The Blues on Highway 61

Friday night at Jackie’s Cold Day Inn was a little like story time for kids at the library on Saturday mornings. The usual Friday night customers were there. Sheriff Tom, his sidekicks Doc Harris and Les; Gary and Mike from the Conoco station; Doris and Flora. Even church lady Becky was a Friday night regular now. She could nurse a few ounces of wine for hours if need be. Like the others, she liked to hear new stories or old ones retold. There were a dozen more folks clustered in the tables near the Sheriff’s table.

Sheriff Tom and Doc Harris were taking turns telling about the time Randy Wilkins, the minister, was shot to death. It was a long story that had been told several times in the intervening years. Sometimes when a detail was left out someone in the audience would point it out, like a child noticing mom or dad skipping a page in a bedtime story.

I was taking sips of my Jack on the rocks in my favorite bar, relaxing, enjoying the story.  I’d be on the road again tomorrow visiting farmers and ranchers in Slate, Snyder, Post, then down to Midland before returning to the home office in Amarillo. The rain gods had been kind this year, bumper crops of everything including the farm equipment I sold.

Sheriff Tom put his drink on the table, stood up then got down on his haunches and said, “Now it’s just me and Buckshot. I squatted next to him and said, ‘Buckshot, it went down this way. You went chasing after this jackrabbit, the minister yelled at you. Reg turned around, tripped and fell. He didn’t mean to pull the trigger as he fell. Is that what happened?’

“He didn’t have to say a word. He hung his head down almost to the ground. Right then I knew I had the truth.

“’Course, I didn’t tell it this way at the inquest. I made it sound like I figured it out by myself, kept Buckshot out of it. The squirrelly DA might wanna charge him with reckless endangerment or something.

“Folks kept asking was it murder or an accident but all I said was I’m still investigatin’. I knew for sure how it happened but I didn't have the autopsy or ballistics reports yet. How would it look if I go to the DA with -- Mr. DA it was accidental death, this here dog’s an eye witness. Got any doubts all you gotta do is make 'im raise his right paw, swear 'im in.’”

The woof, the whole woof, and nothing but the woof

This was one of the story’s punch lines and even though we’d heard it before and knew it was coming, we laughed. It was a natural break in the story and Tom always took his time before continuing, give folks a minute or two to use the facilities, freshen their drinks, or socialize.

He finished the story like he always did, gradually lowering his voice so that we had to lean in to hear the end.

Story telling time was over but a stranger sitting two tables away spoke up.

“Excuse me folks. My name’s Daniel. Don’t mind me. I’m just passin’ through on my way to California but it looks like you folks like stories. I got one, a true one. Sheriff?”

Tom hesitated for a moment then said, “Folks, you know all my stories. What say we hear a new one?” Nobody disagreed.

Sheriff Tom raised his drink in one hand and gave Daniel a thumbs up with the other. Go ahead.

The stranger nodded, emptied his drink and asked Jackie for another. He straightened up in his chair gave the crowd a once over glance and began.

“Anybody here know somebody ever sold his soul to the Devil?”

No one said a word but everybody was thinking.

“I didn’t think so. Selling your soul is serious business. People been known to die suddenly and not too well right after confessin’ it, part of the contract, complete secrecy or pay the price. Some try to run and hide but when the Devil tracks ‘em down I hear tell they die of fright. Scared to death -- for real.

“I know a fella who sold his soul. This ain’t a story I heard from the second cousin of my neighbor’s aunt. It was told to me by the man himself who did it a long time ago. Tell you the truth I haven’t checked to see if anything happened to him since then. After all, nobody really knows what all is in the contracts. Could be by telling, it puts the listener in the Devil’s list, too. Some days I can’t help it, I can’t stop looking over my shoulder.

Before ballpoint pens you signed in blood.

“I was working in South Carolina when I met him at a bar where he was playing his guitar once, twice a week. I don’t think he got paid much more’n beer money. He was an ok musician but not good enough to get anybody excited about. The bartender told me he’d been kickin’ around different bars for years hopin’ to be discovered some way but in twenty years nobody’d come up and offered him anything more’n free beer for his trouble.

“Anyhow, I got to know him pretty good. Andy Olson was his name, called himself Lonesome Olson, and his songs sure seemed to prove it. I told him once he oughta think about learning songs with a little more hope in ‘em but he looked at me like he’d heard that a lotta times before and just didn’t have the spirit for it. Late one night we’d been drinkin’ whiskey insteada beer. I had a big paycheck that week and I was celebratin’ something or other, don’t remember what.

“So we’re sittin’ there sharin’ some fine rye whiskey and he leans over, looks over one shoulder then the other and whispers that when he was just a kid, like 17 years old, he sold his soul to the Devil. I almost laughed out loud then I remembered where we were. Little towns like the one we were in, folks take their beliefs pretty serious. Mention the Devil and folks are liable to look at you funny like you might be THE ONE their preacher’s warned them about all their lives.

“He scooted his chair closer to me and said he’d never told anybody about the deal he made with the Devil, maybe come to a bad end by telling. But goin’ now on twenty years he figured Ole Scratch didn’t remember him anymore. Hell with it, gotta tell somebody.

“He said when he was a kid, he was wanting’ to play guitar real bad. There was a fella there who could play all night and never the same song twice. I think he said his name was Weepy Whims, owing to him making his guitar sound like it was hurtin’ real deep inside. Accordin’ to the kid grown men and women up and cried like babies when he played the blues. And nobody was embarrassed. No, sir. They go up to Weepy, give him money to thank him for makin’ ‘em feel bad I suppose.

“Well, one night after everybody’d gone home it was just Andy and Weepy sittin’ there. Looked like there was at least ten dollars, mostly dimes and quarters in Weepy’s old hat. And the kid says I wanna play like you. Weepy, old and sad looking, tells the boy there’s a high price to pay for becomin’ a genuine bluesman. The kid’s crushed, hell, he ain’t got no money. Matter of fact, hardly anybody in that poor town had any money in those days. But Weepy says you don’t need no money. He says he can see the fire in Andy’s eyes and guessed if there was fire in his belly, too, it would work for the kid like it worked for him. Gonna tell him the secret.

“There’s a place in the Mississippi delta, he whispers, where the top bluesmen go to get their talent, a particular crossroad where they go at special times at midnight to meet the Devil in the flesh. The Devil he can make you a bluesman like Robert Johnson, King of the Delta Blues, but you owe him your soul when you die. Outa nowhere he pulls out a paper, a contract that binds you to the bargain. You gotta sign it in blood and swear to tell nobody or else he’ll claim your soul on the spot.

Robert Johnson, King of the Delta Blues

Stevie Ray Vaughn & Buddy Guy

“For those of you that don’t know it, just about every blues or rock musician worth spit since then is rumored to got his talent the same way; T Bone Walker, Gatemouth Brown, Big Joe Williams and a thousand others. A lotta them died young, too, ‘bout the same age as Mr. Johnson. But I’m getting away from Andy Olson’s story.
 

“Andy wants it so much he begs and begs Weepy to tell him where the Crossroads is but Weepy’s not sure and says no. After a while Andy was such a pest that Weepy gives in, tells him what he wants to know. He hands the kid a wrinkled five dollar bill and says go to the Thin Dime Pawn Shop and buy the guitar in the window. Tell the old skinflint I’ll pay him the the other three dollars next week.

“He buys the guitar, next day takes off hitchin’ his way from South Carolina to the Mississippi delta where the the Devil and the Crossroads wait. He asks around, near starves to death before he finds out where the Crossroads are and when the next full moon is comin’.

“Midnight at the Crossroads, Andy’s scared outa his mind about meetin’ the Devil face to face. Somewhere far away a church bell chimes the hour. Suddenly there’s a flash of light, smoke and the smell of brimstone. The Prince of Darkness himself stands before Andy who’s like to pee his pants.

The Crossroads, US61 and US49

“Ole Scratch don’t waste no time. He looks at his watch and gets down to business. He tells Andy he knows what he wants and says here’s the contract sign it. Do it quick I got other things to do tonight. So Andy signs the contract and asks now what happens. When can I play the blues?

“The Devil reaches into his coat pocket, pulls out a little ledger and says you’re in luck, Andy Olson. BB King’s dead. You can have his spot. Startin’ tomorrow, next five, ten years, you come here at midnight every Monday, Wednesday, Friday and we’ll start you on the basic chords. Plan of being here ‘til dawn. Can you hum St. James Infirmary?”

 

Blues road: Louisiana to Minnesota 1400 miles