Dark End of the Street

One of the best places to get immersed in the local scene was down at the Hi-Tone on Poplar. I hadn’t been there since the bar screened a documentary of local bluesman Will Roy Sanders a few years back.

Tonight, men with sideburns and wallet chains prowled the bar, smoking as if the surgeon general had suddenly changed his mind. Women in satiny vintage dresses and funky ‘fifties glasses shaped like cat eyes sat around small tables with mismatched chairs sipping imported beer and listening to the music.

That was the thing about the Hi-Tone. People listened to music. They didn’t come to be seen or to pick up, or, for the most part, just to get drunk. They came to respect the music.

The interior was a funky mix of early Fred Sanford: kitschy ads for Chesterfield cigarettes, a bullfighting poster, a cow skull, a poster for an Elvis movie, Japanese lanterns, and a Schlitz beer sign, circa 1972. Loretta and I walked under drooping Christmas lights that had been snaked overhead.

“In Memphis, you don’t throw away shit,” Loretta said.

I kind of liked it. Memphis, a blender of the last five decades.

On a low stage near the front of the darkened bar stood one of those twenty-something punks. Wallet chain, check. Sideburns, check. Even had one of those grease monkey workshirts with some improbable name on the pocket. Earl. Every garage has an Earl.

“That him?” Loretta asked.

“Could be. Don’t see his father.”

“He’ll show. Tole me he would.”

I hadn’t woken up till about 2:00 P.M. with a massive headache and a sore-as-hell back. Loretta, God bless her, had gone downstairs and bought Abby some new clothes in the Peabody’s shops, and brought me back a club sandwich and a Dr Pepper. As I ate, I told her more about my days in Memphis and what I believed and what I still needed to know. She was particularly interested in Cleve. She seemed to think he’d been bullshitting me because he didn’t talk that much about her. I said it was probably an oversight, but she called it bullshit. She said Cleve, a former member of her band, too, should have been kissing my ass if he knew I was a friend.

“I get uncomfortable with the ass kissing,” I had said. “I can chafe.”

She ended up calling Cleve from the hotel and he said he’d meet us at the Hi-Tone to talk some more. Once again, he told Loretta the same story that he’d told me about Clyde probably being dead and about getting in touch with Cook. But Loretta was pretty damned good. Without another question, she said she looked forward to seeing him at the bar.

Loretta had a tall glass of ice water and I had an Abita Purple Haze, somehow that raspberry ale kind of having a tonic effect on me. Or maybe I’d been knocked loopy yesterday. Anyway, that slight fizz felt pretty good.

The kid on stage was singing an acoustic ballad about meeting his teen love at the Wal-Mart and the girl’s mouth tasting like honeysuckle. He wasn’t bad. Had a nice talent for images and words and sang in a rough, gravelly voice that spoke more of his experience than his age.

“You remember when you first started playing?” Loretta asked, carefully folding her long jacket over her arm and taking a sip of the ice water.

“Sort of.”

“You were scared shitless, Nicholas. Remember, you were playin’ those licks for JoJo out back makin’ sure they sounded in key? And he was laughin’ at you and blowin’ ’em back in D instead of C to make you fret ’round.”

Loretta laughed.

“I got over it.”

“Kid’s good,” she said.

I nodded.

“I always said, blues about lots of things,” she said. “People can play blues music but not play blues. You see? Kid has soul. He knows pain.”

“How about you? What was your first gig?”

“Beale Street, nineteen fifty-seven. Sang ‘Things I Used to Do’ with a little combo. My little brother came with me but they wouldn’t let him in. Had to watch the show from a stack of beer crates out back. He was lookin’ through a little window.”

I smiled. “You did good.”

“Hell yes, I did good. Kicked the crowd right in the nuts. Bar owner, little midget with dandruff, offered me a deal singin’ for eighty-five dollars a week that night. I was cool back then, son. Had that platinum hair and cherry-red lips.”

“You knew JoJo?”

“Not yet. That fool had no idea what was waitin’ for him.”

“And then you met him when he joined your band?”

“We met at a Fourth of July church party. He’d churned some ice cream and I just looked at those arms and hands streaked with cream and knew that was a man. You know how JoJo got them knuckles with scars on them? Don’t know why, but always kind of turned me on. Had the preacher introduce us. His country ass had just come up from Clarksdale.”

The main entrance to the Hi-Tone was cracked and I felt a broad chill when it opened again and Cleve walked in the door. He had on a mustard-colored rubbery-leather jacket and plaid slacks with white shoes. His shirt was satiny and tropical and wide-collared and about thirty years out of style.