The Watch (21 page)

I gesture dismissively at the nearest CD rack: Like selling gangsta rap and trash like that? You used to be a blues purist, Gene.

You got to run with the pack, bro. Sales were way down, and kids don’t listen to the deep blues anymore. Fact is, you and me are prob’ly the only ones left from our generation …

Speak for yourself, soldier! You might be getting long in the tooth but I’m only thirty-seven, so don’t you go callin’ me old.

But seriously, who else d’you know these days that’s our age and into old Bluesmen? I got mouths to feed, Marcus. Trash sells.

All right, all right, no need to get your back up.

And I haven’t sold out entirely, he adds defensively. I’m helpin’ out with the Blues Festival this year.

Oh yes? When’s it gonna be?—April again?

Sure thing. That’s when you should have taken your leave, bro. You’re gonna be missing out. You remember that trip we took up to Oxford to Proud Larry’s?

I sure do, bro. There was so much cigarette smoke in that joint, the music tasted of it.

And the hogs too. Hogs and whiskey, guitars and catfish, and the music growin’ out from deep under that Marshall County mud. That’s the meanest blues there is, bro. Hip-hop’s got nothing on it.

Now you’re talking, I reply, regarding him affectionately. So how you been in gen’ral? How’s the family?

I’m awrite, everyone’s awrite. Millie’s good, Crissie and Travis are helping me out with the store, Gene got a job …

Gene Junior? I thought he was still in school …

He’s finished up, bro. Time passes. Yessir, he’s almost as tall as you now. He passed his GED, and now he’s working as an oil rigger out in the gulf. I told him, don’t you go getting into trouble now: that there’s risky work. But he got all cocky on me—you know how kids are these days—and he says, they got foolproof systems, Pops, foolproof. World class tek-no-logy is what they’re about. That’s the way he said it: tek-no-logy. So he’s earning good money now.

He clasps my arm. I miss ya’ll! What are the boys up to? Cleaning up the Tally-ban? Connolly still got a chip on his shoulder about Frobenius? And what about Brandon Espinosa? Where’s he at?

The questions come a mile a minute, and I have to ask him to slow down. Connolly’s fine, I tell him. And the rest of the boys are doing good.

Does the lieutenant still do Tai Chi in the mornings?

I smile, remembering. He sure does, I reply.

We got the A-team, bro! he says with genuine pride in his voice. I love ya’ll. I follow the news every day, and not a day passes when I don’t say: damn, I shoulda been there! So I tell all the kids that come in here: you want meaning in life, you want a fucking sense of purpose, you better sign up.

I don’t know if it’s that simple, Gene. I glance meaningfully at his amputated leg, but he’s not paying attention. So I ask: But tell me—how’s Joe holdin’ up?

His face falls. I guess ya ain’t heard. He gone, bro.

Joe Woods? What you talkin’ about?

You know how he wanted to buy a shrimp boat after his discharge an’ all? He kept goin’ on and on about it and makin’ all these plans, and all the while he was hitting the jiggalate big-time, naw mean? Anyways, we had conversations. I had him by for dinner a couple of times. Millie was complainin’ about it—you know how he got no table manners at all—but I stood my ground and said: He’s coming by my house and that’s that, ’cuz I don’t care ’bout his fuckin’
manners, he’s my brother! Then I heard he was flippin’ tacos at some fast food joint for five-fifty an hour, and I made up my mind to go talk to him again. The next thing I know, I’m reading in the papers: Specialist Joseph Woods, a veteran of Operation Desert Storm, shot himself in the head following a struggle with depression.

It takes me a while to absorb this news. “Happy” Woods was the last person I’d have thought a likely candidate for suicide.

Mechanically, I say: He was a good man.

Damn right, bro. You recall how he got us all laughin’ when we was pinned down behind them berms near Bag-dad? Or the time he smuggled that chicken into Folsom’s tent? Always cool in a crisis, always got a smile on his face and a new joke coming up. But he changed when he got back; he changed big-time. And that was what I had in mind to tell him. I was gonna tell him to reenlist. I was gonna say: Happy, for guys like you, the army’s the best damn life a man can have. You get to see the world, you get respect, you get a reg’lar paycheck. You can even afford a swimming pool in the yard like First Sarn’t Whalen’s folks. But before I could get to him, he bailed out. The Armed Forces was his home, with the brothers standing shoulder to shoulder; but out here he went back to being homeless, naw mean? He had no one standing by him when the crunch came. And I guess, in the end, he just gave up. Steep slope down—with no traction to check the fall.

He bangs the top of the counter in frustration. It kills me, Marcus! We serve for love of the country, we serve so our brothers don’t have to go, we serve so them rich kids don’t have to go, but when we get back home …

He looks straight ahead, the lines of his mouth pulling down.

Anyways, don’t get me started. Millie says I’m becoming a boring old man. All I can say is, Happy musta been really down and out to find suicide an attractive proposition. VA failed him big-time, man. Anyone who volunteers to put his life on the line deserves to be treated better. It’s a question of respect, naw mean? Once you’ve fought and
bled with your fellow soldiers, it’s something you can’t explain to someone who ain’t been there. They simply don’t understand.

He rolls up his sleeve, balancing precariously on his crutches as he does. On his right arm, he’s got a new tattoo that reads:
ONCE A SOLDIER, ALWAYS A SOLDIER
.

Just then, a customer, a young white rasta with dreadlocks, who’s probably decided he’s heard more than enough of our conversation, storms out of the store, but not before giving us a dirty look.

I glance at Gene apologetically. I think I just lost you a customer.

He shrugs. Who, him? He’s soft, bro. He’s nothing like you and me.

He gives me a wry smile. You gotta be hard to love the blues.

Speaking of the blues, what you got for me this time?

Good stuff, bro, he says, good stuff. He moves swiftly on his crutches to a low shelf behind the counter. I bin savin’ up for you. Take a look at these babies. Rarities, all of ’em. Cost me a fortune, but what the hell: I’m in it for the chase as much as for the bucks.

He reaches down and brings out a stack of CDs and a couple of fragile old shellacs. Look at what I got. This right here is the beating heart of the U.S. o’ A.

With the air of a conjurer, he hands me the CDs one at a time:

Here’s Lightnin’ Hopkins, and Furry Lewis, and Blind Lemon Jefferson, and your favorite, old Mississippi John Hurt, then Johnnie Lee Hooker playin’ Henry’s Swing Club, Sleepy John Estes, Big Joe Williams, Honeyboy Edwards, Son House, Charley Patton.

I sift through his catch reverently.

These are the real deal, bro, he says. Legally intoxicatin’. He taps the Sleepy John CD. Now there’s a rarity. He’s a physician, naw mean? He use the blues fer healing …

They’re all rarities, Gene, I point out. I mean, you got me John Lee Hooker at Henry’s Swing Club! How many people got that? You done good, bro. You’re the ultimate. Now what about those shellacs?

He chuckles. I tell you, Marcus, the first time I laid my eyes on them, I got a lowdown shakin’ chill runnin’ up and down my back.

I examine the records and whistle softly. One’s a 1930s Paramount pressing of Blind Lemon Jefferson singing “Black Horse Blues.” The other’s even older: first and second takes of King Solomon Hill’s “Down on My Bended Knee.”

I place them on the counter with care.

Hot damn, I say quietly. I don’t know what to say.

Then my watch catches my eye, and I point to it regretfully. I gotta go, Gene. What do I owe you for these?

Lemme check your account from the last time.

He wets his thumb and pages through a fat ledger.

Then: Seems like I owe you ninety-three cents.

I shake my head and say: That can’t be right …

He’s already counting out the change. That’s what it says here, bro.

Fine, if that’s the way you want it, but what about these babies here?

They’re yours for free. Courtesy of the house. Excuse me?

Take ’em or leave ’em, Marcus; it’s up to you.

He puts the CDs and shellacs in a cardboard box.

I’m short of time right now, I tell him, but I’m gonna be back to pay for what I owe you, and you’d better be reasonable. ’Cuz I’m not acceptin’ any freebies.

Where you scurrying off in such a rush?

Where d’you think?

He smiles. Going by the Atchafalaya, huh? How’s the houseboat holdin’ up?

I say: I guess I’ll find out soon enough. I haven’t seen it since Camille repainted it, so I’m looking forward.

He grunts in approval. These Acadian gals! They work hard and they play hard. You got lucky, bro. She’s a charmer. Don’t mess this one up.

He comes with me to the car. You still driving Gracie?

I sure am. She’s a part of me.

He insists on closing the door after I get in. Tell Camille I said hello, he says. Millie keeps askin’ after her. I’ll tell her you stopped by. She prays for ya’ll every Sunday in church.

As I put on my Ray-Bans, he says, a trifle wistfully: If I don’t get to see you again, say hello to the boys for me.

I sure will, I say with a smile as I swing away from the curb.

On the way to the bridge, I pass under a giant guitar-shaped billboard that reads: “Buddy Guy, Son of Baton Rouge, Home of Delta Blues.” I pull up at a traffic light behind a blue Honda Civic hatchback with stickers plastered all over the back. As I wait for the light to change, my eyes run over their slogans: WICCAN WITH ATTITUDE;
War Is
NOT
the Answer
;
The Saints Kick Ass;
KEEP THE PLANET GREEN;
WHY IS OUR OIL UNDER THEIR
SAND?
Proud Mother of an Autistic Child;
BE VEGAN, SPARE ANIMALS; Back Off, I’m a Goddess; SAVE THE BAYOU; NO BLOOD FOR OIL;
Tree Hugging Dirt Worshipper; and finally,
Support Our Troops: Bring Them Home!

On the bridge over the Mississippi, a white pickup truck with a gun rack in the rear window and a Confederate flag over Alabama license plates changes lanes without warning and cuts me off. For an instant, I envisage putting the driver’s head in a lock and snapping his neck off his spine. Then I take a deep breath, turn on the radio, and lean back in the soft leather seat. Soon, a distinctively ebullient voice cuts through the traffic noise on I-10. It’s Baton Rouge’s cult radio DJ, its designated Ambassador of the Blues, Zia Tammami, who was born in Iraq but has been playing blues and jazz programs on local stations for more than thirty years. In fact, it was Zia’s legendary show
Spontaneous Combustion
that first hooked me onto the blues when I was a lonely teenager wanting to break away from the hip-hop pack. From there, I followed him to his Sunday morning show, which lasted four hours, and always included an hour-long blues segment, “Cool Cat’s Corner.” Listening to him now makes me feel like I’m home again in
more senses than one. I turn up the volume with a smile as I switch to the fast lane and hum along to Blind Lemon singing “See that My Grave’s Kept Clean.”

Forty minutes later, I’m pulling off the blacktop onto a mean little dirt road with brush overgrowing its sides. I turn off the ignition and simply sit there for a few minutes, getting the noise and confusion of the city out of my head. It’s hot and steamy in the shade. I’m close enough to the bayou to be able to sense Camille’s presence. I start the car and drive slowly along the familiar winding road toward the water’s edge, about a mile upstream from Camille’s houseboat. When I’m halfway there, I have to slow down to a standstill to give an old Cajun returning from his morning’s frogging some room to squeeze around the car. He stares suspiciously at the black man in the fancy car, but then, for some reason, he lets down his guard.

Ya bettuh watch aht, he says. Deah’s a gran’ beedey gapuh lyin’ up da road ’baht fiffy feet oh deahabahts rahnd da next ben’. He a mean ole crittuh: lashed aht at me an’ woulda gaht me good if Ah hadn’t scahmpuhd aht o’ da way. Ya toot dat hoahn an’ he’ll scoot, cuz he a capon, naw mean?

I don’t see the cottonmouth he warned me about, but I do come across a couple of piggies—harmless hognose snakes—sunning themselves in the middle of the road. They slither into the undergrowth as the car nears.

I park under a giant swamp willow, its trunk and swooning branches dressed in Spanish moss. There’s not much Spanish moss left in Baton Rouge or the surrounding areas owing to a plague that hit the region years ago, and I wonder how long it’s going to be before it wipes out what’s left in the swamps. I run my hands over the damp, soft strands and reflect on how different it is here from where I’ve been the rest of the year, on a different continent on the other side of the world. Overcome by a sudden sense of dislocation, I unload the car slowly, slide the tarp over it, and make my way with the hampers to the water’s edge. Once there, I aim a couple of sticks at the canoe,
and a bunch of frogs and a snoozing piggy evacuate in haste. Inside, in a characteristic combination of the romantic and the practical, I find that Camille has tucked a can of bug spray beneath a giant bouquet of magnolias, along with a card that says: “I Can’t Wait!” It makes me smile and helps me return to the present. I take my time carrying the hampers into the boat, along with the booze and the CDs. The shellacs I’ve left behind in the Chevelle.

Untying the canoe, I steer it into the stream. The muck lining the banks is pure Atchafalaya swamp, the consistency of chocolate pudding, neither water nor land. Tupelos hug the banks and march right into the stream while nearly horizontal willows brush the face of the water with low-lying branches. Rafts of water hyacinths surround me, along with duckweed that grows sparser as I move into deeper water. An egret takes off as I glide past and alights on the shaggy crown of an immense bald cypress; elsewhere, a great blue heron eyes me warily from the shadows. Everywhere I look, the vegetation is lush and green. I find the heady scent of the place impossible to define: it fills my lungs. Once more I realize how much I love this place, this wild and secret corner of the world that I was introduced to by my girl.