival gig in Europe by a respected promoter who’d heard a tape of me playing my own, older material. To this day, I have no idea where he got a hold of it, but I never figured Nick as the responsible party. It’s hard to explain rationally, but my burgeoning success just didn’t feel like it had the Devil’s imprint all over it.

  Events began moving my career like a runaway train. I all but forgot, for a time, about Nick, the contract, and what it represented in the distant future. I was firmly planted in the here and now and enjoying my long-awaited success.

  While in Europe, in an unprecedented fit of creativity that astounded me, I wrote an album’s worth of new material that I recorded in Paris with some hot French cats who played Delta blues better than most of the guys I knew back home. The album came out three months later to international acclaim, and I went back to America, a bona fide blues guitar hero. I was heralded as the natural-born successor to B.B. and the reincarnation of Hendrix, with my potent mix of psychedelic Delta blues. I had a crossover hit on early FM album rock radio in the mid-seventies. When that record sold a couple million units it was Katy-bar-the-door.

  That was then, this is now. My stature as an elder statesman in the worldwide blues community, my financial success, my accomplishments were no more than dust. I squared myself up and stood toe to toe with Nick.

  “All right, Nick, let’s get down to business.”

  “Well, well, Kidd, that’s the spirit. That’s what I’m talkin’ about. About fuckin’ time, too. I’ve got things to do and people to tempt.” Nick winked at me. “Let’s get this show on the road. Now, if you’ll just read this and sign on the dotted line …”

  As Nick stood up to retrieve the packet from the bed where it still lay, I stopped him cold with my next words.

  “I’m not signing shit, Nick. Not until I get some answers.”

  Nick couldn’t have looked more surprised if Jesus Christ had invited him out for a male-bonding night of bowling and beer. He got real quiet. I had to strain to hear his next words. And they sent a ghastly chill up my spine.

  “Diamond, I warned you about fucking with me. Don’t push me, boy. You’ll regret it.”

  “What are you gonna do? Threaten me with hellfire and damnation? I’m already there. What else can you do to me?”

  “You really don’t want to ask me that question. Once we get to our final destination, I can put you in situations not even Dante imagined in his worst nightmares. And he knew what he was writing about, because I gave him an extended, up-close-and-personal glimpse of hell.”

  “Do your worst, Nick, but I’m going to get my answer. Or I won’t sign that damn contract closure. Now, do you want to shadowbox like this or are we going to resolve this issue?”

  Nick said nothing. I took that as a sign to continue.

  “Ok, all bullshit aside. Here’s what I think. You were never able to entice Robert Johnson to sell his soul to you. He had premonitions he was destined to live a short, brutish life. He didn’t see the sense of dealing with the likes of you. I’m guessing, of course, but I’ll lay odds I’m right.”

  “Like I said, Diamond, you don’t need to know.”

  “I know this, Nick. I talked to several guys over the years who knew Johnson. Guys like his cousin Tommy Johnson and Johnny Shines
, both of whom owed their careers to him. And Pinetop Perkins and Honeyboy Edwards, who are still alive and perhaps the last living bluesmen who actually knew and played with Robert Johnson. None of them ever believed the legend. It was good PR for bluesmen everywhere, and for you too, Nick. It served your purposes when you dealt with lesser lights, didn’t it? Guys who bought into the lie . into the legend. I mean, when you really get down to it, I’m a derivative of the original, real McCoy. Oh, I’m a damn spectacular derivative, but I’m not the gen-u-wine article like those guys were. Especially, Robert Johnson.”

  I had Nick’s full and rapt attention. I kept talking, hoping against hope I was making some headway toward a resolution that didn’t feature me playing “Melancholy Baby” on a cheap Sears & Roebuck electric guitar in front of an audience of miscreants, sinners and perpetual drunks in Hell until the next Big Bang happened.

  “Oh sure, maybe you were capable of doing a few things to kick-start someone’s career, but if they hadn’t possessed God-given talent, you couldn’t have done shit. Chops like that are sacrosanct and out of your league. You’re not the Big Boss Man.”

  Damn! I could see I’d scored heavy on that exchange. Nick’s eyes burned with silent enmity, but he was listening to every word.

  The room was deathly still now.

  “So, what I guess I’m saying is, while you’re a very nasty customer with a prodigious amount, but narrow scope, of power, without the public perception of you as ‘evil personified,’ you’re nothing. Less than dogshit. A fucking sham. A plug-ugly conjurer who picks on the weak and the oppressed. Isn’t that right, Nick?”

  I’d just played the most dangerous ghetto game of the dozens ever with the Devil. I had a sense of what he was going to say, and I was ready for it. If he rose to take the bait. If he didn’t, I was all out of options. Plus, there was the “river” card he was holding. Nick had made damn sure I knew about that.

  “You trying to play the dozens with me, boy? That’s your plan?” Nick laughed with real mirth. “I’ve squared off with hundreds of thousands of losers like you, Diamond. Most of them smarter. But no one, I mean no one, has ever played the dozens with me and won.”