Death of a Blues Angel

Death of a Blues Angel by Sarah Black Aspen Mountain Press www.aspenmountainpress.com Copyright ©2007 by Sarah Black ...

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Death of a Blues Angel by Sarah Black

Aspen Mountain Press www.aspenmountainpress.com

Copyright ©2007 by Sarah Black First published in 2007, 2007 NOTICE: This eBook is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution to any person via email, floppy disk, network, print out, or any other means is a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines and/or imprisonment. This notice overrides the Adobe Reader permissions which are erroneous. This eBook cannot be legally lent or given to others. This eBook is displayed using 100% recycled electrons.

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WARNING This e-Book contains material that may be objectionable to some: sexually graphic scenes, violence, racial prejudice. Store your e-Books carefully where they cannot be accessed by underage readers.

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Death of a Blues Angel Sarah Black Aspen Mountain Press

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Death of a Blues Angel Copyright© 2007 by Sarah Black This e-Book is a work of fiction. While references may be made to actual places or events, the names, characters, incidents, and locations within are from the author's imagination and are not a resemblance to actual living or dead persons, businesses, or events. Any similarity is coincidental. Aspen Mountain Press PO Box 473543 Aurora CO 80047 www.AspenMountainPress.com Published by Aspen Mountain Press, December 2007 This e-book is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution via any means is illegal and a violation of International Copyright Law, subject to criminal prosecution and upon conviction fines and/or imprisonment. The e-Book cannot be legally loaned or given to others. No part of this e-Book can be shared or reproduced without the express permission of the publisher. ISBN: 978-1-60168-079-2 Published in the United States of America Editor: Maura Anderson Cover artist: Jinger Heaston

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Death of a Blues Angel Leona Washington was going to die tonight, and there was no question she deserved it. He opened and closed his hands, trying to work the stiffness out of the joints. His knuckles were swollen and he'd started to lose feeling in his fingers. He was old, weak, and his fingers had nearly forgotten how to play a blues guitar. But they hadn't forgotten how to thumbcock a pistol. He traced the warm metal until he felt the trigger, wrapped two fingers around it to make sure that he could do the job. The gun smelled good, a trace of machine oil and some old, burned smell, like brimstone. He reached for the sheet and pulled it back, felt Leona's body, her smooth young belly, skin softer than anything his hands had felt in years, maybe ever. She didn't move—too drunk and fucked out. The brimstone smell was stronger now, and he smelled Teacher's whiskey and semen on her body. She smelled the way a blues angel smelled, trouble of every kind that waited for a man. He pressed the barrel of the gun between her breasts. She was going to hell; he was going to send her there. He would be dead himself before long, and it gave him a bit of comfort to think that Leona's first few days in hell would be made worse, knowing he was coming. ****

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"Deke, listen. Can I ask you something?" Bruce Charters leaned so far back that his office chair let out a squeak of alarm. "Why are you being such an asshole? You know I got a bunch of hungry journalists out there who would love to get sent into a blues club with instructions to hang around with the musicians and listen to their music." Deke stood up, paced off a stiff figure eight between a couple of visitor's chairs. Bruce stared at him, his eyes narrowed. "Mr. Charters, I'm ... naturally I'm happy to have any opportunity..." Bruce's eyebrows flew up. "But this is ridiculous! It's 1966, Bruce. It's Christmas, 1966, and we've nearly torn ourselves to pieces this last year. Mississippi is in flames, and people are having police dogs set on them by men in uniform, wearing badges! Dogs and fire hoses, Chicago's been torched, so has Atlanta, cities burning and crazy kids with guns and sticks looting everything that isn't tied down. And sickos are popping up everywhere, strangling student nurses and climbing towers in Texas! But Mississippi, man, God knows what's happening down there. If nobody's looking..." Bruce sat forward, folded his hands on the desk, and let his handsome face assume a look of exaggerated patience. "What? No way! Trouble in Mississippi! I bet it's a race thing. You must be one of those Black Freedom Riders." Deke stopped and stared at him. Of course he was a Freedom Rider, and Bruce Charters would know that because he had sent him to Mississippi on assignment with the Freedom Riders twice this last year. And twice the year before. 7


Deke sat down and shut up. Bruce waited a moment, then unfolded his hands and put them flat against the surface of the desk. "You are one of my best photojournalists. And yes, there is a lot of very bad news coming out of Mississippi. So here's some good news—a new bluesman, a guitar player and singer, brought up here by three of the grand old men of the Delta Blues. A white guy. Black guys and white guys, coming together through music. It's a good story for Christmas." Deke felt his lip curl into a sneer, but Bruce held up his hand. "His name is Rafael Hurt. You go interview him and take his picture down at the Blues Angel like a good reporter. Interview the old men who brought him up here." He hesitated. "You don't recognize his name?" Deke thought about it. Rafael Hurt? He shrugged and shook his head. "Well, I guess you don't know as much as you think you do about Mississippi, now do you? And don't take this the wrong way or anything, Deke, but it's Christmas and it's not like you have anything else to do." **** The Blues Angel was a seedy little dive from the outside, gray metal door off an alley in the black part of downtown, but when you pushed the doors open against the grit and wind, the club smelled like a little bit of Mississippi, transplanted to DC. There was a pot of collards cooking somewhere, and fatback frying in an iron skillet, and old men with Delta voices were talking and laughing, bottles and glasses clinking on a tabletop. Bluesmen were famous for letting the pain out with 8


the help of a little corn whiskey, and he heard the whine of a harmonica, somebody fingerpicking a guitar, then the low, sexy sound of a bottleneck slide. Deke walked past the bar, and the battered tables with the chairs turned upside down on top. There was a bunch of old men back there next to the stage. A woman in a flowered dress, an apron tied around her ample waist, was giving them a what-for. "Put that moonshine away, you want some supper. Blind Pete's been sniffing at the kitchen door for an hour." "Maybe he's not sniffing at the greens, girl," and the old men cackled and slapped the tabletop. The man who had spoken was missing both his front teeth, and the woman swiped at his head. "Don't you talk to me like that, Blue Otis. I've a mind to give your ham to the dogs." The white boy set down his guitar. "We're clearing the table right now, Mama Rose. Just everybody get your napkins tucked under your chins. You don't want to be spilling gravy down those fancy silk shirts." This must be Rafael Hurt, and he looked like an angel, so young and pretty and so out of place in this company of dark old men that Deke took a step back into the shadows to watch. His skin glowed like a pearl. His hair was that silver-white color that most boys outgrew about age five, and he'd let it grow long and shaggy, like one of the Beatles. He was passing out napkins to the old men now. One of the men was wearing dark glasses, with a white cane hooked on the arm of his chair. The boy tucked his napkin up under his chin, spread 9


it out to cover his shirt. Rafael looked up suddenly, straight to where Deke was standing in the shadows, and the wild blue of his eyes hit Deke like a punch in the stomach. "Mama Rose, looks like you got some company." Then he handed the third old man his napkin and went to stand behind his own chair. The woman was sliding plates onto the table, huge fried ham steaks, mashed potatoes and gravy, and big steaming piles of greens. She looked up sharply and Deke stepped forward, holding his bulky camera and press card. He hoped that she couldn't tell he was nearly drooling on the floor at the smell of her food. "We're not open yet, son," she said. "Ma'am? Are you Sally-Rose Johnson? I'm Deacon Davis with the Washington Post. My editor sent me for a story." He knew he didn't sound very enthusiastic. The third old man picked up his fork. "Rafe, sit down and eat." He pointed his fork at Deke. "Come on over here, pull up a chair and have some supper. Bruce Charters sent you?" Sally-Rose raised her eyebrows and went back into the kitchen, and Deke pulled up a chair, waited for the white guy to scoot over and make room for him. This third old man seemed to be the one in charge. Somebody had made a real effort to bring some Christmas spirit into the club, with fat, colored light bulbs strung around the door frames and a cornhusk angel floating in each window. Deke noticed that the husk faces were darkened with coffee, and they were hanging by a string taped to the window frame. Grim. He wasn't really feeling the Christmas spirit. 10


The fat man with the dark glasses sprinkled the hot pepper vinegar over his greens, then he passed the bottle to Deke. He had the tip of one finger near the edge of his plate, and that's probably how he felt where the greens were. Deke didn't realize he was staring until the white boy, what was his name, Rafe? Rafael? cleared his throat. "You gonna use that?" Deke sprinkled some vinegar, passed the bottle, and had the first delicious forkful in his mouth when Sally-Rose stood next to the table, folded her hands at her breast, and began the prayer. "Praise Jesus, and we thank you for this food and our family, together..." Rafael slid those blue eyes his way, his face too innocent, then he dropped his eyes to his plate and folded his hands until they all said Amen, and Deke could swallow. Blind Pete was already on his second plateful before Deke was able to drag his attention away from his food to a little disagreement brewing at the table. "Uncle Jimmy, I don't think it's a good idea. And I don't want that kind of attention. He's not a bluesman. Look at those soft hands. I bet he's never even picked up a guitar." Deke looked up and they were all staring at him. He put his hands in his lap. "Uh, no, I'm not a musician. I'm a reporter. And a photographer. Photojournalist, actually, is what they call it." Rafe made a tiny snorting noise next to him, but he was looking at Deke with an open face, his eyes a little eager, like a puppy who was hoping for a friendly pet.

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Blue Otis patted his mouth with his napkin. "You ever done radio, son? You got a strange sounding voice for a black man, like one of those men on the radio." He shook his head. "No, I'm from out west. West Texas. Accents are different out there." Eyebrows flew up around the table, but Rafe kept his eyes on his plate. "You don't even look black to me." Deke gave him a dirty look. "I'm part Indian, Comanche, but I'm still blacker than you are." The blue eyes glared at him full on. "What's that supposed to mean? Nobody said I was black." "You're playing the blues. You're sitting here in a blues club." "So what? I'm sitting with my family having supper. And nobody invited you to come in here and start giving me dirty looks." He looked back down to his plate and scooped up a forkful of potatoes. "I don't think you know dick about the blues. I bet you don't even know a blues story." "What's a blues story?" "It a story you tell on yourself. You know, about something you did, that makes you look a fool. Uncle Pete, tell that story about Texas. The one about the mule." Blue Otis cackled. "You ever been to San Antonio, Deacon? To the Black Bull? It's a gambling club, dice, cards, like that, down by the river." Deke shook his head. "I've been to San Antonio, but I must have missed the Black Bull." Blind Pete leaned back in his chair. "Well, I'd say that's probably a good thing. Cause otherwise you might not be 12


sitting here today, making Rafael mad with your big mouth. Me and Blue Otis, we escaped with a howling mob on our heels. They was getting ready to shoot us, stab us, lynch us, some damn thing, and it was all the fault of a Texas mule." Blue Otis was nodding, grinning his toothless grin. "Pete, I know what I heard you say, and there was a woman involved. But you go ahead, you tell it." "We was invited up there to San Antonio to play some blues at this gambling club. They was trying to keep the knifings down, the cops threatening to close them up if they didn't stop hauling dead bodies out of there every week. We didn't know about that till later. All we knew was the man said he would give us twenty dollars each to come play for a week, and the corn liquor was free and we could stay in the back room there. Twenty dollars, that was good money. So we borrowed a car from Sally-Rose' husband and made us up a sack of bologna sandwiches and drove on across Texas. "The Black Bull was rough, man. They was telling about a man got killed in a fight over a hand of cards, so they hauled him over to the craps table, let a dwarf stand on his body so he could see to throw the dice. It was that kind of club. Blue Otis goes in the back door to talk to the man, and I'm standing in the alley guarding the car. So this mule walks up. No bridle, no rope, nothing, and it shoved its head hard right into my balls. I hit it with my fist, and that damn mule takes a step forward and stands on my foot. I hit it again, and I say, 'Get the hell off my foot.' That mule don't move. I say, 'What's wrong with you? You standing on my foot, stinking like a bow-legged mule.'" 13


"Blue Otis comes out the alley and we both push the mule and hit it on the ass with a stick and twist its ears, but it don't move and my foot is crushed. So then Otis pulls out his mouth harp, starts playing a blues. He moves off a little ways and damned if the mule don't get off my foot and start following him. Then the mule puts its head down again, goes after Otis' balls. He makes it to the door of the club, I run around behind him and we squeeze through the door before the mule pins us again." Blind Pete stopped and took a long drink of his iced tea. "Well, what happened next is a matter of dispute at the Black Bull to this very day. We go up to this little space they have cleared for us to play. I get my slide on. The mule is banging its head against the back door, trying to get in. And I said something like, 'that damn Texas mule was trying to go after my balls', and I think I called it an ugly, bowlegged mule with raggedy ears. It must have been the blues I was playing caused all those crazy Texas cats to think I'm saying they women after my balls. And they thinking I had just called Texas women ugly, bowlegged, with raggedy ears. Next thing I know, every man in the joint, even the dwarf, is reaching in his jacket for a weapon. Little pearl handled revolvers, razors, flick knives, one man had a shotgun under his coat. So me and Otis, we grab our music and run like hell out the back door. Blue Otis leaps over the mule like he's running the hurdles in the Olympics. Then we was in the car and backing out of the alley, and the back door busts open and the men start pouring out. We going in reverse and the damn mule is chasing us and a wild pack of drunk Texas men is chasing the 14


mule. We ain't been back to Texas since. When was that, Otis, 1951?" Blue Otis nodded. "Sometimes I think I see that mule, though, like its run after me all the way from Texas. If I'm not mistaken, that mule's name Deacon." The old men howled at the story, and even Deke found himself smiling. Rafe leaned over, put a hand on his shoulder and spoke into his ear. "I guess you get to stay. The mule's name is usually Rafael." "Somehow I think there was a Texas woman involved." It was the old man in charge, the one Rafe had called Uncle Jimmy. He was whip-thin, wearing old fashioned-looking glasses with black frames, and his face was so dark and wrinkled it reminded Deke of an old piece of saddle leather. "Maybe we should introduce everyone," he said. "I'm James Hurt." He pointed to the man sitting next to him. "This is Blue Otis Johnson and next to him is Blind Pete Watson. If you know anything about the blues, you'll know their names. Mrs. Sally-Rose Johnson is the cook, and she's Blue Otis' cousin. And this is her place, so act nice. She don't put up with bad manners. And you're sitting next to Rafael Hurt, who's gonna be the next great bluesman come up from Miss'ippi." Rafael looked up and smiled, and Blind Pete nodded. "Amen to that. The boy's got hands like an angel, just like you did, Jimmy, before the arthritis got you. I think he spent so much time when he was a kid listening to Sonny Boy on the King Biscuit radio hour that blues got built into his bones somewhere, built into his blood." Rafael toyed with the last bit of ham on his plate. "Thanks, Uncle Pete." 15


"Don't go getting a big head, boy. You got lots of work still to do." It was Blue Otis. "We're his teachers," he told Deke. "He's coming on, but he's still young. He works hard, you got to give the boy that. And he's got that quality, what do you call it? I don't know the words. He's a bluesman, that's all." Blue Otis was wearing a cobalt silk shirt in a pattern with gold diamonds and cobalt blue slacks. Deke had glimpsed gold socks under the table. The old men were dressed for a night out, but Rafe was wearing a white t-shirt with a little gravy stain and blue jeans. This was sweet, a Christmas-time love-fest. Uncle Jimmy? Uncle Pete? What kind of good-ole-boy Mississippi crap was this? He was a news reporter. Did they really think he was buying this honey and bullshit? "So, they're your family?" He turned to Rafe, who looked back at him warily. "Y'all don't look much alike. How is it you and Mr. James Hurt over there have the same last name? The usual reason for Mississippi?" Rafe's face flushed red, then went dead white, but he wouldn't look up and meet Deke's eye. Sally-Rose stood up and took Deke's plate away. "I think you're done eating, Mr. Reporter." Blue Otis was nodding at him, his face a little grim. "You sure talk a lot for somebody don't know dick about nothing." Sally-Rose was back, hands on her hips. "Let me tell you something right now, boy. You try and bring that Black Power nonsense in here, I will stomp your sorry ass into the ground. We support Dr. King and his Doctrine of Nonviolence at the Blues Angel, like all good Christians should. I don't know what family means in West Texas, but that boy's mama, Miss Anne 16


Hurt, delivered every one of my babies. When she needed to get him out of Miss'ippi, she turned to family, people she could trust to keep him safe." James cleared his throat and gave her a look, and SallyRose fell silent. "Deacon. Deacon and the Angel. How 'bout that. Sounds like a song. Most reporters, they would ask questions first. Do a little research. You're welcome to go back to the Post and tell my old friend Bruce Charters that you were such a self-righteous asshole we kicked you out before you got your story. And he can send someone else." The table was silent then, until Rafael started tapping the edge of the table and humming a four beat, and soon the old men were nodding their heads to his rhythm. He grinned, started singing: Oh, I'm feeling so sick and bad, With my worried old black heart, Deacon, I'm feeling so sick and bad, That I wish I was a Black Indian reporter And every day I'd talk instead of work. Oh, that would make me so glad. Blind Pete took up the next verse. Deacon, I wish I was a Baptist Preacher With a nice white Baptist church Mt. Zion on the Hill, and I could rest inside In the cool shade, and I wouldn't have to work. Blue Otis raised his hands like he was singing praise in a church. Deacon, I'm feeling so sick and bad That I wish I had me a jug of corn liquor 17


I'd sit in the shade of that nice Baptist church Mt. Zion on the Hill, And drink from the jug of corn liquor, Wait for some angel with blue eyes, Come down and play for me. Rafe was laughing now, pushed back his chair and climbed up on the stage. "I'll play for you." He picked up a battered arch-top guitar, dark-red colored wood, fixed a piece of metal pipe over a finger on his left hand. Sally-Rose took the rest of the plates, stacked them with a little more vigor than was necessary, then marched back to the kitchen after giving Deke one more dark look. Blue Otis pushed back his chair and pulled his napkin out of the neck of his shirt, wandered up to the stage and started pulling harmonicas out of a brown paper bag. "Boy, let's do one of those Levee Camp Moans. You remember? That old Son House blues. Since you trying to steal his lyrics to impress some reporter. And you ain't doing a very good job at it, neither. Don't you know how to make a rhyme?" Rafael laughed out loud and started playing, but he didn't look at Deke again. Blind Pete Watson was shaking his head. "James, maybe Rafe is right. This ain't a good time to have some smart-ass reporter hanging around." James looked at him and sighed, pulled his napkin out of his shirt and put it on the table, looked over at Deke. "Pete, we got to make sure the boy has his chance. We all getting too old." He turned to Deke. "You haven't made much of a first impression." 18


**** Blind Pete was up on the stage now, and he had fitted an old green glass bottle neck over his finger to show Rafe a slide. Rafe stood at the microphone, the guitar against his crotch, but the two old men with him had sat down in straight-back wooden chairs to play. Blue Otis had a harmonica jammed against his mouth, the other side of it close against the microphone. It seemed to Deke that the missing front teeth were designed so he could play that harmonica, make it sound like a heart torn to bits and weeping in pain. "How did Blue Otis lose his front teeth? It wasn't on purpose, was it, so he could play harmonica?" James Hurt leaned back and studied him. "Well, I admit I don't know how reporters generally behave, but that surprises me, your first question should be about Blue Otis' teeth." Deke felt his cheeks redden, ran his tongue over his own front teeth. "Prison. He got them knocked out by the butt of a guard's rifle. Blue Otis never has known when to shut up." "Why was he in prison?" "Murder." Deke felt his eyes go wide. James shrugged. His attention was drifting away to what was happening on the stage. "Ask him, he'll tell you the story. Oh, no. Here he goes again." Rafe was singing Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood, his voice gritty and dark. "He's good. He sounds like that guy, what's his name? Eric Burdon." 19


James nodded, a little reluctantly. "Rafe likes the new stuff. I guess it's okay, he wants to try a few songs. Those boys call themselves Animals, I don't know what that means, but they sing Tobacco Road. That's a good blues." Deke grinned behind his hand, and James turned a sharp eye on him. "That boy's been hanging on my leg since he was a baby, watching everything I do. When he was two he started reaching for the guitar strings. But this rock-and-roll, it's liable to distract him from his real music. Blues is real music. It's been around forever. This rock-and-roll, it'll never last. It don't have no history, no foundation." "You worked for his family?" "Sharecropper. His daddy never came home from the war. That was Jacob. Rafe looks so much like him. Jacob was a pilot, wild to fly. I think sometimes I'll look up into the sky and see him flying by in one of those little planes he loved. But Rafe's lucky in his mama. Anne, she's a level-headed woman. She was a nurse during the war, and after that she came home and trained to be a midwife." "She takes care of the Negro sharecroppers on her husband's land? That's sort of old-fashioned, isn't it? For white people to be taking care of all the poor black folks? She give out little baskets of food at Christmas?" Deke could hear the sneer in his voice. Mississippi lived a hundred years in the past, and nobody even seemed to notice, or care. And now these old men had brought their little white prince up here, expected Deke to shove the crown on his head. What was Bruce Charters thinking? 20


James pulled out a cigar and lit a wooden match. "She sure does. Hams and pickled peaches and sweet potatoes. We all eat good at Christmas. Everybody is real glad to have them baskets. After Rafe's father was killed, she turned inward a bit. Anne wasn't from Miss'ippi, and she's never really fit in. She only had Rafe, didn't seem like she was looking for another husband, but she was a woman who needed work, and people to take care of. So we looked after them, and she looked after us." "And Rafe?" "Rafe, we loved him, our little angel. He grew up with a bunch of granddaddies, and they all played the blues. None of the other boys feel it in their hearts like he does. We taught everybody who wanted to learn, but he was the only one." Sally-Rose brought a bottle of Teacher's and a handful of little glasses to the table. James handed Deke the bottle, and he unscrewed the top and filled up the glasses. James climbed up on the stage, handed glasses of whiskey to Blind Pete and Blue Otis. Rafe turned and looked at him. "Where's mine?" James started dragging a couple more wooden chairs over. "You want to sing those pretty rock-and-roll songs, you can drink you some beer. You drink whiskey, your voice gonna change. You'll sound like a man, and then you won't be able to sing nothing but the blues." He sat down behind Rafe, picked up an arch-top guitar that was bigger than Rafe's, the top a rich ebony wood. He pushed the other chair toward Rafe. 21


"Thanks, Uncle Jimmy." He sat down, pulled his guitar across his lap. Blue Otis looked across at Deke and winked. "Bluesmen, we got to sit down to play. Otherwise we haven't had enough whiskey to do the songs justice. What you think the blues about?" Deke shrugged. "Musical expression of the black man's struggle against oppression since coming..." "Oh, fuck, boy." Blind Pete finished his whiskey and set the empty glass next to his foot. "Every time you open your mouth, you sound dumber and dumber. It's about love gone wrong. It's about a bad woman digging your heart out of your chest. The kind of woman who would take your name, then fuck your friends, give you their children. Like that." "That's right." James was nodding. "You see the difference?" "It's personal," Rafe said, looking at him for the first time since supper. Deke felt those wild blue eyes down into his belly. "The blues, it's about what's happened to you, not what's happened to the people." His foot started tapping that rhythm, a few notes on his guitar, and within seconds the three old black men had picked it up, four right feet tapping together, four heads moving like they were limbs of the same body. "You got to smell it, you know what I'm saying? And it smells like sweat and spunk and blood." Rafe moved into the song, a John Lee Hooker called Boom Boom, and Deke could smell it coming off his guitar, men fucking. And Rafe stared right into his face, looking hungry, boom boom boom boom. 22


He was surrounded by those old men like a pearl in a dark oyster, and Deke was furious with him suddenly, he didn't know why, but he couldn't stand up and kick the chair over and leave because Rafe's rough honey voice and bottleneck slide had turned his cock to stainless steel. **** One AM, and the old men were still playing strong, like they could go all night. Rafe was looking a bit worn. He'd changed out of his gravy-stained T-shirt, but the new one was soaked through with sweat, and when he'd gone up to the bar to get another whiskey for Blue Otis, somebody had given him a sharp elbow and he'd slopped half of it down his chest. The Blues Angel was packed, bodies crammed tightly against each other. The women looked like tropical birds in their brightly colored dresses, bright lipstick, and the men with them were slick, pretty silk shirts, sharp edges on their hats, gorgeous socks and wing-tips shined to within an inch. Everybody was awed by the old men, and Deke started to understand that they were a kind of living legend among bluesmen, with performances and recordings from back in the twenties that were still being talked about. But while everybody respected the old men, only the women were inclined to give Rafe a fair listen, and the women were mostly staring at his silver blond hair or his ass when he bent over in his jeans. The men turned pointedly away while he was playing, talked a little louder than they needed to. Rafe noticed, but the only thing Deke saw was that his blue eyes got more 23


somber as the night wore on. James was starting to get mad, like he'd personally been disrespected. And Deke guessed in a way he had been. Deke wasn't any expert, but with his eyes closed he couldn't tell who was playing. Rafe was really that good. And the audience seemed to hate him for it. Mr. James Hurt stood up, set his guitar upright on the stand next to his chair. "This next song a blues written by Blind Pete Watson and Rafael Hurt called Man Running." Rafe stepped up to the microphone. The lights turned his hair a strange, beautiful silver, and the sweat running down his face looked gold. He and Blind Pete played their guitars like the same blood was flowing through their hands. Rafe started singing, his dark honey voice rough now after hours at the microphone. Sometimes a man's got to turn and fight, And sometimes he's got to run. It's a hard road, running, Dark and long and straight down into hell. Rafe was looking out over the crowd, looking for someone. When he found Deke, he nodded a little, kept his eyes fixed on Deke's face, sang the song to him. They can make me run, But they can't make me run alone. Give me shelter, give me hope, And you wait for me, wait for me. Next time I'm running, I'll be running to you. That rough voice, and Deke had to close his eyes, the music like hot melted butter running over his skin. And when 24


he opened his eyes again he smiled at Rafe, gave him a little 'come here' gesture with his hands before he could stop himself. Come here, come to me, run to me, and Rafe smiled into his eyes. Blind Pete took up the next verse. Sometimes a man got to turn and fight, He still want to be a man. Let them spill his blood Deep into the black dirt he call home... The crowd was still when they finished, and after a moment Blue Otis stood up. He was weaving a bit, had to hold onto the back of his chair. "Blind Pete Watson and Rafael Hurt. Singing the truth, brothers, you got ears to listen. Singing the truth, singing the blues." Then he stuck his harp into his mouth, played the beginning of a funny little train song, much loved back in the thirties, and the strange silent tension was broken. Rafe came up to the bar, and Sally-Rose poured a single small glass of whiskey. "That's for Blue Otis," she said, but Rafe hadn't taken two steps back through the crowd when he got another hard elbow in the chest and spilled the whiskey on the floor. He leaned back over the bar to talk to SallyRose. She gave him a rag to wipe his hands, then brought up four green glass bottles of Coke from under the counter and popped the caps off. Rafe took them up on stage, had a brief word with his old men when he passed them a Coke. He pushed back through the crowd and leaned up next to Deke, took a long swallow from his bottle. He passed it over without a word, and Deke 25


tipped it up to his mouth and handed it back, loving the sweet burn in the back of his throat. Why would anyone drink whiskey when they could drink ice-cold Coke? Rafe looked at the camera slung over Deke's shoulder. "You gonna just carry that thing all night? Mama Rose will put it under the bar for you, you ask her nice." Deke shook his head. "That's okay. She's still mad at me. Besides, somebody comes after you with a knife or something, I want to be there to get a picture of it." "Ha Ha. Very funny." His smile was a little sour. "You can always just make records, Rafe. Wear a hat down over your face for the album cover. Nobody would know you're white, listening to you play." Rafe shoved away from the bar. The music and the noise from the crowd in the Blues Angel was so loud they'd had to lean close to each other to talk, and Rafe leaned over now and spoke into his ear. "Am I gonna have to kick your ass before this deal is done, man?" "Kick my ass? You're not quite such a nice, respectful boy when your old men aren't listening in." Rafe grinned at him, his face looking a little reckless and wild. He must have drank enough whiskey to take off the edge like a proper bluesman. "Yeah? I could take you on. Come on, man, you got the balls? Put up your dukes." Rafe was holding up his fists, a little golden boxer, and Deke laughed out loud at the ridiculous picture he made. "You gonna take a chance, mess up your pretty hands? How you gonna play that guitar then?" 26


Rafe stared down at his hands like he'd never seen them before, open and closed them into fists again. He had calluses, and a couple of new blisters that had popped, smearing blood on his fingertips. Deke reared back in shock. "What did you do?" Deke reached for his hands, studied the bleeding fingers, then turned around and spoke to Sally-Rose. "Mrs. Johnson, you got an ice pack or something? He's bleeding. He's hurt his fingers." Sally-Rose looked at Rafe's hands, laughing, then she reached under the bar and handed Deke his own little bottle of Coke. She looked at Rafe. "That reporter, he don't know nothing about the blues, sweet baby. You gonna have to teach him everything." Rafe pulled his hands away, laughing a little under his breath. "You don't get a little blood on your guitar strings, you ain't playing worth shit." Deke looked at the man who slid in between them with a sinking in his stomach. Elroy Macallister was one of the music writers at the Post, a light-skinned black man with a razorsharp slash of a moustache and a nasty pen. He gave readers what they wanted, and what they wanted was dirt. He didn't have anything good to say about old blues musicians, come up from Mississippi with their battered guitars and mouth harps in a sack, hands rough from working the land. Men who didn't play until their work was done, then sat out on their porches in overalls and bare feet, tapped out a blues, sad songs about a hard life. Deke didn't think he had ever read a review by Elroy that didn't have a bitter, ugly note, like a piece of sour fruit. And he saved his most virulent comments 27


for the white musicians trying to play jazz or the new rockand-roll. Deke wasn't sure, but he didn't recall that there had been very many white guys trying to play the blues. Elroy had written a piece so beautifully nasty about Eric Burdon and The Animals at Wembly in 1965, singing Boom Boom, that he'd gotten a little fame for being a smart ass. Deke had laughed just like everyone else, reading Elroy's description of Eric Burdon trying to dance, but he thought it had gone to Elroy's head, and now he wasn't funny anymore, just nasty. He'd had nothing good to say about that group from England called Cream, supposed to be blues or rock or something. But Deke didn't like Elroy being here. If anyone was going to write something nasty about Rafe, it was supposed to be him! And he sure didn't want to read one of those ugly-bitter stories about these three dignified old men who loved Rafe, who believed in their music and believed in their boy enough to give him his shot. Elroy and Rafe were staring at each other with dislike, and Deke got the feeling they knew each other, or at least had met before. Elroy turned around, gave Rafe his back, and Rafael put two fingers up behind his head in a little V, devil horns. "What you doing here, Mr. Hard News Reporter? Something happened at the Blues Angel Mr. Bruce Charters knows about I don't? Cause the black music in DC, that's my business." Deke looked over his head at Rafe. "What do you think about that new group Cream? They're English, right?" 28


"Yeah, they're good. I like their guitar. Eric Clapton, he's a blues guitar, man, his hands, they're all over that thing like he don't know whether to play it or fuck it." "So what you think Elroy's doing here, Rafael? I thought he didn't like the blues." Rafe tipped his Coke bottle up. "He doesn't have the heart to understand the blues. But he's here to see if I want to drop to my knees, give him a suck job in exchange for a good write-up. Fuck that. I give the blues a blow job every night, man. I don't have time for the little pricks." Elroy pushed away, and if looks were razors, Rafe would be sliced up and bloody, dead on the floor. "You got a talent for making friends, I can see that." "Yeah, you too, man." Rafe studied him for a moment. "He's right, though. He is the music guy. Why are you here?" Deke leaned back against the bar. "I'm not sure, tell you the truth. Either my boss is trying to find something to keep me busy over the holiday, or he's expecting a dead body to turn up." Sally-Rose leaned over the other side of the bar. "How much has Blind Pete had to drink tonight?" Rafe shrugged and wouldn't meet her eyes. "You remember what the doctor told him? And where's that light girl calls herself a nurse's helper? I'm about ready to send that girl back where she came from, get him a real nurse. We need somebody who'll do the job, not just stand around like she's a flower, waiting to get plucked." Rafe was inching away, and he held up his hand. "I'll go see where she is. Let me make a pit stop first." He moved 29


toward the men's bathroom, and Deke was watching him move through the crowd when a big man wearing a black silk shirt, his hands stuck in his pockets, peeled off from his group and started to follow him. Maybe he just needed ... Deke glanced back at Sally-Rose. She was watching the man, too, a frown between her eyes. She looked at Deke, but she wasn't asking. "I'll go." He set his Coke on the bar and started pushing his way through the crowd. The men's room was just big enough for three if they wanted to get friendly. Rafe was at the urinal in the corner, and the big man had pulled out a flick knife with a bone handle and was cleaning his nails with it. He looked up when Deke pushed through the door. "We busy in here, man." Deke squeezed on in, his heart sitting in the middle of his throat. He leaned back against the door, tried to look tough. He jerked his chin toward Rafe, who just kept on peeing, staring at the wall. "He's my business." He stepped toward Rafe, and the man moved in front of him for a second, the knife sliding under his nose. They stood there, eyeing each other, then Deke pushed past him and stood next to Rafe at the urinal, unzipped and dragged his cock out and started to pee. Deke looked back over his shoulder and Rafe leaned against him and sighed. "I told you he's my business." "That kind of business get you cut around here." The man flashed him a grin with a bit of silver, put his knife up and pushed out the door. 30


Rafe straightened up and shoved his cock back in his jeans. "Thanks. I had a feeling him and me were about to get real close, you know what I'm saying?" "No problem." He looked into Rafe's face, but just saw tired. "You know it's always gonna be like this for you. It's 1966, man. White and black, it's not ever gonna get better, no matter what the preachers say. These people didn't watch you grow up. They don't know you." "Yeah, I know. I don't ... I don't know what to think about it. I didn't expect it to be this bad." Rafe washed his bleeding fingers in the bathroom sink. "Why you being so nice to me all of the sudden? You looked like you wanted to sink your fangs into my throat earlier." "I don't like to go along with the crowd, now everybody hates you. I'm contrary that way." Rafe grinned at him. "Want to go with me to find Leona? The staircase is dark. You can cop a feel if you want." "What makes you think I want to cop a feel?" "You didn't punch me in the face just then, when I suggested it. You got hungry-looking eyes, like a wolf, like you could eat me up. Or maybe I just want to eat you up. Black Comanche. You got skin the color of that Christmas candy Mama Rose got in the kitchen, those sweet caramels." "How much you had to drink tonight?" And Rafe laughed and moved back through the club. Deke followed Rafe up the narrow back staircase. Rafe knocked, then pushed open the door, talking in a honeysweet voice, "Leona, you beautiful thing, we all wondering where..." 31


He stopped speaking, stopped walking, and Deke bumped into him, looked over his shoulder. Pretty Leona was shot dead on the bed, right through the heart, and the room stank of gunpowder and blood and shit. Rafe turned, his face shading to green, bolted to the bathroom at the end of the hall. Deke studied the scene, listening to Rafael vomit behind him, then he unpacked his camera and light. Rafe came back, his face clammy and his lips faintly blue. "Deke, what should we do? She's dead, man." "Hold this." Rafe blinked and held the light, and Deke got a couple of good photos before Rafe looked at him and lowered the light. "Are you fucking kidding me?" Deke shrugged. "It's my world, Rafe. News, I mean. I didn't know her." Rafe stared at him, those blue eyes as wet and deep as a mountain lake. "Fine. You need to go lay down? I'll call the cops." He looked lost for a second, rubbing the back of his hand across his mouth, then he shook his head. "I need to go tell Uncle Jimmy. He'll know what to do. And Blind Pete, I guess, and Blue Otis. He was screwing her this afternoon loud enough to wake the..." Deke packed away his camera, pretty sure Uncle Jimmy and the cops would not approve of the photos. Hot damn, he had a story. A real story, not some silly throw-away feel good for Christmas week. ****

32


Rafe stumbled onto the stage, already talking, and Blind Pete stopped playing first, reached out a hand for him. Then James stood up, set his guitar aside, and took Rafe by the shoulders. After a moment he looked up sharply and met Deke's eyes. Deke nodded, then moved over to the bar. "Mrs. Johnson?" "What is it, baby?" "We need to call the police." "No, we sure don't! What kind of trouble you think those boys will bring in here?" "It's that girl, Leona." "What she done?" "She's laying up there in the bed, shot dead." "Oh, shit, no." They both looked up as James and Blue Otis pounded up the stairs, and it wasn't long before half the club was crowding after them, the laughter and the shrieks of the bright, pretty girls turning into something different. Rafe had stayed behind, had his arm around Blind Pete's shoulder. Sally-Rose was shaking her head. "That girl has been nothing but trouble, nothing. I should have kicked her sorry butt ... and now she's got herself shot." "Ma'am? Mrs. Johnson? Why don't you let me call the police now." **** The first two cops came in swinging their sticks, but the club was nearly empty by then. When the word spread there was a woman shot upstairs, Deke stood by and watched as the men checked pockets and ankles for their shiny silver 33


pistols and flick-knives. He even thought he saw a few razors getting shoved in ladies' little purses. He'd been real tempted to take some pictures, but the hard eyes and assorted weaponry made him rethink, and he'd kept the camera in the case. After the place had cleared out, Sally-Rose turned up the lights, and she and Rafe started picking up beer bottles from the tables, slotting them into the empty wooden racks behind the bar. The cops looked around at the empty club but didn't put their clubs away. Deke was sitting at the table with James, Blue Otis, and Blind Pete, trying to get some information about the girl, but they weren't talking, and there was a strange tension between the three men. James was sitting bolt upright, both hands flat on the table top. His hands looked old, Deke thought, studying the heavy knuckles and the calluses on his fingertips. Blue Otis was slumped back in his chair, hands in his pockets, eyes remote. Blind Pete had put his hat on his head, for some reason, and was holding his white cane between his knees. One of the cops, a young guy with short, blond hair, knocked on the edge of the table with his nightstick. "Okay, who said there's a shot girl?" "I called the police." Deke pushed his press pass over, then lifted his camera from his lap. "Do you mind?" The cop reared back. "You just put that thing away! Jesus Christ. Where's the girl?" "Upstairs. Last room on the left." The cop turned, whistled under his breath, and his partner joined him. 34


They were down after a few minutes, and the blond cop pointed to the three old men sitting immobile at the table, then his finger swerved to Sally-Rose, Rafe, and Deke, loading empty beer bottles. "Okay, you all just stay right there. Nobody go upstairs." Deke and Rafe looked at each other, didn't make the obvious comment that anyone who wanted to go upstairs could have done so long before they showed up. James just kept his hands flat on the table. "Yes, sir." The detectives were a different sort all together. They were both wearing white shirts, the collars wilted and curling against thin black ties. Neither man looked like he'd been to bed yet. They spent nearly an hour upstairs before Leona was brought down in a body bag. Deke took a picture of the ambulance crew loading her up. The detectives looked at him, but didn't tell him to stop. "I'm Detective Macaren, and this is Detective Weaver." Weaver was tall, a beanpole with dark hair that curled over his ears and collar. Deke wasn't sure if he was trying to grow it out, but it looked like he was overdue for a haircut. The other guy, Macaren, was the talker of the pair, with beefy arms and shoulders, like he lifted weights in his spare time. Weaver pulled a chair up to the table, and Macaren grabbed another. "Gentlemen, I understand you are musicians of some fame. Is that why the reporter is here?" "Yes, sir." James spoke for them, looking immensely dignified. "Sorry, I don't really follow black music. So you were playing here tonight?" 35


"Yes, sir." "How many people in the club?" James looked over at Sally-Rose. "Mrs. Johnson, can you give us an estimate?" "Maybe 70, 75," she said. "I don't really rope off the upstairs when we got the club open. I've never had a problem before." "Yes, ma'am. What do you know about the dead girl? Anybody recognize her?" "It's Leona Washington," James said. "She's nurse's helper to Blind Pete, here. He's got diabetes, and she was helping him with his insulin." "Did you hire her up here?" "No, Miss Anne Hurt, down in Hattiesburg, she found her. It wasn't easy to find a girl willing to travel with blues musicians. Leona didn't have any family, so she didn't have a mama to object." "And Anne Hurt? Who is she?" "She's the nurse in our town, and that boy's mama." The cops turned to stare at Rafael, and they noticed Deke scribbling in his notebook. Weaver was at the bar in about two steps, and Deke gave him his press pass. He studied the name, and looked back up at Deke. "You're Deacon Davis? You did those articles about the riots in Detroit." Deke nodded, a little wary. "You gave the cops a fair shake. I didn't know you were black." Deke was considering if he should get pissed off about that remark when Rafe spoke up. "He's part Indian, too. 36


Comanche." Deke stared at him, but Rafe just bit down on his bottom lip and turned away. Weaver turned to Rafe. "How well you know those old men?" "I've known them all my life. I can vouch for their character. Mr. Hurt and Mr. Watson, they both served honorably in WWII, and I grew up with all three of them and their families. I've never known any of them to become violent or use a weapon or drink to excess." Somebody snorted, Deke wasn't sure who. "Uh, huh. Okay, Mr. Hurt." "Sir, I can assure you..." Macaren had joined Weaver at the bar. "Nobody's on trial yet. You can save the character reference. Mrs. Johnson, can we speak to you about Leona?" "You sure can," Sally-Rose said. "I didn't see her since last night, when she was drinking whiskey like it was water with some light boy had a shiny car outside, and I heard him saying something about he was gonna take her for a ride. She didn't give Blind Pete his insulin this morning, so I helped him. I didn't look for her, 'cause I heard her snoring up in that bed and I was about ready to send her lazy ass back home on the Greyhound bus." Macaren stared at Deke's camera, then Weaver handed over his press pass. Macaren looked at it, then he nodded and handed the pass back. Deke pulled Rafe away from the bar. "What was that all about, Mr. Rafael Hurt? You gonna vouch for their character? That's sweet. Those men are three times your age, Rafe. You 37


think because you're white, your word means something? Your word means more than theirs? That was the most patronizing bullshit..." Rafe pulled away from him and ran upstairs, and Deke might have gone after him, he was so pissed off all of the sudden, but Blue Otis was standing in his way. "That boy just doing what he's asked to do every day back home. A black man doesn't stand a chance of getting out of jail but if a white man, especially one with an old and important name, and plenty of money, shows up and vouches for his character, pays his fine, well, then ways will be found. Men will be home with their children that night. Rafe, he just gets scared about his Uncle Jimmy." Deke looked down into Blue Otis' eyes, the whites tinged ivory with age and wild living. "You ease up on Rafe. He likes you, I don't know why, and you acting like some kind of asshole. I think he must be desperate to talk to somebody who's under seventy years old, best I can figure. He don't have any friends up here. He's a good boy, just trying to do right, trying to do more than he knows how to do. Way you acting makes me think you got a hard-on for that boy. Or have you just got a hard-on? For that boy?" Blue Otis smiled and narrowed his eyes, his glance as sharp as a razor. Deke cleared his throat and ignored this. "What do you mean, he's trying to do more than he knows how to do? You mean his music?" "Oh, Lord, no. Rafe's got hands like an angel." He hesitated. "He's one of those people like his mama. Wants to fix things that are wrong. Wants to take care of people. And 38


right now, if you from Hattiesburg, Miss'ippi, there's a lot going wrong. Don't you know why his mama sent him up here?" Deke shook his head. "I'm listening." Blue Otis bared his teeth, and the smile wasn't very friendly. "I don't think so, boy." "Blue Otis, you have a relationship with the dead girl?" "A relationship? You don't need a relationship to be fucking a girl who decided life would be easier on her back. She just wanted a little folding so she could buy herself a couple of shiny drugstore rings. Leona, she wasn't very smart. She didn't understand her young pussy wasn't gonna stay fresh for long, she handing it around like a pie at the county fair, letting everybody take a piece. I don't know why anybody would bother to kill that girl. Be a lot easier to just walk away." Rafe was back from upstairs, with a pillow and a blanket tucked under his arm. "I'm not sleeping up there," he announced, and he climbed up on the stage and made himself a little nest. He looked exhausted, his face pale and drawn. Macaren looked exhausted, too. "Okay, Ma'am, let me ask you to keep the club closed for tomorrow. We'll be back in the morning, finish up then, unless anybody wants to confess now?" No one took him up on this offer. **** Deke spent a half-hour calling the story in to the news desk and they sent a courier over to pick up the camera. 39


Then everybody climbed the stairs to their rooms except Rafe, who was still curled up on the floor with his guitar in his arms. Sally-Rose gave him a fond look before she climbed the stairs. "Look at that baby, sleeping with his guitar. Every bluesman I ever knew slept with his guitar one time or another, but they was usually drunk. I can't remember any one of them as beautiful as Rafael." Deke waited until she left, then walked across the stage to where Rafe was curled up. Rafe didn't open his eyes. "You can just keep walking. I'm mad at you." "Well, I think you're full of shit, curled up here like a six year old taking a nap. You waiting for me to come over here and talk to you?" Rafe sat up and lay the guitar over his lap. "Maybe so. Don't touch the guitar." Deke sat down cross-legged next to him and they looked at each other. Rafe went first. "You seen a lot of dead bodies?" "A few." "So did you get the feeling she'd just been shot, or had it been..." "I thought she'd been shot earlier. Afternoon, maybe. Like before the club was full of people." Rafe plucked at the guitar strings absently. "Yeah, that's what I thought, too. There's a back entrance to upstairs. Anybody could have come in here." "What about this guy she was with, the one Sally-Rose was talking about?" 40


Rafe shook his head. "I never saw her with anybody but us. She tried every night in the club, don't get me wrong. Maybe she got some wild boy to go upstairs with her while Blue Otis was on stage, but I never saw it." "Blue Otis was with her?" "Yeah, but he was always with a girl. He was just going through the motions, I think. His heart got broke a long time ago, and he never got over it. I mean, Leona was dumb as a rock, always talking about how she needed to look to her future. Taking good care of Blind Pete would have been a future. If she'd taken care of him, taken real care of him and helped his diabetes, well, my mama would have sent her to school to be a nurse. Blind Pete, he's sick, and he needs somebody to watch over him. But working hard wasn't really of much interest to Leona. She'd roll her eyes and sigh when she'd have to do something, like he was putting such a heavy burden on her. Blind Pete, he's proud, Deke. It didn't take long before he stopped asking." "So who shot her?" Rafe flinched. "You didn't see a gun, did you? I mean, maybe she shot herself." Deke shook his head, and Rafe set his guitar aside and lay back down on the pillow, staring up at the ceiling. He reached for Deke's knee. "You can scoot a little closer if you want to." "I will if you tell me something." Rafe stared up at him, a little smile on his face, and Deke could feel himself drowning in those blue eyes, endless as the horizon. Something tight in his chest started to soften and uncurl. 41


"What'd you do, get you sent up here from Miss'ippi?" Rafe's face filled with pain, and he closed his eyes and pulled away. Deke reached for his face. "Hey, Rafe. I'm sorry, man. Never mind, don't think about it now. I'm sorry, Rafe..." And Rafe looked up at him, all the sorrow in the world sitting on his young shoulders, tugged him down and kissed him. **** His mouth was hungry, and he pulled Deke into his arms, held him closer and tighter, clutching him until their cocks were jammed up against each other and they were grinding away like a couple of starving boys. "Oh, God, Deke, you taste sweet. Let me have some more." And Deke knew he was about to explode in his pants, which he hadn't done since he was seventeen. He caught Rafe's scent, clean young sweat and Old Spice and Teacher's whiskey, and it caught something in his belly, passion rising like the tide. Rafe must have been hornier than he was, because he had his legs wrapped around Deke's hips, his strong thighs ready to crush bone, and he started coming in his jeans, little thumping groans like cotton balls blowing into Deke's open mouth, his body shuddering and his face wet. Deke closed his eyes, his cock throbbing with his heartbeat, and refused to look down into Rafael's face and see tears. It was ridiculous, a couple of grown men groaning and grinding on the floor, and Rafe's hands were tracing his face, all tender, holding Deke close. 42


"Why you got your eyes closed, Deke? You don't want to look at me and see that I'm white?" "No, I don't want to look at you because you're crying, man, and you give me that look like a puppy-dog." "I'm not crying. That's sweat." Deke opened his eyes and looked. They were tears, and Rafe was staring up at him, looking hopeful, pupils enormous and wet and black. "Blue Otis said you're just desperate for a friend who's under seventy." "Blue Otis knows me pretty well. Come upstairs with me? You can go down the back staircase before everybody's up in the morning." Deke hesitated. He didn't have any intention of spending much more time rolling around on the floor, getting spunk and dust on his clothes. But Rafe still had his legs wrapped around Deke's waist, and his hands were doing a slow, sexy slide down his back, until he grabbed Deke's ass and held on. "Don't make me chase after you," Rafe said, and there was laughter in his voice. "I'd be like one of those overgrown puppies, isn't that what you said? I looked at you like a puppy? I'll be like a blue tick running down the street, saying, 'Deke, Deke, wait for me! Wait for me and I'll suck your cock..." The cock in question gave a lurch and a thud and Deke groaned against Rafe's mouth. Oh, hell, no. He was not walking around with semen stains on his trousers. He wasn't some blues guitar player, for God's sake. 43


He dragged himself out of Rafe's arms, stood up and reached a hand down. "You're gonna have to be quiet. No moaning and groaning. I don't want your Mama Rose to come in and see what's wrong with her little blues angel." "Right. You either, man." Rafe's room was dark, the only light from the streetlamp outside coming in through the small window. But his skin was so luminous and pale Deke thought Rafe was casting his own light. He peeled out of his T-shirt and shucked down his jeans, left them in a tangle on the bedroom floor. "Oh, man, look at those jeans. I'm gonna have to shove those in the washer before Mama Rose sees what I did." He kicked the dirty clothes into a pile, then he reached out for Deke, hands moving down his shirt. "Let's get you out of those important reporter's clothes. I got an empty coat hanger in the closet, you want to hang them up." Deke was struck dumb by Rafe's body, by the scattering of gold hair across his chest and down his belly, into the tangled sticky nest around his cock. It was thick and pink, and Deke couldn't believe it. His cock was as pink as his mouth. "You okay?" He looked down into Rafe's face, his still blue eyes, and Rafe was looking at him and smiling, that beautiful mouth curving into a smile. Rafe slid his hands inside the open shirt, across Deke's chest. "Hey." "Hey yourself." "You okay with this, Deke?" Deke reached for him, wrapped his slender body in his arms. He was almost too beautiful, this boy with eyes the 44


color of the ocean and bloody fingertips. Deke lowered his head and tasted Rafe's mouth. And closed his eyes again. They couldn't have slept two hours before Deke smelled coffee. Rafe was sleeping in his arms, one leg thrown over Deke's hip like he wanted to keep him from crawling away. Deke had been watching his eyes move under his thin eyelids while he slept, and he brushed the hair off Rafe's forehead. Under those shaggy, silver-gold bangs was a new-looking red scar, like a starburst. It looked to him like someone had laid a blackjack against Rafe's forehead. And who carried blackjacks in Hattiesburg, Mississippi except the law? Rafe stirred a little, and Deke wondered if he could get dressed and go down the back staircase before Rafe woke up. He needed a shower and some clean clothes, but Deke was having trouble pulling away. Rafe was beautiful, but that wasn't all of it. It was the pair of them together; the exotic wild beauty of their legs tangled together, coffee brown and pearl white. It took his breath away, and he watched the morning light slice through the window and paint them in gold. He and Rafe, their bodies tangled naked on a bed with the morning sun shining on them, this might never happen again, and something told Deke to study the picture, fix it in his mind, like it was precious. Deke heard people moving around outside in the hall and Rafe stirred awake. Rafe smiled and tugged him down for a whiskery kiss. The bedroom door banged open, and SallyRose stood there in her bathrobe and slippers, her hand over her mouth. "Jesus God, Rafael! What have you done, baby?" She waved her hand. "Never mind, never mind. Rafe, get 45


dressed, I need you! Blind Pete unconscious, and I got an ambulance on the way." "Is he breathing? Does his breath smell sweet? Mama Rose, did he get his insulin this morning? Cause we need to give it to him if he didn't." Rafe rolled out of bed, pulled open the dresser drawer and was stepping into a clean pair of jeans when James pushed past Sally-Rose, already talking. "Rafe, I want you to go to the hospital with..." He stopped as if turned to stone, and Rafe didn't move, his hands on the waistband of his jeans. "Uncle Jimmy..." James turned slowly, studied Deke naked under the sheet, and Rafe pulling on his clothes. "Rafael, son, what in God's name..." His voice was choked, stunned, and when Rafe reached out for him, James flinched away. "No. Get your clothes on and go to the hospital with your Uncle Pete, make sure he gets taken care of." "Uncle Jimmy, please..." but James was gone, and Rafe turned around and looked at Deke, his face dumbstruck. Deke climbed out of bed and pulled on his underwear. "You got a shirt?" Deke opened the closet, pulled out a neat white button-down. He held it open and Rafe stuck his arms through. "Rafe, listen..." Rafe looked up at him. "Not now, Deke." Deke nodded. He pulled open the drawer, tossed Rafe a pair of clean socks. When Rafe was dressed he shoved his wallet down in his pocket, took a long look at Deke, standing half-naked in his bedroom, then he took off for Blind Pete's room. The 46


ambulance crew came up just minutes later, bumping the gurney on the stairs, and Rafe followed them out. Deke got dressed, went downstairs to the kitchen. When he walked in James stared at him with stony eyes, and Blue Otis hid a smile behind his hand. Sally-Rose handed him a cup of coffee, her eyes like saucers. She stared at him like a couple of horns had sprouted from his head. "Thank you, Mrs. Johnson." "Oh, hell, boy! Call me Sally-Rose!" She flung her arms out. "You practically one of the family now! Though I don't get if you the wife, or..." James scooted his chair back. His mouth looked like it had been carved of stone. "I've a mind to go upstairs and get my gun and run your sorry butt out of here! What did you do to my boy? You take advantage of him, cause he's lonely..." Blue Otis handed Sally-Rose his coffee cup. "James, what's wrong with you? You don't ever open your eyes. Rafe been like that since he was sixteen! You just didn't want to see it." "What are you talking about?" "And I wouldn't go looking too hard for your gun, James. Because nobody else had a gun I know about, and Leona ... Well, Leona has been shot dead." James stared across the kitchen like he was blind, then he turned and looked at Blue Otis. "Otis, oh, shit..." Blue Otis took his coffee cup from Sally-Rose and toasted Deke. "Let's remember we got us a reporter in the kitchen." ****

47


Deke wasn't invited for breakfast, so he left the Blues Angel and ran by his apartment for a quick shower and shave. He dressed carefully, like always, a perfectly ironed white shirt and gray wool slacks, with a tie in Christmas cranberry and gold, but Deke knew that presenting a professional appearance wasn't his only motivation today. Not that Rafe seemed all that interested in his clothes, except to take them off. He pulled into the hospital parking lot, wondered if anyone else knew that Blind Pete Watson had been taken here. He was probably the most famous of the three old men, because he had written a bunch of blues when he was younger that the jazz musicians had picked up, and his slide guitar was such a real Mississippi sound. He was the only one of the three that Deke had heard of before last night. At the reception desk an elderly lady with tidy, iron gray hair and a little bunch of wilting violets on her lapel gave him Blind Pete's room number. He knocked softly on the door, then pushed it open. Blind Pete was sitting up a little in the bed, and a glass bottle of IV fluids was hooked to the needle in his arm. Rafe was helping him put his other arm and head through a white T-shirt. "Deke, you know what to do about the bottle? There's some way you're supposed to put it through the sleeve, but I'm just getting it tangled up." Deke studied the rubber tube and bottle and T-shirt and shook his head. "We need your mama here to figure this out."

48


"Don't worry about it, Rafe," Blind Pete said. "I'll just pull the sheet up if anybody comes in. You got that paper? Read me out that thing they wrote up." Rafe cut his eyes Deke's way. "Well, Uncle Pete, there're two stories. The one Deke wrote is about Leona being killed, but he does call you the Three Wise Men of the Blues." "He what?" Blind Pete didn't seem to appreciate this title. "The other article was by that music writer, Elroy Macallister. I guess he left before any of the other stuff happened, or else he didn't care about it. Cause he didn't say anything..." "Just read it out, Rafe." Rafe opened the paper to Elroy's article. It was sad to hear such a small echo of real blues from the blues legends Blind Pete Watson, James Hurt, and Blue Otis Johnson when they played at the Blues Angel last night. Everyone gets old, but when your fingers have so much arthritis you can't hardly pick a guitar anymore, most musicians would know to go on out to the porch and sit in the swing while the sun goes down. But while you can't blame the old men for wanting one last taste of their former musical fame, all three of them seem to have lost their hearing along with their other facilities. The young white guitar player they brought up here from Mississippi has adequate knowledge of the basics of blues guitar, but his music lacks something critical, soul, maybe, or real feeling. The music was certainly very blue at the Blues Angel last night. Rafe folded the paper back up and threw it down next to his chair. 49


"He didn't even say your name!" Blind Pete looked exhausted and sick, so weak that Deke could hardly believe this was the same old man who put that bottleneck slide on his finger last night. "That may not be a bad thing since he said I couldn't play for shit." "You want me to talk to him, Rafe?" "Don't worry about it, Uncle Pete. I could never play good enough for him, no matter what I did." "You make that man mad?" "Yeah, I did." "Rafe, listen, I need to talk to you. I'm real sick now, but I don't want you to worry. It's been coming on a long time. I know you're a grown man now, son, but if you can, try and keep James from finding out about how you are. About how you don't like girls. You just how the angels made you to be, I know that, but I think he'll take it hard. He's real upright, is James, and he seems to be getting more so, the older he gets. You talk to Blue Otis about this. He's been worried about you." Blind Pete was sounding weaker, and his hands had closed into fists on the sheets like he was trying to hold on to something. Rafe picked up the paper and handed it to Deke. "Uncle Pete, you remember that reporter came to the club yesterday? Deke Davis? He's here to see you." Deke thought there was a little note of warning in Rafe's voice. "He's here to see me?"

50


"Sure he is. Aren't you the greatest living blues guitar?" Rafe eyes were full of tears, and he turned abruptly and went to the window. "How are you, Mr. Watson? They giving you your insulin and..." "I'm dying, that how I'm doing. I'm laying up here killed." His voice was getting fainter, slurring, so Deke had to lean over the bed to hear him. "That stupid bitch has killed me. I'm glad she's dead. She's killed me, and I killed her. That's only fair." Deke jerked upright. He felt like he had a bare electrical wire jammed against his stomach. He looked over to see if Rafe had heard what Blind Pete said, but he was standing at the window, looking out over a rainy gray city, his hands on his hips. Deke looked back down at Blind Pete. He was sleeping, or unconscious, the breath whistling out between his lips. Had he really just said ... Deke walked over and joined Rafe at the window, put his hand on the back of Rafe's neck. "I forgot for a little while that you were a reporter, Deke. It felt like a kick in the stomach to see your story in the paper this morning, with those pictures of Leona. I sure would appreciate it if you would not do anything to hurt those old men." Deke looked down at him, but he was only getting the profile. Rafe wouldn't look at him. "You knew I was a reporter when I walked in the door. But I wasn't looking for a story written all over your skin last night. I didn't kiss your mouth, trying to get you to spill your 51


secrets. That what you think? That's bullshit, and you know it." Rafe turned those eyes on him. His face was tired, smudged gray making the color bluer. Deke reached out and kissed him again, tasting something sweet, heard his guitar for a brief second, and when Rafe would have pulled away, Deke held them close for one more taste. "I'll come find you later, Rafael." Rafe nodded. "I'll be here, or back at the club." Deke handed him a card with his number at the paper, his home phone scribbled on the back. "Call me if anything happens." Rafe took the card, wouldn't look up at him, and Deke sighed. "I mean if you need me, Rafe. If you need to talk to me." He ran his fingers down Rafe's cheek, hoping for one more glimpse of blue eyes. Rafe smiled up at him, and Deke felt something liquid hot slide down into his belly. "If I need you?" Rafe reached up and ran his callused thumb over Deke's bottom lip, and Deke had Rafe backed against the wall almost before he could think, tongue in his mouth and thigh shoved hard against his cock, and it was all he could do not to take a big hard bite out of that soft mouth. "Come stay with me tonight." Rafe hesitated, and Deke kissed him again. "Don't make me come running after you like some love-sick puppy, Rafe, Rafe, wait up, wait for me and I'll suck your cock..."

52


And Rafe was all over him, grinding against him like a horny fool, banging up against the wall of Blind Pete's hospital room. Rafe pushed him away. "Okay, later. Come get me later." And Deke stumbled out of the room, ducked into the men's bathroom and splashed cold water on his face. He stared at himself in the mirror, at the golden brown skin and dark eyes, couldn't imagine what would make Rafael Hurt look at him like he was a starving man, couldn't imagine what would make him reach out with both hands and hold on. **** Deke went down into the paper's basement vaults by the back staircase. From the dirty look Mr. Hurt the senior gave him as he left the Blues Angel this morning, Deke had a feeling Mr. Bruce Charters would be looking for him. But before he figured out what to do about what Blind Pete had said at the hospital, he needed to know two things: Why had Blue Otis been sent to prison, and why had someone put a blackjack against Rafael's head? He spent hours combing through dusty old papers, getting nowhere. He didn't have any idea what year Blue Otis went up, or when he got out. He wasn't gonna call the prison. Even with his West Texas accent, no one would tell him anything over the phone. He leaned back in the chair, his neck stiff, watched the maintenance man change a light bulb that was burned out over his desk. This old man had come up from Mississippi years ago, and he spent all day ... Deke sat bolt upright. 53


"Jonas!" It wasn't a good idea to startle a man working at the top of a ladder and Deke got a reproachful look before Jonas climbed down. The first time they'd ever met, Deke's first week at the paper, the old man had told him he was proud of him, being a reporter. Deke hadn't understood what he'd meant, but enough old black men had said that to him now that he understood. "Jonas, you listen to the blues?" "Yes, sir, I do. I heard about that poor girl getting herself shot." He hesitated. "What Elroy say true? About Blue Otis and Blind Pete and Mr. James Hurt getting to be too old to play?" Deke shook his head. "Elroy is full of shit, and he just wanted to disrespect that new bluesman they brought up here." "What, the white boy? He can't really play, can he? I can't believe that, a white boy." "Oh, yes, he can play. With your eyes closed, you can't tell which of them has the guitar. Listen, Jonas. You don't know why Blue Otis got sent to jail, do you?" The old man's face closed a bit. "Why you want to know? You ain't gonna write something like saying he did that girl, are you?" Deke shook his head. "I like Blue Otis. But the police, they're gonna find out about him being up in prison. I think James said it was for murder." Jonas pressed his lips together, then gave one sharp nod. "Well, you're right, it was murder got him sent up. Everybody 54


knew about it, cause it was an injustice, send a man to Angola for that." "For what?" "Blue Otis on the road, and he comes home and finds a white man in bed with his wife. And she pregnant at the time." Deke nodded. He'd been afraid it was something like that. "Did he kill his wife?" Jonas shook his head. "He killed the white man, who just happened to be a deputy sheriff. The wife, she said the man forced her, but she would say that, wouldn't she? Anyway, she died having the baby when Blue Otis up in Jackson. He only spent ten years. That was back, oh, 1940, 41, something like that. Even back in those days there was a lot of talk about if a man had a right to kill another man if he was sleeping with his wife. "After Blue Otis got out, that man from the Smithsonian helped him, took him up to Chicago to record some albums. You talk to that man yet? He's still there, downtown." Deke shook his head. "Who do you mean?" "He's got a funny name, like a bird's name. Sounds like Perry, or..." "Peregrine?" "That's right." Jonas smiled and snapped his fingers. "Peregrine. Now what was his mama thinking of, to give him a name like that?" Deke took his time, going up the stairs to Bruce Charters' office. He was already gonna be at a disadvantage and 55


showing up gasping for air wasn't going to help his case. He needed to know what Bruce had kept from him. He knocked on the glass door, and Bruce waved him in, his face unusually stern. Deke sat down across from him, and they studied each other for a long moment like a couple of poker players squaring off. Bruce went first. "I admit I was shocked when Mr. James Hurt called me this morning. 'That damned Black Indian Seducer.' I've never had one of my reporters characterized that way before." They stared at each other a bit more. "I know down the street at Howard University they told you young reporters that you were not supposed to sleep with the people you were interviewing because that causes a conflict of interest. So it wasn't like you didn't know it was wrong. I don't believe it was story research. Can you give me a single reason I shouldn't fire your ass right now?" Deke leaned back in his chair. "I can give you three. One, James Hurt had the only gun and it seems to be missing, though the cops might have taken it last night. Two, Blue Otis Johnson was screwing the girl and she was sleeping around and he has already been in prison for murder. Three, I think Blind Pete Watson just confessed to me in the hospital that he murdered Leona." Bruce leaned back now. "Okay, you're not fired." "I need to know about Rafael." "What?" "You wanted me to do this story, Bruce, and I'm gonna do this story. I need to know how you know him, and his old men. I may have suddenly found myself in a personal 56


relationship with the subject, but I get the feeling you've had one for a long time." Bruce folded his hands on the desk. "Somehow I didn't really picture you as being in a position to, you know, demand information from me. What did Blind Pete say?" Deke pulled out his memo book. "That stupid bitch has killed me. I'm glad she's dead. She killed me and I killed her. That's only fair." Bruce rubbed his chin, thinking hard. "That's iffy. He might not have meant it the way you think. Was he talking right when he said it?" Deke shook his head. "He was sick, really sick with the diabetes and who knows what else. He went to sleep or unconscious or something right after he said it, and his words were so slurred I could hardly understand. He had one of those IVs and I don't know what medicine they had in the bottle." "You haven't told the cops yet?" "Bruce. I don't know Rafael that well. But I get the feeling he would do something crazy if one of those old men gets hurt. And seems to me all of them are gonna get hurt before this thing is done. So how crazy is he? How hurt is Rafe going to be?" "Deke, you got feelings for the boy? That fast?" Deke smiled, calling himself a fool. "I guess I do, but I couldn't tell you why. How do you know him?" "I knew his mama, a long time ago. We were at UVA together. Anne's an intense woman. Something about her, it makes her impossible to forget. I don't know ... Anyway, she 57


didn't want me, after her husband was killed. But she let me stay friends with her, all these years. Deke, you can't imagine how bad things are down in Hattiesburg right now. You remember Vernon Dahmer?" "He had the grocery store? He said he was gonna let voters register at his store, and pay the poll tax there. And the next night the Klan fire-bombed his house. That was just after New Year's, right? Bruce, he wasn't Rafe's Uncle Vernon, was he?" Bruce nodded. "Vernon Dahmer, he was a good man, strong. Everybody was hoping for some justice for him until this last summer. The trials were a joke, Sam Bowers, he was the Imperial Wizard ordered the murders. Everybody knew it, but he made that trial a mockery, just because he could, fixed the jury right out in the open. They didn't even pretend to be looking for justice for Vernon. So when the case was dismissed, Rafael, he went after Sam Bowers with a bullwhip." Deke clutched the arms of his chair, horror shooting up his spine. "Sam had a bullwhip and legend was it had become the most dangerous whip in Mississippi, it had soaked up so much blood. He kept it hanging up on the wall in his house. Rafe broke into his house, took the whip, hit him with it across the chest, then a couple of times across the back when he tried to run away, and then across his face. Rafe didn't realize anyone else was there, because Sam lived alone, but one of the deputy sheriffs was hanging around. He laid Rafe out with a sap across his head. The deputy, he didn't stop to finish the 58


job, cause Sam was screaming to get taken to the hospital, and Rafe woke up and ran after they left. He hid out for awhile, but the Klan went crazy looking for him. Rafe was afraid what they were gonna do, everybody was. His mama shipped him up here with these old men to watch over him. And me to watch over him. That's why I sent you. I wanted another set of eyes. The Klan, they don't usually operate outside their own territory. They're cowards outside of their little corner of Mississippi. But I get the feeling Rafe's afraid everything else that goes wrong down there is gonna be on his head, like it's all some crazy revenge." It was worse than he thought. "Bruce, he doesn't know yet if I can be trusted, because I'm a reporter. He's not sure if my intentions are honorable." "I'm not so sure your intentions are honorable either. I sure hope you aren't what breaks him, Deke." Bruce's eyes were remote. "Long as I've known you, and as much as I respect you, I would find that hard to forgive. Rafe is something special." "You're not worried about him breaking me?" Bruce leaned back in his chair again, and Deke heard the familiar squeak of alarm. "No, Deke, I'm not." **** In the kitchen of the Blues Angel, Mama Rose was talking to her baby. "Now, Rafe, darling, I know he's a handsome man, but you got to be thinking about the future! Don't you want a little baby of your own? Don't you think your mama..." 59


James was leaning against the counter, and he narrowed his eyes when Deke came in. "You been fired yet?" "No, sir, I have not." Deke stuck his hands down into his trouser pockets, and they stared across the kitchen at each other like a couple of gunslingers. Rafe looked at Deke, then at James. "Why would he get fired, Uncle Jimmy?" "Cause he's a reporter, not some stallion up for stud! Come in here seducing..." Deke interrupted him. "Rafe, you want to go with me to see Dr. Peregrine Faucett?" Looked to Deke like Rafe would go about anywhere to get out of the kitchen at that moment. Rafe nodded and stood up. "Listen, go get your guitar, okay?" James had his eyes narrowed again. "You going to see that guy from the Smithsonian?" "Yes, I am. How's Blind Pete?" "He's bad," Sally-Rose said. "They found sores all over his feet and legs and now they talking about amputating, but he isn't in good enough shape to survive the surgery. That sorry bitch Leona, I'd shoot her myself if she wasn't already dead. She was supposed to be watching his feet for those pressure spots before they turned bad. Miss Anne went over and over it with her, watch his diet, and check his feet, give him his insulin, check his blood pressure. I never saw her with that blood pressure cuff, not even once, and she got real uppity with me when I asked her why not." Deke turned back to James. "Mr. Hurt, did you find your gun?" 60


James seemed to realize there was no way to keep it from getting out. "The police have it. They took it out of Leona's room. Somebody shoved it under the bed, probably after they shot her with it." Deke hesitated. "Sir, let me just say this. Rafe cares a lot about what you think of him. But I don't know you and it doesn't matter to me what you think of me. Me and Rafe, we're both grown men. I believe I'll have to ask you to stay out of our private business." James jerked back like he'd been struck. Sally-Rose crossed her arms over her chest. "Well, he told you something, didn't he, Jimmy? Doesn't seem to me that reporter knows anything at all about family." **** "Dr. Faucett must come from money." They were driving through Georgetown and Deke was studying the brick facades of the townhouses through the windshield of his VW. "These places look old and expensive. Have you met this guy before?" Rafe shook his head. "I think he's related to my daddy's family somehow. He's some sort of black sheep. That's what I heard." Rafe was staring out the window. "Deke, are you in trouble because of me? Do you want me to talk to somebody? I mean, I couldn't stand it if you got fired for being with me. That's so..." His voice trailed off, and he stared out the window at the street. Deke eased the Beetle into a street-side parking spot. The townhouse was dark-red brick, with the front door painted 61


shiny black. The Christmas wreath on the door was balsam, with an evergreen and silver bow, very elegant. Deke turned off the engine, then twisted around in his seat to face Rafe. Blue eyes full of dread, shoulders squared like they were carrying the weight of the world. "Rafael, how do you figure you're responsible for me?" "I ... well, because I..." "Don't take this the wrong way, but you need to put that white bullshit aside, my friend." A little temper was kindling in his blue eyes. "What are you talking about? It's always a white thing with you." Deke reached for his face, kept his palm against Rafe's cheek until he closed his eyes, turned his face into Deke's palm. And Deke yelped a little when Rafe bit down on his finger. "I know that down in Mississippi, the things you do have consequences outside yourself. I understand you're just trying to do right by everybody. But I'm not a child, Rafe. You don't have to take care of me. I'll feel better about things between you and me when you look at me and see a grown man." "I see a man." Rafe's voice was quiet in the silence. "I didn't mean to disrespect you, or..." "I know. I just think it'll be something you're gonna have to get used to. You can't take care of people because they're black and you've got the power to make things better for them. You understand what I'm saying. Maybe that's the way it is for good men from Miss'ippi, but the world's changing and nobody's gonna appreciate your good intentions. Not 62


these days, when white and black seem to be moving to opposite sides of some line nobody can see, but everybody can feel." Rafe's chin was looking a little stubborn. "I don't think you know how bad things are, Deke. Somebody's got to..." Deke reached up and pushed the bangs off his forehead, traced his fingertips over the scar. "Oh, but I do know how bad things are." Rafe stared into his eyes, then he surprised Deke by smiling. "Bruce. Damn, you cannot expect a newspaper man to keep his mouth shut. Kiss me." "Okay." Deke was smiling now, too, and he reached across the knobby gear shift and kissed Rafe's mouth. Rafe slid his tongue into Deke's mouth, then Deke's hand seemed to move on its own accord, and he found it snug up against a straining cock, covered in faded denim. "Come on, Deke, just slide your hand..." "No, not out on the street. We're gonna get arrested." Deke wanted to bite his tongue in two, anything to take the words back, because Rafe's happy, horny face fell like a ton of bricks, remembering the trouble his old men were in. "Deke, listen, you don't think the cops are gonna just..." "I don't know, Rafe. Did you hear what Blind Pete said to me this morning in the hospital?" Rafe shook his head. "He said, 'She's killed me, so I killed her.'" "No way. He was out of his head! He couldn't mean ... I mean, Uncle Pete is blind. How could he do it? How could he even know where Uncle Jimmy kept his gun?" 63


"Okay, now you listen to me. How could anybody else but you guys know that James even had a gun? Of course he knew where the gun was. James probably kept it in the same place for the last forty years. The cops are going to be looking at five people. Sally-Rose, you, and those three old men you love so much. Rafe, I know it wasn't you. And I think SallyRose would have used one of her iron skillets. So who does that leave?" "No." Deke opened his mouth and Rafe put his hand across it. "Just shut up now, because you're talking about people you don't know, and I don't want to argue. I don't want to get mad at you, Deke. I want to blow off this old man and go back to your place and fuck all afternoon." "An hour," Deke promised, opening his car door. "We'll be out of here in an hour." The man who answered the door was elegant and slender in gorgeous flax linen trousers and a raw silk shirt the same blue as his eyes. The small hairs on Deke's arms stood up. He looked like Rafe at fifty, with silvered hair and a wicked little goatee, but with the unmistakable lines of vice carved in his face. Rafe must have felt alarmed, too, because he took a step back and looked at Deke, eyes wide. The man grinned at them both, hands on his slim hips, then spoke to someone behind him in the room. "Otis, looks like your young blues angel has come to pay us a visit." His honey and magnolia voice hadn't lost much of Mississippi. "And he's got a very big, good-looking friend with him. Come on in, you two. We were just talking about you." 64


More whiskey. Deke thought he'd seen more whiskey drunk in the last two days than in the last two years. Peregrine's whiskey was in a cut-crystal bottle heavy enough to qualify as a murder weapon. Blue Otis was sprawled out on the divan, and he looked drunk up to his eyeballs. Peregrine, 'call me Uncle Perry, you handsome boys,' was walking a bit carefully, laying his bare feet down as if the floor wasn't quite still, but otherwise only the looseness of his tongue suggested he was floating with Blue Otis down Whiskey River. "Good, you brought your guitar. Play something for us, Rafe." Blue Otis didn't seem surprised to see them. Rafe looked at him and shrugged. "What do you want to hear?" "Something old, something new, something something, something blue." Rafe looked at Deke, who bit down on his lower lip to hide his grin. Rafe's expression said quite clearly, We could have been fucking right now. "What about that Willie Dixon song? The one Muddy did up in Newport that got everyone so unspeakably excited?" "What, Hoochie Coochie Man?" Perry sloshed some more whiskey in a glass tall enough to be a jelly jar and passed it to Deke. "Oh, that one's fine. Let me hear it, Rafael." Blue Otis struggled to sit up. "That man there," he pointed to Deke, "is a newspaper reporter, sent by Bruce Charters to keep an eye on Rafe. But he's liable to publish any damn thing, he don't care, so just be careful what you say." Perry raised his eyebrows and grinned, apparently delighted to have a reporter in the house. 65


Rafe spent some time playing around on his guitar before he moved into the song. Deke thought this was how he let himself settle a bit, his hands moving through the familiar old rhythm. He got a picture in his head of Rafe when he was as old as Blue Otis, his knuckles thick and gnarled, hands moving across the guitar strings. Deke felt something softening in his chest, like a tight hard nut that was getting ripe. Maybe it was his heart. But what did that even mean? Deke wasn't sure. He'd never wanted an easy life, full of soft men. He'd wanted something he would have to work for. Rafe felt good, a good match for him, better than trouble, real with possibility and danger. It would be almost as hard for them to be black and white together as for them to be two men together. But it felt strong and real, like something worth fighting for. Rafe was complicated, sweet and sharp, like biting into an autumn apple and tasting his flavor across the tongue. Deke wanted to eat him down to the seeds, then roll them around, hold them between his teeth. He didn't have any idea what Rafe wanted from him. Maybe he was just lonely, like Blue Otis had said. Maybe he was just horny and wanted someone to talk to. It didn't matter. Whatever it was between them right now, they would move down this path, or peel off in different directions. And it would all be okay. But Deke felt a strange little stirring that was unfamiliar, watching Rafe. Desire. He wanted him. It was going to cost him something if Rafe walked away. "Blue Otis, that boy's gift is precious and rare. I have been suffering from an unnatural exhaustion of my spirit that I put 66


down to the stress of the holiday season, but now I believe I missed your company, old friend, and I missed hearing the blues. You know James has never stepped foot in my sinful house, but Blind Pete Watson has filled this air with his music so many times. I can't believe ... I hate to think it, Otis, that Pete is really..." "Yeah, he is." "Listening to his young protégé I feel like he's right here with us, that Coke bottle slide on his finger. Rafael, do you play a slide?" "Yes, sir, I do. I use a piece of pipe, though." Rafe stopped playing and dug the pipe out of his pocket, handed it across to Perry. "I know this will seem like the most crass of manners, young Rafael, but I wonder what brought you to my doorstep today? Just anxious to find an old family connection during this holiest of seasons?" "Uh, no. Actually, he made me come." He jerked his thumb toward Deke, then leaned back over his guitar and ignored them all. Perry studied Deke for a moment longer than was strictly polite, and Deke noticed that his eyes were a tiny bit more lavender than Rafe's. Rafe's blue had a bit of gray, like a storm at sea. "Tossed to the wolves. I like that boy. So, Deke. Is that short for Deacon?" "Yes, it is." "Deacon. I suppose I should ask you what has brought you here today, but this is such charming company, and I'm 67


afraid you'll tell me! Deke, Deke, Deke. Such a strong name. Your family comes from where?" "My father went out to West Texas, Fort Davis, with the Army when he was young. My mother's people are Comanche, mostly. Just a good American mix, a bit of everything." Perry's eyes were narrow, and he was stroking his goatee. "So I suppose you grew up the outsider. Didn't belong to the blacks or the Comanche. Learned to depend on yourself. And only yourself. I see you as a lone wolf. Where did you go to school?" "Howard. I got a scholarship, and I had a bit of money from my father's life insurance to help me through school." "Is that why you're still here? Because you went to Howard? You don't plan to go back home to Texas?" Deke couldn't help but notice that Perry's attention was suddenly sharper, his voice clear as a bell. He shook his head. "I guess this is home now." "As much as anyplace will ever be home." Deke shrugged, starting to feel just a bit put out at this assessment. Rafe and Blue Otis were listening carefully, and Rafe was starting to grin. "Maybe home for you isn't a place but a person. Maybe you're waiting to find the person that..." "Dr. Faucett, would you mind if I asked you a few questions?" Perry shrugged his shoulders. "Go ahead, young reporter. I didn't mean to make you feel any discomfort." 68


Deke ignored this. "I guess I really only have one question. What does Blue Otis need to do, if the cops want to take him in for Leona's murder?" The whiskey bottle was flashing around again from glass to glass. "What in the world would cause the police to jump to such an inane conclusion? It's ludicrous." "He was sleeping with Leona. She was sleeping around. And Blue Otis has been in jail for murder. If the cops looked at one of those three old men, James, Blue Otis, or Blind Pete Watson, which one will they pick as the most likely to have shot that girl in the heart?" "Why don't you ask me, I'm sitting right here." Blue Otis didn't wait for Deke to point out that he wasn't actually sitting, but was half-lying across the divan, as closed to passed out as a man could be who was still talking. Rafe had stopped playing and was frowning in Deke's direction. "Of course they gonna look at me and there's only one thing to do. I didn't kill that girl, and I can't say who did. But all I'm going to say to you is this, reporter. You better take care of my boy after I'm gone." Rafe stood up and set his guitar aside. He settled himself down on the divan with Blue Otis. "Oh, no, you are not going anywhere. Don't even think about running. I need you here." Blue Otis reached a hand up and pushed the hair out of Rafe's face. "You'll be okay." His voice was gentle, like he was talking to a child. "You got a big pair of shoulders over there to lean on, you need to lean on someone. But I don't think you need him or anyone. You just about all grown up now, 69


Rafe. You don't need a bunch of old men holding you back, that's for sure. You a fine man. You make me proud." Rafe's eyes were full of tears, and the look he directed at Deke made him doubt it was still the plan to go back to his place and fuck all afternoon. "All this drama is really quite unnecessary. Blue Otis was with me all afternoon. That's when the girl was killed, correct? We're working on a book, a history of the blues. And I would be very pleased to tell the police that, or really, anything else, if they have the bad manners to come bursting in, demanding an alibi." I bet you would. Rafe wouldn't look at him, kept his eyes on Blue Otis. "Young Rafael, you're as beautiful as a Botticelli angel. And your education, my young cousin? Will you study music?" Blue Otis reared up. "He went up to Ole Miss and studied history! Got him a good degree with honors, too." Deke stared at Rafe. He'd never asked, but if anyone had asked him, he would have guessed Rafe was too busy playing the guitar and listening to old men talk on the porch to go to college. Deke was falling into that picture James Hurt had painted, of the blues, and Mississippi, sucking Rafe in, and owning him. "History? What an interesting choice, Rafael. I admit I find myself astounded. Why history?" "I needed plenty of time to think. And play." He shrugged and picked up his guitar again, held it against his chest like a shield. "Plus someone needs to remember. You know? 70


Someone needs to think about things, and remember. So we don't keep doing it all over again." Peregrine stared at him for a good long beat, eyes narrowed, and he turned to Blue Otis and the two of them exchanged a look. "Otis, tell this young reporter that story we were talking about earlier. About how Blind Pete killed the bear." "Well, now, this story happened in 1955 or maybe 1956, I can't remember. Me and James and Blind Pete were nearly home. We'd been up in Chicago playing at a club called The Honeybee and making a recording. James was driving, and all the sudden he come to a screeching stop. I come awake in the back seat, and I see a bear sitting in the middle of the road. She was pretty, gold colored fur, but she was too big to drive around, and she didn't look like she wanted to move. So James gets out of the car and goes up to the bear. 'You're gonna get hurt if you stay here,' he said, all gentle in his voice. 'I sure don't want to see that. So you just need to move on now and go back to the woods.' He waves his hands around a bit to make the bear move, and she rears up, shows her teeth, nearly bites his hand off. James leaps back, was in that car with the door locked faster than I have ever seen that man move. And he says, all shocked, 'That bear just tried to bite me! Shit!'" Well, Blind Pete is howling. He'd been into the whiskey already. 'James, what you expect a bear to do?' I remember the mule, so I get out my harp and start to play. Well, the bear, she likes the blues, and she rolls over, shows us her soft belly. Her fur was pretty as you've ever seen. But she 71


don't move, and she still blocking the road. Blind Pete says, 'How long we gonna sit here, held hostage by this damn bear?'" "He climbs out the car, and he reaches in the back seat and gets his guitar. It's in a nice, hard case. He walks up to the bear and says, 'Get the hell out of the road. We almost home and we hungry and we want to see our children before it gets dark.' The bear just rolls over and ignores him. Blind Pete gives the bear a little toe in the ass. 'I said move your fat ass or I'm gonna be taking me a bearskin home.' And James is in the car, talking through the window, 'Don't hurt that bear, Pete. Just make it move.'" "Pete turns around and says, 'James, you can't mess around, trying to be sweet to bears. They killers.' And while he's turned to talk to James, the bear stands up, puts its claws out, and swipes him across the back. 'Don't you claw me, you son of a bitch bear.' Blind Pete swings around with his guitar case, lays it upside the bear's head. The bear goes down. Blind Pete hits it a couple more times till it stops moving, kicks it in the head when the bear tries to put its jaws around his ankle. James isn't looking, got his hands up over his eyes. So Pete, he says, 'Otis, get out here, let's cut us a bear skin to take home.' I get out of the car, and I'm thinking that bear will make a beautiful rug for Blind Pete's feet, cause he had the diabetes even then and he had to be careful. But when we rolled the bear over, there was a rattlesnake underneath it in the road. Blind Pete, he's got good ears. He heard the snake, stomped down hard on its head. Shit! I'm screaming and thinking I might pass out 72


cause I'm deathly afraid of snakes. But Blind Pete, he grabs me by the arm and puts me back in the car, says, 'You two don't see what is right in front of your eyes. James, will you please get us the hell home? I want my supper.'" Nobody spoke. Rafe was looking at Blue Otis. Peregrine was staring at Deke with narrowed eyes, watching to see how he was taking this story, a little smile on his face. Deke stood up. "Come with me." He walked into the big formal hallway, and Rafe followed, his guitar still clutched in both hands. "Rafe, you want to ride with me? I need to get out of here. Or you want to stay and make sure Blue Otis is okay? Make sure he gets home?" "Why did we come here again?" "I wanted to see if this guy would consider helping if Blue Otis needed to split. I'm way behind on that one, I guess. I was afraid he didn't have an alibi and the cops would take him in. I'm still not sure he has an alibi. Rafe, can you believe that guy? He'd lie as soon as breathe." "But he's just trying to protect Otis. I mean, I understand it, the cops, they..." "But Rafe, he's not telling the truth." They looked at each other for a long moment. "You know, I always thought if I fell for somebody, it would be somebody who thought like I did. You know, a man who believed in the same things I do. Like telling the truth." Rafe moved into his arms, balanced the guitar on his foot, and Deke kissed him like he was tasting his mouth for the first time. "Your truth may be a hard line for a lot of men to follow, Deacon." 73


"Just don't throw yourself between the cops and Blue Otis, they come here looking for him. Your head isn't that hard, Rafe. You know where your Uncle Jimmy was yesterday afternoon while Leona was being shot?" "Yes, I do. He was with me. I took him to the zoo. He told me he'd never had cotton candy before." "So that's the rest of the alibis. Otis, you and James, and Sally-Rose was down at the church. Remembering history, making sure we don't repeat the mistakes of the past, that's your job? Your responsibility to the world? You keep surprising me, turning out to be such a cool cat. I'm liable to fall for you, you don't watch it." Rafe didn't speak, he just stared up into Deke eyes, hands tracing the lines of his face, then Deke leaned over and kissed him again. "We got trouble coming, the next few days. Rafe, just ... just remember that me and you, that is something different from what's going on around us. We can't..." Rafe was shaking his head. "Deke, I don't think it works that way. This is family. Obligations and expectations from a lifetime, from generations, and I can't ignore them. You think that's me being patronizing and white, but I'm sorry, man, that's just who I am. And I can't just put you and me away in a separate box. I get the whole lone wolf thing, I really do. It's kind of sexy, the way you don't have all these mamas and uncles and responsibilities, and can just go off and do what you want. But understand me. I'll stand between you and my family if I have to. You gonna have to decide if your stories are more important than innocent old men getting hurt." 74


"It's not about a story, Rafe. It's about justice. It's about respect for the truth. And I know you understand what I'm saying. Leona wasn't much, but she was still a person. She had a life that belonged to her. I know you understand about justice, Rafael, in the power of justice. You wearing the proof of that on your head." "What I'm wearing on my head reminds me how stupid a person can be when they get mad. Revenge isn't justice. Revenge just breeds more violence, more hate, until it's crawling over everything like a bunch of rats. You understand Uncle Jimmy and Blue Otis and Blind Pete can't go home? They may not be able to go home for years, because of what I did. If they do someone will shoot them in the head with a deer rifle." "Aren't you being a little melodramatic?" "No, Deke. That's what Sam Bowers told me, before I left. He sent me a message. That's what he was going to do if I didn't leave Miss'ippi and not come back, ever. He was going to kill my people. Uncle Jimmy, Blind Pete, and Blue Otis. Bruce told you they were up here looking after me? Well, that is surely what they believe." Rafe wrapped an arm around his waist, slid his hand down until he held Deke's ass, pressed them close together. "I'll stay here for a bit and visit. Can I come to your place tonight?" "Yeah." Deke could hear the husky note in his voice, desire moving like a river through his chest, down into his belly. It was dangerous getting to know this man, this man who passed himself off as a loving boy. Deke could feel some 75


power slipping away from him, settling into Rafael's hands, and he wondered if this was what happened to you when you fell in love. **** Macaren and Weaver were at the cop shop, and they only kept Deke waiting a few minutes before they brought him back. They used an interrogation room with a battered green metal table and three chairs, and Weaver brought coffee that smelled like it had been cooking in the pot for hours. "Mr. Davis, what kind of story were you working on at the Blues Angel last night? You don't usually write about music, do you?" Deke shook his head. "My editor, Bruce Charters, sent me to keep an eye on Rafael Hurt. Rafael was involved in a conflict with several members of the Klan last summer, and there was an escalation of violence. I think, actually, he meant me to discover what had happened and write a story about it, but he only told me that he wanted me to write a feel-good Christmas story about black and white blues musicians, everybody getting along together." Macaren nodded. Deke had the feeling they already knew this, and were just running through it to see if he was going to tell them the truth. "Is there any connection you've found between what happened down in Hattiesburg last summer and this girl's death?" They knew about Hattiesburg already. "No, other than the obvious fact that they are up here because they can't go 76


home. At least, Rafe thinks they can't go home. The Blues Angel is in a black part of town. Rafe stands out real obviously, you know? No way could any other white man sneak into that club and no one see him. I came in to see you because I believe I have some information. This morning I went to see Blind Pete Watson in the hospital. He said something to me, and I..." "What did he say?" Deke pulled out his memo book. He'd noted down the exact words after he'd left the hospital. "That stupid bitch has killed me. I'm glad she's dead. She's killed me, and I killed her. That's only fair." Macaren and Weaver both sat back, thinking. "Mr. Davis, how did he seem when he said this? Was he in his right mind? Was his speech clear?" Deke shook his head. "He seemed sick, and his speech was slurred. I know he's got diabetes bad." "He had diabetes. Also kidney disease and the sores on his feet and legs had turned to gangrene. Mr. Watson died in the hospital an hour ago. Mr. Davis, do you have any reason to think Mr. Watson knew where to get a gun?" Deke shook his head. "If I had to take a guess, I would think Mr. James Hurt kept his gun in the top drawer of his dresser, and probably kept the same gun in the same drawer while they were traveling together for the last twenty years. It wouldn't take a genius to figure that out." Macaren and Weaver looked at each other. "Pete Watson was blind and sick, but he wasn't helpless. He's only been blind for a few years, from the diabetes. Mrs. Johnson told me that. He could 77


dress himself and feed himself and play the guitar like nothing I've ever heard before. I don't have any reason to tell you this, other than I am concerned you'll find out about Blue Otis's prior police record, and jump to the incorrect conclusion he was involved." Macaren sat back and crossed his arms over his chest. "So you are assuming we would railroad some poor old black man rather than investigating properly? Not that I would call Blue Otis Johnson a poor old black man. He had half the station crowding in to the interrogation room to listen to him play that mouth harp. And he has an alibi, such as it is." "He was in here this morning? I'm not trying to insult you," Deke said, aware that he had and was about to make it worse. "But it's the holiday. Everybody wants to get home to the family. You've got a trashy young girl shot dead in a black blues club and the man who was sleeping with her spent ten years in prison for murder." Weaver looked at Macaren. "Well, hell! Now he says it like that, I guess we are wasting our time." Deke sighed and raised his hands in surrender. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry." "Mr. Davis, did you see anyone at the Blue's Angel who was white? Besides Mr. Hurt?" "No." "Was the doorway to the back stairs open?" "Yes, it was. There were some men out there in the alley smoking. I didn't see anyone upstairs." "Most of the time there were men in the alley smoking? By smoking, you mean throwing dice, right?" Deke ignored this. 78


"Was the music loud enough that it would have drowned out the sound of gunfire?" "Yes." They were just double-checking what they already knew. "Did you hear anyone besides Mr. Watson say they wanted to kill the girl?" "Mr. Watson said he had killed the girl. I think everyone else said they wanted to kill her, except Mr. James Hurt." "Why? What did she do got everybody so mad?" "Mr. Watson, he was beloved, you know? She was supposed to be taking care of him, making sure his diabetes didn't turn into ... well, what it turned into. She made him feel bad about asking for help with his insulin. She wasn't paying attention like she was supposed to, and she made him feel helpless and weak." Deke shrugged. "I'm just talking here, repeating things I've heard. I didn't know the girl." "Okay." Macaren stood up. "Mr. Davis, can I ask you what your relationship is now with Mr. Rafael Hurt?" Deke stood up. "No, Detective. You can't." "It's illegal. You could go to jail. You know that, right?" Deke looked at him, and Macaren held up his hands. "But you're right. It is your business, and I don't think it has anything to do with this murder. Thank you for coming in with your information." Weaver and Macaren nodded to him, but neither man offered a hand. It wasn't the color of his skin. Those detectives were thinking hard about where Deke's hands had been. And who had run in here and told the fuzz that he was 79


sleeping with Rafe? Deke actually thought it was probably Elroy Macallister. That suspicion was strengthened when Deke walked into the newsroom and saw Elroy in Bruce Charters' office. Bruce met his eyes through the glass and waved him in. Deke walked into the office, leaned up against the wall. Elroy wasn't getting very far with Bruce, and it sounded to Deke like he was trying for his shot at breaking into hard news. "That white boy started this ball rolling down the hill, Bruce, when he took a bullwhip to the Imperial Wizard of the Klan. Everybody knows he's responsible. And now the Klan has killed a girl and tried to frame one of the grand old men of the blues for the crime! We can break the story, tell the truth about the conspiracy..." "Elroy, the last thing Blind Pete Watson ever heard before he died was that bullshit review you wrote about his music, and about Rafe. Now you've uncovered a secret Klan plot to disrespect him?" "You don't know about it? You too busy sucking white cock to do your job. How's he taste? That boy's thang nice and sweet, Deacon?" Deke had Elroy by the throat before he realized what he was doing, squeezing his neck and lifting him to his toes. Bruce shoved him in the chest. "Deke, for God's sake! Let him go." Deke shoved Elroy back, and he fell over a chair and sprawled on the floor. Deke stood over him, and Elroy glared up at him with hate-filled eyes. "You stay away from Rafe and you stay away from this story. You want to print some soap80


opera bullshit about the evil Klan and the good, gentle, poor old black men their victims? Over my dead body. The truth matters, you ignorant asshole. Why don't you go watch some white singer dance and make fun of him? You know how to do that." Bruce had him by the arm, pulled him across the office. "Stop it! What's wrong with you?" Elroy pulled himself up and pointed a shaking finger in Deke's face. "What do you think the Klan's gonna do to you and your little boyfriend? You got a nice tree picked out? I'm sure they got plenty of rope..." "That's enough! Elroy, you need something besides a hunch to publish a story at this newspaper. You bring your proof in here, then we'll see." When he was gone, Deke slumped into a chair and Bruce went around to his desk, sat down and finger-combed his hair. "Can I ask you if you've gone insane?" "Blind Pete's dead." "I know, Deke." Bruce's voice was gentle. "Are you feeling upset?" "I found out when I was with the cops. I was telling them that Pete was Leona's killer." "What did they say?" Deke shook his head. "Whatever they were thinking, they weren't letting on to me." "So what's got you so upset?" "I'm not upset, Bruce. It's just that I've got to write it, and I don't think ... Rafe isn't going to understand. He's got this loyalty thing that's stronger than the truth for him. I mean, I 81


can't fucking believe it! Those old men, and Mississippi, they have worked him over good. He doesn't even know the difference between what's right and what's the truth. And he doesn't care. He thinks, who's gonna get hurt, and everything goes from there." "That's his mama's influence, and the old men. And, yeah, Mississippi. You figured him pretty good. That's just who he is, Deke. It's where he comes from. Blind Pete did Leona?" Deke nodded. "Yeah, he did. I'm sure of it. And now he's dead and it'll be like saying President Kennedy was a murderer." "It may be true, but nobody wants to hear it?" "Yeah." Deke was thinking hard. "Listen, Bruce. I think we need to tell the story about what happened in Hattiesburg, too. It's not doing anyone any good, keeping it hidden. Maybe if it's out in the open, the old men will be safe. Rafe will be safe." "Get busy then." Bruce's voice was gruff. "You make your choices, Deke. You're a reporter. I know it's important to you to do this job right. You'll always choose the story. You just understand there's a cost. This is who you are. But Rafe is who he is, too, and you might ... lose him." Deke picked up the phone, called the Blues Angel. "Mrs. Johnson, this is Deacon Davis." "Hello, Deacon. Call me Sally-Rose, baby. Rafe keep dragging you around here, I guess we better get on first names." "Thank you. I'd be pleased to call you Sally-Rose, but my daddy taught me to speak respectful, so you don't mind if I 82


call you Mrs. Johnson. Ma'am, I need to speak to Mr. James Hurt." "I'll give him the phone, baby." "This is James Hurt." Deke thought his voice sounded a little shaky over the phone, and he remembered suddenly how old James was. But tough news reporters did not allow guilt over a little strong-arm to get in the way of digging the truth out of a story. "Mr. Hurt, I'd like to come over and finish our interview. About Rafe, and Mississippi, and the blues. Is now a good time? I can be there is ten minutes." "I don't know I got anything else to say to you. This has not worked out at all like I thought it would." "Sir, I can write the story without your input, you understand? Or you can tell me the way you see things. Tell me about Rafe, where he comes from. Where the blues comes from. And tell me about that girl, how she ended up shot dead in Mrs. Johnson's club." "So you just going to write the story no matter what people get hurt?" "Yes, I am. Is now a good time for us to finish our interview?" "I guess it have to be." And he put the phone down. Bruce was shaking his head. "I would give good money to see you squaring off against Mr. James Hurt. Just don't forget he's about fifty years smarter than you are." Sally Rose was cutting pieces of cherry cake and pouring the coffee and listening to James grumble when Deke came in the kitchen. He sat down at the kitchen table, opened his 83


notebook, and took out a pen. Sally-Rose put his coffee cup next to his elbow and gave him a wink behind James' back. "Thank you for seeing me. Mr. Hurt, can I ask you how old you are, and how long you've been playing the blues?" "I'm eighty this year. And I would say, what, fifty or sixty years, I guess. Or more. Of course, blues have changed. It used to be home music. You know what I mean by that?" Deke shook his head. "Music you played alone, quiet-like, when you couldn't keep it in any longer. It was something secret that the men did, when it was still dangerous to gather all together. So we played at home, late, after the children were asleep." "When you couldn't keep it in?" "Well, things happen. And say you see something bad happen, and you start thinking about it, and then you feel a song and when you sing about it, it makes some of the hurt not so strong." Deke shook his head. "I don't understand." "One of the first blues I ever wrote was about Porter James. You remember him, Sally-Rose?" She nodded. "From when I was a little girl." "Porter took off about 1918, 19, riding the trains. He went out to California, and when he came back in 1924, he had learned how to read and write. He was always a smart man, good with how to say things. So people started coming to see him to get him to help write their letters. And he would write out what people wanted to say, and sometimes he would help people say it a better way. One of the lawyers in town got a letter about some pigs had been butchered and not paid for. 84


Once it was in writing like that, the lawyer made the man pay up, and it was a white man, too, had to pay the black man the money he owed him. Soon people was having Porter write up letters to go to the police and the lawyers." "Everybody knows what happened next. Porter wrote a letter to the police complaining about this white man who had been bothering this black girl. The girl run off with her boyfriend and got married, and the white man, he gathered him up a bunch of friends and they burned her mama's house down, and when her brothers came running to help put out the fire, the white boys, they just started shooting. Four brothers killed, and the white boys, they hung the bodies up in a tree. Porter sent the letter off to the police for the mama of these four boys. But he was real disturbed by this lady, and what she told him happened, so he made copies of the letter and he sent one to the judge in the county, and he sent one to the newspaper." "The newspaper didn't print the letter, but somehow word about it got out, and next thing Porter got a visit during the night. He lived alone in this little shed behind his aunt's house, and they took him quiet. They whipped him and hung him from a tree, and then they pinned all these pieces of paper to his clothes. It was his writing paper they took out his room, and they pinned that paper all over his body, let everybody know. Let everybody know." James was nodding his head now, almost in that rhythm they'd played last night. "So the blues, it got to tell that story. It got to let those feelings out or people go crazy, go howling off into the night. But that's why for a long time, we kept our songs quiet. We 85


was telling stories about the truth of things, and we didn't want anybody come visit us in the night." Deke felt the horror of it hollow out his belly, and his legs felt so shaky he wasn't sure he could stand up. James just looked at him, his eyes calm. But he wasn't calm, Deke realized. He'd just learned to keep it inside. And when it got to be too much, he wrote the blues. "So when did you start playing the blues for money?" "It was never about money. Back in 1936, me and Blind Pete went up to Chicago and played at this club. These men were there, had us record some of our songs. We didn't get much money, but it was the way they treated us, so different from home. Like we was special, like we had a great talent. A talent for more than just sharecropping. Man, we just ate that up. I think now, after being around a lot of those record men, that they always act like that, all this praise and sweet talking, cause they get away with not paying people very much money. Cause some people been put down forever, they just so happy somebody nice to them, saying nice things about them, they would play for free. And I think those men take advantage like that." "Blind Pete figured that one out early on, and he'd ask for contracts and the money up front, very professional. Those records men didn't like it, said they could get a million poor black guitar players be happy to come up from Mississippi. Pete said good, you go get them. So he had something of a reputation that way, and he was a man who held a grudge, you know what I'm saying? Pete never forgot the names of the men he thought tried to cheat him. I thought the record 86


men were probably right—there were a million bluesmen who would come play for a nice word and their food. But you can't do anything about talent like Blind Pete's. It like a beacon in the dark, man. You understand? You listen to him play, it touch something inside. It changes you. Rafe is the same way. They put their heart into it." "Rafe plays the slide like Blind Pete?" "Yeah, Rafe his boy. Blind Pete showed Rafe his sweet side, cause Rafe listened to him. He would pay attention, and listen, and Pete could tell the respect was real. But I'm more like his grandpa." "Deke, baby, you hungry? Want me to fry you up some liver and onions? Won't take me but a minute." "Oh, no, thank you. That would put me to sleep and I've got so much work to still do tonight." Sally-Rose looked at James. "Tell him about Rafe's granddaddy." James was grinning. "Oh, man, we called him Bull. He was a lawyer, a big man, looked just like Rafe, only tall, over six foot, and he had this voice—when he start yelling his face turned bright red and everybody start running for cover. He owned most of southern Miss'ippi. Everybody called him Bull cause when he was a young man, he saw this bunch of children had got into the pasture with the bull, and he climbed in there to fetch them out. The bull was ignoring the children, who were picking some berries growing along the fence, but he started pawing the ground and stamping his foot when he saw Rafe's granddaddy. That bull had balls the size of melons. He was a mean thing. So Rafe's granddaddy, 87


he started running, waving his arms around, and the bull started chasing him, and he's yelling for the children to get out the fence. They all climbed out except this one little girl got hung up in the brambles, and Bull, he goes tearing around the pasture, runs straight at her with the bull right behind him, and she starts screaming, and he scoops her up and flat jumps that fence, looked like Jesse Owen. The bull got his horns tangled up in the wire, and Rafe's granddaddy, he turns around and punches the bull in the face, right through the fence. After that, the children took to following him around, pretending they was little bulls, and they'd snort and paw the ground. Every so often he'd turn and let out this roar and chase them down the street. The children loved that old man. It was my little girl, Annie, who got caught up in the brambles." "Now, Jacob, that's Rafe's daddy, he wasn't like Bull. That old man had deep roots in Miss'ippi, like he had black dirt running through his veins. He understood about family." Sally-Rose put another piece of cherry cake at his elbow. "Jacob was always looking at the sky, wondering how fast and far he could get away." "He wanted to fly. He was crazy for flying since he was a little boy. He used to set off these balloons with a little fire, make them lift up. You remember, Sally?" "I remember he burned up his mama's Christmas scarf. Bull got it from Paris, they said, and Jacob made a balloon out of it and it floated as high as the barn. Then it caught on fire. She came running out of the house, yelling she was gonna get a switch. I don't think Jacob ever felt a switch, not once in 88


his young life. But his mama was out trying to cut one off her honeysuckle bushes, and Jacob hightailed it down to Blue Otis' house, hid under the porch with the dogs. He fell asleep under there, scared everybody half to death. Blue Otis knew he was there, but he wasn't telling." "Jacob just wanted to get away. Bull nearly had a stroke when he said he wasn't going to Ole Miss, but was going up there to Charlottesville, to University of Virginia. But he brought back Miss Anne. Jacob was busy looking at the sky, but Anne, she looked around and rolled up her sleeves and got busy. Best thing he could have done was brought Miss Anne to us. Bull loved her, too, but he couldn't hardly look at her without turning red, she was so pretty and fine. She still is." "Then things really started getting bad. Jacob was killed in the war, and he never got to see Rafael. Bull was heartbroken, and he died a couple of years later, when Rafe was still in leading strings. Miss Anne kept things going, though, best she could. She had that dignity, that Virginia reserve. Not a man in Miss'ippi has ever dared to disrespect her. And when Rafe was a little older, he started stepping up, taking on his responsibilities. Hurt is an old and respected name. And Rafe, he understood it came with responsibility." "How do you mean, Mr. Hurt?" "Blue Otis got out of prison in '51, I think. He came home and his children had been living with his sisters, some of them since they was little. So he let the children stay where they was and he went to work up in the sawmill. He'd come home every two weeks or so and take care of his place. Blue 89


Otis would never have been sent to prison if Bull hadn't been so sick—he died during the trial. Anyway, Blue Otis was in Vernon Dahmer's store, buying some food to take out to his sisters for the children, and he wanted to get some candies out of the jar. He'd just started counting out those penny candies when one of the deputies comes in. Now, the man Blue Otis killed, he was a deputy, and the law still took every chance they could get to poke him a bit. So the deputy, he brushes those candies on the floor. Tells Blue Otis to pick them up, they was still good enough for the children. Blue Otis wasn't going to start nothing, he reaches down for the candies, and the deputy stomps on them with his boot. Now, Vernon had a woman working there who wouldn't put up with any nonsense. She told the deputy he owed her five cents for the candies. He spit on the floor and walked out. "I don't know how Rafe found out about it. But he went down to the police station, demanded to see the sheriff. Said he was filing charges against the deputy for theft and harassment. Told all the deputies sitting around that if they didn't leave Blue Otis alone, he was going to hire a lawyer and start suing them, and keep suing them until he finished law school himself, then he'd keep suing them until the day they died. And if that didn't work, he was going to get Bull's old horsewhip out of the barn and whip 'em. The sheriff just looked at him, Rafe maybe ten, and he didn't blink, didn't move. The sheriff said, 'I believe you mean it, boy. You sure look like your granddaddy standing there.' And that was that. The cops let Blue Otis alone, and Rafe stood up from then on. Stood up like he was supposed to do, to protect the people 90


didn't have anybody else to protect them. Rafe always done what he had to do, Deacon. What was expected of him." Deke couldn't think of a thing to say. He put his forehead down on the table. Sally-Rose put her warm hand on the back of his neck. "Miss'ippi hard for everybody, Deke." James left to have his afternoon lay-down, and Sally-Rose started frying up the liver and onions. "Deacon, I know you must be feeling like we're all being real cruel about Leona. I mean, here that young girl has been killed, and we all acting like we don't care. We do care, Deacon, but ... You just can't imagine the trouble..." "What was it about her? Seems like nobody liked her very much." "Well, that's the truth of it. Miss Anne, she always tried to keep an eye on the girls who didn't have mamas. Leona's mama died when she was born and she went off to live with her aunt and uncle. Far as anybody knows, they took care of her, but Leona grew up to be an unlikable child. She told lies, and stole things, little things that didn't matter. Miss Anne always said she was just trying to collect love around her. I think that was a bit generous. The child was just sneaky, and she liked eavesdropping on other people, then saying things like she knew some secret about you." Sally Rose started chopping onions, but Deke suspected they weren't totally to blame for the tears running down her cheeks. "I know I'm not a good Christian, the way I always felt about that child, and the way I felt about her when she was grown up. But now she just seems pathetic to me, Deke. Like she never had a bit of attention before, and she was just 91


so grateful for these sorry men to be paying her some mind, she'd do anything to get a little more. Maybe if she'd had a few more women being a little nicer to her, showing her the way women ought to behave ... Miss Anne was right to believe in her. But none of the rest of us did, and I think Leona knew it." She shook her head, wiped at the tears with her sleeve. "These onions right strong." **** Deke wrote for hours, and when he turned in the story to the news desk, he had made a convincing case for how Leona Washington had died at the Blues Angel. But she was only one of the deaths, in a chain stretching back to Vernon Dahmer's house being firebombed a year earlier. Every death, and violence followed, and the fallout threatened to consume them. To consume Rafe. His heart felt like twisted, aching with pain. The obvious connection that Rafael could not possibly miss was that Blind Pete had been up here in DC, with Leona Washington to watch over him, instead of home in Hattiesburg with Miss Anne Hurt to watch over him, because Rafe had lost his temper and gone after Sam Bowers. Deke walked home late. A cold wind was moaning and howling through the streets, blowing icy rain and grit and the last few lonely autumn leaves down Deke's collar, tossing papers and trash against the lamp poles and doorways. It had been dark for hours, and the few Christmas lights in his neighborhood looked lonely and a little bit sad, rather than cheerful—they were trying too hard. Deke didn't think he would ever feel cheerful again. He was already anticipating 92


Rafe's response when he read the morning papers, could feel the tug and tear in his chest when he watched him walk away. He had completely forgotten that Rafe had asked him at Perry's house if he could come spend the night. Deke thought at first there was a bum sitting on his steps, but when he got closer he could see a flash of wet silver-gold hair and a guitar. Rafe was huddled inside a thin denim jacket, the collar rolled up, and he was sipping from a little bottle of whiskey. He handed it up to Deke. Deke shook his head. "I'm not much of a drinker. You been here long, Rafe?" "Couple of hours. I played until it started to rain, and one of your neighbors gave me a quarter." Up close he looked chilled to the bone, and Deke pulled him up and into his arms. "Come on. Let's get you warmed up." Rafe looked around Deke's apartment with interest, held his arms out while Deke peeled the soaked denim jacket off. "Look how tidy this is. Mama Rose would approve." Deke looked around, seeing the place as if for the first time. Comfortable, overstuffed sofa long enough for him to stretch out full length, a pile of books on the coffee table, a quilt on the back of the sofa that his mother had made for him when he was little. He had a big Navajo rug on the floor that he'd brought from home when he came to college. Otherwise the room was full of books and bookcases, with a decent reading lamp next to the sofa, and nothing else.

93


Rafe was shivering now, long shudders of cold shaking his frame. Deke wrapped him up in his arms, kissed him. His cheeks felt icy and damp. His mouth was warm, though. "Am I going to live, Doctor Deacon?" "I think so. If I can warm you up with a little loving." "Deke, Blind Pete died this afternoon." "I know, baby. You know how old he was?" "Eighty-three." "Did you have anything to eat yet?" Rafe shook his head. "Come on, then." He pulled Rafe into the bathroom, ran the tub full of hot water, then peeled him out of his wet clothes. "You won't need any dry clothes tonight, right? You can stay with me?" Rafe nodded, his teeth starting to chatter. "I'll hang these up next to the radiator. They should be dry by tomorrow." Rafe stepped into the tub, yelped a little at the heat of the water, then he sank back, let the water flow around him, and Deke was pleased to see a little color come back into his face. "Rafe, I'm going to get some take out from that place on the corner. Don't fall asleep in the tub and let the water overflow. Turn it off when it gets up to the edge." "I won't flood the bathroom. Is it that Indian place? I've been smelling it for hours. Man, garlic, curry, I don't know what it was but it sure smelled good." Deke put his hand against Rafe's cheek. "Why didn't you go get you something to eat? They would have let you sit inside, out of the rain." "I didn't want to miss you." 94


Deke felt like his tongue had grown thick in his mouth. He wanted this, more than he wanted to breathe. He wanted this man in his life every day from now on, until they were aching with arthritis and too deaf to hear each other complain. He wanted to come home from work and find Rafe floating in the bathtub, his skin turning bright pink from the heat, blue eyes looking up, smiling and loving him. Deke leaned over and kissed him, and Rafe reached for his head, held on like he was a life raft on stormy seas. "Why don't you move in with me." Rafe's face looked shocked, then his eyes got huge. "You mean it? You sure, Deke?" "Yeah. I don't know why, don't even ask me." "Okay. I mean, okay, I'll move in with you. And don't ask me why, either." "Okay." Deke stood up, and laughed when he realized he still had his raincoat on, buckled around the waist. Good thing, too, since Rafe kept reaching for him with wet hands. "Get warmed up. There's some dry underwear in my dresser in the bedroom, and a robe hanging on the hook on the bedroom door if you want to get out of the tub before I get home. I'll be back ... as soon as I can get here. You like spicy? Vindaloo?" "The hotter the better." "Good. Me, too." Deke went back outside, but suddenly the icy rain and darkness didn't seem quite as miserable as it had just a few minutes ago. On the corner the Punjab Palace did indeed smell good, and Deke ordered a double of Vindaloo curry and 95


Nan bread, and complimented the young girl behind the counter on the Christmas decorations. The little tree in the corner was crooked and a little threadbare, with dangling, colored glass balls, silver icicles blowing across the floor every time the door opened. When he got home, Rafe was out of the tub and sitting cross-legged on the end of the couch, wearing his robe, his hair a tangled, wet mess, like he'd rubbed a towel across it and let it go like that. He had a book open across his lap, and when Deke came in they looked at each other for a long minute, and Deke was thinking, did he really mean it? Did he really say ... The same question was on Rafe's face, and Deke could see it when Rafe decided, yeah, okay, he really meant it. I really meant it. Deke went into the kitchen for a couple of forks and plates, and he dished up the food and handed Rafe a plate. "I would have bet money you wouldn't just eat out of the container," Rafe said, holding the plate up to his nose and smelling. "Man, I love this food." "That's what I felt like doing when I walked into the Blues Angel and smelled your Mama Rose's cooking. She still trying to convince you to switch to girls?" "Well, I don't know." Rafe was talking around a mouthful of curry. "She did show me a picture of that English girl, Twiggy, and she said we could fatten her up a bit with some good cooking and then she might be a nice girl for me to date. I just hope she isn't writing a letter to Carnaby Street right this minute." 96


"Does your mama know you don't have much interest in dating Twiggy?" "I think so. We never talked about it, but she's got a sharp eye, my mama. Not much gets by her. Maybe she'll come up here and meet you." They smiled at each other for a minute, and then Rafe put his plate down and reached for Deke's hand. "I don't know what it is. You and me, I mean. It feels strong between us. Has it ever been like this before with you?" Deke shook his head. "I haven't been with very many men. More desperate and horny than anything, and lonelyfeeling. I actually thought I might be alone. Always, I mean. Always alone. I never asked anyone to move in before. And I wasn't planning on asking you. How about you?" Rafe shook his head. "I have been infatuated a few times and I have wanted to fuck until my head exploded, but it was just sex. Not ever somebody I wanted to talk to much after the sex was done. Or play my guitar for." He smiled, and Deke felt his belly twist at the sweetness. He was feeling like a fool, and maybe he was acting like a fool, too, but he didn't think it was anything he could control. Deke picked up the plates and took them into the kitchen, and Rafe lifted the guitar out of the case and ran his fingers across the strings. He played something that Deke had never heard before, a Spanish sound that was not the blues, but was sorrowful in the same way. "What is that? I love that sound." "Flamenco." He tapped a rhythm against the wood of the guitar that seemed to go with the music. "Don't tell Uncle 97


Jimmy, but I've been studying classical guitar. I thought you would like this. Uncle Perry asked if I'd thought about grad school, about studying music. He's weird, man, staring at me with those eyes. I felt like he was trying to read my mind." "You thinking about grad school?" You're calling him Uncle Perry? Rafe hesitated, moving his hand back and forth. "I don't know. I'm torn, because music, it feels a bit self-indulgent in this day and age. I mean, there's so much that needs to be done. Maybe I should go to law school, go into politics, or public service, do something useful." Deke shook his head. "I don't think that's right, Rafe. You should do what you have a passion for." "Aren't you a reporter so you can do some good in the world?" He shook his head. "No. I'm doing it for myself. I like finding out things and I like writing. And I have this compulsion to tell the truth." Rafe narrowed his eyes. "The truth could be considered to be a bit fluid, my friend." "I don't think so. And I don't think I can help myself, Rafael, any more than you could stop making music. I have to write. And I have to feel like I'm telling the truth. Listen, let's not talk about this tonight, okay?" Rafe studied him, his face serious. "I can see it's real important to you, Deke. We'll just put everything that belongs outside this room outside, and here tonight is only you and me, and a guitar and a bed." And Rafe smiled, and his sweetness filled the room, and Deke could breathe again. 98


"Oh, I brought you something." Rafe climbed off the couch and padded barefoot to his wet jacket, pulled something out of the pocket. He came back to the couch and put three tiny, bright orange fruits in Deke's hand. He couldn't tell if they were tangerines or little oranges, but they smelled like Christmas in the South. "They're Sweet Clementines. My mama always gets some for Christmas. She sent me up with a little bag so everyone could have something on Christmas morning. You don't mind if we eat one a few days early?" Deke started peeling one of the little Clementines, and Rafe curled up on the end of the couch again. Deke could see he was naked under his robe. "Deke, you're still dressed, man. You're wearing a tie on your own couch. I bet you walk around this apartment wearing a tie when nobody's here." Deke reached up and loosened the tie a bit, unbuttoned the top button of his shirt. "Maybe I wear a tie sometimes." Rafe eased the robe open. So Deke pulled the tie off and tossed it onto the coffee table. "You're gonna win this game, if we're playing strip poker." "I think I am going to win. You can take that robe on off. And I'll give you a taste of Sweet Clementine." Rafe slipped the robe off his shoulders, let it puddle around his waist. Deke leaned forward and slipped a slice of orange into Rafe's mouth, then ate a piece himself. "You might have to turn up the radiator a bit. Or you could just put your arms around me. I'm still a little cold." 99


"I can do that." Deke leaned back, kicked off his shoes, and Rafe crawled across the sofa and snuggled up in his arms. Deke fed him another piece of fruit. "It smells like Christmas in here now. I knew this lady, she would stick cloves in an orange at Christmas, hang it up with a ribbon. Her house smelled good for months after that." "You didn't put up any decorations?" "Not really my thing." Rafe's mouth tasted good, a little curry under the orange, and Deke took his time tasting him, smelling him, letting their tongues dance around a bit, and every time the tip of Rafe's tongue touched his he felt it like a blow in the stomach, a little punch of erotic feeling. Deke was staring at Rafe's feet, at his little pink toes curled up on the couch. He handed the rest of the Clementine over to Rafe, pulled his foot into his lap and rubbed the bottom. Rafe curled his toes back and forth, sighing with pleasure, and when Deke leaned forward and sucked his big toe into his mouth, Rafe melted across the couch like he was a long pink piece of taffy, left out in the summer sun. Rafe was giggling. "Keep going, Deke. You got a wicked tongue, man." Deke took his time, moving from toe to toe, didn't think he's ever tasted anything so soft and sweet, while Rafe laughed and wiggled and came erect and pulled the robe off, and then he was lying naked and beautiful in front of Deke's eyes. His cock was dark pink, bobbing gently against his belly, and Deke worked his way up the inside of Rafe's thigh until he nudged his balls, sucked one into his mouth and let Rafe's curly hair tickle his nose. His cock was already wet on the tip, 100


and Deke ran his tongue up the underside of Rafe's cock until he got to the tip, covered in sticky sweet, lapped him into his mouth, and Rafe groaned and thrust his hips up a little. Deke took him in, let his teeth scrape the long hard length sliding into his mouth. Rafe brought his hands down to Deke's face, rough fingers running over his skin. "You touch me like you love me. Like you're making love to someone you know. Do you know me, Deke?" Better than you know yourself. And yes, I love you. "Come in my mouth. I want to taste you." And Rafe thrust up again and again, his hips moving like they were out of his control, sliding between Deke's teeth, long, slow, low moans, and then shudders and gasps, hands clutching, Rafe's head thrown back, the line of his throat so beautiful and pale and vulnerable, the veins running like great blue rivers under his skin. Deke closed his eyes, swallowed him and sucked on his cock a little more, just until the shudders stopped, then he moved up to that throat, made love to his skin and felt Rafe's wild heart beating under his mouth. "You gonna stay with me, Rafe?" Deke felt humbled by the strange ebb and flow of his feelings, like the rush of blood through his heart, and his limbs. "Nobody's expecting you tonight, right? James isn't going to come after me with a shotgun?" "Of course not. None of those old men are shooters." Except Blind Pete. 101


"I don't know what nonsense you got in your mind about Uncle Pete." "Not tonight, Rafe." "Okay. Yeah, I can stay with you. Get used to it, because I may be here forever. I mean, the Punjab Palace alone would make it worth my while. And your hands, and your mouth." "I guess if you bring me Sweet Clementines at Christmas, I'll let you stay." But his arms were saying something different, holding Rafe so tightly the breath was squeezed out of him. And then they were kissing, kisses full of possibility, full of the yearning, empty places in the heart of a lonely man. Deke filled his arms, filled his mouth, his mind, his heart, and he thought that he would never be happier than he was at just that moment. Rafe pulled him into the bedroom, lay back across his bed like a naked god while Deke got undressed. They watched each other in silence, and when he was undressed, Deke walked over to the bed and stared down at Rafe. Rafe reached out, put his hand on Deke's hip. "Look how beautiful your skin is." His voice was hushed. "Deke, do you want me? You look tired." Deke looked down at him and smiled. "Yeah, Rafael, I am tired. But I think I'd crawl across the desert on my knees just to see your face. I'm gone on you, man." "Then take me." "Take you how, baby?" "I want you to fuck me." Rafe sat up on his knees, reached for Deke. "Fuck me and make me yours. Make me yours forever." 102


Deke crawled onto the bed, and his hands were shaking with urgency and desire. "Yeah, I'll make you mine." His voice was rough, and he wasn't sure he could speak, his teeth were chattering and his cock was pounding with blood that was suddenly boiling through his veins. He took Rafe's body in his arms, took his mouth and plundered it, forcing his head back, hair clutched in his fist, but Deke couldn't wait, his heart was in his throat, pounding so hard he couldn't speak, couldn't breathe, so he turned Rafe over with rough hands. Rafe's back was a long line of ivory, rippled with muscle, his ass a gorgeous round curve. Deke pushed Rafe onto his hands and knees. His hands on Rafe's ass, golden caramel against the pearl-white, and he peeled him open until his beautiful hole came into view, surrounded by a tiny puff of dark-gold hair. Deke was ready to come, the sweet warm smell of Rafe's body pushing him, and it was too much to bear, too much, his cock was starting to pump and he set himself against Rafe's ass and started to push. Rafe couldn't hold still, he was leaning back against Deke's cock. "Harder, Deke. Do it now, do it now, do it now," and Deke shoved inside, his hands digging roughly into Rafe's hips, leaving bruises. One thrust in and he was coming, something in his belly screaming for release, and he pumped against Rafe, so rough and strong he knew he was hurting him, but he couldn't stop, and Rafe was shoving his ass backward with the thrusts, saying his name like he was praying. When Deke finished coming he pulled out, his cock dripping, shoved Rafe over on his back, and fell on him, took his mouth, hands everywhere, 103


rubbed his cock against Rafe's until Rafe was grinding and screaming, his legs around Deke's hips. Deke felt like a lion, his blood boiling up in his veins, and he bit Rafe's mouth, growling deep in his throat, "Mine, you're mine, you're mine, you're mine," until he realized Rafe's hands had turned gentle, his arms were sweet, his mouth against Deke's was smiling. And Deke kept his eyes closed when the tears came, but Rafe didn't. **** Deke woke up with Rafe's leg thrown over him again, and he thought this was how they'd sleep, curled up together, Rafe's leg thrown over his hip. He felt a pleasant ache in his balls and in his belly and in his heart. Deke pulled away, watched Rafe curl up in a ball and bury his head in the pillow. He put on a pot of coffee and took a bath, and was getting dressed when he realized Rafe was watching him, sleepyeyed and smiling from the bed. They looked at each other, and Deke picked out a Christmas tie, Navy blue with tiny gold angels. He couldn't remember what had possessed him to buy such a thing, but it had sat in his closet, unworn, for a long time. When the phone rang out in the kitchen, Rafe groaned and rolled over and buried his face in the pillow. "I bet that's Mama Rose, getting ready to tell you to fix me some oatmeal or something healthy for breakfast." It was Mama Rose. "Deacon, baby, I need to speak to Rafael. It's important." "Are you okay? You sound kind of upset." 104


"I am upset! The cops have just come and asked James to go down to the police station!" "I'll go get him." In the bedroom, Rafe was pulling on his jeans, no underwear. "What's wrong?" "Mama Rose said the police asked James to come down to the police station." Rafe pushed past him and picked up the phone. "What did they say, Mama?" Rafe listened for a few minutes, then he turned slowly and stared at Deke, leaning against the door to the kitchen. "He's down there now? Okay, I'm coming. I'm coming right now. I'll swing by and get into some clean clothes. You got me a nice shirt to wear for the police? Okay, and save that newspaper for me. I'll read it when I get there." Rafe hung up the phone, looked at Deke like he wasn't sure he knew him. "Mama Rose said the police just wanted to officially confirm his alibi. Confirm it because Deke's story in this morning's paper accused Uncle Pete of murdering Leona. Made a good case for it, because everybody else has got an alibi, enough the police said they were going to wrap it up today." Deke didn't say anything, and Rafe turned around without another word and went into the bedroom. He got dressed in silence, and three minutes later he was standing at the front door, shrugging into his still-damp jacket. "Where are you going to be, Rafe?" "I don't know, Deke. I'll let you know after I go get Uncle Jimmy." And the door was closing silently behind him. 105


Deke couldn't move. He was staring blankly at the closed door, feeling something strange crushing his ribs when the telephone rang again. Deke picked it up. "Hello, my young wolf." "Dr. Faucett?" "Yes, Deacon. I wanted to speak to you this morning, to let you know how much I respect your work. Beautifully written article in the paper. And I don't want you to take it personally, what's going to happen this morning." "Sir? What's going to happen this morning?" "I am going to save the reputation of one of the great men of the blues, who is unfortunately not here to defend himself. And I'm going to do it by destroying you." Deke felt his belly turn to ice. "You're young, Deacon. And I see you as thriving on a challenge, so I don't feel too badly about this. Rafael loves those old men, and so do I, and it's Christmas, isn't it. What you don't understand, young wolf, is people like to see their demons. They like to know their monsters. They don't want someone good and familiar and beloved to turn out to be a killer of young girls. You make people uncomfortable with all your truth. Nobody wants it. But I like you, and I think Rafael is in love with you. I can surely see it in your face, that you're in love with him. So I wanted to take a moment before the hostilities begin to tell you that I like you, and I hope you aren't too badly hurt. Oh, and to welcome you to the family." "Thank you," Deke said, and the connection was broken. **** 106


By the time Deke got into the paper, his stomach had tightened itself into a hard little nut of anxiety. Bruce was in his office already, on the phone, and he waved Deke in. The morning paper was sitting on his desk, and Deke picked it up. His article was on the bottom of the front page, titled Death at the Blues Angel. Leona Washington was shot to death at the Blues Angel on Wednesday afternoon, and it appears that one of the giants of the blues, guitarist Blind Pete Watson, was her killer. But Leona's death wasn't the first, and it wasn't the last, and the roots of this crime stretch back to the rich black dirt and social injustice of southern Mississippi. On January 11, 1966, Vernon Dahmer Sr. died from burns and smoke inhalation after the Klan firebombed his house. His family was home, and asleep, when the cars pulled up... "Yes, Ma'am, I understand. We'll stand by the story. There's nothing ... Yes, Ma'am. He's one of my finest young reporters. Yes, he's here with me. Impeccable credentials." Bruce listened for some time more, then he closed his eyes, sighed, and rubbed hard across his forehead. "Down at the police station? Yes, Ma'am, we'll be there." He put the phone down and looked up at Deke. "Deke, sit down. Let me tell you what's going on." He hesitated, then stood up and poured a couple of cups of coffee from the pot in the corner of his office. "Deke, I got you involved in this and I feel terrible about what's happening." "What is happening?" "That was our publisher on the phone. There is going to be a press conference today, in about an hour, and Dr. Faucett 107


of the Smithsonian is going to refute two key pieces of evidence you used in your article. He's going to say Blind Pete was with him when the girl was killed, being interviewed for his book, that history of the blues he's writing. He claims he has tapes of the interviews." "He's lying," Deke said. "Blind Pete wasn't with him. And tapes can be made any time." "He's also going to say that Rafael told the police he was in the room with you when Blind Pete made this alleged confession and he didn't hear it." "Bruce ... that's true. Rafe was over by the window. He said he didn't hear anything." Bruce sighed and closed his eyes. "Jesus, Deke. We're in trouble here." "I don't understand, Bruce. How are we in trouble? You mean the paper? I'm in trouble. I mean, he may never speak to me again. You should have seen the look he gave me when he left my place this morning. But what..." "Dr. Faucett, that fuck-head twist, is going to propose that Leona's killing was done by the Klan, revenge over Rafe's attack on Sam Bowers last summer. And he's going to say we had evidence of this involvement by the Klan, and the paper decided to cover it up. That ... you are probably in the pay of the Klan." Deke fell back in the chair. This was a gut-punch worse than he was expecting. "Elroy?" "Sure to be." Bruce was putting his suit jacket on. "You look nice today, Deke. Very professional, very upright. It's a 108


good day for you to be publicly accused of collaborating with the Ku Klux Klan." "Bruce, does Rafe know ... What does Rafe know? Does he know what they're going to say about me?" Bruce shook his head. "I don't know, Deke. My guess is he'll stand behind his people, his old men." "Even when he knows they're lying?" Bruce gave him a long, serious look. "You can't help who you fall in love with, Deke. I've been in love with Anne Hurt my whole life. You think I would have chosen that?" They drove into a nightmare. Perry had rallied a nice mix of protesters, black and white together. "Nice," Bruce said. "He must have gathered up all his students who aren't home for the holidays, dragged them out here. Let's keep our fingers crossed we don't have a riot." They were carrying signs that said Keep the Klan in Mississippi and Justice for Leona and Free Blind Pete, and Buffalo Springfield was singing about battle lines being drawn over some speakers set up on the street. Beads and bare feet, half of them stoned, weaving in and out of the traffic, and the police were ignoring the reefer being openly passed. They had a puppet dressed in a hasty Klan robe, a bedsheet with charcoal eyes and mouth, lynched and hanging from a tree. It looked to Deke like someone had tried to set it on fire, but it hadn't burned very well, leaving the edges blackened and scorched. The Police Chief was already speaking by the time Bruce and Deke got close enough to hear what he was saying. "No charges of murder will be filed against Pete Watson by this department." Right, well, he is dead. "Mr. Watson's alibi has 109


been confirmed by two sources. He could not possibly have murdered Leona Washington." "That's Blue Otis and Perry Faucett, and they're both lying, whiskey-drinking dogs." "Also, the information regarding the alleged confession of Mr. Watson to a newspaper reporter has been discounted. Another witness present in the room at the same time has been able to confirm that no confession was made." About then, James Hurt walked out of the police station, standing straight and looking very shaky and proud, flanked by Rafe and Perry. The crowd went wild, screaming and cheering and waving their joints and their signs. Did they think this was Blind Pete, escaped from the clutches of the police? Deke was so disgusted with this piece of theater that he turned and started pushing his way through the crowd. "Bruce, I've got to get out of here." A kid stepped in his path, a boy-hippie with an itchy looking beard and striped pants that were smeared with mud. The pupils of his eyes were huge and black, and he was holding a Coke bottle with a piece of rag stuffed in the neck. "Hey, man. Don't go yet. We got to show these pigs and their establishment cock-suckers that..." Perry was at the microphone. "...and we need an explanation from Mr. Bruce Charters and his reporter Deacon Davis on why they and their newspaper would ignore evidence of Klan involvement in this girl's death, instead chose to falsely implicate one of the Great Legends of the Blues, Pete Watson. The obvious conclusion was Blind Pete Watson was targeted by the Post because he was black, and 110


too old and ill to defend himself. The Klan has money, and resources, even up here in our nation's capital. Could they have paid off..." Deke stopped pushing his way through the crowd, turned around and locked eyes with Rafe. He couldn't read his face, but he didn't see any remorse. He didn't see any sign that Rafe was bothered, standing straight up next to a man who was lying, destroying his lover. And doing it so easily that of course it sounded like the truth. His chest felt hollow, as empty as the grave. Bruce was right behind him. "Come on. Let's get..." He sounded lost for a moment, like he didn't know what to do now. "Let's go get some breakfast. The lynch mob can give us a half-hour to eat." **** Deke got back to his apartment about midnight, after a full day of being interviewed by the paper's lawyers, and the police, and sitting next to Bruce in meetings where they never spoke, just had to sit there and listen while the blowhards stormed around, ranting and raving and getting their views on record. Everything, up in flames. He'd watched his life burn to the ground, couldn't do anything about it. The first thing he saw when he walked in, exhausted, was Rafe's guitar leaning against the end of the couch. The apartment smelled like oranges still, and there was a single Sweet Clementine sitting on top of the stack of books on the coffee table. He turned around and walked out. Deke didn't know what he planned to do when he got to the Blues Angel, or even 111


why he was going there. He needed a family, just for tonight. Sally-Rose opened the door for him. She put her arms around him and held him tight. "Oh, baby, I'm so sorry. You better go in there and see Rafael. He's a mess." Rafe was up on the stage, sitting in his chair and playing Blind Pete's guitar, tears tracking down his face, but when he saw Deke standing there, he put the instrument down and flew across the room and into his arms. "Tell me you still love me." He was shaking, couldn't hardly speak, put his arms around Deke's waist to hold himself upright. Deke reached for his shoulders like he didn't know whether to hold him or shake him. "Why did you go straight to love? Why didn't you ask me if I was mad at you, so I could tell you why I'm mad at you? You stood right up there and let Perry tell the world the Klan had paid me off. And you knew it was bullshit." "Perry told a couple of hundred stoned hippies, and what did you do? The front page of the fucking newspaper? You printed the worst thing I've ever done on the front page of the paper. You made me a white man from Miss'ippi with a bullwhip in my hand. You said it was all my fault, all this mess, all this killing, my fault." Deke shook him hard, shook him until his head snapped back on his slender neck, then pulled him roughly into his arms. Rafe put his face down on Deke's chest and cried. "No, I didn't. Stop it! You're so ready to take the blame, like Jesus Christ about to climb up on the cross. Just stop it. I can't take anymore, not today." His voice sounded on the verge of something hysterical, even to himself. And he 112


reached down for Rafe, pulled him closer, strong arms around him, warm mouth moving down his neck, across his face, across his eyes. "I can't fight with you. I just want to drag you into the dark and make you mine again." He felt a shiver go through Rafe's belly, and his hands were strong, pulling them close. "Do you still love me?" "I still love you. Did you lose your job, Deke?" Rafe looked like hell, his eyes bruised and haunted. "Yeah. I did." "Oh, God, I knew it. Deke, please. Please." "Hush now." Deke put his arms around him, rocked him until they were both quiet, then tilted his chin up and kissed him again. He tasted like salt, tears. "Okay. We're okay. I cleaned out a drawer for your jeans. There's a little space in the medicine cabinet for your razor. The guitar is already there. Leave everything else behind. Just come." Mama Rose burst into tears behind him, ran out of the room. Deke watched her go, and that's when he noticed all the suitcases next to the bar. "Where's everybody going?" "Me and Uncle Jimmy, we're taking Blind Pete home to be buried. And I got to make arrangements for Leona." Deke closed his eyes. "Rafe, no..." "We have to, Deke. I have to. It was my fault he was up here. Everything that's happened, you can trace it back to what I did last summer. You know that. I can't let him be buried up here with strangers, Deke. I need to take him home, let him be buried in his own dirt. You understand?" "Why do you have to go? Can't you let James..." Rafe shook his head and didn't say anything else, just held him 113


until James came into the room, loaded the suitcases in the car, and Rafe pulled away and left him, going back to Mississippi. **** Christmas morning, and Deke got his coffee and his Sweet Clementine and crawled back into bed. He curled up, the blanket soft on his legs, tucked the pillow Rafe had slept on up against his chest. He was waiting, and it felt strange, formal and quiet, like sitting alone in a temple. Bruce had told him to be patient, give it a few days. The paper had to seem to respond appropriately to the allegations. He thought they would probably hire Deke back quietly after the holiday. Deke had unplugged the phone. The calls and threats had gotten ugly. Bruce was probably dealing with worse at the paper. Deke was waiting for Rafe, waiting to see if Mississippi would suck him in, suck him down into that rich, black earth, or if he'd pull free of it all, the history, the obligations, and come back up north, just be a young man studying the guitar, playing blues and flamenco, learning to be with a lover. He peeled the orange and ate it, drank his coffee, let the Christmas smells fill his small apartment. He was going to buy himself a pair of jeans, he decided. Rafe wore jeans all the time. Deke had never seen him in anything else and they looked comfortable. Deke had always thought of them as overalls, rough working man's clothes. But maybe it was time for him to loosen up a bit. He'd go down to Sears and Roebuck and see what they had. 114


About noon he went down to the Blues Angel and helped Mama Rose carry some food up to the church. She must have been baking for days. The kitchen was covered in pies, sweet potato, apple, mince, cherry crumble, and a delicious looking peach cobbler. "You're coming with me for Christmas dinner," she said, and he drove her Ford Fairlane a couple of blocks to the Holy Trinity church. The church ladies apparently didn't pay attention to the news, or else they refused on principal to believe anything they heard on TV. No one seemed to know who he was, or care. He helped the other men put the long tables together and haul in chairs, spread snowy white tablecloths across, and put little Christmas candles sitting in plastic holly wreaths smack in the center of each one. Mama Rose stopped serving and ate with him, because they both knew he would eat alone, and she prayed to Jesus for him and Rafe, that they would find happiness, and Deke leaned over his plate, smelled collards and spoonbread, potatoes and gravy, and he prayed, too, for the same thing. She was tired, and her feet were swollen. They didn't stay to help clean up. Some of the ladies, she confided, did not cook, did not bake, and they were responsible for the cleanup. She fell asleep in the car on the short drive home, and Deke wondered for the first time how old she was. Surely not as old as the old men? She was up here alone, it seemed. Where were her children? Back at the Blues Angel she went upstairs to get out of her Christmas girdle, which was killing her ribs, came back down 115


to the kitchen in a chenille bathrobe and scuffs. She seemed to take for granted that Deke would stay and watch Walter Cronkite with her, and so he did. She fixed him a snack of an open-faced hot turkey sandwich with giblet gravy and mashed potatoes, and she set it on his lap on a TV tray. "I know we should go to the table like civilized people," she said, sitting down in her recliner and pulling her own tray onto her lap, "but I sure love my TV tray when I'm home in the evenings." "Where are your children, Mama Rose?" "Well, my son James, he's with the Army over in Germany, and Michael, he's my oldest, he's still on the old farm outside Hattiesburg. He was born a farmer, that boy. I had two little girls, but they both died when they was little. They're up with the angels now." She looked at his plate. "You ready for your pie? You haven't hardly started on your sandwich." "I'm going to have to roll home through the streets like a beach ball, my stomach's gonna be so full. Listen, can I ask you something, Mama Rose? I promise it's just between you and me." "No, baby, you don't have to ask. Of course Blind Pete killed that girl. We all knew it, except maybe Rafe. Pete, he always had a mean streak. He was real loyal to his people, his family, but you sure didn't want to get on his bad side. And he knew how sick he was getting. I don't think Pete meant for Rafe to find the body, though. He sure did love his boy." "Thanks. It doesn't mean anything now, I guess. It's just ... I like to know. Sometimes, everybody's looking at you like you're wrong, you start to wonder. Those two cops came to 116


see me. Macaren and Weaver. Macaren was so ticked off he said he was taking his kids to Disneyland and he might not come back." And Weaver had asked him if he wanted to go for a beer sometime, but Deke didn't tell Mama Rose that. Deke turned back to the little black and white TV in time to hear Mr. Cronkite's deep, solemn voice. "And tragedy on this Christmas night. There has been another shooting in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, and it appears to be a revenge killing. Police are hoping to question members of the local Ku Klux Klan." Blue Otis and Perry Faucett showed up while Mama Rose was on the long distance telephone to Hattiesburg, trying to find out what had happened. The phone circuits were overloaded with people trying to talk to their families at Christmas. Still no line, no information. They didn't know who'd been shot. Deke couldn't think a coherent thought, just no, no, no, no, running through his head. Perry wrapped him up in a hug scented with whiskey and expensive Bay Rum aftershave, and he looked so much like Rafe that Deke had to choke back a cry and shove his hands in his pocket so he wouldn't punch him in the face. Mama Rose dropped the heavy black phone. "Jesus, Jesus!" and Blue Otis grabbed the receiver. He looked up and met Deke's eyes, handed him the phone. It was Rafe, and Deke sank to his knees, relief at hearing his voice turning his legs to water. "Deke, it was Uncle Jimmy. They shot Uncle Jimmy." Deke didn't know what to say—Who cares, as long as it wasn't you? But Rafe cared, and he was crying. Deke remembered suddenly that proud old 117


face, wearing his old fashioned glasses, telling Rafe he could drink beer if he wanted to sing rock-and-roll. Telling Deke about Porter James, and how he came to write his first blues. "Rafe, I'll come. I'll start driving tonight, right now, and I can be there by..." "No, Deke. No. I won't be here. I'm leaving. I've got to get out of here before anything else happens." "Tell me where. I'll come and get you." "Deke, you still have my drawer cleaned out?" "Yes. Everything's ready for you. Rafe, please, come home to me. Let me come get you." "No, it's too dangerous. It's dangerous for you, for everybody around me..." "Stop it! Don't do this, Rafe." "I got to go. I got to go. I'll see you when I see you." "Rafe, please. Don't do this. Did I tell you I love you?" "Tell me again." "I love you. I love you." And Deke was talking to a dial tone. Deke pushed open the back door to the alley, felt cold, gritty rain slap him in the face. He reached into his pocket but couldn't find his keys, so he just started walking, up and down streets with beat up old houses warm with lights and laughter and people, their Christmas decorations wet and battered by the wind, like brave smiles and happiness in the hard times. And Deke was alone, like he knew he would be, like he'd always suspected he was going to be. Christmas, 1968 118


Deke walked home from the Blues Angel late, and he had a Sweet Clementine and a letter from Captain Rafael Hurt, USMC, in his pocket. The letter had come a couple of days ago, but he only let himself read it once, so he could save it for Christmas night, curled up in his bed. So many hearts had been broken in the last two years the whole country was singing the blues. But not his heart, and not Rafe's. Three months after James had been murdered, Deke got a call from Mama Rose. Blue Otis was dead, found curled up with a blanket and a pillow on his wife's grave outside Hattiesburg. Perry fell to pieces, and he came down to the Blues Angel, crawled into Blue Otis' bed and wouldn't leave. Mama Rose told Deke to come get that crazy white man out of her place. Deke sat next to the bed, drinking a bottle of Coke. "I don't want you to think there was anything between me and Blue Otis like there is between you and Rafe," Perry said, his voice muffled by the pillow. "It wasn't like that. But he was my best friend, and I loved him." "I know." "Are you still mad at me, young wolf?" "Yes, I am. But I'm gonna take you down to Hattiesburg for Blue Otis' funeral. I'm gonna make sure you don't drink too much and embarrass yourself, and you're going to..." "What?" Perry sat up, his eyes narrowing. "I'm going to make sure Miss Anne Hurt doesn't eat you alive and spit out the bones." "Right. Exactly." 119


And that's what they did. Anne was the most beautiful woman Deke had ever seen, reserved and elegant and quite scary. She stared into his eyes, his hand in hers, not speaking, and he blurted out, "I'll love him forever, I promise. I promise." And she just nodded and turned away. Perry rolled his eyes. "My God. We should have practiced." Mama Rose had fixed Christmas dinner for them at the club, because the churches were so full of sorrow and hate and talk of revenge, since the death of Dr. King. She said she couldn't stand to listen to the young ones talk about taking to the streets. Deke had fallen into the habit of spending Sundays with her, because she was getting on, and somehow he was family now. Rafe would have looked after her if he was here, but he was in Vietnam, and Tet had spilled blood across the world. He'd only seen Rafe once since James had been killed, on the night before he left for Da Nang. His hair had been cut into a flat-top, and the scar on his forehead was as bright as a new penny. Rafe would see it every time he looked in the mirror, and Deke knew that's why he'd cut his hair so short. Punishment. Penance. Atonement. No one had ever been charged with James' murder. He'd only seen him once, but he talked to him every day in letters. And the letters had saved them both. He could feel when Rafe wasn't trying to kill himself anymore, had listened to him when he'd put aside the despair and started looking around at the world again. A couple of months ago Rafe said for the first time that he missed his music, and wished he had 120


a guitar. And Deke had written it all down for him, The Lives of the Blues Angels, stories about Rafe's old men, stories that told the truth. He'd sent the first copy off the presses to Rafe in Vietnam. Perry helped him get it published. It was a miserable wet December night, and Deke was nearly back to his apartment when he saw the man sitting on his steps, huddled in a thin denim jacket, a big old arch top guitar across his lap. Deke's heart took a great wild leap into his throat. Rafe looked older, stronger, and for a moment Deke was afraid that he didn't know this man anymore. He sat down next to him on the steps, his knees shaking. Rafe looked up from the guitar. "Hey." "Hey yourself." "I had to stop by Hattiesburg first and see my mama. I didn't know when I'd get here." "That's okay." Rafe leaned toward him, and his mouth tasted warm and wet and a little salty, like the sky was raining tears. Deke reached into his pocket and pulled out the Sweet Clementine, started to peel it. His thigh was pressed against Rafe's, and he was already anticipating the warmth when they would lie together, still and quiet, skin to skin. He put a slice of orange in Rafe's mouth. "Listen to this." Rafe played for him, a sad Spanish love song, and they sat together on the cold stoop, warming each other. Deke closed his eyes. "How long can you stay?" He could feel rain on his face, mixing with the tears. 121


"Forever. You can have me forever. And forever and forever." **** Vernon Dahmer, Sr. was murdered in Hattiesburg, MS on January 11, 1966. The Klan firebombed his house during the night, while his family was sleeping, after he announced that African Americans could register to vote and pay the poll tax at his store. Sam Bowers was convicted in 1998, thirty-two years after Dahmer's murder. He died in prison November 5, 2006.

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Note from the Author I was born in 1960, and grew up watching Walter Cronkite on the evening news, watching pictures on the TV from Vietnam and Apollo, listening to Buffalo Springfield and The Animals and Janis Joplin. We moved to Pascagoula, Mississippi in 1972, for the big shipyard there, and it was a different world. But I still managed to grow up knowing nothing about the Civil Rights Movement that was happening right in my town, right in my back yard. I don't know why. But as an adult, I'm hungry to learn about the times I passed through, the beautiful state that nurtured me, and the people that shared those times, in that place.

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