“‘Hey, Bob,’ I whispered when Heck went out to talk to his uncle.
“RL shook his head so hard that his cheeks made a flappin’ noise, but he didn’t say a word.
“I turnt away from him to the cell door an’ looked out into the barber’s room. Heck had put our guitars in the corner, underneath where the customers hung their bags and coats. I wanted to yell out for that white man to put our guitars somewhere safe, but then I worried that if I said somethin’ he mighta popped a string or worse just for spite.
“That’s when Bob started in. ‘Ohhh, momma yeah. Yeah, yeaaaaahhhh,’ he sang out.
“‘Ohhh, momma, I,’ he cried. Then he th’ew his head back and crooned a long high note.
“‘What’s that?’ I heard Heck say. I could see the barber, a redheaded man, look up from the head bowed down in front of him. I grabbed RL and shushed, ‘Quiet, Bob. Sheriff don’t like no noise.’ But by then Heck was at the cell door. He had on Levi jeans and a snap-down-the-front cowboy shirt. There was a awful green patch of skin across his left cheek. He was chewin’ on a nail as most men might chew on a toothpick. He says, ‘What’s goin’ on in here?’
“I said, ‘Ain’t mithin’.’ But just then RL go, ‘Ohhhh. Oh.’
“‘What’s wrong with him?’ Heck had his fist around one of the bars. I was afraid that he’d yank that pole right out the door and beat us both to death.
“‘RL got spells, I told him. I figured it was true.
“He go, ‘You tryin’ t’mess wit’ me, boy?’
“An’ I says, ‘Nawsir, nawsir I ain’t.’ I fell right into the plantation nigger’s stoop. I mean, I was sittin’ on the floor but I stooped just the same. I let my head hang down and my lips hang loose when I talked. I know you don’t wanna hear ’bout how somebody might act like a nigger when the white man crack his whips. But you never lived through the early south like I did. You ain’t never been on the floor with a man like a bear lookin’ down on yo’ weak flesh.” Soupspoon had begun to breathe hard at this point in his story. He reached over and picked up a glass of whiskey that Kiki had poured. He finished it before he started speaking again.
“Heck swung the jail door open and went right over to RL. ‘Stop that growlin’, boy!’
“And RL says, ‘Ohhh, momma!’ an’ he sway from side to side. Heck hit Bob so hard that the poor boy rolled across what little floor they was. But he jumped right up into a crouch and scrabbled back to his corner and started singin’ again. And Heck hit him again. But this time RL had his behind anchored. You could see how hard the slap was but RL just shuddered, shuddered and moaned.
“The sheriff was a little worried when he seen that his slaps didn’t bother RL. So he turned to me and said, ‘What’s wrong with him?’
“‘Spells,’ I said. I hunched my shoulders up to my ears. ‘Had’em since he was a babe,’ I lied.
“That time Heck used his fist on RL. That boy’s head rolled back and so did his eyes. He slid down on his side but he was still singin’, ‘Ohhhh, momma yeah. Yeah.’ And a sweet smile crossed his beat-up face.
“Heck backed on away from him then. He looked down on that po’ bluesmaster with a kind of awe.
“He whispered, ‘Spells.’
“‘Bad one,’ I tells him.
“Then he says, ‘Get this nigger up an’ get outta here!’ He banged out of the door and walked out to the barbershop.
“I helped RL up an’ half drug him through the shop. An’ all the time he was moanin’ and rollin’ his eyes. I pulled him outside and propped him up against a wall. Then I went back in for our guitars.
“I got them both and slung’em around my neck. Then I stood there, lookin’ at the floor. An’ any brave soul who mighta thought I was a coward to bow my head in that cell might wonder at me bowin’ now with courage. Because I was standin’ my ground with Mr. Wrightson right then.
“‘Sumpin’ wrong, boy?’ he asted me when it come clear I weren’t goin’ nowhere.
“‘Our money, suh,’ I said.
“An’ he sneer and he say, ‘What money?’
“‘That tin can RL had,’ I told’im. ‘I had one too but he had a bigger crowd.’
“‘What you sayin’, nigger?’ Heck said, and you know it was a sore on my mind to hear him talk like that.
“But I answered in a civil tongue, ‘I just want the can, suh. That’s all. Can is our’n. We the ones played for it.’
“When Heck grinned I seen that his teeth was green too. He say, ‘You broke the law playin’ ’fore sunset, son.’
But I told him, ‘Nawsuh. Nawsuh, the law just say that you cain’t play on Sunday in Washington County. You cain’t play day or night on Sunday.’ And he knew that it was true.
“To this day I remember that one lonely drop’a sweat that trickled down my spine. In them tiny little seconds between my last protest and Heck’s reply I saw a mouse come out of a crack in the corner of the wall. That li’l thing looked at us and got so scared that he th’ew hisself against the wall three times before he could make it back into his hole.
“Heck stroll over to his coat and pull RL’s can from out of his pocket. He held the can up to his ear an’ shook it. Then this bitter stain cross his face, what some folks might call a smile.
“The can hit me in the shoulder before I seen him th’ow it. Silver clattered all over the floor. I was down on my knees pickin’ up whatever I could while them white men laughed and stamped around my fingers.
“After I got almost half’a what fell I jumped up and run outta there. They stamped their feet like they was comin’ after me, but the door slammed on behind. The guitars banged together and cried. The white men was laughin’ in the barbershop but the street was quiet.
“Robert Johnson was gone.
“I went down Germaine but I didn’t see him. I cut down there to Winslow and into the colored part of town. You could always tell the colored neighborhood because the flower gardens got scarce and the shotgun houses ran in rows.
“I saw RL goin’ down toward Carver’s Road, which led out to the farms and plantations
“I shouted, ‘You, Bob!’
“He started to run.
“‘Bob!’ I goes after him.
“RL was runnin’ like I used to in my dreams. A giant be comin’ after me an’ I’d be huffin’ but my feet hardly made no progress. RL was runnin’ like that, movin’ his legs from side to side. When I caught up to him he fell to his knees.
“‘Bob!’ I says. ‘Bob, it’s me, Soup, Soupy!’
“RL huddle down in the yellah dirt and sobbed. I helped him up and got’im t’walk wit’ me. I told’im that we could get some whiskey if we went back to Mary’s general store. Back then the general store was also a juke joint, what they call a nightclub nowadays.
“RL says, ‘Why you got my guitar, man?’
“‘Just carryin’ it till you want it back, RL. Ole Heck almost busted it.’ RL looked at me so wary I didn’t think he knew who I was.
“‘Where my money?’
“‘Right here in my pocket, Bob.’
“He stopped walking and I dug out his change. I kept a few coins in my pocket though, I figured I earned that.
“‘This all they is?’ he asted me. And I told him that Heck Wrightson took all the rest and th’owed it on the jailhouse floor.
“RL took his guitar and we headed for Mary’s. He didn’t even say nuthin’ ‘bout bein’ in jail. I don’t even think it was real fo’him. It was more like we had passed through a dream and now we was back to where we was.
“Mary’s store was a big square room with a counter running across the back wall and shelves full of canned and boxed goods behind that. In the middle of the floor she had a pool table that had been shipped all the way from Ohio.