Thursday, May 01, 2008
The Devil and Mr Johnson: Conclusion
Jimi’s question hung pregnant in the humid air; Jimi swayed a little as if re-hearing it over and again in his head. Robert wasn’t sure he wanted to answer it. His comeback question seemed an appropriate rejoinder under the circumstances: “Whazzat, a guitar or what?” For truly, Robert had never seen such a thing before. It reminded him of a guitar, since it had six strings and a fretted neck, but after that the resemeblance evaporated - creamy as milk, slim and solid as a plank of wood, shiny and forked like frozen flames glistening in the night’s blackness. Jimi lowered his gaze to the instrument dangling from his hand and raised it to his groin, leaned back his head, wrapped his right hand around the neck and began to flail. The sound of the steel strings was quiet and jangly but Robert could make it out clearly enough. Notes and chords raced after each other, changes chasing changes, a rapidity of picking from long sinister fingers unlike any he’d every seen or even imagined before. The riff lasted only a minute or two but comprised an aggessive, inventive musicianship that left Robert literally openmouthed.
Jimi let the axe back down again, rocking his head forward to upright; his eyes seemed focused intently on something that wasn’t there. “You gotta show me how to do that,” Robert whispered. “I ain’t ever seen that before.”
Jimi grinned with a grin that almost went all the way around his head and sat down next to Robert on the old tree stump. “You got any licks to show me first, brother?” Robert had actually forgotten about his own guitar resting in the road beside him. He hoisted it, brushed off some dust, settled it high on his hip like a nursing mother her babe. The fingers of his left hand caressed the neck as his right hand located itself over the sound hole. His eyes slid shut and his foot began to beat a soft 4:4 in the dirt. Pickless, his long thumbnail caught the F string and nailed it with a wicked snap; with his left hand he trapped the twang and sent it wailing back. A bucket of notes followed in jangled pursuit of each other like hornets turned out of their nest. Jimi’s eyes couldn’t open wide enough, it was as if he was listening with every sensory organ he possessed including his skin. Hee was silent and motionless as Robert laid down his groove - a jam that started nowhere, ended nowhere, but went everywhere in the interim. It was like nothing he’d ever heard, the skeletal essence of everything he’d ever wanted music to be - clean, strong, fast and passionate. As the last note faded into the dark, Jimi felt as if a dear friend was taking leave of them. All he said in response was “Damn,” and that he said quietly.
For a moment or two they just sat together, looking at each other’s guitar and each other’s hands, fingertips pink and igneous, knuckles blacker than the sky above them.
Robert broke the silence: “So what kind of guitar is that, anyways?”
Jimi laid it out on his lap, long fingers invoking an aura over and around it. “Fender stratty, and I string it backwards.”
“It looks loud. Why is it so quiet?”
“Man, it’s electric. I need an amp to make it wail.”
“‘Lectric?”
“Yeah man. Like Clapton, man.” Robert’s eyes were guarded but respectful, as well as uncomprehending. Jimi pursued the point: “Clapton? The Beatles? You don’t know any of those white dudes?”
Robert smirked a little, gestured gently to the night. “Man, this is Mississippi. If white folk knew what kinda music I play, they’d pro’lly string me up on morals.” A flicker of humorless laughter shuttled between them.
“Well, whateva’ cousin, you here an’ I’m here so let’s groove it on up a little,” Jimi offered. “I want to watch whre you go with this. You know ‘Cross Roads’?”
Robert lowered his brow and gave Jimi a hard look. “I can learn it if you can play it,” he challenged. Jimi’s eyes hardened for a moment and then both broke out laughing. Jimi asked wordlessly for Robert’s guitar and tweaked the tuning, returned it to him, and slipped into the lead. Robert leaned forward to grasp the music with his eyes in the noctilucence. Two stanzas, a riff, and then a lead change; Robert now knew where he was going and played the line with his own burning brand. Both men focused the entirety of their energies on showing something worth seeing and seeing everyting that was being shown. It wsan’t a duel, it was a competitive duet. The lead kept shifting back and forth - the riffs sliding from one player to the other as they sometimes wrestled for the front spot, sometimes handed it over willingly, and sometimes played hot potato with it as if both were so contened with learning from the other that neither wanted to teach. Robert’s lines rang crisply while Jimi’s were muffled by his lack of an amp, but as far as they were conerned, both men were picking on a single mutant dual-necked object, the sounds that each of them produced and the patterns of their fingers clear as the aapproaching dawn.
Dew began to form on the strings, which lost their tuning more and more rapidly. The hot night was fugueing into a clammy morning. The men were tired, and both let the music that had grown up between them slide gradually into a silence. Nearby a cricket greeted the day as they found their feet and rose in place.
“Robert,” Robert said, extending a tired hand. “You play aroun’ heah or somethin’?”
“Jimi,” Jimi answered. “I play everythere, man. I’mplaying right now, what you just showed me.”
“The devil you say.”
“The devil I be.” With this, Jimi let go of Roberts hand and started walking backwards uup the road. “See you in ya dreams, brotha.’ He turned to face the road before him with Robert’s smile nearly blinding his mind’s eye. Shaking his heads with a chuckle, Robert began on his own treck down the dirt track back to the roadhouse he’d left the night before, a lifetime prior.
*****
Jimi stumbled back to the studio and lay down on the hood of his car, eyes closed against the sunlight and to hold in the images of Robert’s picking. After a few minutes an engineer poked his head out and, seeing him, exclamed his relief. “Damn Jimi, where you been? We’ve been looking everywhere for ya!”
Jimi kept hs eyes closed, internalizing what he’d witnessed. “I been down to the crossroads, Lester,” he said quietly, “and I don’t think I’m ever comin’ back.”
*****
Robert reached his destination at about the same time, just as the sun poured glaringly down on his tired eyes. The shack looked even shabbier in the unflinching sunlight. The place was deserted, save two or three men left to sleep off their own drunk. His old Model A was sitting dusty and alone under a tree, and he went and joined it, lonesomer yet, to catch some sleep. He had a gig to get to that evening, he knew, and he was pretty sure it was going to be a good one. He’d learned a few new tricks the night before. Hell, he’d learned a whole new way to play guitar. He didn’t know who the devil it had been, but somebody schooled him and things were going to sound different from then on.
Leaving tomorrow for TequilaCon and fun in the Philly sun. Got any recommendations the itinerant and hung-over sightseer? I’m mostly thinking about visiting campus, hitting some delis, and gazing at the architecture of Frank Furness. However shall I otherwise occupy myself? Limit your answer to one bluebook; show your work.
