They was somethin’ ‘bout them songs that got under your skin. They made the mens holler and the womens shake, got the couples slow draggin’ till they was fit to do the deed right there on the floor. I dunno what it was. I done said already how a fight always broke out.
When he’d played ‘em all, they hollered for more.
Yeller sat there listenin’ to them, his face just as dead as could be. I dunno what he was thinkin’. Then his eyes found mine in the crowd and he nodded at me and said into the mic, “Y’all wanna hear somethin’ you ain’t never heard before?”
The crowd hooted and shouted that they did.
I got a cold sweat and I shoved them clay plugs in my ears just as far as they would go.
The last thing I heard him say was, “This hear’s The Crawlin’ Chaos Blues.”
It was the tune he told me ‘bout, I knew. Maybe it was the one I heard the shadow man playin’ when he led Yeller out into the cotton field. Whatever it was, the people stopped still as Catholics when he started. I know they was words, ‘cause I seent his mouth movin’. He didn’t look out at ‘em whilst he sang, just stared at the floor. His fingers was a blur on the National and I could feel them deep chords in my chest, see his foot stompin’.
Then all hell broke loose.
The people on the floor commenced to dancin’, but wasn’t nothin’ held back. The mens tore they womens’ dresses to the skin, and the womens did the same to the mens’. Folks at the tables fell on each other in the same way. I had to push a big old girl offa me and shove my way to the front door. Time I got there, my shirt was rags. People was rollin’ on the floor and on the bar top like honeymooners. It was crazy.
I seent women clawin’ at the shoulders and backs of they mens, ploughin’ red lines all in they flesh with they fingernails. I heard a couple of loud pops then, made me jump near out my skin, and then I seent what they was. A woman took a pistol out her man’s waistband, even as he was givin’ her the business. She put the barrel in between his teeth and blew the back of his head wide open. I seent the blood splash all over her chest. He was dead, but his body kept movin’ between her legs like a prayin’ mantis. She put the gun up under her own chin then and drove her brains up on the ceilin’. Nobody took no notice.
They was busy doin’ they own things. Things I can’t hardly think on. If hell ever been on earth, if anybody ever laid eyes on pure, unnatural sin, it was there and it was me. I seent a man stranglin’ his woman whilst she tore his eyebrow off with her teeth. They was both of ‘em grinnin’ and laughin’. The owner held the old woman’s head down in the bubblin’ fryer grease whilst he hiked up her skirt, his eyes buggin’ out of his head and mad dog foam runnin’ all down his chin. His throat was cut and they was a bloody razor in the old woman’s hand. Another man charged at the bar like a bull, rammed his head into it, got back up, did it again. Blood was drippin’ down his nose. A gal near me tore her own hair out in clumps.
They was blood ever’where. The whole crowd was rippin’ and tearin’ into each other, limbs twistin’, heads flung back, wailin’ and grinnin’, teeth bloody. I seent a beatin’ heart go floppin’ across the stage, leavin’ spots of blood behind where it bounced.
Yeller just kept on lookin’ into nothin’ and singin’ that song from hell. The drummer had the piano player against the ivories; he was pushin’ his drumsticks in his eyes. The National was gleamin’ green and gold, and for a minute I swear I seent the shadow man’s snaky octopus arms curlin’ ‘round Yeller’s body, ‘round his neck and his ankles, drankin’ him in, drankin’ all of it in, like the sawdust on the floor was drankin’ up the blood. I seent the grinnin’ shadow man hisself risin’ up behind him, them Pharaoh eyes lookin’ across all that tearin’ flesh right into my soul.
I threw open the door to run, but they wasn’t nowhere to go. Instead of the field of cars and old Route 49, I swear they was nothin’ out there – nothin’ but a swirlin’ tornado blackness. If I’d a stepped outside, I felt I would’ve fallen forever.
I had the .44 and I pulled it. I don’t know for sure if I aimed for him or not, but I didn’t stop squeezin’ that trigger. I seent men and women go down from my bullets. They blowed a path to the stage, and when I had shot six, Yeller was lyin’ on his back with the National across his chest and the shadow man was gone. The liquor caught fire behind the bar, I don’t know how. But the way that little juke was built I knew it was goin’ up. When I looked back outside, the field and the cars was there again, so I run.
I found the Catalina and I got inside and got it movin’. I smashed into parked cars left and right tearin’ outta there. I didn’t care. Some people come runnin’ out, some of ‘em on fire. I seent ‘em in my mirrors, but I was like Lot. I didn’t stop till I left that dirt road behind and hit 49.
I drove till that burnin’ juke wasn’t nothin’ but a speck of starlight in the Mississippi black behind me. Then I couldn’t see it no more.
The highway patrol caught me doin’ ninety-five through Clarksdale, and finally knocked me offa DeSoto Ave, sent the Catalina rollin’ into a ditch. It was the only way they could’ve got me to stop. I couldn’t even hear the sirens with the earplugs. I was laughin’ when they pulled me out.
When I got out the hospital, I stood trial, but didn’t nobody bring up Sink City. On account of I had hauled ass through a white part of town and wrecked a couple of old money cars, I got the choice of goin’ to the pen or Vietnam. Three years later, I lost my leg to a different kinda Mister Charlie at Dak To.
I get to thinkin’ how things played out, and I think on Yeller and Uncle Luke, and even Robert Johnson, how they all made the deal and how they all was murdered short of gettin’ big. I wonder ‘bout how folks is moved and played like checkers by powers maybe we ain’t s’posed to see, and I wonder if Daddy and I maybe played the same part. Maybe Uncle Luke didn’t get his throat cut over no woman and maybe it wasn’t no accident I brang the .44 and them earplugs into the Sink City that night.
Even now, when I got the choice between dwellin’ on the jungle and that little Delta juke joint in the night, I chooses the ‘Nam every time.
Every time.
About the Author:
A sometime contributor to Star Wars canon, Edward M. Erdelac’s work has also seen print in Murky Depths magazine and The Midnight Diner, among others. He is an award-winning screenwriter and an independent filmmaker. Born in Indiana, educated in Chicago, he lives with his family in the Los Angeles area, and can be found putzing about the web on Facebook or his blog at http://emerdelac.wordpress.com/
Also from Ed Erdelac:
Merkabah Rider
Tales of a High Planes Drifter
by Edward M. Erdelac
eBook ISBN: 9781615720613
Print ISBN: 9781615720606
Horror Western Paranormal
Novel of 84,630 words
The last of an ancient order of Jewish mystics capable of extraplanar travel, The Merkabah Rider roams a demon haunted American West in search of his renegade teacher. But as the trail grows fresher, shadows gather, and The Hour Of The Incursion draws near… Four novella episodes in one book. This ain’t your grandpappy’s old west.
Merkabah Rider 2
The Mensch With No Name
by Edward M. Erdelac
eBook ISBN: 9781615721894
Print ISBN: 9781615721900
Horror Western Paranormal
Novel of 88,528 words
The Merkabah Rider continues his journey across the American Southwest of 1880 in search of the renegade teacher who destroyed his mystic Jewish order in the 2nd volume of this acclaimed weird western series. As the Rider unravels more of the mystery of the Hour of the Incursion, demons are the least of his troubles.
Also from Ed Erdelac:
Dubaku
by Edward M. Erdelac
eBook ISBN: 9781615720248
Print ISBN: 9781615720231
Horror
Novella of 14,903 words
In 1760, somewhere near the Bight Of Benin, an African shaman belonging to an obscure interior tribe surrenders himself willingly to an English slaving expedition. This man, Dubaku, has come in search of his wife, abducted and sold to another party of whites. Not knowing one ship from another, Dubaku boards the slaver hoping to find her. The captain, a cruel and careless man named Bryce, mistrusts him immediately, and when a rampant sickness takes its toll on the superstitious crew and their human cargo midway through the voyage to Jamaica, Bryce decides to offer up Dubaku as their Jonah. After a violent squall drowns the entire compliment of would-be slaves, Dubaku calls upon dark and terrible powers to enact a fitting vengeance on Captain Bryce and his men.
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