said.
“Yeah.”
“Lay up in bed, sleep for a few hours. I’ll keep the record going. You’re rested, you got to explain this thing to me, and then we’ll figure something out.”
“There’s nothing to figure,” he said. “But, god, I’ll take you up on that sleep.”
He crawled up in the bed and was immediately out.
I started the record over.
I got up then, untied Tootie’s shoes and pulled them off. Hell, like him or not, he was Alma May’s brother. And another thing, I wouldn’t wish that thing behind the wall on my worst enemy.
I sat on the floor where Tootie had sat and kept restarting the record as I tried to figure things out, which wasn’t easy with that music going. I got up from time to time and walked around the room, and then I’d end up back on the floor by the record player, where I could reach it easy.
Between changes, I looked through the composition notebooks. They were full of musical notes mixed with scribbles like the ones on the wall. It was hard to focus with that horrid sound. It was like the air was full of snakes and razors. Got the feeling the music was pushing at something behind that wall. Got the feeling too, there was something on the other side, pushing back.
It was dark when Tootie woke up. He had slept a good ten hours, and I was exhausted with all that record changing, that horrible sound. I had a headache from looking over those notebooks, and I didn’t know anymore about them than when I first started.
I went and bought more coffee, brought it back, and we sat on the bed, him changing the record from time to time, us sipping.
I said, “You sure you can’t just walk away?”
I was avoiding the real question for some reason. Like, what in hell is that thing, and what is going on? Maybe I was afraid of the answer.
“You saw that thing. I can walk away, all right. And I can run. But wherever I go, it’ll find me. So, at some point, I got to face it. Sometimes I make that same record sound with my guitar, give the record a rest. Thing I fear most is the record wearing out.”
I gestured at the notebooks on the floor. “What is all that?”
“My notes. My writings. I come here to write some lyrics, some new blues songs.”
“Those aren’t lyrics, those are notes.”
“I know,” he said.
“You don’t have a music education. You just play.”
“Because of the record, I can read music, and I can write things that don’t make any sense to me unless it’s when I’m writing them, when I’m listening to that music. All those marks, they are musical notes, and the other marks are other kinds of notes, notes for sounds that I couldn’t make until a few days back. I didn’t even know those sounds were possible. But now, my head is full of the sounds and those marks and all manner of things, and the only way I can rest is to write them down. I wrote on the wall cause I thought the marks, the notes themselves, might hold that thing back and I could run. Didn’t work.”
“None of this makes any sense to me,” I said.
“All right,” Tootie said, “This is the best I can explain something that’s got no explanation. I had some blues boys tell me they once come to this place on the South side called Cross Road Records. It’s a little record shop where the streets cross. It’s got all manner of things in it, and it’s got this big colored guy with a big white smile and bloodshot eyes that works the joint. They said they’d seen the place, poked their heads in, and even heard Robert Johnson’s sounds coming from a player on the counter. There was a big man sitting behind the counter, and he waved them in, but the place didn’t seem right, they said, so they didn’t go in.
“But, you know me. That sounded like just the place I wanted to go. So, I went. It’s where South Street crosses a street called Way Left.
“I go in there, and I’m the only one in the store. There’s records everywhere, in boxes, lying on tables. Some got labels, some
“Yeah.”
“Lay up in bed, sleep for a few hours. I’ll keep the record going. You’re rested, you got to explain this thing to me, and then we’ll figure something out.”
“There’s nothing to figure,” he said. “But, god, I’ll take you up on that sleep.”
He crawled up in the bed and was immediately out.
I started the record over.
I got up then, untied Tootie’s shoes and pulled them off. Hell, like him or not, he was Alma May’s brother. And another thing, I wouldn’t wish that thing behind the wall on my worst enemy.
I sat on the floor where Tootie had sat and kept restarting the record as I tried to figure things out, which wasn’t easy with that music going. I got up from time to time and walked around the room, and then I’d end up back on the floor by the record player, where I could reach it easy.
Between changes, I looked through the composition notebooks. They were full of musical notes mixed with scribbles like the ones on the wall. It was hard to focus with that horrid sound. It was like the air was full of snakes and razors. Got the feeling the music was pushing at something behind that wall. Got the feeling too, there was something on the other side, pushing back.
It was dark when Tootie woke up. He had slept a good ten hours, and I was exhausted with all that record changing, that horrible sound. I had a headache from looking over those notebooks, and I didn’t know anymore about them than when I first started.
I went and bought more coffee, brought it back, and we sat on the bed, him changing the record from time to time, us sipping.
I said, “You sure you can’t just walk away?”
I was avoiding the real question for some reason. Like, what in hell is that thing, and what is going on? Maybe I was afraid of the answer.
“You saw that thing. I can walk away, all right. And I can run. But wherever I go, it’ll find me. So, at some point, I got to face it. Sometimes I make that same record sound with my guitar, give the record a rest. Thing I fear most is the record wearing out.”
I gestured at the notebooks on the floor. “What is all that?”
“My notes. My writings. I come here to write some lyrics, some new blues songs.”
“Those aren’t lyrics, those are notes.”
“I know,” he said.
“You don’t have a music education. You just play.”
“Because of the record, I can read music, and I can write things that don’t make any sense to me unless it’s when I’m writing them, when I’m listening to that music. All those marks, they are musical notes, and the other marks are other kinds of notes, notes for sounds that I couldn’t make until a few days back. I didn’t even know those sounds were possible. But now, my head is full of the sounds and those marks and all manner of things, and the only way I can rest is to write them down. I wrote on the wall cause I thought the marks, the notes themselves, might hold that thing back and I could run. Didn’t work.”
“None of this makes any sense to me,” I said.
“All right,” Tootie said, “This is the best I can explain something that’s got no explanation. I had some blues boys tell me they once come to this place on the South side called Cross Road Records. It’s a little record shop where the streets cross. It’s got all manner of things in it, and it’s got this big colored guy with a big white smile and bloodshot eyes that works the joint. They said they’d seen the place, poked their heads in, and even heard Robert Johnson’s sounds coming from a player on the counter. There was a big man sitting behind the counter, and he waved them in, but the place didn’t seem right, they said, so they didn’t go in.
“But, you know me. That sounded like just the place I wanted to go. So, I went. It’s where South Street crosses a street called Way Left.
“I go in there, and I’m the only one in the store. There’s records everywhere, in boxes, lying on tables. Some got labels, some
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