Delta Blues Read online

  “Oh, my!” Clista drew away from her, an instinct, and was immediately embarrassed.

  “Well, it wasn’t my fault, you know.”

  “Of course not. Absolutely not. I’m so sorry. I’m just not accustomed—”

  “My point is, that’s just one of the crappy things I’ve experienced. And it wasn’t even the worst. But I keep it upbeat, you know? Keep it in the sunlight. Positive thoughts. Let it out in the lyrics. So do you believe I can sing?”

  “I would imagine so,” she said, thinking, betrayal feels like the big, silver blade of a very sharp knife slicing cleanly through the jugular. He betrayed me and I was unleashed in an unthinkable way, into utter insanity. I was not responsible, nor do I regret. The lioness kills to protect her vulnerable offspring, after all. Is there an analogy to be had? Does it even matter?

  “—and my boyfriend—he’s a tattoo artist—he did all of mine, see?” She turned her leg to reveal the serpent-like lizard inked around her calf, winding toward its own tail; turned a shoulder bearing a crucifix, Jesus and his blood upon an elaborately detailed cross, the eyes of the holy martyr cast up in surrender to the Father. “His name—my boyfriend’s—is Dakota. A state, right? It fits with my world view. He’s amazingly talented. I mean, isn’t this gorgeous?” She pulled down the front of her t-shirt to reveal, just above her heart, a small but beautifully intricate insect of some kind—something like one might find in a fly fisherman’s tackle box. “I have others, but they’re in hard to find places, if you know what I mean.”

  Clista’s husband was a fly fisherman with a vast, three-tiered tackle box loaded with treasured lures, some even from his navy days, the days of their courtship. He took regular and frequent fishing trips to Colorado at solitary resorts, to the Rocky Mountain streams where he danced his line in the rhythmic ballet of a cast. She did not accompany him as she had no interest in his hobbies other than as fodder for those sometimes necessary social conversations.

  “Paul loves his lures as much as he loves me,” she might joke, “but at least he finds me more alluring.” Not that she alluded to any sort of physical sensuality between the two of them. Clista had always found that particular expression of human instinct to be distasteful at best, more of the time disgusting. There were un-artful fumblings early in their union, a marriage that followed a courteous courtship, but they soon settled into a life of platonic rhythms, ebbing away into their separate daytimes then flowing into their dining room and den of an evening, watching the woods at night from their isolated split-level home, tucking into the twin beds connected by a night stand bearing an antique Princess telephone, pink, with a nine millimeter loaded and at the ready in its French Provincial drawer.

  “—so why don’t you just take a look,” Savannah had opened a cell phone and was scrolling through some photographs. “Here you go,” and she turned the screen to Clista.

  “Oh!” It came almost as a shriek paired with another recoiling of her whole body. The wheels left the blacktop for a few seconds.

  “Holy Christ—what was that?” Savannah looked at her as if she had two heads and then studied the screen of her phone, a close-up of her pubic area and the peace lily engraved above the curls. Her face fell. “Oh. I thought you wanted to see my other tattoos. Sorry.”

  “No, it’s alright. I—I’m just not accustomed to such images.”

  “No shit. Well, I didn’t mean to scare you. I mean, it’s just skin, basically. I’ve never seen what the big deal is. Skin is skin. It holds in our organs. Sex is something else, but it really amounts to just rubbing. But you’re the driver so I sure as hell won’t fuck with you. But you have to know up front that I was born without a filter.”

  “Filter?”

  “You know, I tend to blurt out whatever’s in my head. I’m ADHD, so it kind of goes with the territory. I’ll try to watch my mouth, though. I mean, you could easily just dump me on the side of the road again. And there I’d be with my thumb out. Again.”

  “I won’t do that.” Then, for no real reason she could fathom, she added, “I’m going all the way to Memphis.”

  “For real? Holy shit, that’s awesome. How lucky is it you picked me up, And don’t worry—no more tattoo pictures,” and she laughed a trilling, lively laugh.

  Paul had a tattoo, from the time he served in the navy during the Vietnam Conflict. It was of two intertwining snakes encircling a cross, the word “Bound” crowning the top of the cross like a bent halo. He said it represented his love of country, how bound up in it he was. And he believed in what he was doing in fighting the Red Menace off the shores of Southeast Asia, even if he never had to dodge any bullets.

  “Your husband?”

  “What?” Clista had not realized she had spoken.

  “With the serpents. So symbolic. I mean, my uncle Jessie actually fought over there—lost a leg and an eye. He has a cool glass eye he entertained us with—my cousins and me—when we were kids. He’d take it out and toss it up in the air and catch it in his mouth like popcorn.”

  Clista shuddered.

  “I know, pretty gross. But not if you’re a little kid and not really at all if you think. I mean, look what he’s been through. He deserves to do whatever the hell he wants, huh? He doesn’t have a fake leg anymore. He used to. And he could make it do fart noises, another thing little kids love.”

  “Goodness!” Paul was not allowed—had not been allowed—to fart in her presence. Clista insisted that he step into the bathroom or outside if that urge was upon him. On those occasions when it happened serendipitously, he apologized with abject humiliation to her stony disdain.

  Black earth was turned in the fields bordering Highway 61. Planting was done, and within months the rich soil would nourish the snowy crop of bolls, and cotton puffs would litter the roadside after picking time. Picking. To pick off. She had killed him, shot him in the head right there in his study, where she had found him before dawn, crept up to the door, borne witness to the sounds of lecherous, staccato-rhythmed motions and gritty, profane talk. He was preoccupied enough not to notice the slight click as she eased the door open, just a crack, just enough that she could see the man facing him on the computer screen, knew immediately who he was—the man in the photographs holding stringers heavy-laden with fish—the best friend from the navy, Spencer Kraus, also married. She fetched the gun and returned to wait it out. He didn’t notice, even when the screen had gone dark and he’d lain his head down on his arms, exhausted, as she padded across lush pile in one dreamlike motion, squeezed two bullets into his skull, turned and left just that quickly, with the stealth of a jungle cat.

  “So tell me more.” Savannah’s words, again jarring.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You just said you were a cat.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah, a jungle cat. And I’m thinking, what the hell?”

  “I’m sorry,” Clista stammered. “I’m just upset.” She had to watch her words, slipping out unintended and quick, like minnows darting across currents.

  “Well, then tell it, sister. What did the son of a bitch do?” She pulled out a pack of American Spirit cigarettes. “Okay if I smoke?”

  “Yes.” Her surrender felt like the beginning of some kind of relief. “But only if you light one for me.”

  THE SOUND OF CLATTERING DISHES and running water came from a kitchen in the back of the diner. Savannah was putting heart and soul into devouring her sandwich, dousing it mid-chew, and frequently, with Dr. Pepper. “Thank you so much for buying,” she gulped. “My money situation is pretty busy, but that’ll change when I hook up with Dakota.”

  Clista had attempted to force down a salad, but nausea made that impossible so she nibbled a couple of Saltines. She had bought her very own pack of cigarettes, Virginia Slim menthols, the brand of her younger years. You’ve come a long way, Baby, the old advertising jingle rattled around in her head. She exhaled a mushroom cloud of smoke. “I can’t think, can’t know what to do.”

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nbsp; “Sure you can.” Savannah leaned across the table, speaking in a hushed but animated tone. “You can absolutely know what to do. You just have to connect all the dots. That’s what my uncle Jessie used to say, anyway. But he was pretty PTSD. You’re probably kind of PTSD about now, too.”

  “The dots are scattered all across the floor.” And she thought of throwing jacks as a child, the scattering stars, the ball bouncing. “That’s the way the ball bounces,” she murmured, smiling.

  “Okay, okay, you’re not going all mental on me, right?”

  “No. I’ve already been mental. Can I go sane on you?”

  “That would be good, but dude, your life is going to go end over end either way. I mean, you’ve got to either get a new identity and disappear—and that’s really hard—or go back and come clean—and that’s really hard, too. Man!” Her eyes widened at the enormity of it all.

  “Are my eyes still red and puffy?”

  “Yeah, but that’s good. I think it keeps the waitress from coming over too often.”

  Clista took out her compact and applied a fresh coat of coral to her lips. I am a coral snake. She blotted with a napkin pulled from the stainless steel holder.

  They were in a desolate part of the state where the crook of the Mississippi separated Arkansas, Tennessee and Mississippi, at Buck’s Diner, where time had stopped decades earlier, an eatery with worn red plastic seats, dull chrome, and a hanging musk of aged bacon grease. It was just past the lunch hour, so the two women had the place to themselves while a sour-faced teenager bused a few tables. A grizzled-looking cook sat at a booth near the kitchen door, smoking, chatting in a low, gravelly voice with the one waitress, who sauntered over to the travelers once in a while, called them “honey” and “sugar” and “baby” as she offered more tea.

  “Man, you’re in some serious shit. I’ve known all kinds of people slogging through all kinds of shit. Hell, my own mother only had me because she couldn’t afford another abortion. She was a drug addict. Cocaine. Sometimes she did men to get money for it. Now she’s killing herself with meth. I was trying to help her get straight, but that stuff is insane. In-fucking-sane. You really saved my life by picking me up.”

  A hopeful little ripple went through Clista. “Do you think maybe that cancels out the other?”

  “Maybe so,” Savannah grinned. “Maybe the karma is right now. Maybe that’s a reason to keep running. Or to go back.”

  “I can’t believe I actually told you everything. It’s not like me at all.”

  “But it is me. Seriously. It’s something about me,” Savannah said. “People tell me stuff all the time. Strangers. I mean, I’ll be in the checkout line and somebody will just unload their whole entire bizarre life story. It happens all the freaking time.”

  But I don’t confide in anyone, Clista thought, still marveling at how Savannah had coaxed the darkness out of her.

  “What did the son of a bitch do?” she had asked.

  “How do you know it’s about a man?”

  “Always is. Your husband?”

  “Yes.”

  “So come on with it.”

  “No.”

  “Come on. Tell it.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Just say the words.”

  And Clista’s fingers had tightened on the steering wheel of the smoke-filled champagne-colored Cadillac. “My husband betrayed me.”

  “You know it.”

  “He lied and cheated and did it from the start.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And it’s worse than that.”

  “How?”

  “My husband betrayed me.”

  “Tell.”

  “With a man.”

  “Holy Christ.”

  “A double life.”

  “You’re right. That is worse. Way fucking worse.”

  “I was faithful to that man forever and he was faithful to his man forever and I caught him in a despicable act and I killed him.”

  “Killed?”

  “Shot.”

  “The fuck you say!” And Savannah had turned her body fully facing her in the car. “You are so not the type!”

  “Apparently I am.” And she had pulled onto the shoulder of the road, rested her head on the steering wheel and howled like a wounded animal as Savannah, effervescence disarmed by the rawness of it all, tried impotently to console her.

  THE WAITRESS SAUNTERED OVER. “Here, sweetie, let me get this out of your way,” she said, and began collecting plates and utensils, blood red fingernails clicking against heavy white glass.

  Savannah picked up the last of her BLT and pushed the plate. “Are you still taking me to Memphis?” she asked as the waitress sauntered away.

  “Of course.”

  “You’re not, like, dangerous or anything, right?” It was almost a whisper.

  “I have no weapons or designs upon your possessions.”

  “I know that. It just felt like a question I had to ask, you know? I mean, how dumb would I feel if something really happened—and I know it isn’t—but something happened and I never even asked the question in the first place. Man, would I feel dumb.”

  “Certainly.”

  “Plus, I just got to get to Memphis.”

  “What will you do when you get there? Where will you live?”

  “With Dakota, of course. He’ll come pick me up wherever you and I land. He has a place off Beale Street, right in the thick of things. Man, I can’t wait to go out to some of those clubs. Not the touristy ones on the main drag. The real ones. The ones you have to just happen into. But the first thing I’m going to do—and I know this is stupid and touristy and all—but I’m going to get me some barbecue.”

  “Can I join you?”

  “Sure. Are you like, buying?”

  “Of course. It’ll be my Last Supper.”

  “Holy shit. You’re not going all suicidal or anything, are you? Because that’s even more messed up than what’s gone down. Seriously.”

  “You’re right. Besides, I don’t know. Could I actually go home to that—mess, and put the gun to my own head? I just don’t see it.”

  “Well, you know they say it’s a permanent solution to a temporary problem, right?”

  “It would certainly be a problem for both my permanent and my temple,” Clista said, but her puny, half-hearted attempt at punning fell on deaf ears.

  MEMPHIS WAS A PRESENCE she could feel well before hitting the outskirts. It was in the whispery thrum of potential stories in song—a spiritual imprint that webbed out and out to the rising hills and farms, cascading down the Mississippi River to rich Delta dirt.

  Savannah must have felt it, too. She threw her head back and let fly several bars of melodic anguish, big and rich, at odds with the tiny vessel making the music. “You might think you’re living large, baby, but you’ll be dying when you get home. You might think you’re hitting the mark, baby, but you’ll just be trying when you get home.” She turned to Clista. “What do you think? It’s something I’ve been working on.”

  “You’re very talented. I don’t know a lot about the blues, but you have a unique sound.”

  “Unique good or unique I-can’t-think-of anything-good-to-say-so-I’ll-say-unique?”

  “Definitely good. Raspy good.”

  Savannah beamed. “Thank you. And you’re wrong about the other.”

  “What other?”

  “The blues. You know a hell of a lot about the blues.”

  “I do? Well, yes, now.”

  “No, always. Can you talk about your life? Your self? I mean, okay, you spent a very long marriage being some guy’s beard, but that doesn’t happen in a vacuum, you know?”

  “A beard?”

  “You know—the wife of a gay man who lives in a really deep closet.”

  “There’s actually slang for it?”

  “Sure. You don’t know a lot about sex, do you?”

  “I know it’s messy.”

  “Okay, see, this is what I m
ean. You don’t like sex. That’s how you and your husband connected, on a really basic level. So if you think about it, it was not a bad arrangement. You each got what you needed. You just couldn’t handle knowing it, right?”

  “I’m not sure. What I’ve done is so much worse than knowing anything.”

  “Who really knows anything?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, my boyfriend Dakota, right? He believes that there is nothing but thought and that we’ve thought all this up. Like, you thought me up on the side of the road and poof, there I was. You thought up a husband who used you as his beard so you killed him.”

  “This is all a lot of pseudo-philosophical malarkey.”

  “Oh my god, you said ‘malarkey.’ You are so not the type to kill a person. But anyway, here’s the thing.”

  “I suppose I could just think him back alive, correct?”

  “Well?”

  “You must be crazy.”

  “Yeah, I am, but so is everybody—including you.”

  Clista’s muscle memory sprang into a mode of defense that immediately fizzled. Crazy? With such a buffed and polished image? With a picture perfect life? With the dead husband laid out across his computer desk? “Maybe I can think him back alive?”

  “Damn right. It’s got to be worth a freaking try.”

  They ate just outside the city limits at Uncle Stumpy’s Bodacious Barbecue Bin, thick brown sauce crawling across their fingers, down their chins, sticky napkins piled on the tabletop. Clista found herself laughing at the mess of it all. “This is real barbecue. I’ve never had the real thing,” and she sucked on her fingers just like Savannah did. And when Savannah flipped open her cell phone to call her boyfriend Dakota to come and pick her up, Clista studied the way the young woman cocked her head, trilled her voice up and down, like a delightful little bird, as she spoke. Twenty-six, yet so much like a young girl—enthusiastic, forward-looking, hopeful, on the verge of a dream.