“The what?”
“The beatin’est I ever heard.”
When Branch still looked confused, the old man grinned and said, “Up where you’re from, they’d call it the finest kind.”
“Oh.” Branch swallowed like a starving boy trying to conceal his hunger at a table piled with food. The old man gave him a knowing smile, then held the guitar out by the neck.
“Why don’t you give her a try?”
Branch swallowed hard, but he didn’t wait to be asked twice. He reached out with both hands and took the guitar by its curved body, like a man gripping a woman’s hips. Lucky dragged a second stool from beside a nearby curtained window. Branch sat, then set the inward curve on his thigh and began to play.
At first he merely noodled, trying to recapture what he’d felt during last year’s visit to Percy Falkner. Then he henpecked a little, casually imitating one of Johnson’s techniques. The old man held out his glass bottleneck, and Branch slid it loosely over the second finger of his left hand. Then he started in on Robert Johnson’s “Terraplane Blues,” this time playing in earnest. From the first note, his playing took on a fresh authority, and the display room began to resonate around him. Lucky smiled and nodded, his eyes brightening with excitement and maybe even appreciation.
Something fluttered in Branch’s chest, and twenty years of fatigue sloughed off him like a dead snakeskin. As he slid the bottleneck along the strings, picking hard with his right hand, he felt as though someone had drawn a wire taut between his prostate and his Adam’s apple and plucked it, hard. The wire ran right through his belly and heart, vibrating with an energy half sexual and half spiritual, lifting him right off the floor. As he looked down to see whether he was actually levitating, the stool beneath him became an upturned crate bearing the legend “Royal Crown Cola,” and old men sang and clapped from a porch while barefoot children and barelegged, coffee-colored girls danced around him in the dust. Where Lucky had sat smoking, a tin sign nailed to a weathered wall now read “CLABBER GIRL” in red and yellow, and the tangy scent of barbecued pork rode the air.
“My God,” Branch breathed.
“Ain’t she something?” said the old man over the music.
The vision of dancing girls wavered. Branch picked harder. “Sweet Jesus,” he whispered, playing with a freedom he’d never known before this day.
“You got a nice touch,” said Lucky. “If you don’t mind my sayin’.”
Branch finished off “Terraplane Blues,” then sat looking at the worn fretboard of the guitar. The divots between the strings told him Robert Johnson hadn’t clipped his fingernails often enough on his fretting hand. “People always told me that. But I never really managed to please myself. I saw too many of the great ones up close.”
“Did you?”
“Yeah.”
Lucky sucked in some smoke, held it in his lungs, then blew it right past Branch’s face. “I know how that is. You see something magic like that, and you’ve got just enough gift to know what you’re witnessing—you see way deeper into it than common folk—but somehow that just makes the pain worse. That yearning.”
Branch looked up, amazed by the old man’s insight. “You’re exactly right.”
“If you’ve felt that, man, you’ve felt the blues. Even if you are white.”
Branch chuckled politely and looked back at the remarkable guitar in his hands.
The old man said, “You know what the blues is, son?”
Branch looked up, considering all the stock answers he’d heard over the years. “Pain, I guess.”
“Not just pain. It’s pain and joy, too, all at once. Pain and joy so tied together you can’t pry ’em apart, like two snakes mating in the jungle.”
Branch nodded and began picking out “Love In Vain.” He still felt that wire stretched taut inside him. This time, he thought, I came to the right place.
“The joy of getting that pain out, maybe?” he suggested after a minute of playing.
“Now you got it!” cried the old man. “Just like you doin’ now. Damn, that’s pretty. You sound a little like Robert yourself.”
Branch shook his head, but he knew that his playing had indeed risen to a new level. “I’ve got to say, something does feel different. I don’t think I ever sounded this good. Is it really the guitar, you think?”
Lucky nodded. “Like I said, some axes are special. When you think of where that one’s been, whose hands have played it, you’ve got to wonder.”
Branch stopped playing and looked up. “Do you know who customized this guitar?”
“Sure do. I did.”
Branch gave a nervous laugh. “Come on. Robert must have bought this thing in 1930 or so.”
The old man nodded. “1931. Four years after the big flood. He come to me one night and said he’d heard I could make a guitar sing like nobody else. Heard I could fix one where it would talk. I could, too. I told him I was a fair hand with an axe, but I didn’t work for free. That boy didn’t care. He was so eager. Said he’d pay any price.”
Branch smiled nervously. “Uh-huh. Next you’re gonna tell me this happened down at the crossroads.”
The bushy eyebrows went up. “Maybe it did. But maybe not. That don’t matter. See…the crossroads ain’t a place. The crossroads is a choice. It’s a fork every man comes to sooner or later. Small ones every day, big ones more seldom. And some…only once in a lifetime.”
Branch didn’t like thinking about the choices he’d made. Even the decisions he’d thought had been good ones had turned out bad, and the bad ones…more than once they’d brought him to the edge of the abyss.
“So what did you do to this guitar?” he asked.
“Well…first, I sanded down her neck, right on the spot. You know what I used?” He stuck out his hand and turned up the palm for Branch to examine. It was much lighter than the rest of him, whitish and hard. “Feel that, man.”
Branch did. A quarter inch of tough callus coated the thickly muscled palm; moving his fingernail across it made a sound like striking a match. Though it might be only a John Henry tall tale, the old man probably could sand wood with that palm, if he rubbed hard enough. “What else?”
“I filed six grooves into that bone nut, with these right here.” Lucky snapped his thumbnail over the long, razor-sharp nail on his forefinger. “Then I switched out the pins, laid in the nut and saddle, and strung her back up. Robert took it in his hands and set to playin’. Lord, what music came out of this box! But he still wasn’t satisfied. Wasn’t ready to pay for it.”
“Why not?”
“Robert was searching for a special sound. A sound nobody’d ever heard before. That’s why he came to me. He wanted that sound you hear when you spin that old seventy-eight of him you’ve got back at home.”
Branch felt a shiver run down his back. “How do you know about that?”
“Hell, every serious player’s got that record.”
Maybe, but not a 78 rpm. “How did he get that sound? Especially back then. Every blues player in the world wants to know that.”
The old man’s face took on a proud serenity. “I gave it to him.”
“What do you mean? You taught him some secret? A special tuning or something? A picking technique? Or that corner-loading thing?”
“No, no.” The old man shook his head. “I put a piece of myself into that there guitar. That was the only way to satisfy that boy.”
“I don’t get it.”
“Well, I’m surprised. You told me you saw the great ones play. What did you think you was seein’, ‘cept boys puttin’ a piece of their soul into their music? Givin’ their whole selves to it. That’s what greatness is, man. That’s why players like you can practice for a lifetime and not get close to what Jimi Hendrix done in his twenty-seven years on this earth.”
Branch flushed again, and the old man looked away, as though aware he had forgotten his manners.
“I forgot Hendrix died at twenty-seven,” Branch said. “Just like
Robert.”
“Not long to live, is it? But long enough to leave your mark. You’re what, fifty-seven? And still reachin’ for what them boys did all those years ago.”
Branch squinted at the old man. “How did you guess how old I am?”
“Oh, that’s just a fairground trick. I can guess your weight, too. Don’t look so down, Bill. Don’t take it so hard. You play better than ninety-nine percent of all the boys who ever picked up a guitar. Ain’t that good enough?”
Branch ran his fingers along the edge of the Kalamazoo. Then he slid them to the back and felt the gouged-out letters: “R. L. JOHNSON.”
“No,” he whispered. “It’s not.”
The old man took a last drag from his tailor-made, then crushed out the butt on the sole of his shoe. When he leaned forward, Branch had the feeling something was coming, the way he always did before a negotiation began.
“Listen, son,” said Lucky, his eyes glinting. “I’m going to tell you something, and it’s going to shake you up. But I want you to keep calm. All right?”
Branch looked around, half expecting a potbellied Mississippi sheriff to step from behind a curtain. “What is it?”
“I know what you’ve got in your pocket.”
Branch blinked in disbelief. His face went scarlet with shame. “Bullshit.”
“Six tuning pegs from an old Kalamazoo guitar, just like this one. Half melted, and the hardware to go with ’em.”
Branch’s stomach flipped, and he drew back in fear. “How do you know that?”
“It sure ain’t no carnival trick. Aw, don’t look so scared. I know you got a pistol in that ankle holster, too, but any jook bartender would’ve seen that the second you walked in.”
“Are you—are you a cop or something?”
Deep laughter made the whole room echo like an apple barrel. “A cop? No, no. I just know things, that’s all. Always been that way. I see things others can’t see. Been that way ever since I was a child.”
Branch couldn’t imagine this man as a child. For that would require imagining him as innocent, naive, and that was impossible. “When was that?” he asked.
“Oh…too long ago to remember.”
Branch tried to keep his face impassive, but inside his bowels had gone to water. This had to be some kind of sting. Percy Falkner had set this guy up to punk him or something. Part of his brain was screaming, “RUN!” But the other part told him he’d be crazy to leave without the guitar. After all, it was already in his hands. And yet…he didn’t fancy trying to get out with it if the old man had other ideas. Branch had his pistol, but this character looked like he’d been through many a scrape and come out on top.
“You want to know about Robert Johnson?” Lucky asked in a gentle voice. “For real?”
“I do.”
“Picture a skinny black boy walking along an endless Delta road carrying an empty guitar case. He’s squinting into the shimmering heat, his tongue swelling in his mouth, but there’s no car coming and no water to be had.”
This stark, barren image unsettled Branch in some way he could not pin down. “Why is his guitar case empty?”
“Because there ain’t no music in hell.”
Absolute silence followed this statement. Branch thought he heard flies buzzing on the dog’s carcass outside. “Hell?” he echoed.
“Not in Robert’s hell, anyway.” The old man slapped the face of the Kalamazoo like a salesman coming to the conclusion of his pitch. “This here is Robert’s guitar, Branch. You heard it; you know it. Payment in kind, see? And where Robert is now, he don’t need it. Because there ain’t no music. Least, not what you’d call music, anyhow.”
Branch was stunned that Lucky had used his real name. But the truth was, he was too afraid to ask how the old man knew it. “You’re bullshitting me,” he said, his throat tight. “You’re shining me on. Who are you, really?”
“I done told you. And maybe I exaggerate now and again. But one thing I know for sure: Each man chooses his own hell. You can bank on that.”
Each man chooses his own hell? Branch had certainly seen this maxim in action. He shifted on the stool and clung to the guitar like a shield. “You’re trying to get me to think you’re the devil, aren’t you? This is some kind of practical joke. Percy put you up to this.”
The old man shook his head. “Percy’s dyin’ on the oncology ward up in Memphis. He’s got doctors and nurses waitin’ on him hand and foot, but they can’t prolong his life by a single second.”
Branch tried to swallow, but he couldn’t gum up a drop of spit. “Well…are you?”
“Am I what? Be clear, boy.”
“The devil?”
The big mouth opened wide, and laughter filled the bass register. “How could I be the devil, Branch? The devil’s white.”
“How do you know that?”
“It just stands to reason, don’t it? To a black man, anyway.” Lucky sniffed and looked down, then looked up at Branch with his glowing yellow eyes. “’Course, I suppose your devil could be black.”
Branch shifted on the stool again, wondering whether he should bolt with the guitar. The hall door seemed far away.
“If each man chooses his own hell,” said the old man, “then I guess each man can choose his own devil. Without even knowing it, maybe.”
“Why are you here?” Branch asked with sudden courage. “Have you come to try to steal my soul?”
The yellow eyes transfixed him again, and they didn’t blink for a long time. “Oh, Branch. You lost that a long time ago. Most all those little crossroads you came to, you chose the wrong road. People you cheated, women you lied to, things you took that weren’t yours. Over time, all those choices mounted up. And then, the other evening…well, you know. You decided to fly down here and steal Mr. Falkner’s guitar and burn up his house besides.”
“I never did!”
The old man’s heavy brows gathered like thunderheads. “Don’t waste your breath or my time! Don’t you remember what the Nazarene said? ‘I am not come to destroy the law but to fulfill it. Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.’”
Branch’s face burned red. “Adultery? Look, I haven’t done anything but play this guitar.”
“You poisoned that dog.”
The awful truth of this statement filled Branch with shame.
The old man gave him a knowing look. “So you’re gonna walk away and leave that guitar here? Fly back home to Maine empty-handed? After you’ve heard that sweet sound? After you’ve felt that wood, supple as a sinful woman’s backbone?”
Branch nodded earnestly.
“I guess we’ll see. Seems a shame, though. Percy sure ain’t comin’ back to claim it. He’s gettin’ cold from the feet up. So what’ll happen to this guitar? Prob’ly get sold to some fool cracker in an estate auction, who’ll try to pick out “Wildwood Flower” once in a blue moon. That’d be a crime, to my way of thinking. This guitar was meant for a player.”
The old man was sure right about that.
“And if you did take it,” he went on, “I sure wouldn’t tell nobody. I know how to keep a secret. You know that already. I’ve always known where Robert’s guitar was, but I never told a soul.”
“And you never took it for yourself,” Branch said, realizing this for the first time.
“That’s a fact.”
“How did Percy really get this guitar?”
“Not quite the way he told you. Percy’s daddy cheated a starving sharecropper out of it just before he kicked him off this place. That sharecropper happened to be near Greenwood on the night Robert was murdered. While Robert lay dying from that poisoned whiskey, that greedy cropper slipped into his room and snatched the guitar. Thieving bastard died of consumption a year after Percy’s daddy run him off this place. I imagine old Percy’s thinking about all that while he screams for the nurse to give him his next morphine shot.”
Branch shivered, recalling his own f
ather’s death. “Look, I don’t understand this. If you’ve already got my soul, like you said…what are you doing here?”
The sulfurous eyes smoldered with secret knowledge. “Like I said, Branch. I know how to keep a secret.”
Suddenly filled with panic, Branch shoved the guitar at the old man. “Here. Take it back!”
Surprise filled Lucky’s eyes. “You don’t want it?”
“No! Hell, no!”
The old man accepted the guitar. “All right, then. No need to get in a swivet.”
Branch tried not to look at the guitar again, but inside he already felt the hollow ache so familiar from the early seventies, when he’d been shooting up like Clapton and Richards and the rest (one more desperate try to reach the master level, a futile journey that had almost killed him).
The old man gave Branch an appraising glance from the corner of his eye. “You’re jonesing bad, ain’t you? Well…I sympathize.”
Lucky stood and strode to the wall, where a peg hanger had been screwed into the wood about six feet off the floor. “I’m just gonna put her back here, in case Percy somehow comes through his ordeal. You never know, right? Wouldn’t be the first miracle in this world. And if he does…he’ll find this right where he left it.” The old man looked back at Branch. “Right?”
“Right.”
“Well, okay then.” Lucky gave a small tip of his hat. “I’m gonna take my leave now. You take care, Branch.”
“I will.”
“I don’t like to say goodbye, because I like to think someday, when I least expect it, I’ll come across a new friend again. That’s how new friends become old ones, right?”
“I guess so.”
The old man hitched up his trousers, then straightened the frock coat on his big shoulders. “Back on the road, like always. You be good, son.”
Branch nodded, feeling like he had when his father took his leave after a visit to Orono during Branch’s failed year at UMaine. Desolate and alone.
The floor creaked as the old man walked to the door. Branch half expected him to turn back and say something more, but he didn’t. His broad back receded down the hallway, then turned into the foyer, and a few seconds later, Branch heard the front door close.
Hard Listening: The Greatest Rock Band Ever (of Authors) Tells All Page 16
