Poverty Rocks! (Rock n' Roll in Outer Space Book 1)
Page 1
POVERTY ROCKS!
By
DOUGLAS HARDEE
US COPYRIGHT
TXu 2-045-803
"They say: sufferings are misfortunes," said Pierre. “But if at once this minute, I was asked, would I remain what I was before I was taken prisoner, or go through it all again, I should say, for God's sake let me rather be a prisoner and eat horseflesh again. We imagine that as soon as we are torn out of our habitual path all is over, but it is only the beginning of something new and good. As long as there is life, there is happiness. There is a great deal, a great deal before us."
–Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace
I bought me a double R, cuz I went from rags to riches.
–Lil Wayne
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-Two
Chapter Fifty-Three
Chapter Fifty- Four
Chapter Fifty-Five
Chapter Fifty-Six
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Chapter Fifty-Sixty
Chapter Sixty-One
Chapter Sixty-Two
Chapter Sixty-Three
Chapter Sixty-Four
Chapter Sixty-Five
Chapter Sixty-Six
Chapter Sixty-Seven
Chapter Sixty-Eight
Chapter Sixty-Nine
Chapter Seventy
Chapter Seventy-One
Postscript:
Acknowledgement
Chapter One
Somewhere Over the Rainbow
To me, Dolly Parton and Geeshie Wiley aren't that different. It's all American music, and look how it works together! That's because it's coming from a common well.
–Rhiannon Giddens
I want to show that gospel, country, blues, rhythm and blues, jazz, rock 'n' roll are all just really one thing. Those are the American music and that is the American culture.
–Etta James
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
Turn and face the strange,
–David Bowie
Somewhere out there among those twinkling stars, is a planet very similar to ours. If you look at the night time dome of stars with the naked eye, you would never guess which one recently underwent one of the greatest cultural changes of all time.
Ah, what they hell does that mean, cultural changes? Well, a short while back, some people put lightning in a bottle, so to speak, and sent it whisking into outer space where it created a very big bang indeed.
Some people think it is Earth's greatest export.
No, not computers, or smart phones, jet travel, nukes, penicillin, Viagra. Nah, this place had all that; they were decades ahead of us on the techno front. Yes, right out there just beyond our galaxy was a star that kept itself hidden from us, on purpose.
They knew about us, but didn't want anything to do with us...can you blame them? So they created an Event Horizon effect, making their planet into a black hole. We couldn't see in, but they could see us. They had in effect gone totally stealth.
It was brilliant. The entire planet went full JD Salinger or Greta Garbo. Which begs a question: why do we think intelligent life wants to communicate with us? If they're advanced enough to be of use, why would they want to share their knowledge and possibly expose themselves to something that could do them harm?
Yes, this planet was civilized and had all the problems that plague us mostly solved. Yes, they were super smart; their leaders practiced rationala. In plain speak, these were wise people led by smart people who based all decisions on rational, scientific evidence.
Sounds good, in theory, but actually, that was their problem: sounds.
Here's how Paradise got rocked.
Chapter Two
Loomings
One of the reasons inequalities gets so deep in this country is that everyone wants to be rich. That's the American ideal. Poor people don't like talking about poverty because even though they might live in the projects surrounded by other poor people and have, like, ten dollars in the bank, they don't like to think of themselves as poor.
–Jay-Z
Black folks played music for the same reason white people did. They wanted money, they wanted women, they wanted to express themselves and be respected and they didn't want to be out plowing four acres of cotton.
–Richard Nevin
Do you know what this country has done – through hardship? It's become the seat of the greatest compositions and versatility the world has ever known.
–Sam Phillips
I'm sure the universe is full of intelligent life. It's just been too intelligent to come here.
–Arthur C. Clarke
Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.
–Carl Sagan
Chapter Three
Down South Jukin'
The juke joint, the honky tonk, and the ballroom also represent one more thing, anthropologically speaking: a ceremonial context for the male-with-fema
le-duet dance flirtation and embrace, upon which the zoological survival of the human species has always been predicated.
–Albert Murray
Rural Mississippi 2016
The moonless sky was dark and the stars seemed closer than usual to Jericho Bright as he stared out at the ink-black Delta night. The tall lanky man strode over to his favorite porch rocker, took a deep breath of the magnolia-filled air, picked up his beat-up Gibson, applied his pinky slide, and began to play a salty blues dirge. Jericho loved playing his slide into the night. He felt he was calling forth the spirits of his ancestors who lived, played, and worked here for more than 150 years. Over on the far end of his porch, his watchful dog, Hubie, flared his nostrils and began to gingerly lift himself off the wooden planks.
He paced purposely about the porch; his eyes unusually alert and wide open. The sounds from his master's guitar floated out into the quiet night and seemed to be a soundtrack for this remote, rural Mississippi farm.
Suddenly Hubie leaped off the porch and trotted into the dark fields that surrounded them. He returned after a few minutes, apparently satisfied that nothing was afoot on Bright's place, and laid back down. In the back yard, the stream flowed gently by the moonshine still Jericho used to make what his partner Haskell Land bragged was the "fiercest shine that ever flowed out of the Delta."
The spirits business had been very good to Jericho since he moved back home to his grandfather's place from Philadelphia, where he had hustled his ass for years to barely make ends meet. But now, here in what his Philly homeys called the "boondocks," he and Haskell were doing a brisk business selling shine to college kids and folks from all over the South who had a taste for what Garden & Gun Magazine called 'Clear Magic.'
Then, as Jericho was just finishing off the last notes of Willie Dixon's "Little Red Rooster," Hubie leaped to his feet and gave off a piercing howl. Jericho looked over at his housemate.
"What's shaking,"Hubie?"
Hubie prowled over the porch like Cerberus guarding the underworld.
Jericho put down his guitar and stood up and stretched. Visitors to his place were highly unusual at this hour.
Just then two figures appeared seemingly out of thin air at the side of the porch. Hubie stared at them and growled, but didn't move a muscle as one of the men held out an open palm to the dog and smiled beatifically at Jericho. The watchful dog was mesmerized.
The two men were dressed in jeans and tunics, reminiscent of George Harrison’s 70s style, when the Beatle was in his Indian phase.
"My name is Zorbane, greetings earthling, we come in peace." Zorbane thought the black man was the biggest person he'd ever seen.
"Earthling? You guys stoned and lost?" Jericho said.
The second man spoke haltingly, "I am Trax, friend. No, we're in the right place, Mississippi, Earth. Right?"
Jericho leaned back and fingered his smart phone. "Look, guys, I don't sell the shine unless it's by referral. Who sent you at this hour?"
The two men stared at each other.
Jericho continued, "You guys aren’t from around here, are you?"
"No, we're from the planet Zeon," said Trax.
"In another galaxy," said Zorbane as he continued to stare at Hubie.
"What brings you round here?" said Jericho as he continued to finger his phone.
"Honky tonks and juke joints," said Zorbane with relish.
Trax explained, "We were out tooling around in our spacecraft on a routine patrol in your atmosphere when we discovered something very powerful embedded in one of your clouds on our computers."
"Clouds," said Jericho as he reached over to his side table for a bottle of his moonshine. He poured a shot for himself, and drank it down while never taking his eyes off the two men.
"Yes, a storage cloud, they store immense data," said Trax matter-of-factly.
Zorbane was now almost rapturous. "Yes, we heard rock 'n' roll music, and we can't get it out of our heads."
Hubie was now sitting in complete silence, staring at the men like they were just neighbors.
Jericho offered the men a chair to sit in. "Go on," he said as he eyed the two warily, knowing that his Glock was just an arm's distance away on his table.
"And the cloud books said that this is the region on Earth where most of the creators of this sublime music began," Trax continued as if lecturing in a class.
Jericho nodded, and slowly reached behind him, pulled out the Glock pistol and put it on his lap. "I know about the music, but what's that got to do with me, tonight?"
"But we come in peace, Mr.?” said Zorbane.
"Jericho Bright, and I'll keep my piece handy, thank you. I'm not used to strangers coming to my house, especially at night. I and Haskell usually deliver our product to designated areas."
Zorbane began to speak in rapid sentences. "We are here as musical pilgrims, nothing more."
"You don't have music on Zeon?" Jericho said.
"Oh yes, Mr. Jericho, but it's boring, boring," said Trax.
"What do you mean by boring, like waltzes?" Jericho said.
"I don't know waltzes much. It's like...message music here, soothing, but if you hear too much you fall asleep. The music you were playing, when we walked up here, that's what we love and want to hear," Zorbane said.
"Well, those were the blues," Jericho intoned.
Hubie continued to stare at the men, but began a low growl.
"Hush Hubie, let the pilgrims finish their story," said Jericho. He offered up the bottle of moonshine to the two men. They shook their heads no in unison.
Zorbane stuttered, "Yes, blues, one of the foundations of rock 'n' roll."
Trax cleared his throat. "How do we learn that blues?”
Jericho Bright stared at the two visitors, and then glanced over to Hubie. "Well, gentlemen from Zeon, ha, that planet sounds like a club in Philly where I used to work, to play the blues legit you have to suffer, and it helps to be poor and forced to work hard, maybe even in the fields. It's all about enduring hardship, really. Judging by you dudes' hands, you haven't known much of that," Jericho said.
"No, Jericho, that is the truest," said Zorbane. On Zeon we conquered poverty years ago. In our lifetimes, we've never been hungry, poor or sick, really.”
"Well, gents, you've come to the poorest state in America," Jericho said.
Zorbane stands up with his palms in the air. (He begins his incantation.)
"Poor, perhaps, but rich in musical cultural histories," exclaimed Trax, getting excited. "This is near Clarksdale, where Robert Johnson met the devil, and Tupelo, where Elvis was born in a shotgun shack," he continued. "Mississippi is home of Stovall Plantation, where Muddy Waters worked and sang."
Jericho poured himself another drink. "All true, Trax,” said Jericho as he stood up and his six-foot-three frame towered over the two aliens. “Now, it's getting late. You guys said you wanted to go to a honky tonk and a juke joint, right?"
"Yes, yes, very much so," pleaded Zorbane.
The two visitors looked at each other with excitement.
"Now, the best juke joint around these parts is Jezebel's out that-away. Just follow that road and listen for the music. When you get there, tell the man at the door, Sammie, that Jericho sent you, and he'll make sure, even though you're as white as snow, you won't get messed with," intoned Jericho.
"Messed with?" said Zorbane.
"It's Friday night. Both of these places are jumpin' and people drink a lot on Fridays. Its payday," Jericho said.
"Payday?" Trax exclaimed.
"Don't you remember? The eagle flies on Frida
y," Zorbane said.
"That's right, you know your stuff. Now, the honky tonk is further down the road, and it's filled with white folks, like you. But they're as rowdy as the juke joint folks when they get a buzz head on, so, tell the doorman that you want to see my man Haskell and tell him Jericho sent you and you won't get your alien asses stomped," said Jericho.
"Thank you, brother man," said Trax.
"I ain't your brother and whatever you do don't call anybody in either joint your fucking brother. Got it, guys?" said Jericho.
"But we heard it in a song," protested Zorbane.
Jericho threw his hands up. "Lose the brother stuff, unless you want a real ass whippin'.” He exhaled and regained his cool. "Now, it's time for you two, what you call yourselves, pilgrims, to get your butts on down the road, as they say out here in the boondocks."
"We have one last request and we're willing to pay for it," said Zorbane.
"Ah, I knew it, you guys want some women, or some shine. I knew it. It's lonely out in space, ain't it?" said Jericho, now smiling and relaxed.