Word is, Robert Johnson gave over his soul to the devil to play slide guitar. Met up with a real mean fellow at the Crossroads and had him teach him the blues, and afterward the man just disappeared. Johnson came back a different man. A strange, drunken virtuoso. The rumor went that he played with his back to the audience so nobody could cop his style. He died under mysterious circumstances, and though most people believe he was poisoned by a jealous husband, some think his deal had dried up and the devil claimed his soul for Hell.
This midnight rendezvous felt no different, complete with an authentic soundtrack. What devil was I handing my soul over to, and for what price?
Once the Boogie House came into sight, with its gaping, rotted mouth of an entrance, the music swelled so that it sounded like someone running a high-speed drill right through my head.
I pressed both palms against my ears. The sound of the guitar rattled my teeth, a ululating whine that hurt so bad I tried to close down every one of my senses to push it out. Not that it helped. A single note hummed in the center of my head, creating a vibration threatening to split me in two. I pushed through, stumbling toward the building.
With each step, the drill bit inched into my brain. ‘Ear-splitting’ doesn’t even begin to describe the sensation of having sound cut your head in two. I had been to concerts where the crowd pressed me against the monitor and the songs became a wall of distorted sound, and this easily put a late-80s Metallica show to shame. It was like someone sandblasting my eardrums.
I stared down at my feet. Focused on taking steps. Worked my way forward.
When I reached the entrance, I let go of my ears and heard only the wind blowing through the trees. Well, that and the throbbing wha-wha-wha sound your ears get after a concert.
“You have a funny way of showing love,” I said. I sounded like an adult from Charlie Brown. “Is this how you treat everyone who’s trying to help you?”
I stepped through the door. Death lingered inside. Not the smell of death, but death itself. You could taste it in the air, thick as cigarette smoke. The yellow tape was still there, but this place had already gone back to being forgotten. It had to get back to the business of rotting, breaking down so that all traces of its existence could be erased forever.
A flash of white flickered beside me and I jumped back to avoid it, stumbling over a ragged set of boards. I landed against the side of a table and cracked my head a good one. Stars danced a jig across my field of vision in time with my throbbing skull.
Everything melted into a blurry mess. A slow stream of blood trickled down my neck and into my shirt. The darkness in the old juke spread out, and no matter how much I blinked, the light wouldn’t return. I was going to pass out if I didn't get some real oxygen soon. Real as in not the stuff I was breathing in here.
I drunkenly tried to find my feet. Then I began to hear them. Voices coming to me through the open doorway. I crab-crawled backward on my hands, behind the chair that had nearly knocked me unconscious. I pressed myself against the wall, wrapping my arms around my knees and peering under the table at the faint moonlight creeping inside. The pain on the back of my head was excruciating, but I managed to keep still and to keep awake, no matter how alluring the other side of consciousness was just then.
Two figures stepped into view, framed by the misshapen door. "Man, they're gonna kick us outta town or worse, if we don't leave on our own," said a thickly-accented voice. Sounded like it could have come from a movie version of a Louisiana man.
The other man, fatter, in a whispery voice, said, "They just don't want black to rub off on 'em. The Boogie House is our idea, and there ain't nothing they could do to take it away from us."
"'Cept hang us. Wouldn't be the first time they gave somebody a rope lesson."
The bigger man patted an imaginary pocket. His hand disappeared into his body, which was nonexistent below the chest. He said, "I got a spell says they ain't gonna do shit to us."
I leaned forward woozily but didn't see what might have been in his pocket.
The skinnier, more frightened man said, "What if it doesn’t work, yeah?"
"Hasn't failed us yet. Got us this joint. Got us everything we want."
"Overuse it, and there's gone be consequences."
"Like what?"
"Like Hell."
It’s very easy for people to scoff at divine consequences these days, but whoever the man in this vision was had nothing but serious intentions by bringing it up.
"Aww, p'shaw. It's gonna keep the white folks at bay, least until we convince them there ain't nothing but music and drinking going on out here. No danger in that. There ain’t no Hell in it, either way."
The bigger man reached out a hand to pat his partner on the back, but it never connected. They were gone. I waited until the throbbing subsided somewhat and then ambled home.
My legs felt like bags of water under me, so I didn't hurry. I loafed in a groggily fearful state. Suddenly the idea of getting back to the bed seemed unsettling. Ghosts were following me around. Real people probably wanted me dead. I was well on the way to public disgrace and a stint in jail.
But a beer sounded good right about now.
Halfway across the front yard, I noticed something was wrong with the truck. All the air had been let out of the tires. Not only that, but they had been slashed to pieces. I scratched my forehead with the butt of my gun and slunk inside, ready for another sleepless night.
I sat upright in the bed, staring into the darkness with a beer perched between my legs, intermittently drinking but mostly leaving it be. Even beer deserves a slow death sometimes. I kept the pistol nearby and occasionally glanced through the blinds, but my mind wasn't on my truck.
Sixth Chapter
I was six years old in nineteen eighty-two, the year my mother died in childbirth. She did so having her second child by a man who was most definitely not my father, and my mind hung onto that time period like a necessary password or something.
The funeral stands out, for some reason. The actual graveside service. It sits in a readily-accessible part of my memory, and sometimes I hate that most of my childhood wasn’t drubbed out of me.
I remember being grateful to have the worst of it over. Red-eyed strangers told me at the wake that time heals all wounds, so I clung desperately to the idea.
They were wrong.
I can still recall the neat little details, packed carefully side-by-side for me to peruse whenever I need to, and though I try to keep them locked away, they still come to me sometimes.
Since I was so small, I couldn’t see over the lip of the casket, so mostly I remember the plain brown casket. My father wouldn’t hold me up to see her face, and though one random tried to give me a last glimpse of her, I buried my face in the crook of this woman’s neck, refusing to look. I’d already been having nightmares, and I didn’t want to pile on.
So I remember the way that woman smelled, but I do not remember her face. I am only left with snatches of memory tied to her, and every day it becomes more difficult to pull an accurate vision of my mother’s face. But still I remember things.
What I remember most came after the funeral, when it was just me and my father living in that house, so filled with my mom’s presence that you couldn't plop onto the couch without her scent enveloping you.
Dad didn’t take it too well, so I had to walk on eggshells so I wouldn’t provoke him by existing. He was at times a quiet companion but also a raging, venomous drunk, stepping over into violent territory before he realized the drink had him by the collar. It was too late then, and whenever he was in that kind of state, he didn’t care what he said or did. He was a circuit, an outlet, and all of the energy - the rage - came out of him in a single, voluminous outpouring.
On those nights, I sequestered myself in my room, sometimes seeking comfort under the box spring of my bed. I passed the time listening to him wreck the house, calling her back from the grave. Not really calling her name. Not really saying anything at
all.
Sometimes he just screamed. The incantations of a possessed man. A sad and lost man, crawling to Hell on the broken glass of a thousand liquor bottles.
Me, I didn’t pray for Jesus or anybody else to bring her back. I went straight to the source. “Mama,” I’d whisper into my folded hands, “please come and take me away from the devil. That man in there, he ain’t my daddy, and anyway, I’d rather have you come back to me. I love you, mama.”
For some reason, I thought that heaven was far enough away that she’d be able to hear my prayers in the days and weeks after her death, that time was a factor and I had to pray constantly so that she’d have more of a chance of hearing it.
The distance mattered so much back then, partly because I imagined we wouldn’t be separated forever. A child thinks in those terms, imagines forever isn’t that far away. I thought maybe she and I would be reunited someday, but I prayed for it to be immediate.
Several times in that period, the door burst open and my father teetered in, falling headlong into my bed. Smelling of radiator moonshine, mumbling something about being alone. He would lie there, sometimes for hours, pleading until he was all but screaming. From underneath, I watched the springs in my bed bend and stretch to accommodate him, and my eyes would go from the underside of my bed to his feet, which dangled over the side.
This time, the monster was on the bed instead of under it.
One night, when he had guzzled himself into an unintelligible stupor, I sat on the living room couch, unwilling to try and turn on the television, when a knock came at the door. Several knocks, actually, each more fierce than the last. I used one of the bigger pillows to shield myself, thinking, hoping that he might be fooled into believing I really, truly wasn't there.
My father opened up, demanding to know what the hell someone would possibly want at this hour, and the man responded with three little words: "We got him."
I heard the roar of an engine moments later, and my father, standing in the doorway, turned to me. His eyes were so sunken they seemed to disappear in his cheeks. "You gone come with me, little man," he said, swaying on his feet. "We gone take a little ride."
* * *
I only had a single spare tire, so I didn't bother replacing any of the deflated ones the next morning. I would easily run the remaining ones flat off the rim before I reached a place to get them fixed. Goddamned cars, I thought, would be the death of me.
I had put myself in this position. I had walked right up to Leland Brickmeyer's house and tried to intimidate him into doing something stupid. My first mistake. Leland Brickmeyer was too slick, too greased up by money, to do something obvious. Still, I didn’t give up hope that I might be on to something.
Over a quick lunch of cube steak and mashed potatoes, I called a junkyard dog named Jarvis Garvey and organized the rental of one of his cars, offering him an extra twenty bucks if he would come and pick me up. "What'n the hell you need a car that bad fuh?" he asked, half-jokingly, saying he hoped he wasn’t being timed. He said, "I got to put a battery and couple gallons of gas in the junker before I bring it to you."
I told him that was fine, and we hung up. Garvey was an old cracker, but he was trustworthy.
I rinsed my dishes and locked up the house real tight, closing all the windows and doors and latching things that probably hadn't been fastened in years. I waited outside, lowering the rusty tailgate on my truck and sweeping the pollen off with one hand before sitting down. The sun beamed through sparse clouds. I noticed the weather seemed to be getting better, even as my circumstances got worse.
A police cruiser turned into my drive not thirty second later. Even through the windshield, the two men looked pissed. I continued to swing my feet noncommittally and stare off into the distance until they got right up on me. "Rolson," the man on my left said. His name was Ricky Walton, and no work on his part could hide his contempt.
I looked at the other man and said, "Hats off to Roy Harper, how you doing?"
Ricky glared at him. "Roy?"
Owen Harper said, "Led Zeppelin."
Owen stood six-three, sandy-haired and always smiling. One of the few tolerable men on the force, he always gave off a genuine vibe. There was nothing conspicuously cynical about him. He was missing two fingers on his right hand from trying to save a girl from being hacked to death by her drug-addled mother. He eventually got the meat cleaver away and cuffed her with the good hand. Everybody thought he deserved a special place in heaven for that one, and I agree.
Ricky cleared his throat but said nothing.
"What can I do for you boys?" I asked.
"We're getting some complaints, Rolson," Owen said.
I tried to hide my amusement. "I have no idea what you're talking about."
"You're trudging around in muck, and you're all by yourself. Keep on doing it, and you're going to get caught so that nobody will be around to help you out."
I looked down at my boots. “I guess they are getting a bit dirty,” I said.
Ricky groaned. “I don’t mean literally, Rolson. Dangit.”
"Hmm. When you put it that way, it sounds threatening."
"It's just the way it is, man," Ricky said.
Owen put his hands on his hips and blew out a long breath. "Just stop bothering Leland Brickmeyer, Rol," he said. "He ain't done nothing to you, so just leave him alone."
"I asked him a few questions. Nothing illegal in that. I even went up to the door and knocked, like a good citizen. If Willa Jean Graham and the other Jehovah's Witnesses can do it, so can I."
They both looked exasperated. "You don't want him lashing out at you. It's the last thing you want, because he's got a long reach, and he can fuck you without touching you directly."
"Like now," I said, smirking.
"This is just courtesy. Leland’s done plenty for this city and for the police force. You saw it with your own eyes."
"He's an asshole and a liar, and even if he has nothing to do with this, it won’t do him any harm to get a stick in the ribs, now will it?”
I felt a shock wave pass over us. They kept calm, outwardly, but I didn't suspect they’d be doing me any favors down the road.
Owen said, "Why don't you just let this go. Let us do our jobs. If you have anything to contribute, call me up. I'll be the first to help you out."
"You'll protect him. You've sold yourselves off, all of you."
"He's always got people gunning for him. He deserves a certain level of protection."
I spat on the ground between Ricky's feet. "Are you cops or bodyguards, fellas," I said, "because Leland's already got one of those."
"Let me tell you something, you drunk sumbitch-"
"No, don't," I said. "It ain't got to be a bribe to be a loyalty oath. The kind of backscratching that you do - that we all did, I suppose - isn't illegal, but it isn't right, either. If he even had a moment's involvement in Laveau's murder, he deserves what he gets. That's all."
I got up and went around to the front of the truck. I popped the hood latch and pretended to look at the engine until they went away. I thought they might try to arrest me, to bring me in on some half-assed charge, but they didn't. They piled into the cruiser and drove away, spinning ruts into the dirt of the driveway.
* * *
Jarvis pulled into my drive with thirty seconds to spare. He was a bent old man in overalls and a worn Stetson, and though he could barely see over the steering wheel, he drove like a man chasing somebody down. The tires on the maroon Oldsmobile kicked up clouds of dust as he slammed to a stop just feet from my truck. I saw him smile through the windshield.
"I thought I was going to have to wait a while," I said.
"Had to see for myself if you were bullshittin' me about the money," he said, laughing. “Can’t turn down a bet like that. My damn pocket gets itchy.”
On the drive back to town, Jarvis said, "Truck of yours sitting in the driveway looked fine to me.”
"You've got a whole yard-full. I figured taking
one wouldn't matter."
"No no. You know what I mean. That truck looked like it runs at least as good as this heap."
His eyes were smiling and yet not joking. To get them off me and back on the road, where they desperately needed to be, I said, "Busted a tire. I got a flat and need something to ride around in 'til I get it fixed."
"I have some old tires, though, and could get them on in a few minutes, no problem. That ain't no reason to be borrowing no car."
"And it would be better if I had a car that wasn't so tied to me. I guess."
He banked a curve, almost losing traction on a sand deposit on the road, and said, "Figures. I heard about you finding that Laveau boy."
"Word travels fast."
"Like lightning. You're not a cop anymore. You go playing Sam Spade in this car and end up wrapping it around a tree, you and me's going to have some words. You ain’t Humphrey Bogart."
"And you ain’t Peter Lorre, but you’re twice as ratty."
He chucked. "I don't want to see the car on the news. Abandoned on the side of the road, driver missing, blood everywhere. Murder breeds murder. I tell you what: that boy’s mother might be blessed to have you looking for a killer, but you don't’ want somebody like Ronald Bullen looking for you."
"You know something I don't?"
"Something in that man's eyes is like looking straight into an empty coffin. Him and his brother."
"His brother?"
"H.W. I seen H.W. and Ronald riding around last week, like a couple of wolves wearing wool. H.W., he must've been run out of whatever town he was in last."
Apparently, Ron's younger brother had moved away fifteen years ago to go work construction or some other thing. Rumor was for a while that he went to go do underwater welding. Work like that fit him. And being gone so long made him a kind of ghost. People talked about him in the past tense, and it seemed like the world was better that way.
Boogie House: A Rolson McKane Mystery Page 9
