Bone Music

by Alan Rodgers

  “They shouldn’t be here,” Robert Johnson said. “Devils can’t go walking in the world of men.”

  The hoodoo lady who stood beside him scowled. “You cracked the Eye of the World, Robert Johnson. The Lady pressed the pieces back together, but every day the devils try to cut the bonds she tied around it.”

  “He broke the Eye of the World?”

  “No, he hasn’t broke it, yet. But the cracks are wide enough to let demons slip onto the Mountain.”

  Robert Johnson pushed his way through the crowd by the door, walked across the shack to stand beside the burning bed.

  “Get on with you,” he said to the devils. “You’ve got no business in this world.”

  The devils jeered; one of them spat grey crud into Robert Johnson’s eye.

  “Damn you,” Robert Johnson shouted. “Damn you to Hell.” He grabbed the spitting demon by the throat, planning to lift it off its feet and throttle it —

  And the most amazing thing happened.

  Where Robert Johnson touched the devil its foul flesh seared — boiled and broiled and burned away like putrid fat when you drop it in a vat of acid.

  Those devils should have known to run the moment that they saw Robert Johnson. No devil can ever stand against a man who’s found salvation, and they all cower before the ones who’ve been redeemed. Robert Johnson had stood before the Pearly Gates of Heaven, and he’d touched them with his good right arm.

  But devils lose their sense in the heat of the moment, and those creatures were no exceptions. Three of them tormented Sonny Boy as the fourth, burning in Robert Johnson’s grip, thrashed and screamed. Robert Johnson lifted it into the air, and the creature tried to plead for mercy, but the words burned away before anyone could hear them.

  “I said, ‘Get on with you,’ devil. And I meant it.” Robert Johnson hefted back and threw the awful creature with all the force he could muster; the devil went sailing across the shack. It would have hit the south wall if it hadn’t vanished in midair.

  The three tormenting Sonny vanished only a moment after the first.

  When they were gone the only sound in the shack was Sonny Boy gasping for air, still trying to find his breath — deadmen don’t need air, but the reflex to breathe persists in many of them, and commands them in some moments of extremis.

  And then a woman said, “I told you he could exorcise them,” and Robert Johnson looked up to see it was Ma Rainey speaking about him. She smiled when she saw he had his eye, and something in her smile made Robert Johnson feel as silly as a schoolboy.

  Greenville, Mississippi - The Present

  Emma could feel the Lady close and looming, almost as though she was in the car with her and Lisa. Emma had felt the presence watching them angrily all the way from New York, and it didn’t go away when they got to Mississippi. She kept expecting Shungó to appear before them on the road and warn Emma away from her destination, but she never did.

  They got to Greenville early in the afternoon, and Emma thought their journey was over — but it wasn’t. Mama Estrella’s directions turned out to be useless. Emma couldn’t find any dirt roads at all off highway 82 — and all the roads that led west from 82 led west into pinewoods toward a bluff.

  At first Emma thought that had to be her own error, so she drove back up 82, watching all the side roads from the opposite direction.

  And still found nothing.

  So she went into town and found a pay phone to ring Mama Estrella at the hospital — but all the phones were out of order.

  Every solitary phone in town, it seemed.

  At half past two she pulled into the convenience store parking lot for the third time (she’d been there twice already, trying to get the out-of-order pay phones in front of the store to work) to ask the clerk if he knew what was the matter.

  Inside the store was cool and air-conditioned, startling in contrast with the torpid Mississippi heat outside. The clerk behind the counter was a dark-skinned man with short white hair. He looked to be about as old as time.

  Despite the heat he wore a red bandanna around his throat.

  “I need to make a long-distance phone call,” Emma told the clerk, “but all the pay phones in this town are out of order.”

  The clerk nodded. “I know they are,” he said. “We had a thunderstorm two nights ago. That there —” he nodded at the old beige phone on the wall behind the counter “— is about the only working phone on this end of Greenville.”

  Emma wanted to scream. She was exhausted from her trip, addled from the heat, and confused from driving back and forth over unfamiliar roads. She wanted to find a place to rest — a place where she could hide beneath a blanket and pretend the world went on without her. She wanted to get a hotel room and spend three days recovering from the trip.

  But there just wasn’t time. She knew that, deep inside her heart: things had begun to happen quickly and in ways she couldn’t afford to ignore.

  “Lord Almighty,” Emma said. “How far will I have to drive to find a phone that works?”

  The clerk shrugged. “I haven’t heard that much of the news,” he said. “Far as I know phones are out for miles all around.”

  “Damn. Damn damn damn damn,” Emma said — and then she did begin to cry. It was all too much, just too too too damn much.

  “Ain’t no need to cry, ma’am,” the clerk said. “Use my phone if you have to. But if it’s got to be long distance, make it brief, please.”

  The offer surprised Emma, and a part of her regarded it suspiciously. But she took it all the same. She stepped behind the counter, dialed the hospital’s number (from memory — Mama Estrella was in the same hospital where Emma had worked the last twelve years of her life), and asked for Estrella Perez.

  When she told Mama Estrella about the trouble, Mama told her to go to the first crossroads south of Greenville and burn an offering.

  “Say what?” Emma asked her.

  “Buy a new pack of cigarettes,” Mama Estrella said. “Go to the crossroads, open the pack, and smoke one — just one cigarette. When you’re done, put the pack to the center of the crossroads and leave it there. Get in the car and drive the way you’ll know you have to go.”

  “That’s crazy,” Emma said. “What do you think I am, some kind of a witch?”

  “I don’t think anything about you, Emma. But I know how to help you find the road you need.”

  Emma sighed. “Thanks, Mama,” she said. “I’ll be in touch.”

  Mama said goodbye, and Emma hung up her phone. “Can I leave you a couple dollars for the call?” she asked the clerk.

  The clerk shook his head. “You weren’t on for long,” he said. “I’ll take care of it.” He smiled, and even though his smile was beautiful it chilled Emma to the bone. “Anything I can get you?”

  The way he asked that question made Emma’s chill start all over again — for a moment she almost thought he’d heard Mama Estrella’s instructions.

  “Yes,” she said. “There is. I need a pack of Marlboros — no, two packs. — Yes, the red ones, thanks.”

  She paid the clerk and left without saying another word.

  Los Angeles, California - The Present

  Dan Alvarez was never sure what happened to him after the thunder. Later he could remember running blindly through the raining dark, stumbling, battering himself again and again. But he could never remember how he escaped the burning wreck of his apartment.

  Never remembered what happened to the Santa, or what she meant for him when he accepted her.

  The thing he remembered clearest was waking in a ditch in an abandoned industrial park. Sitting up and looking around to see the city of Los Angeles dark and fiery all around him — the power was out everywhere for miles, no electric lights anywhere he could see in every direction. But there was light. Plenty of li
ght — the whole damned city was on fire.

  If he’d had any sense he would have counted his blessings and crawled back into the ditch. It wasn’t safe, wandering around with the city burning. But he wasn’t thinking at all, let alone thinking sensibly. In the dark and the thunder and the rain Dan Alvarez was a creature of his frightened heart, and when his heart screamed at him and told him to run for his life, he ran.

  Ran.

  And it was good he did, because there were flash floods in Los Angeles that night. Twenty minutes after Dan Alvarez ran terrified from that ditch a storm of white water and hard debris roared through it, and if Dan Alvarez hadn’t run he would have died a horrible death of batterment and drowning.

  As it was he almost died anyway — when he wandered too close to the broken walls of the Los Angeles County Reformatory and the riot and the looting that came when its prisoners ran wild. The prison was ten blocks southeast from the ditch, and Dan’s run took him directly toward it.

  I’ve got to run, a small voice whispered deep inside his skull, I’ve got to go home.

  He tried to run home, but the truth was that he never could. His apartment was gone, blasted by thunder and burned to the ground, and there was nothing but nothing for him to run home to, and all he could do was run and run and run forever in the night until he dropped from exhaustion —

  He was a block and a half from the prison when he stumbled as he moved out into the center of the street, trying to get around a tractor-trailer parked along the shoulder. He tried to catch his balance, but the road was too slick and he was moving too fast and he was too winded. One foot caught on the back of the other, and came down sideways and out of kilter; his ankle gave way and he dove face-first into the asphalt —

  — face-first into the asphalt as lightning struck the lightless prison gates and the walls came tumbling down. Someone screamed, and gunfire exploded brightly in the darkness, and Dan knew he had to run.

  Had to get up and run for his life, or he was going to die.

  Run run run! said the voice in his head, but he couldn’t run — he couldn’t even move. For the longest moment he lay paralyzed on the dark rain-wet road as people screamed and guns blasted and now a mob of people stampeded through the broken prison walls and out into the city. Dan damn near got trampled by the crowd that ran toward him — if he hadn’t roused himself enough to roll under the semi rig the throng would have trampled him to death.

  When the crowd was gone there were more flashes of gunfire, and the sound of shots exploding not too far away. Dan knew he couldn’t stay where he was. He knew he had to run. So he pushed himself back onto his feet, and he forced himself back into motion.

  But he was too numb, too exhausted to run. When he tried to run all he managed was a slow trot, a run so slow he could’ve walked more quickly in the day in the sunshine when the world was decent and alive.

  After a while the trot went away entirely, and Dan Alvarez found himself skulking through the shadows, creeping around the edges of the firelight as the city burned.

  Here there were looters, and storefronts shattered and set afire; here there were rioters taunting a homeowner as the poor man tried to hold them at bay with a shotgun; here three policemen stood guarding half a dozen people they’d bound in handcuffs and leg irons.

  In his mind he was an animal, prowling warily, ready to turn at any moment and struggle for his life. Now gradually he realized he was hungry, and when he saw the broken storefront he didn’t think how it’s looting when you rummage through a broken store. He was hungry, and he knew there was food inside; he went in and he ate.

  He found cold cuts behind the shattered doors of the store’s cooler; deli ham and Genoa salami, still wrapped in their tough plastic wrappers. Dan peeled the backing of the ham package, and he ate hungrily, shoving big fistfuls of cured meat into his mouth, hardly even bothering to chew.

  When the ham was done he threw the wrapper on the floor and closed his eyes, savoring the fullness. He felt like a predator, walking away from the rent carcass of his prey; he wanted to raise his head and howl at the moon.

  And then he did howl, long and low and sad.

  It was the wrong thing to do.

  Wrong wrong wrong.

  Because there were police out on the street, and they heard him. One of them turned to face Dan and shone a flashlight in at him. Dan tried to hide from the beam, but he wasn’t fast enough; the policeman saw him clearly before he had the chance to duck.

  “You there! What’re you doing in that store?”

  Dan didn’t say a word. He didn’t even breathe; he kept low and still and prayed the police would go away.

  His prayer went unanswered. Of course it did! Police don’t just walk away when they find young men looting stores in the middle of riots! They go in and arrest the ones they find, even when they’ve only looted for the food they need to eat.

  “Answer, damn you. You want us to have to come in there and get you?”

  Dan wanted to taunt them. Go ahead, he wanted to say. Go ahead, I’m not afraid.

  But it would have been a lie. He was terrified and he didn’t dare taunt the cops, because he knew they’d kill him if they had to.

  One of the policemen swore; the other one said, “I’ll move toward him from the right side. You take the left.” His partner grunted, nodded, turned on his flashlight, and started moving toward Dan.

  They’re going to kill me, Dan thought. He heard something hard and metallic snap into place, and thought he saw gunmetal glint in the scattered light. I’ve got to run, he thought, but when he looked around he saw that there was nowhere to run.

  “Put up your hands and step out of the shadows. Don’t make any sudden moves.”

  They were getting close, now — too close. Dan eased away from the cooler, crawled toward the cartons that lined the store’s back wall. Pressed himself into the shadows.

  But it didn’t do him a bit of good. Not one damn bit.

  Because the first cop came around the aisle on Dan’s right, and as he did his flashlight caught Dan squarely, dragging him out of the shadows —

  And Dan screamed.

  “Don’t move!” the second cop shouted, and his partner froze. But Dan didn’t freeze. He couldn’t freeze; he was too terrified. Instead he bolted into the light, bolted at the first cop who shot his gun three times bam bam BAM at point-blank range and that should have cut Dan to shreds — should have left him a pile of wrecked and bloody meat leaking blood on the filthy floor. But didn’t, somehow. None of the bullets hit Dan, or if they hit they passed right through him, doing no damage at all. Dan ran into the cop; his shoulder caught the barrel of the gun, and Dan just kept going. Into the cop, knocking him over as the cop screamed and his partner swore, bellowing threats he couldn’t make good without shooting his partner, too. The cop went down, knocking over a display of canned dog food; Dan kept going, stepping over the cop and on him, one foot came down on the cop’s face, and something crunched underneath it. Dan didn’t look back to see what it was. There wasn’t time for that. Wasn’t time to do anything but run.

  Run!

  Through the fiery streets, through the night, into forever.

  When Dan stopped running he was in a trainyard, surrounded by boxcars. He saw an open car and knew that he could hide there through the night; he climbed in and found a corner so dark that he felt lost inside it.

  And hid.

  After a long while he drifted off to sleep.

  Somewhere in his sleep he heard the car bang into another and felt it lurch. A while after that there came the music that train wheels make as they roll along the smooth Pacific rails — rhythmic and mild, gentle and compelling.

  The music reassured Dan in his rest, and soothed him deeper and deeper into his sleep. By the time he woke California was a place as distant as his drea
ms.

  Greenville, Mississippi - The Present

  The ritual at the crossroads worked just as Mama Estrella had promised it would. Emma parked a few yards from the intersection, opened the pack of Marlboros, and smoked one. When she was done she carried the open pack to the middle of the intersection, set it on the pavement, and returned to her car.

  And drove away.

  Half a mile later she saw a dirt road she hadn’t noticed before, and turned onto it; followed the dirt road for ten minutes before she saw a weathered wooden shack in the pinewoods off to her left.

  That’s it, Emma thought. There wasn’t any doubt about that in her heart; this was the place she’d crossed half a continent to find.

  Lisa was asleep in the car seat, just as she had been since early that morning.

  “We’re here,” Emma said, rubbing Lisa’s shoulder. “Time to wake up, baby.”

  “Leave me alone,” Lisa said. “Wanna sleep!”

  Emma bit her lip. The girl had such a temper these days — Emma was more than half afraid to cross her.

  “You want to wait here in the car, child? — Maybe I won’t be there long, I hope.”

  And suddenly the girl’s eyes opened wide.

  “Be where?” she asked. “Where are we?”

  Emma eased the car onto the grassy side-path that led toward the shack, slowly, slowly pushing the car through the brush. “This is the place Mama Estrella told me about. There’s someone here who can help you, she said.”

  “I don’t want any help,” Lisa said. “Just leave me alone!”

  “I told you that I would already,” Emma said, stopping the car a few yards from the shack, putting the transmission into park. Cutting the ignition and opening the door. “You want to stay here, Lisa, that’s your concern.”