Blues for Beginners: Stories and Obsessions by Bacon Press Books

 
Blues For
Beginners
    Woke up this morning
    cat threw a hairball on the bed.
    Said, I woke up this morning
    cat puke all over the bed.
    Went to the kitchen
    Mr. Coffee was dead.
    ‘‘Post-Graduate Blues,’’
    by Memphis Earlene Gray
    .
    Most blues begin ‘‘woke up this morning.’’
    “Gotta good woman’’ is a bad way to begin the
blues,
    unless you stick something nasty in the next
line:
    “Gotta good woman— with the meanest dog in town.”
    .
    Blues are simple. After you have the first line
right, repeat it.
    Then find something that rhymes.
    Gotta a good woman
    with the meanest dog in town.
    he got teeth like Margaret Thatcher
    and he weighs 500 pound.
    The blues are not about limitless choice.
    Blues cars are Chevies and Cadillacs.
    Other acceptable blues transportation is Greyhound
bus or a southbound train.
    Walkin’ plays a major part in the blues lifestyle. So
does fixin’ to die.
    Teenagers can’t sing the blues.
    Adults sing the blues.
    Blues adulthood means old enough to get the electric
chair if you shoot a man in Memphis.
    You can have the blues in New York City but not in
New Jersey.
    Hard times in Vermont or North Dakota are just
depression.
    Chicago, St. Louis, and Kansas City are still the
best places to have the blues.
    The following colors do not belong in the blues:
    a. orange
    b. beige
    You can’t have the blues in an office or a
honky-tonk. The lighting is wrong.
    More good places for the blues:
    a. the highway
    b. the jailhouse
    c. the empty bed
    No one will believe it’s the blues if you wear a
suit, unless you happen to be an old black man.
    Do you have the right to sing the blues?
    Yes, if:
    a. your first name is a southern state.
    b. you’re blind.
    c. you shot a man in Memphis.
    d. you can’t be satisfied.
    No, if:
    a. you once were blind but now can see.
    b. you’re deaf.
    Neither Frank Sinatra nor Meryl Streep could ever
sing the blues.
    If you ask for water and baby gives you gasoline it’s
the blues.
    Other blues beverages include:
    a. wine
    b. Irish whiskey
    c. muddy water
    If it occurs in a cheap motel or a shotgun shack it’s
blues death.
    Stabbed in the back by a jealous lover is a blues way
to die.
    So is the electric chair, substance abuse, or being
denied treatment in an emergency room.
    Some blues names for women:
    a. Sadie
    b. Big Mama
    Some blues names for men:
    a. Willie
    b. Joe
    c. Little Willie
    d. Lightning
    Persons with names like Sierra or Sequoia will not be
permitted to sing the blues no matter how many men they shoot in
Memphis.
     

 
Smokescreen
    Psychoanalysis is the ultimate dead end for
self-improvement junkies. The practice is elitist, intellectually
suspect, and inherently demeaning to women. Your basic model shrink
is a middle-aged bearded man, usually Jewish, supported by a
pyramid of female misery, much of it Jewish as well. Nonetheless I
have a standing noontime appointment with Dr. Freundlicht Monday
through Friday with Thursday off.
    .
    From the voice at the other end of the
telephone, I imagine Dr. Lee Freundlicht to be a 60 year old woman
with a two pack a day cigarette habit and modern art on her waiting
room walls, so I make the appointment for an initial consultation.
I turn out to be right about the modern art—one large Miro print of
copulating amoebas in primary colors and a small Paul Klee of
stylized pastel clowns in profile.
    A man sits across from me in the waiting
room, his head buried in the latest issue of Time. He’s wearing a
pin-striped suit and a guilty expression.
    An honest lawyer, or maybe he works for the
government.
    I’m a government lawyer. I work the
Department of Labor. Most days I feel like a dish mop, a nothing, a
fraud.
    At 11:45 A.M., he looks up from his
magazine.
    “Do you have an appointment with Dr.
Freundlicht too?” My voice is full of false brightness to mask the
trepidation.
    “My appointment’s at noon,” he says.
    “Today’s Wednesday, isn’t it?”
    “No, it’s Thursday,” he says