The following manuscript was found handwritten and partially charred in a safe in the estate of the late popular novelist, [name omitted]. It was accompanied by a bottle of Jim Beam and an article with no date from the Memphis Tribune dedicated to the lives of the newspaper’s then managing editor, [name omitted], and local blues player, [name omitted]. Names are the only thing that have been changed, and it is now released as a work of fiction.
Ignorance is Bliss / the Truth will set You Free
* * *
I remember back, way back, years ago, before I was famous. I remember it all. They say when you want to succeed as bad as you want to breathe, you will be successful. I am living proof. I wanted to succeed more than I wanted to breathe. More than life. More than I care to admit. Sure, I can’t speak as well as I once did—I lost most of my tongue quite a while back, and we’ll get to all that soon enough, trust me—but who can say they’re as verbally articulate in old age as they once were anyway?
Before the cameras and interviews and red carpet events, before the agents breaking down my door and national bestsellers and TV spots, before the fame and fortune and notoriety, I was just me. I was just Robert White, a freelance journalist traveling from town to town, city to city, up and down and back and forth across the country. The good ol U. S. of A. I was trying to make it big—or make it at all—and I was having a hell of a time doing it.
It was the late 90s, you see, and it was all up to me and only me. And, well, my old Lincoln Continental. She was beat up, used and abused, had mismatched parts, but with almost 200,000 hard-fought miles on her, she was still running… until she broke down and left me stranded in Memphis, Tennessee.
Memphis, a city of hurt and sorrow, of triumphs and underdogs, of battles well-fought and country-fried guitars well-strung. A city that you not only feel, but a city that feels you back. A city soaking up the thick filth of the Mississippi River and pushing out musicians on its muddy shores. The cross road for blues and country, where the crickets chirp and the frogs croak through the otherwise silent night, save for a distant guitar lick piercing like a hot breeze through the cool dark air. Same as that hot breeze blowing the sun into place to cook up and cultivate more rhythm and soul, until it once again sets over the Mississippi in a brilliant expanse of pink and orange and purple absolution that tells you: you’ve made it. Memphis, the birthplace of rock ’n roll. Memphis, no place you’d rather be.
It was one of those cool nights when the hot air lifted ever so slightly, and I didn’t feel so claustrophobic anymore, that I walked down the neatly lined bricks of Beale Street. Feeling nauseous from the barrage of neon lights and the sickening smells of sweet boozy drinks, I turned down a side street that could have passed as an alley. Lighting a smoke away from all the tourist activity, wondering if it was a good idea to come out at all, I heard a guitar like I had never heard before. It screamed and squealed and pulled me into some dark little blues bar halfway down the block. It was nothing more than a small hidden cut in the otherwise unbroken brick wall. No signs. No windows. Claustrophobia returned as I walked through the dirty, smoky little place, stuffy and hot.
The man on stage wore a white dress shirt with suspenders, his jacket wrapped around the chair on which he sat. With his big black hands he plucked and strummed and manhandled an old resonator guitar with seven strings, the guitar worn just like his suit and his hands and his face. Sweat trickled through the deep creases in his cheeks and around his eyes, like the tributaries of the Mississippi, or the cracks and crevices of its soil. His foot stomped madly, and his body jerked and jived in a way that seemed impossible unless controlled by invisible puppet strings tightened and loosened by an unseen force.
“Crow Jane, Crow Jane, don’t hold your head high,” howled from the bottom of his thick, dark throat. “Someday you got to know, baby, you got to die.” His voice—whiskey-soaked, rough yet clear—drenched with the pain of his ancestors, as well as decades of women and jobs won and lost. “You got to lie down and… you got to die, you got to…”
The tone of the slide guitar flashed like lightning in between his shouting and singing, stinging shrill when he fingered the glass slide into place, demonstrating complete mastery of the instrument as his hand jumped and vibrated, making the strings wail and waver in a high-pitched vibrato.
I made my way across the dingy, mostly empty room, and pulled up a seat at the bar.
“What’ll it be tonight, sir?” asked a young kid behind the bar.
“Jim Beam. Neat, please.”
“Coming right up.”
When he brought me my drink I was staring at the man on stage. “This guy’s incredible.”
“Yeah, he’s somethin,” said the kid.
“Somethin?” I said, “He’s more than somethin. He’s out of this world. He’s so… real. So… raw.”
“This is Memphis, sir.”
“What’s his name?”
“Tennessee Ted,” the kid said before he went to serve the only other guy at the bar.
Tennessee Ted jammed and slammed for another half hour, belting out tune after tune, blues and folk classics with such soul you’d swear he wrote them. The guy at the end of the bar, a forty-something year old man with balding gray hair and a gray sport coat, a burning cigar in one hand and a drink in the other, approached me.
“Enjoyin the show?” he asked in a Southern drawl.
“Absolutely—he’s fantastic.”
“Jimmy Watson,” he sat down and extended a hand. “Memphis Tribune.”
“Robert White.” I shook his hand. “Nice to meet you.”
“You’re not from ’round here, are ya?”
“No. How’d you know?”
“Your accent gives ya away. What brings ya down here to Memphis?”
“I was just passing through, but my car broke down and I’m stuck here until I figure it out. I brought it to a garage and it’s gonna cost more than I got to fix it. I was able to get a cheap rate on a room for a month with the money I had, so we’ll see what happens. You mentioned you work for the Tribune?”
“That I do,” Jimmy Watson said with a touch of pride, “managing editor.”
“No way,” I said, mostly drowned out by the thunder and lightning sounds of Tennessee Ted. “I’m a freelance journalist, do you have any openings? I’ve worked for a number of newspapers across the country.” Reporter-style writing wasn’t my favorite. So much of it is bland and exploitative—insight isn’t insightful if you force it on a regular basis—but I wasn’t going to let Jimmy Watson know that. My dream was to publish short stories and novels, but those kinds of things weren’t going to put my car on the road or food in my mouth, especially right then.
“Ok, Rob,” Jimmy Watson said, “Can I call ya Rob?”
“Of course.”
“I usually don’t do this, but it turns out I might have some work for a guy a little down on his luck,” he sipped his drink. “Write me a short sample column about Teddy Turner, and we’ll see how it goes.”
“Who’s Teddy Turner?”
Jimmy Watson puffed his cigar and pointed with his glass at the man on stage, hootin and hollerin and strummin and stompin.
“Tennessee Ted? I can do that.”
“Here’s the catch: Teddy plays every night. I mean every night. And I need ya to be at his show every night. Cover him the next three nights then bring me what ya got, and we’ll see if it’s any good.”
“You got it, Mr. Watson,” I said, again shaking his hand.
“Call me Jimmy,” he said, “And all right. I’ll introduce ya to him after he’s done here tonight. ’Til then, hows ’bout a shot?”
* * *
By the time Tennessee Ted wrapped up, it was half past late and I was half past drunk. Jimmy put his hands to his mouth and whistled in a sporadic sort of way, alternating between a high and a low tone. Women appeared from the dark corners of the bar as if fabricated from the shadows. They surrounded Ted. Looking around the room, Jimmy started when he glanced on stage.
“Shoot,” he said, “Let’s get in there before the ladies steal him for the night.”
I wobbled up to the stage behind Jimmy, trying not to step on his heels or fall over. Three women in high-cut jean shorts and tied-off tops swarmed Ted like bees to honey as he packed up his gear. One stroked his back and neck as she whispered in his ear. All I heard was Ted’s low, resonating voice reduced to a soft whisper, responding to the woman, “Ok, baby, ok. You know it. First we gotta get him outta here, honey.”
“The Great Tennessee Ted!”
“Who that?” Teddy snapped up, jutting a hand from his wet brow as he squinted out at us, blinded by the stage lights. I have never forgotten that twinkle, that shimmer I saw in Teddy’s eye. Not the right one—the other one. The one that left me speechless, thoughtless, whole. The one that left no question unanswered, that left one feeling right. The one that was left. He had only one eye.
“Jimmy Watson,” Jimmy climbed on stage. “Like ya to meet a friend’a mine. He’s gonna take a stab at covering you this week, see if he’s got what it takes to write fo the Tribune.”
“Where he at?” said Ted, still squinting and holding his hand at his bushy gray brow. I almost fell back as I climbed on stage, caught myself, and stood up clumsily.
“There he is,” said Ted, his one eye looking right at me.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ted. You are phenomenal up here, man.”
“It ain’t all what it seems,” he said. “Trust me, kid. It ain’t all what it seems…” The words penetrated with an ominous depth, the way he said them. I looked at Jimmy. He shrugged.
“Well, keep on rockin, Teddy,” said Jimmy. “Give the kid somethin to write about, all right?”
“Oh, he’ll have plenty to write about, Jimmy. You know that. You know that well, my man.”
“That I do. We’ll go head’n get outta ya hair now. Enjoy the night,” Jimmy glanced at the women surrounding Ted, “I’m sure ya will.” Jimmy smiled and fluttered his fingers at the women. “’Night, ladies.”
Ted let out a hearty bellow. It was like a cave opened up from another realm and cackled from the other side. “All right then, boys. You enjoy the night as well.” He gave Jimmy a bottle of Jim Beam, seemingly from nowhere. “Tomorrow, Robert, I’m playin at the Winchester. You know where that’s at?”
“I’ll find it. Looking forward to it.”
I hobbled off stage and out the door in an intoxicated stupor. The cool breeze was a welcome compliment after being submerged in the filthy-hot air of the grimy little dive bar for hours. The breeze carried the full, sweet scents of country cooking and a ghostly guitar riff from somewhere not too close, yet not too far away.
“All right then,” Jimmy said, handing me the bottle Ted gave him. “Hell of a night. On to work—ya start tomorrow. Make sure ya talk to Ted after the gig and find out where he’s playin next. Then, you hit that club, and the next one. And if you’re hired ya hit the next one, and so on and so forth.”
“You know it,” I slurred, “I’m ready to go. I’m your guy.”
An odd look came over his face. He half smirked from the corner of his mouth, and there was a strange glow in his eyes. He appeared both sinister and satisfied.
“Good,” he said, and we shook hands. I don’t know how I didn’t notice it the first time we shook, but Jimmy was missing the pinky on his right hand. He saw me looking at his hand and laughed. “That’s a funny story, maybe I’ll tell ya sometime. For now, I’ll tell ya that’s how I learned such a cool whistle. We’ll be in contact soon,” he said and took off down the dark street.
I stood still and thought for a moment. Even comforted by the warm fuzz of inebriation, something wasn’t sitting right with me.
“Wait, Jimmy,” I shouted. He stopped and turned around from halfway up the block while I jogged up to him.
“I just realized… how did Ted know my name? I didn’t say it and you didn’t say it but when we were leaving he—”
“Ahh—that’s just Ted, man. Just Ted. He’s a fascinatin guy. Mysterious fellow. Why d’ya think we got ya coverin him? Get ready, Rob,” he said as he walked away. “Prepare yaself. You fittin to see some wild stuff.”
* * *
Jimmy Watson wasn’t lying. The next few weeks I saw some wild stuff. Wild stuff indeed—though I wasn’t ready for it, and there was no way I could have prepared myself.
After the first three nights I submitted my sample to Jimmy and I got the job. I followed Ted all over town, covering him every night, from one hot, smoky, nearly empty little place to another. Jimmy wasn’t lying about Ted playing every night, either.
Ted played every single night.
And every single night he screamed and howled and wept on stage, peeling his flesh back to reveal his soul, much like a self-inflicted shotgun blast to the chest. Much like the wind outside screamed and howled and wept through the trees on those dirty Southern nights, from blackness to blackness, nothing to nothing, the only light falling from pinholes punctured in the thick night sky where it was too easy to get lost if the world fancied a meal and swallowed you whole. Same as the whiskey and the women who—at the end of every show, every night—forth from the shadows came, swallowing Ted, and Ted swallowing them, and all of them swallowing each other.
Ted didn’t seem to see the sun much. It was just how he appeared—sunless (moonless, even)—void of all light. Then again, I figured most of these musician types didn’t get out during the day often. Still, what did he do all day? What did he do all night for that matter? I never saw him come or go. He was always just there, like a silhouette, in solidarity with whatever little place he performed that evening, like an extension of the architecture itself.
One night, at Marilyn’s Place, I showed up early specifically to see Ted arrive. I took a seat to the left of the stage in the back and peered around at all the vacant tables. Head fixed toward the door, my eyes jumped back and forth from the entrance to my notes from the past few nights.
Doorway, notes. Doorway, then notes.
A couple people showed up and sat at the bar, looked over menus. A few more folks moseyed in for a hot meal with no interest in the performance that night. A group of three entered with music gear—two men and a woman in cowboy hats and boots, flannels and blue jeans. Time passed with no trace of Ted. I realized it had been a while when my third whiskey arrived, my eyes still focused between my notes and the entrance to the place the entire time.
A girl stepped on stage, checked the microphone and said, “Please welcome, everyone: The Great Tennessee Ted!” to a handful of lackluster applause.
Ted poked his head out from behind the stage curtain and said, “Excuse me, miss? May I please speak with you for a moment?” The girl disappeared behind the curtain. I jumped up and got as close as I could to the stage, leaning over closer toward the curtain to hear their conversation.
“Cassandra, right?” said Ted.
“That’s right. How did you know my—”
“That’s a pretty name, Cassandra. Makes sense for a pretty girl. Well, listen here, Cassandra. The thing is: I play last.”
“No, I’m sorry. Ted is it?”
“Yes, honey.”
“I’m sorry, Ted—but you’re opening for The Country Three. They came over from Nashville. It’s their show.”
“No—I’m sorry, honey. You see, it’s my show. It’s my show, Cassandra—and I play last. You see?”
A pause. It seemed as if all the air had been sucked out of the entire place for a few moments, a vacuum, the silence almost audible, palpable, it could be felt.
“You’re right, Ted,” said Cassandra. “You’re right. How did I mix that up? That’s my fault.”
“Oh, you fine, you fine, honey—but how ya doin?” Laughter rumbled from him low and real, like early tremors of an earthquake.
Cassandra returned to the stage through a flutter of the curtain and said into the microphone, “There’s been a mix-up, ladies and gentlemen. I do apologize. Please, welcome: The Country Three!”
The two men and the woman in matching outfits looked at each other in confusion. They got up and climbed on stage. One man and the woman talked to Cassandra while the other man stuck his head through the curtain.
There was a wet, swampy smell before I saw him. Like fresh mud, musty and damp. Ted was sitting next to me.
“What—where’d you come from, Ted?” I asked.
“Don’t you worry ’bout that none,” he said. “Here’s yo tip fo the night fo doin such fine work, Robert. Keep it up, kid.” He placed a bottle of Beam on the table and headed toward the stage. The man and the woman were getting louder with Cassandra, and I heard cursing and things being thrown around from behind the curtain. The other man threw the curtain back and joined them on stage, face red, hands on his hips.
“Ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen,” Ted climbed on stage, “What seems to be the problem?”
“This guy’s suppose’ta open for us,” the woman in the cowboy attire said, voice uneven, on the verge of shrieking, “and now he wants us to go on first. It’s our show—”
“Bethany, Bethany. Calm down, baby.”
“Hey, don’t you talk to her like that, ya—”
“Now don’t you say it, Michael,” Ted spoke calmly, time slowed. “I know what you was gonna say, but you ain’t gonna say it. We’re havin a good time here tonight. I know she’s ya girl, don’t worry ’bout that none. How was the drive? Gravy. I am Ted, boys and girls. And this is my show. I play last. Y’all understand now? I play last.” Ted smiled warmly at them and placed one large, weathered hand on Michael’s shoulder, the other on Bethany’s. “We clear here?”
There was that strange pause again, same as a few minutes prior when Ted was talking to Cassandra backstage. Like time froze, yet at the same time kept going forward. Like you could pluck a molecule out of thin air. The odd feeling evaporated, and the room returned to normal. It didn’t seem like anyone noticed but me.
“Yeah,” said Michael, “You’re right. Sorry ’bout that, Ted.”
“Don’t you worry ’bout a thing,” said Ted. “Now you go ’head ’n get yer gear ’set up.”
The Country Three played honky-tonk and bluegrass tunes for two hours while I drank the bottle Ted gave me and worked on his column for that week. At some point, Ted sat next to me again, reeking of moist soil, of moss and mold.
“Now, Robert,” he said, “You’ve been doin a fine job so far, a mighty fine job. Don’t you go mentionin what you saw here a little bit ago, ok? Or any of that other stuff you was gonna write about. Fo’git it, ok? You got plenty else to write about from my show, y’know?” Before I had a chance to respond he was up and gone again.
That night, Ted’s guitar howled and his foot jounced and his voice crooned, “One young man, Lord, in this town, keeps a’tellin his lies on me.” Sweat poured from his face, through his shirt, as he played harder, with more vigor. “Wish to my soul that young man would die, keep a’tellin his lies on me,” he went on, his energy rising, almost gyrating, hands becoming more intense on the strings and the neck of the guitar, tension building—and I kid you not: the head of his guitar caught fire. It was the wildest thing I had ever seen. I couldn’t explain it then—it’s still hard to explain now. But Ted had his eyes closed, unphased, and kept on singing and strumming and stomping, “Oh, babe, it ain’t no lie! Oh, babe, it ain’t no lie! Know this life I’m livin is very high.” As he finished the flames went out. No one said a word.
He took an easy breath, opened his eyes, and said, “Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. I am done fo the night. Catch me tomorrow night, ’round the corner at the Dragon’s Den. Thank you.”
Sure enough, the women who I had not seen the rest of the night appeared from nowhere as he packed up his things. I hopped on stage.
“Ted, how did you—”
“I don’t know, Robert. Must have been a hot tune.” The women surrounding him laughed. “You got that—tomorrow, right? Dragon’s Den ’round the corner.”
“Yeah, I got it, Ted, but—”
“But nothin, Robert. You ask too many questions. You might not like the answers. I see you tomorrow.”
Bewildered and frustrated I hopped off stage toward the door and hid in the shadows off to the side. I waited, watching.
“Sir, we’re closed, you have to leave,” Cassandra came up from my blindside.
“Oh, yeah, right, I was just on my way—”
“Yeah. Mhm. Ok. See ya next time,” she pushed me out the door and slammed it in my face. The dirty back-alley corners of Memphis were a strange place.
* * *
I headed straight to Jimmy Watson’s place with my new column.
“This is great,” Jimmy said, reading through my work.
I didn’t change a thing Ted asked me to change. It had it all: Ted’s unknown entrances, his nonexistent exits, the endless flow of women and whiskey materialized from thin air, his ability to easily talk his way to what he wanted, his guitar setting itself on fire while he continued playing without notice or care.
“What’s up with this guy, Jimmy?” I asked, “What’s going on here?”
“I don’t know,” he said, rereading my work.
“C’mon. You know more than you’re letting on.” I was doing my best to contain my irritation. “Give me something.”
“Honest, Rob. I don’t have anything for ya,” he said unevenly, unable to make eye contact with me as I stared him down.
I gave it a few moments of awkward silence and my irritation turned to anger. I ripped my column from his hands.
“Robert—what ya doin, my man?”
I said nothing and went for the door.
“Wait! Ok, just wait. I’ll tell ya what I know—which really ain’t much.” He went to the window, split the blinds with two fingers and peered out, cleared his throat, and sat back down.
“Ok—so Tennessee Ted, he use’ta be huge. ’Bout twenty, twenty-five years ago he toured the country with the likes of John Lee Hooker, B. B. King, guys like that. He fizzled out after a few years on top and came back home here to Memphis. No one knows how or why. But he still plays every night, even though there’s never hardly no one at his gigs. I was hopin you’d get to the bottom of the story. Take out the heart and lungs, carve up the guts, y’know?”
“Why don’t you do the story if you want it so badly?”
“I need fresh eyes on it,” he said in the same uneven tone as before. “I’m burnt out on it—too close to it.” Again, he wouldn’t make eye contact with me.
Again, I gave it a few moments. Instead of anger, I felt fatigue. “That is such bullshit, Jimmy.” Again, I went for the door.
“Wait!” he said. “Hold on. Ok, all right,” he took a gulp of his whiskey, paused for a moment while he let it burn down his throat into his stomach. “The reason I couldn’t do it anymore is because he started to drive me… umm… a little batty.”
“So you thought you’d push it off on me?”
“No, Robert—it’s not like that. Let me finish. He started to drive me nuts because he asked me not to put certain things in the column. The shadow girls and mysterious drinks. The way he effortlessly talks his way in and out of things. No one ever sees him show up or leave. And for some reason, I couldn’t. Even when I managed to write about all that stuff, I couldn’t publish it. I don’t know why. I’d lose my handwritten draft on the way to the office, or the print would come out smudged only in Ted’s column, or I’d pass out drunk and the paper would already be out before I woke up. Something… something wouldn’t allow me to. Something held me back. I think you, being an outside source, I think when you write about it, I can. I think you’re far enough removed, unaffected by whatever it is that surrounds Ted. With this column here,” he gently takes my writing back from my hands, “we will see.”
As unbelievable as it was, I believed it. Jimmy Watson knew I did too, by the way I took a deep breath, sat down, poured myself a drink, took a swig, looked him in his eyes and said, “Jimmy—I want a raise.”
* * *
The next night at the Dragon’s Den, I stepped from the stuffy environment inside out into the cool air outside to double check I was at the right place. I was. Stepping back inside, the thick, smoky air crawled all over me, enveloped me heavier than ever, as I gazed in wonder at a hundred bodies crammed into the seedy little place, like warm beers stuffed into an alcoholic’s trunk, or sinners forced into a remote little pocket of Hell.
Ted made his way through the dense crowd and thick air—so thick you could almost see it—and up to me with a draft of dry graveyard dirt, like the inside of a thousand-year-old tomb. He was wearing his normal attire—worn navy blue jacket and slacks, white dress shirt and suspenders—but instead of his usual warm smile and demeanor he was cold and blank. He didn’t look angry, but him appearing joyless was enough to send a chill down my spine.
“Robert,” he said, “Robert, why you write that story ’bout me?” he asked sweetly, with a tinge of sorrow. “Those things ain’t true, Robert—why you do it?”
“I was just doing my job, Ted,” I said, feeling slightly remorseful.
“Robert, I liked you. You weren’t like all those other journalists who make a living off sensationalizing the truth. That’s not how you gonna make it, Robert. That’s not it at all.”
“But all these people are here to see you, Ted. Why wouldn’t you be—”
“Listen, Robert. I’ve been famous. I have. I gave it up ’cause people like you wouldn’t leave me alone. These people ain’t here for the music, they here to see a magic show. I ain’t no magician, Robert. They don’t care none ’bout the music and I don’t care none ’bout them. I thought we was friends, Robert. If you wanted to get big I coulda helped you, you didn’t have to lie on me.”
“Ted, you and I both know I didn’t lie—”
“I’m old, Robert. I don’t want the spotlight no mo. If I did, I’d have it. Not from writers like you and your delusions. You’ve attracted attention to the wrong thing, Robert. No whiskey for you tonight, I want you to see clearly how you gonna disappoint all these people.”
“But, Ted—” flew from my mouth. He was already moving back through the thick crowd and heavy air.
His earnest sermon was convincing, but I knew what I had seen all those nights whether under the skew of the drink or not. The energy in the club was electric. Ted might have felt he was done sharing his gift with the world, but in a way, wasn’t that a bit selfish of him? I thought so. He didn’t know for sure all those people were only there for his theatrics, for his “magic show,” and didn’t they deserve to witness the man’s unbelievable musical talent and prowess the way I had? Little did any of us know that that night would go down in infamy for anything but music. Me and those hundred or so others were going to lay witness to one of the greatest tricks of all time—though I’d be the only one to know, and it wouldn’t be until long after.
The entire place smelled bastardized. I know that sounds crazy, but I don’t know how else to put it. Through the pungent odor of the thick cigar and cigarette smoke and liquor and sweat there was something underneath it all. Punching through. Unusual and otherworldly. Dank and dark.
Ted trudged up on stage unnoticed, and with no introduction he began doing his thing. It almost seemed like he had no choice—like he had to play against his will. He was reluctant, but he wasn’t capable of playing poorly—it simply wasn’t possible. I think even if he wanted to, it was not a viable option for him.
The crowd was torn. After a few songs, half seemed mesmerized by the way he played and sang, the other half became restless. I suppose Ted was right, they wanted a magic show, not music. The crowd began to get rowdy, half of them displeased about what they felt entitled to based on my column, the other half defending Ted and what he was doing onstage.
“I went to the cross road, fell down on my knees,” Ted crooned over the stinging lightning sound and devilish rhythm of his guitar. “I went to the cross road, fell down on my knees.”
The half of the crowd unhappy with the performance began booing and shouting and causing a ruckus—getting up from their seats, sliding chairs and stools around, disrupting the other people and distracting from the show.
“Asked the Lord above, ‘Have mercy now, save poor Bob if you please,’” Ted carried on, eyes closed, in another world, unphased.
The half of the crowd Ted had won over with his first few songs began physically engaging with the other half acting wild and disorderly. Fights broke out. Men threw each other over tables, slammed each other into the bar, punched and kicked and swung pool sticks in the packed little place.
“Standin at the cross road, baby, risin sun goin down,” Ted sang. He didn’t seem to notice the brouhaha that broke out at all. “Standin at the cross road, baby, risin sun goin down—I believe to my soul, now, poor Bob is sinkin down.”
As I stared at the entire scene in awe—not knowing what to do, too shocked by the whole thing to do anything even if I did—Jimmy Watson burst in through the side door of the club. People were breaking beer and liquor bottles, throwing chairs—it was full blown melee, pure pandemonium.
“You can run, you can run, tell my friend Willie Brown.”
Jimmy put his hands to his mouth and emitted his sporadic high-n-low toned whistle. No one noticed with all the commotion. I saw Jimmy pull a pistol from under his jacket. The stage lights gleamed and glimmered off the chrome barrel. He broke through the brawling crowd and headed straight for the stage.
“You can run, you can run, tell my friend Willie Brown.”
“No,” I yelled. I became unstuck from my stupor. “Jimmy!” I tried to make my way through the chaos.
“I believe it to my soul, now, poor Bob is sinkin down.”
These were Ted’s last words.
There was no more singing. No more guitar. No more fighting. Only the bangbangbangbang of Jimmy’s gun. He was onstage and blowing Ted away at point blank range. Everything moved in slow motion in front of me, like something from a movie. It was silent.
Half the crowd scrambled for the exits, the other half scrambled for the stage. The cops were already bursting through the doors as the staff had notified them well before the gunshots rang out, to get control of the physical war that had broken out in the bar.
I slipped and tripped over broken glass and spilled drinks and busted furniture and bodies, trying to get to the stage. Trying to get to Ted. It seemed like he was 30 miles away. There were so many cops and people crowding around the stage panicking I couldn’t see a thing.
When I finally got to the stage, Ted nor Jimmy were anywhere to be found.
“Where are they?” I yelled. “Where’s Ted, where’s Jimmy?”
“Back off, kid,” one of the cops grabbed me. “This is a crime scene, get the hell outta here.”
“That was my boss and my friend,” I shouted as I was carried away. “Where are they?”
“The man on stage was dead on the spot,” the cop said as he was joined by two others to restrain me and carry me out.
“The man who shot him is already downtown,” said one of the others. “It’s not a mystery, there are plenty of witnesses.”
“Go home, kid,” said the third cop as they dumped me hard on the concrete outside the club. “Show’s over—nothing to see here.”
* * *
I went down to the police station that night but they wouldn’t let me see Jimmy. They said to come back in the morning though it was unlikely any contact would be granted given the severity of the charges against him.
I checked every hospital in the city and there was no sign of a Ted, Teddy, or Theodore Turner. It was summer in Memphis and the hospitals had their hands full with all types of things and could provide no information as there was no one at any of them under that name—and they politely let me know the door through which I could leave, please and thank you, unless I wished to be escorted by security and handcuffed and taken to the station, this time to see it from the inside.
Part of me thought for a moment that if I caused a scene and was arrested I’d be thrown in jail with Jimmy, and could ask him what the hell was wrong with him? What was he thinking? Why did he kill Ted? I thought against it as being behind bars was the last thing I needed right then—especially as a transient out-of-stater with little cash and no local connections besides a murderer and the man he murdered. For months after though, I wished I had gone to jail that night. I wished I had taken the chance to talk to Jimmy one last time.
The next morning when I went to the station they told me that, at some point in the night, Jimmy Watson had hanged himself in his cell. I was in disbelief. Complete shock. My mind reeled and I felt like I was going to puke right there on their shiny linoleum floor.
“What do you mean? How does this happen? Aren’t there guards? Don’t you take their belts and shoelaces?”
“Kid—we’re really sorry. We are. Unfortunately, these things happen more often than you think. A lot of guys on a murder or manslaughter charge take their own life before we can stop them. Some out of guilt, some to avoid consequences, some because they’re mentally unwell—or a mix of all three. Again, kid—we’re sorry.”
There were no services for Jimmy or Ted—although there was a short write-up dedicated to them both in the Tribune—and that seemed to be it. I was at my wits’ end and there was nothing to do but get the hell out of Memphis—get as far away as I could, and the farther the better. My month was up on my room and I had made enough money from the newspaper over those few weeks to fix my car and head back North. I had seen some strange things in my travels, but nothing quite like that. I decided I’d unwind back in my small hometown of Lockport, New York for a while, try to process the whole thing, figure out my next move. Maybe give up the dream of making a living as a writer and grow up and get a real job. No matter what was next, I had to sit still and collect myself for a bit. Work through those bizarre events I was so close to.
The idea hit me on the drive back to New York: this was my story. It was right in front of me. This would be the finest piece of journalism I had done yet—this might get me somewhere. I could work it into a novel of sorts à la “In Cold Blood” and get on the map. I pulled out my tape recorder, hit the red button, and spoke the whole way home. I don’t think I took a breath. When I got back to town I had just enough money left to rent a cheap studio apartment on Genesee Street. I signed a one-year lease and got to work.
There was only one problem: I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t write. At first I attributed it to writer’s block. I needed more time away from the whole thing—it was still so recent, too soon after the entire tragedy. But after a month I could no longer justify that excuse. I began to put pen to paper but none of it made sense. I could get bits and pieces down, but it wasn’t any good, it just wasn’t right. As time passed I couldn’t remember the events as they were, everything was foggy as if it hadn’t happened at all. My voice recorder only played back static and distorted sounds like the tape had been melted in a fire or mutilated in some other fashion. My frustration led to discouragement which led to obsession in a torturous cycle of insanity. Why could I not just let it go? I had taken a job stocking the local grocery store overnight and at that point had been home and working and attempting the project for nine months. When I asked for a week off to get out of town, to take a little road trip, it was granted. I geared up and headed east on I-90. Whether my destination was New York City or the Atlantic coastline up in Maine I wasn’t certain—and it didn’t matter, because I’d never get to either place. My whole life changed about halfway down the line, near the dead center, the heart of New York State.
* * *
My first night on the road, a little past the Finger Lakes—just after Syracuse but before the Adirondacks—I started to grow weary behind the wheel. I pulled off at the Oneida exit and began looking for a room. It wasn’t summer yet, but the wood was thick and dark, and the night was unseasonably hot and humid. The way it felt almost took me back to Memphis, but I didn’t need my mind going there, especially late at night on those unfamiliar back roads and state routes alone.
As I cruised with my windows down looking for any kind of motel or inn lights still showing “VACANCY,” I heard it. I could never mistake that sound. It was in the distance—a whisper, an echo—but I had never been so sure of anything in my life. It was the flash lightning sounds of Teddy Turner’s guitar, and the crooning holler of his old gravelly voice.
I couldn’t make out the song, but I knew it was him. I never forgot the first time I heard him almost a year prior, how it was like nothing else I had ever heard, and I knew what I was hearing then. I was somewhere near Sylvan Beach on Oneida Lake.
I followed the sound through the thick darkness—hotter, stuffier by the moment—toward the direction it came from as the blood pounded through my body. The song carried on a light breeze through the trees and became clearer as I headed toward it.
“Early this mornin, when you knocked upon my door.” Ted’s words became decipherable. His string picking and plucking in between his singing told the story perhaps even more so than the lyrics. “Early this morning—ooh—when you knocked upon my door.” I made a left down a dirt road into the woods. My hands were trembling and I felt a pit in the bottom of my stomach, but I was attracted to the sound like a moth to a flame. Like I had no choice in the matter. Like my freewill had abandoned ship and the bubbles which rose to the surface from its plummet spelled out: “fate.”
“When you knocked upon my door, and I said, ‘Hello, Satan, I believe it’s time to go.’”
Every feeling, impulse—every neuron—in my body told me to turn back. And trust me, I would have had I been in control, no doubt about it, but I was being pulled along a cosmic string, locked in a train on only one track and it was no longer up to me, not one bit. It was the strangest sensation: to be terrified out of my mind, driving through the woods in the dark in parts unknown, toward the menacing and unsettling song of a man I watched get shot and killed in front of me, heading closer to the sound like I was an observer through someone else’s body that was not my own.
“You may bury my body, down by the highway side,” Ted went on. “Baby—I don’t care where you bury my body, when I’m dead and gone.”
A small cabin appeared. Just the outline. Barely visible, blending in with the dark etchings of the trees. The cabin was on the lake. The water stood completely still behind it—not the slightest ripple—only a deep, thick black.
“You may bury my body—ooh—down by the highway side.”
I parked and stared at the cabin. How can this be? I thought. How can I be in the woods in the dark in the middle of nowhere listening to the song of a dead man? There’s no way, I told myself. This must be a dream.
Yet I looked at my hands death-gripping the steering wheel, the beams of my headlights on the cabin, the soft glowing flicker of candles inside through the window, and it was all too clear. I was awake and it was reality.
“So my old evil spirit, can get a Greyhound bus and ride.” Ted played one of his agony-laden guitar licks the way only he can, and ended the song. There was a low round of applause, some hootin and hollerin, and a whistle that froze me down through my spine. It was a whistle specific to only one man. The strange whistle one learns when one has only one pinky. The whistle of Jimmy Watson.
There’s no way I could have gotten out of my car and approached that door if it weren’t for this seemingly predestined force that had a grip on me. I wish I could tell you different—that I had the biggest set on earth, that I charged up to the door guns blazing, asking what the hell was going on—alas, I simply cannot. I would have never gotten near that place if it were up to me—I would have turned around and driven away from the sounds of Ted as fast as I could as soon as I heard them if it were possible—even if it haunted me for the rest of my days, even if it permeated my nightmares for the rest of my nights. Yet there I was, up the few steps to the door.
I knocked. There was a hushed yet excited, “He’s here,” from a woman’s voice I couldn’t distinguish amongst the other chatter.
Ted said, “Yes, yes, hon—’course he is.”
The door opened. “Welcome, Rob.” It was Jimmy Watson in his gray sport coat with his balding head, extending his pinky-less right hand, smiling like a dear old pal. I took his hand and stepped inside, mouth agape, too shocked to speak. We both threw an arm out and pulled each other in, and he was solid—he was real.
The room was filled with thick smoke and candlelight. Firewood cracked in the flames of the fireplace. I noticed Cassandra—the hostess from Marilyn’s Place—as well as the players from The Country Three, other folks I had seen around Memphis but did not know, and others I had never seen at all. Various ages, races, fashions—they appeared to be from different times. Yet, somehow, they all fit. Ted sat in the corner laughing with his guitar next to him—that old worn resonator with seven strings—and a woman on his lap. His shadow danced on the cabin wall behind him as he threw his head back and howled in the candlelight. He slapped his right hand on his free knee then reached for his whiskey on the table next to him and took a sip.
Other than Jimmy, no one acknowledged my arrival. Through the door I swore I heard Ted and the woman discuss me, but that seemed unlikely the way everyone engaged in the gathering, loose and natural. Jimmy placed a Jim Beam neat in my hand and we moved through the party. I still had no ability to speak, which was infuriating with the way my mind was racing. My hearing went in and out as I was pulled along an automatic track. I noticed everyone seemed to be missing a body part, a piece of flesh. A woman pushed her hair back behind a stump of an ear. A man held a coupe glass between his fingers, it rested in his palm, unable to grasp the stem without a thumb. I thought another woman kept winking at me until I realized she had only one eyelid. Some of them weren’t missing anything, it seemed—though I didn’t want to imagine what hid beneath their clothes.
We circled the room and approached Ted. The woman got up from his lap. Ted stood up and said, “Rob, Rob—so good to see you, my man. I know you must be confused. Come on up to the loft with me ’n Jimmy and we’ll fill you right in.” Ted led the way with Jimmy in tow. I followed them up the stairs.
The loft was dimly lit—the only light was what was able to join us from the fireplace and the candles below. It was a standard length set of stairs up to a second floor of normal height, but looking down on the party it felt we were so much higher. No—we felt lower somehow, like we were below the party looking up at it, though it was clear we were above looking down. The perspective seemed to shift, like an interdimensional elevator, a real-life optical illusion. We stood at the edge of the loft with our elbows on the banister like three old friends. We were silent, just watching, for what seemed like an eternity. No sound but the flickering of flames. The people of the party were inaudible. Finally, I was able to speak.
“What is this?”
“Thought you’d never ask,” said Ted. “This is where we drink and sing and be merry.”
“What happened to you guys back in Memphis?”
“Surely you understand theatrics, don’t you, Rob?” Ted said. He turned away from us and made a small loop around the loft. “You love to write about it. And, after all,” he turned back to us with the face of a young man, staring dead through my chest, “we do share a name.”
He wore a double-breasted black pinstripe suit and tie. His stare, his eyes—two now—his face, I had seen it before. His gaze tore through my torso and rummaged through my brain. It was that of an old blues singer, one of whom there was only one known photograph. An original member of “The 27 Club.” One rumored to have sold his soul to the…
“That’s right,” Ted said as he crept toward me with a toothy grin. “I’m Robert Johnson, purveyor of the cross road blues—and this here is Willie Brown, my mentor and best friend.”
I looked at Jimmy and his face had changed too. He looked older and his complexion had gone from white to black.
“It’s true, Rob,” Jimmy—no, Willie—said. “Better believe it.”
“Listen, Rob—we liked ya, we really did. That’s why we gave ya a chance to get away. These people here,” Robert Johnson never looked away from me with that face—those eyes, “they made a sacrifice, one way or another. Though not nearly like the sacrifice we made all those years ago. Y’know, when you play the blues at midnight at the cross road, ya just might meet some interesting people.”
“The literal cross road thing is a sham,” Willie Brown said. “That Robert went to the cross road and sold his soul to the Devil to play guitar. It’s been augmented over the better part of a century. It’s close, but not quite there, and it gives us a chuckle.” Neither of them laughed. “Robert and I played ‘a-cross’ from each other in the cemetery. I was teaching him guitar. Amongst the groves. In the middle of the night so no one would know. But an interesting fellow did appear.”
“He took us down Satan Street,” Robert Johnson said. “He gave us our deepest desires in turn for a curse. And a couple other things.” He winked at me with his eye that was no longer missing and motioned toward Willie Brown who had his hand up, wiggling the pinky of his right hand.
“He damned us to Hell when we die,” Robert Johnson went on. “What he didn’t tell us is we can’t die—not really—and this is Hell. I gotta tell ya, Rob—you live long enough, even death starts to sound good. Real good.”
“Robert was cursed to play every night after the deal, whether he liked it or not. And I was cursed to write about him every night, whether I liked it or not. We both were famous at different times, that’s what we got out of it. But it gets old, man. And another part of the curse—we have never been able to tell our true story. It became maddening. We thought you were a loophole, Rob. We thought you were our way out. The way I passed the writing on to you. How you were unaffected by Robert’s charms like all the others who got close to him. And we believed if we died within the perception of your pure light, we could finally leave this earth and this curse and meet him where he resides, on his turf, give him a little ‘what for,’ ya hear?”
“The Devil is real,” Robert Johnson said. “Take it from us. All these other players ain’t playin to keep themselves from cryin. They don’t know pain, agony, torture. We don’t sleep. We just drink and play and screw and do it all over and over and over, again and again and again.” He reached his hands to his head. “Did you really think this life was it? No, boy. Far from it. Consider this a written confirmation from God—or Satan—Themself. There is more—so much more—and it can get dark, boy. Dark beyond your wildest imagination.”
I was at a complete and utter loss. There was no possible way to respond to any of what they were saying. I’d never believe it if I wasn’t there. But when it’s happening in front of you, when you know what you’re seeing and hearing and feeling is real, you believe. Believe me, you do.
“We tried to spare you from all of this, but you couldn’t let the story go,” Willie Brown said. “You couldn’t let it be. And now you can’t even write about it, can you? And something else has led you back to us. These things are beyond us. We are only cogs in the Great Machine. Conduits for the powers that be.”
“So here’s what’s gonna happen, Mr. Rob White,” said Robert Johnson. “Here’s what’s gonna go down.” He adjusted his tie. “These people below ain’t like us, not exactly. We’ve had to do this trick too many times to count—different names, different places, different faces—always hoping it will end. We are forced to take their souls and pass them along when they get too close to the truth—along with a sacrifice of the flesh—and in turn they get something they want. Fame or fortune or love or a child, a dead family member back, you name it. Thing is: they retain their right to die, and we still cannot. Oh, what we’d give…”
“Remember,” Willie Brown said, “you don’t want to be some journalist, some reporter, regurgitating other people’s bullshit. You want to be a real writer.”
“And we wanna help you,” Robert Johnson said. “But one day, before you die—you lucky son of a bitch—you gotta try one more time to tell our story. Maybe, just maybe, it will work. Write it for yourself, leave it in a safe somewhere with some other possessions, the combination in your will. It doesn’t matter how long it takes. Trust me, we’re not going anywhere, we’ve got the time. And maybe, just maybe, it sets us free. Who knows? Doesn’t hurt to try. I mean, you weren’t supposed to find us—yet here you are.”
I felt my voice return. I felt in control of my own decisions—my own body—once again. I stood there of my own volition and listened. I trusted them. They were my friends.
“We can let you leave this cabin, get in your car, drive off in the night, and tell yourself none of this ever happened,” Robert Johnson said. “In time it will seem as if it never did. But you’ll never be able to write your story—our story. Or,” he extended his hand, peering deep into my eyes, into my soul, “what do you say, Mr. Rob White?”
The fire and the candles went out.
No light.
It was pitch black.
Blue hot, red cold.
“Do you want to make a deal?”
Ghost Town Theatre 