CHAPTER 1
"Uh, you gonna play your hand? What you got—or what, Teardrop?"
Maurice "Teardrop" Williams's ears might as well have been tone deafto what Shorty Boy Logan had just said.
"So you got what? A seven and a three showing? Hid up beneath themtop cards, then I'm in trouble—if you sporting you twenty-one, man."
Maurice "Teardrop" Williams's face was handsome, was probably toohandsome for any fifty-two-year-old bluesman. Sharp features. Soft skin.Brown eyes. Brown skin. A great face it seemed for bluffing at blackjacklate at night in Bunky's Better Bunks, a roadside motel, after playing ablues gig at Freddie's Freeloader in Atlanta, Georgia.
Kenneth "Shorty Boy" Logan was the one dealing the playing cards.Shorty Boy Logan looked like his nickname—a bluesman as short as themostly dealt-out deck of cards on the rickety card table in the yellow-litroom. Shorty Boy was holding the cards in his hands as if they werestrangling them. Shorty Boy wasn't a young man, but with his nickname,it tended to keep him just that—young (only, not as young as springtime—noteven close). Oftentimes Shorty Boy Logan felt like his nickname hadjust been handed down to him by Uncle Cirrus (the older brother of hisfather, Clover Logan) just yesterday, down in Justice Alabama, at the ageof four. "Gonna hold, huh, Teardrop? That what you ... Wanna hit? ...I'll take that for ... You ain't got a ace hid up beneath them cards, do you?Hell, man, you bluffing. Bluffing big as a hosed-down hog at a county fair!Probably got you no more than ... what, fifteen, sixteen ... m-most ...Well, you know I got me a eight and a two showing—ten too. Could havean ace, right? Twenty-one," Shorty Boy said, tugging his plaid, brown pubcap that fit his head snug as a rug even if sweat poured from it like NiagaraFalls.
Maurice "Teardrop" Williams was a world-famous blues player, a greatsinger/guitarist/ songwriter. Kenneth "Shorty Boy" Logan played secondguitar and tom-toms. There was a third band member of the TeardropWilliams's Tearmakers band, Johnny "Twelve-Fingers" Eakins who playedpiano. At the moment, Twelve Fingers Eakins was in his room next toTeardrop's, sleeping. Said he was "tired as hell" before turning in for thenight.
"T-Teardrop ...," Shorty Boy said suddenly, seeing that somethingseemed wrong with him since his body was shaking—only, shaking likeit was trying to fight off a two-day old fever that seemed to be grippinghim, obviously shaking him from inside out.
"Teardrop, you're shaking. Your body's shaking like crazy, man!"
Teardrop's hands held tightly to the card table, so the rickety little tablebegan shaking like crazy too, its legs and flat-surfaced top.
Shorty Boy shot up from the card table and got over to Teardrop, butit's when Teardrop stood and his body shook even more, like it was goingto shake all the room's stagnant air out.
"I can't do this anymore. Continue like this. Not without my wife,Shorty Boy. Maureen!"
"It's been seven months, Teardrop. Seven—Maureen's been dead. She'sbeen bur—"
"Seven months too long, Shorty Boy. Maureen, I need her, ShortyBoy. I don't need this, want this kind of life anymore. Living it out of asuitcase. Out of hotel rooms, at my age. Making music with no purpose.Not understanding why anymore. Knowing, always knowing I have to gohome anyway once I'm through. Home, home—carrying it around in melike another piece of luggage out on road trips."
"Shouldn't feel like that, thataway," Shorty Boy said. "A-ain't whatnobody wants to happen to you, man."
"But it's what I'm feeling. All the time."
"Don't know that. Or hear it in your playing."
"Arlene. I must call her. It's what I'll do. Tell her I'm coming home."
Both looked over at the bright-red telephone on the short-leggednightstand.
"Arlene will understand ... She'll—"
"Gonna step out the room. Now k-knock on the wall if you need mefor any reason, Teardrop. Y-you hear?"
"Thanks, Shorty Boy."
"Ain't gonna wake Twelve Fingers. Solid as that man sleeps. How theman ties it on for the night. Leave that alone."
Knock.
Teardrop had knocked on the paper-thin wall. And within seconds,there was a corresponding knock on Teardrop's door. Teardrop laughed."You know you can come in, Shorty Boy, without—"
"Ain't just Shorty Boy, Teardrop. It's me too. Me and Shorty Boy."
"Oh ... oh, sorry about the knock, Twelve—"
"No, was awoke when Shorty Boy come in the room. Tiptoe in. Whyyour knock don't disturb me none."
Twelve Fingers Eakins was heavyset, tall, and with a wide wall of aback. His face was black like a burnt-out sky. His clothes were rumpled.Stylewise, he had a penchant for suspenders (dark blue today). His was anold soul.
"Twelve Fingers got the news, Teardrop. Told the man."
Teardrop sat down on the narrow bed. "I apologize for this suddendecision, Twelve Fingers. Whew." Twelve Fingers and Shorty Boy sat inthe chairs at the card table. "It probably was building up in me. All along.Far before today—"
"And hell, gotta explode. Way it done tonight, Teardrop," TwelveFingers said.
"I've been swimming, I suppose, in dark, murky waters these past fewmonths without actually having any real sense that I was."
Twelve Fingers Eakins eased his heavy back in his chair. "Don't worry,you know," he said, snapping the suspenders and then looking deeper intoTeardrop's eyes.
"Think so?"
"Do. Just don't bring it to the music any. What you going through.Don't mix it in between them notes you playing. Why, don't hear it, atleast."
"What I tell Teardrop, Twelve Fingers, exactly so," Shorty Boy said.
"I think so too, Twelve Fingers. In our lives, we've all had personallosses. There're moments though when I wish I was the one who died andnot Maur—"
"No, man, don't do that. Ain't good wishing on something like that.Seen a man's fortune change from wishing that. Putting that kind of badvibe out there—ain't healthy for nobody," Twelve Fingers said with greatrespect toward Teardrop.
"Everything can go bad, downhill quick on you. Just good 'nough thatyou love somebody like Maureen. And she love you back."
"The memories of her are still too strong for me. It feels as if I'm backto where I was when she died," Teardrop said, looking at Shorty Boy andthen at Twelve Fingers. "I guess I just want to be to myself. I'm still lookingfor answers I still can't seem to—"
"More like find yourself, don't you think, Teardrop?" Twelve Fingerssaid.
Teardrop laughed. "Whoever that is. Wherever Teardrop Williams ishiding."
"All of us gotta go there one time or another to find it."
"I know. But I thought I'd done it—the hard work. I went deepenough after Maureen's death. But it's clear now that I haven't."
"Still better answers to come then."
"You gotta believe that, Teardrop. Where Twelve Fingers's takingyou."
"So Arlene, what she say? When you hit her up with the news that youwas coming home, back to Walker City?" Twelve Fingers said.
"Surprised. But pleasantly so. We had a good ... an excellent talk."
"Good," Shorty Boy said, removing his pub cap while wiping hishead clean with a crimson-red handkerchief he bought in Memphis,Tennessee.
"And don't worry about the rest of the circuit—"
"B-but we have two gigs left, Twelve Fingers, on tour."
"I know you the boss, Teardrop"—Twelve...
