Music To Murder By: Aural Pleasures In Gully Gods, The Crawlin’ Chaos Blues, And The Merkabah Rider Series

A lot of writers I know talk about the music they listen to while they write, how it inspires them. I have never been musically inclined and I need almost total silence to write most of the time. I find music distracting, particularly if it has lyrics, or if I associate it with something else, like a movie soundtrack or something.

There have been three notable exceptions, Gully Gods (from Four In The Morning) The Crawlin’ Chaos Blues, and Merkabah Rider.

I still don’t listen to music while I’m writing, but for these three works there are certain songs I’ve found myself listening to (usually in the car) to get me in the mindset. Particularly for Gully Gods and Crawlin’ Chaos, which both mention a couple of these tracks in the body of the story.

‘It was real hot that night, August in Houston. Me and B and Cripto was chillin’ in the Subway parking lot smokin’ beedies and eatin’ footlongs over the trunk of his ride (a tricked out two toned black and grey’92  Buick Roadmaster nigga called The Batmobile – had chrome bats on the dub spinners) and listenin’ to ‘Face when a pickup full of Southside Cholos pulled up and got out…’

‘Face is Brad T. Jordan, the Houston rapper Scarface, formerly of the Geto Boys. If you’ve seen Office Space you’ve heard him. Apparently like me,  Mike Judge is a big fan. He even appears as the pimp Upgrayyde in Judge’s Idiocracy.

Something about Scarface’s voice and delivery reminds me of one of my all time favorite musicians, Chester Burnett AKA Howlin’ Wolf. But I’ll talk about him later. Like the Wolf, Scarface has a distinctively deep voice, almost like a minister’s. I would call him a minister of rage and darkness. His lyrics are vivid and emotionally evocative (‘I’ve got this killer up inside/of me I can’t talk to my mother/so I talk to my diary – and ‘Outside I see the cop cars flashin they lights/Raindrops symbolizing God is saving the life/The sun shining so they say the devil beatin his wife/The body bloody underneath the sheet is waitin for Christ/The streets is hungry- so I know they watchin -waitin to strike/But anything you ever got for easy came with a price’), and he swings wildly from violent, reprehensible glorification of a violent life, to deeply spiritual condemnation – but in the latter, never preachy or accusatory. He’s a pioneer of the southern Dirty South sound, something the movie Hustle & Flow portrays pretty well.

The song J-Hoss and Bruce Wayne are listening to in the parking lot is an old but a goody that sets the tone for the entire novella – Scarface’s Never Seen A Man Cry Till I Seen A Man Die –

Another one from Scarface that I listened to again and again and sort of informed the mentality of my protagonist and the various characters was G-Code –

‘She so damn fine. She move perfect. Like a curtain in the breeze, her hips be swayin.’

She smile and come in close and we be grindin’ up against each other. She smell real good.

“You like this music?” she ask. She got to lean in close and talk in my ear, and her breath is hot and sweet like gum.

“Uh huh,” I say. “It’s old ain’t it?”

“Yeah,” she say. “A couple years. Tres Delincuentes. You know what they’re saying?”

She cross her wrists behind the back of my neck and watch me and I put my hands on her waist, feel it sliding side to side, warm under my hands.

“Uh uh,” I say.

The song in this passage is Delinquent Habits by Tres Delincuentes. It’s kind of a West Coast Mexican hip hop tune, but it’s a great party song. I love the incorporation of the mariachi brass.

‘Then I hear the music. It ain’t from the party. It’s this heavy 808 thumpin,’ comin’ down the ave. Ain’t no oompa doompa, neither. It’s somethin’ old school. Familiar.

  I turn my head, cheek to the street, and see a pair of headlights comin’ slow down the block. Brights be on, bright as a pair of suns. They higher off the ground than a car.

It stop a couple feet away.

All of us be in the headlights, but nobody lay offa me. They just all of ‘em turn and look.

The doors open and the music gets louder. I ain’t heard that shit in forever. It be The D.O.C. My pops used to play that shit in his ride. Ridin’ with him with the stereo bumpin,’ be one of the only memories I got of him.

A couple dark shapes get out and stand in front of the headlights. Them lights is so bright you can’t see shit but two motherfuckers standing there like a couple of shadows.’

The song in this passage is ‘It’s Funky Enough’ by the D.O.C. It’s pretty old, but I figured the Liberians might’ve just been getting into it. It’s got a menacing beat, very aggressive sounding, well suited to the scene, but it’s probably one of the most G-rated songs on this page, funny enough. The D.O.C. is one of hip-hop’s great tragedies. He did one promising solo album and promptly lost his voice in an injury sustained in a car accident. He’s gone on to be a successful producer and I heard he might be at last getting some kind of corrective surgery this year.

Stallone and Merciless throw Pocho in the chair and grab hold of him. Gravefilla take the guns over to a table and start layin’ ‘em in a drawer.

 I go over with the pliers. The brown brown make me feel like this a video game or somethin’ – like I ain’t even in my body. I ain’t even doin’ what I doin.’

Hitler turn on the boombox, and some heavy shit old school shit come thumpin’ out. Music to murder by.

“Yo, fuck you mayates,” Pocho yell. He sound all fucked up ‘cause his teeth busted. “You just better fuckin’ kill me. ‘Cause I get loose I’ma kill me some niggers.”

I reach out with the pliers and I catch that piece of skin and bone between his nostrils. His whole body lock up like I got him by the nuts.

“You like movies, mayne. How you like the Three Stooges?”

For that scene I had two songs in mind. Firstly the Boston-born group Gang Starr and their Take It Personal.  The world lost a real talent when MC Guru (Gifted Unlimited Rhymes Universal) passed away recently. Talk about your distinctive voices.

The other was NWA’s Real Niggaz Don’t Die – possibly one of the angriest, most intense and vitriolic mainstays in their catalog. If you’re easily offended, don’t click on this one.

I’ve already talked about Howlin’ Wolf’s influence on my Lovecraftian blues short story The Crawlin’ Chaos Blues over at Greg Mitchell’s blog. I hate repeating myself, so go take a look at it.

Back?

OK then.

Songs that show up in The Crawlin’ Chaos Blues –

When I first seen King Yeller, he was leanin’ on a beer sign watchin’ that Lake Street L clackin’ overhead, one bent Kool stuck in his lips, beatin’ out ‘I Ain’t Superstitious’ as best he could on a rusty ‘ol National with a pocket knife for a slide.

Crammed into the corner with a jumpin’ band was the man hisself, Howlin’ Wolf, all three hundred pounds of him, black as pig iron and sweatin’ like a steam engine, crawling on all fours, rollin’ his eyes, and flickin’ his tongue like a snake. He was wailin’ ‘Evil’ into a microphone and he sure looked like a man possessed by a devil. He was too big for the place, so goddamned big when he stood up and put his harp between his hands and blew he looked about to swallow it whole.

Yeller had picked out one of them fine biscuits in the crowd and was singin’ straight at her. She was that devil-eyed type woman lay her business on you, make you forget your own name, how much money you got in your pocket. She seen what Yeller was about right off, and she give him a smile over her man’s shoulder. That gap in her two front teeth let you know she liked to get her jelly rolled. He played ‘Come On In My Kitchen’ at her, and then ‘One Way Out,’ and by the time he finished up, her man had took notice.

Now for The Merkabah Rider series, there are a few tracks I listen to to put me in the mood, though of course, none of them actually appear in the books.

As you might suspect, most of them are Ennio Morricone pieces. In particular these.

And legendary bluegrass mandolin master Bill Monroe’s My Last Days On Earth. If any song encompasses the entirety of the series and the feel I’m trying to portray, it’d be this one.

My friend Ryan Gerossie also put together this book trailer using music we both composed and played (I did the Jaw harp and the monotonous guitar tune) for the indie film we did together in 2009, Meaner Than Hell (you can watch the trailer on the sidebar). This tune is sort of my default Rider theme (though if I had my way I’d find a way to mix some kind of klezmer or Hebrew chanting in there).

Anyway, listen. Broaden your horizons. Enjoy.

DT Moviehouse Review: 8 Mile

OK, to christen my new blog feature, DT Moviehouse Reviews, in which I slog my way alphabetically through my 200+ DVD/Blu-Ray collection (you can see the list right here)  and decide if each one was worth the money, here’s Curtis Hanson’s Eminem vehicle 8-Mile. I’m sure this will be one of my most popular posts as this movie has a huge following. Probably bigger than Gymkata even.

8 Mile (2002) Directed by Curtis Hanson, Written by Scott Silver

Tagline: Every moment is another chance to turn it around.

What it’s about:

Eminem portrays B-Rabbit, an aspiring white rapper who at the beginning of the movie moves back into a double wide at the 8 Mile Mobile Home Court in Detroit with his younger sister, unemployed single mother (Kim Bassinger of LA Confidential), and her shiftless boyfriend (Michael Shannon of Shotgun Stories). Rabbit works at a bumper stamping mill and spends his nights driving a beat up car full of his big dreaming (and slightly self-delusional) friends around (including Future, played by the great Mekhi Phifer of Lie To Me) shooting cop cars with paintballs, brawling, and scrawling rhymes on bits of napkins. Future wants Rabbit to enter and win the extemporaneous rap battle at the local underground hip hop club, The Shelter, but in the opening scene, Rabbit chokes on stage and is humiliated. The big antagonists of the movie are The Free World crew, the antithesis of Rabbit’s 313 clique, a successful bunch of up-and-comers, well dressed, sweet cars, fine girls. Led by ace rapper Papa Doc (Anthony Mackie of The Hurt Locker and Real Steel), the Free World dominates the Shelter’s rap battles and generally makes life for Rabbit and his friends unbearable. Skirting the two crews is the opportunistic Wink (Eugene Byrd of Dead Man), a little glad handing twerp who often promises Rabbit the fast track to stardom via one of his innumerable dubious contacts but never delivers. A new muse enters Rabbit’s life in the shape of aspiring model Alex (played by the late lovely Brittany Murphy), who will pretty much do anything she can to attain her dreams.

Eminem as B-Rabbit: Eye of The Tiger, man! Eye of The Tiger!

Why I bought it:

A movie has to speak to me on some level for me to shell out money to put it in my collection. Now those who follow this blog may wonder what the hell a movie about underground hip hop battlers has to offer a guy who mainly writes horror and westerns.

Well, my formative years in high school I spent listening to hip hop. It was the new musical form – how could a forward thinking young man like myself not become enamored by it? Those who disparage hip hop or really any form of music usually haven’t spent any time or effort exploring the best it has to offer (I’d recommend A Tribe Called Quest, GangStarr, or The Pharcyde as a good jumping in point). My least favorite genres of music still contain the occasional gem I can appreciate. I’ve never really been moved by Reggae, but Desmond Dekker wailing ‘The Israelites’ gets me every time. And I have no fondness for Jazz music as a whole, but I recognize the genius of Charlie Parker, Louis Jordan, and Billie Holiday.

8-Mile’s fascinating glimpse at underground rap battles is almost worth the price of admission alone. This is a phenomenon that harkens back to the Delta blues practice of ‘cutting heads,’ when two buskers would set up across the street from each other and play and wail, sometimes disparaging the other guy. Whoever the crowd flocked to was the evident winner, and the loser packed up his guitar and moved on. In a rap battle, the job is to cut the other guy verbally down to size and entertain the crowd at the same time. Whoever elicits the most ‘oos’ with their combination of lyrical aptitude and cleverness is the winner.

I love nearly everything about 8 Mile, and I came to respect Eminem much more than I had prior to seeing it. At the time this movie came out Eminem was a superstar. His talent in that regard is undeniable. Listen to ‘Lose Yourself,’ ‘Run Rabbit Run,’ or ‘8 Mile’ if you think he only spouts violent anti-gay misogynistic crap. You’re frankly mistaken.

What an Eminem movie could've been.

For his first (and to my knowledge only) movie role, Eminem could’ve played anything  he wanted. He could’ve been a poon-dogging superpowered secret agent from Venus in a frat humor rom com crapfest (I know for a fact he was artist J.G. Jones’ inspiration for the main character of Mark Millar’s ultraviolent comic book-turned action movie ‘Wanted.’). I’ve heard the critique that this wasn’t much of a stretch for him as an actor, but I have to admire that he chose to play a diamond in the rough character who vomits out of sheer fright and then freezes cold his first time on stage – right when we meet the character. Clearly the guy checked his legendary (and maybe undeserved?) ego at the door. For Eminem having something of a loud-mouthed stage persona, Rabbit doesn’t say a whole lot, but he’s always thinking. You can see it. And when he does do something, or does explode, well, I hate to make the comparison as it will undoubtedly turn some people off (and probably wouldn’t be well-received by Eminem himself due to the racial implications that have been leveled at him in the same way as The King), but he really reminded me of a young Elvis Presley memorably smoldering and sneering his way through Jailhouse Rock.

I recently read a blog, possibly on Cracked.com, where the author bemoaned the tendency of 80’s movies like The Karate Kid and Rocky to show the road to success in terms of a three minute montage that sugar coats the fact that in order for the main characters of those respective movies to actually triumph, they would have to do about a thousand times the amount of work depicted. 8 Mile doesn’t sugar coat.

After the climactic rap battle, Rabbit’s friends ask him what he wants to do next, and he says ‘I gotta get back to work’ and promptly goes off to catch the bus back to the bumper stamp mill.  The penultimate triumph of 8 Mile is just a stepping stone in Rabbit’s journey. There’s still a hell of a lot of work to do after the credits roll, but it’s to the strains of the wonderful and well-deserved Oscar tune ‘Lose Yourself,’ so we can imagine that Rabbit stuck to it, that he eventually made it.

Believe that if you wanna but I tell you this much. Riding on the train with no dough (or bus), sucks - Phife Dog, A Tribe Called Quest

I have never aspired to being a hip hop performer, and I’ve never peeled my drunken mother off the floor of a cluttered double wide trailer in Detroit, but I know what it means to hunger for a dream, to fill my head with that dream nearly every waking moment, and to be so goddamned disappointed when the world around me and the people in it fall short of that dream, particularly due to my own failings. You can see that hunger in Rabbit’s eyes throughout this movie, and he’s such an underdog that you can’t help but be carried along with him. The other great inspiring rap movie I would draw comparisons to is the excellent Hustle And Flow, but the fact that Terrence Howard’s character is a pimp draws a line in the sand that I can’t entirely mentally cross. With B-Rabbit though, a grey clad loser who carries his clothes in a garbage bag, I can totally empathize.

You can also see Rabbit change. In the beginning of the movie he makes excuses to his boss about being late for work, usually around the phrase ‘it wasn’t my fault.’ Toward the end he makes a conscious effort to eliminate that phrase from his speech at one point in mid-sentence (‘Yo it wasn’t….it won’t happen again.’).  Part of the theme of 8 Mile is finding and accepting the truth about yourself and not treading water on hope and pipe dreams alone.  A lot of the characters in 8 Mile are self-delusional. Rabbit’s mother thinks things will get better as soon as her nominal live-in boyfriend’s ‘settlement check’ comes in. Wink thinks he can dole out the big breaks on the strength of his own bullshit. Papa Doc, for all his gangster posturing, went to a private school in a good neighborhood and is content to rest on his laurels (we never even see his much vaunted skills in action). None of these characters realize the dream takes work – a LOT of work.

There’s another bit in 8 Mile I love. The music. All the diagetic music is pretty great era hip hop by Gangstarr, Nas, The Pharcyde, Method Man, etc. But the Eminem music is confined entirely to non-diagetic intrumentals. There are two times when Eminem’s music is used, both times when Rabbit is shown writing on his scraps of paper. We hear the beats and snatches of the refrains of ‘Run Rabbit Run’ and ‘Lose Yourself,’ but the songs never play in full in the course of the movie. We’re getting glimpses into Rabbit’s genius, a lyrical mastery that’s still rough and un-honed, unproven. As an audience, we only have Future’s constant assurance that Rabbit is any good, plus one or two halting but promising displays in the lunch line at work and screwing around with his friends. Throughout the movie he’s just a wannabe, but by the end he finds his legs – and what a great and inspiring moment that is.

Sure it’s not without flaws. The love interest is a tad weak and kind of leaves you hanging, and the resolution of the mother’s story is a bit convenient. I’ve also heard it said that the friendship Rabbit strikes up with a gay coworker might’ve been intentionally crafted to patch things up between Eminem and the gay community (he’d gotten into some trouble for the perceived anti-gay content of some of his songs), but without that knowledge, it plays out fine. It’s still a top notch movie.

Best bit of dialogue:

After discovering Alex having sex with Wink on a soundboard at the radio station (ostensibly to further her career), Rabbit punches his ex-friend out and goes home to find the bloodied Wink and the entire Free World crew waiting for him. They jump him and beat the crap out of him in front of his shrieking little sister (tellingly, Rabbit doesn’t lift a finger to defend himself against them – his physical quarrel was entirely with Wink and he’s already satisfied). That night his mother, having just lost her meal ticket boyfriend, wins a couple grand at bingo and comes home (in what in my opinion is the weakest bit of character writing in an otherwise fairly strong story – she should’ve gone out and found a job) having decided to turn a new leaf. As she sets out to make what we presume is the first dinner for the kids in a long time, she turns to Rabbit and looks at him as if for the first time.

Rabbit’s Mom: Did you mean what you said about doin’ that demo with Wink?

Rabbit: No…I’ma do it on my own.

Rabbit’s Mom: You know, Rabbit? I think that’s the best way.

Best scene:

Easily the climactic rap battle. This is the fight at the end of Rocky, Luke vs. Vader, the gunfight in the graveyard between Blondie, Tuco, and Angel Eyes. The rest of the movie has been a slow burn leading up to this confrontation, and this scene doesn’t disappoint. In a seedy, close packed room full of blue-lit angry faces and bobbing heads, Rabbit finally finds his voice on stage and burns his way through the two lesser MC’s of the Free World crew, coming head to head at last with Papa Doc. A toss of the coin forces Rabbit to go first (usually the disadvantaged position, because you can’t respond to whatever the other guys says) and what happens next is really Patton-esque in terms of audacity and tactical brilliance. Bearing out the movie’s themes of truth and self-awareness/acceptance, Rabbit cathartically and self-deprecatingly throws everything wrong with own his life in Papa Doc’s face with all the unbridled fury Eminem packs into his rhyme delivery –

‘I am white
I am a fuckin’ bum
I do live in a trailer with my mom
I did get jumped by all six of you chumps
…And Wink did fuck my girl
I’m still standin’ here screamin’ fuck the Free World!
…Don’t ever try to judge me, dude
You don’t know what the fuck I been through….’

Then Rabbit proceeds to ‘out’ Papa Doc as a privileged youth from a healthy family in a well-to-do suburb (a big no no considering Papa Doc has postured as the biggest gangster around, even waving a pistol in Rabbit’s face at one point), and winds it all up by tossing the mic offhandedly to Papa Doc, shouting – –

'Here....tell these people something they don't know about me.'

This leaves the previously rocking room in stunned silence and Papa Doc entirely dumbfounded, without a bit of ammunition to use against him. He necessarily forfeits and Rabbit wins.

Like I said, brilliant.

Would I buy it again? Yes.

NEXT IN THE QUEUE: 300

Meet Me In The Bottom: The Crawlin’ Chaos Blues

Coming at you this month on Amazon Kindle is my short story, The Crawlin’ Chaos Blues.

Born of my love for Chicago and Delta blues (and the Lovecraft Mythos), The Crawlin’ Chaos Blues tells the story of aspiring bluesman King Yeller and his partner Harp Elkins, who head to the infamous crossroads to make a deal with the devil for fame and fortune….but wind up calling forth something much, much, worse.  Lovecraft meets the blues, with an appearance by the great Howlin’ Wolf and The Black Pharoah himself.

Here’s an excerpt –

  “What say, boys?” said a voice, in that slow backwoods drawl that make a black man freeze.
  I didn’t need to see the color of that truck behind them whose headlights was shinin’ on us to know it was a blue Chevy.
   The .44 was in the glove box back in the Catalina. Maybe Yeller had his old pocketknife he’d been usin’ as a slide on the National, but I didn’t have nothin’ but my fists in my pockets. I got to feelin’ a cold sweat under my scalp and it run down my neck when I seent the long somethin’ each of ‘em had in they hands. Axe handles, maybe shotguns.
   “What you boys doin’ out here so late?” the man asked.
    “Nothin’, sir,” I said. “Just out walkin’.”
    “You two sweethearts?”
    “We ain’t the ones parked out by the side of the road in the dark,” said Yeller.
      I hissed him quiet.
      “Where you from, boy?” the man said to Yeller, the meanness fairly bubblin’ up in his throat.
       “Chicago.”
       “I told you he wasn’t one of our niggers, Boyd.”
       “I had him pegged for a Kansas City pimp with them clown clothes he’s got on,” said Boyd.
       “That a guitar, boy?” said the first man.
       Yeller didn’t say nothing. It was plain what it was.
       “Pick us out a song,” said the first man. Then he turned to me. The moon was shinin’ on his hair grease and the shotgun I seent in his hand. “And you, you gonna dance for us. No fancy nigger dance. Just let’s see an old time shuffle.”
       Yeller put hands to his strings and began to strum out Dixie. I had been in this kinda situation before. They wasn’t nothin’ to do but pick up my knees like he said.
       “You are murderin’ that song, ain’t you, boy?”
Boyd walked up next to his buddy and passed him a glass bottle of something that smelled like it ought to be in the Catalina’s tank.
       “I told you a nigger can’t play Dixie,” said Boyd.
       “Well, he’s a bluesman. Ain’t that right? Ain’t that why you’re out here? Come to the crossroads to make your deal?” said the first man. “I guess niggers in the north is just as spooky as they are down here. Listen here, boy. Only devil you’re gonna find tonight’s right here in front of you.”
        He was steppin’ closer to Yeller while he said this, and he poked Yeller’s National with the end of a shotgun.
       Yeller nearly dropped the guitar, and when he stooped to catch it up, he all of a sudden let out a crazy yell and brought it up fast by the neck. The steel body caught that white boy full on the jaw and put him on his back.        Yeller didn’t waste no time, but put his foot on the shotgun and fell to beatin’ that cracker’s head in. Every hit made that National twang and echo. It was the sweetest music I ever heard.
       Boyd went to help out his buddy, but I threw my fist into his gut, heard the wind come outta him in one big hush. He dropped what he had in his hand, just a baseball bat. I kicked him in the balls and started stompin’ on his back.
       He cried and called to Jesus and said he couldn’t breathe. I felt his ribs cave in. I knew we was goin’ wind up lynched for it, but it felt good.
      Yeller come up next to me and in the light of them headlights I seent his National was dented up bad and covered in blood. The chords was sprung and curled all over like a madwoman’s hair. He had blood on his shirt and his hands.
      His eyes was dead serious and he kicked Boyd over on his back. I could see his chest swellin’ and fallin’. He was the one I seent look out of the truck cab earlier that day.
      “Whatchoo waitin’ on, Harp? Finish this bitch off.”
      I backed away, my limbs all shakin’.
     “You ain’t never kill nobody?”
     “Naw.”
     “S’awright, brother,” he said, patting my shoulder. “I got this.”
      Boyd was moanin’ and whinin’ like a kid.
      I backed away. Yeller lifted up the guitar over his head in both hands like a caveman and he brang it down on Boyd’s face.
      That same second, the headlights went out. I guess the battery had died on the Chevy. I heard what happened to Boyd though, felt it, wet on my shoes.
      It was dark out in that road. The moon had got behind a black cloud, and lookin’ up at the sky, I couldn’t see the stars. Now that is peculiar on a Delta night.
      We heard this pipin’ in the night, like a flute playin’, or maybe it was just the wind blowin’ through some reeds in the ditch.
      They was somethin’ else standin’ in the road. I seent it, or the shape of it, behind Yeller, and I give out a yell, ‘cause what I seen didn’t make no sense. It was like a bush had sprung up in the road, but it moved, and not random, like a blowin’ bush will do. Every part of it breathed and twisted on its own, like droopin’ willow branches if they was to come alive, or a nest of black snakes. They was a shine among all that mess, too, like teeth, or eyes, or both.
      In that minute Yeller spun, all them movin’ shadows sort of snapped into place like a shape out the corner of your eye, and a thin, dark man stood there. You couldn’t see his face, or his clothes, just his outline.
     “Hit ‘im, Yeller!” I shrieked.
      Yeller pulled back to swing, but then he lowered his busted guitar and shook his head.
      “You him, ain’t you?” Yeller whispered.
       The shadow man dipped his chin.
       Yeller giggled like a kid at Christmas and looked back at me, eyes bugging.
“God-damn! You wasn’t lyin’, Harp!” he said. “This the man hisself!”
       He turned back to the shadow man, and I looked around for that shotgun. But it was no use. It was too powerful dark in the road.
      “Well, Mr. Nick, I’s here. King Yeller’s what they call me,” he said, slappin’ his chest, “and I done paid your price double. I ‘spect that ought to cover my friend here.” He looked back at me, and even though I couldn’t see ‘em, I could feel that shadow man’s eyes on me over Yeller’s shoulder.
        I nearly fell over Boyd’s body backin’ away.
       “Nossir, I didn’t take no hand in this. It wouldn’t be right.”
       Yeller looked disappointed, maybe a little scared. “Well, your loss, cuz.”
        He turned back to the shadow man.
       “Awright, Scratch. Whatchoo say? You give me credit? Double the ante, double the pot.”
        The shadow man didn’t say a word.
       “I’m gonna need a new guitar,” Yeller said, holdin’ up his bloody National.
        The shadow man reached out and took the guitar from Yeller. He run his black fingers up and down the neck, and pretty soon a sound come out of it, a crazy, distorted rift, like a hunnerd guitars playin’ at once – not the kinda sound you could tickle out no busted guitar.
        “Tha’s a swell trick,” said Yeller. His voice was crackin’. He took out a shaky Kool and lit one, and in that minute I seent the shadow man’s face in fire. He wasn’t white, but he wasn’t no black man neither. All I got a good look at was his bald head and them big black eyes, sort of foreign lookin’. My daddy thought the picture show was godless, but one time when I was eleven, he took me to the Walthall in Greenwood to see The Ten Commandments. The shadow man’s eyes was just like the pharaoh’s in that movie.
       The shadow man turned and walked off the road with Yeller’s guitar, crankin’ out them weird, lonesome sounds.
      Yeller looked back at me.
      “Don’t go with him, Yeller,” I just ‘bout begged.
      “Be right back,” he promised, tiltin’ his hat over his eyes, grinnin’.

He went off with the shadow man. They went down the ditch and off into the cotton. That music echoed all up and down that black road and put a harrow in my heart. It made me feel like the dark sky was a mouth comin’ to close on the earth, like we was all ‘bout to be chewed up and swallowed into some cold, deep place worse than hell, some place even the angels wouldn’t go.

     It got so bad I fell down on my knees and pressed my hands hard to my ears. I cried there, real, gushin’ tears. I felt so lonely, like that patch of dirt road beneath me was the only piece of land there was left, and I was fallin’ down a deep hole with no walls or bottom to be seent. I couldn’t summon no prayers.

     I don’t know how long I knelt there, but all of a sudden the pickup’s headlights come back on, bright. I brushed my eyes and stood up, blind, still afraid.

     Yeller was standin’ at the edge of the light. The stars was out again and the moon was bright over his head, as if they’d all been hidin’ from the shadow man. The moonlight was gleamin’ kinda green on the face of Yeller’s National.

      Yeller’s eyes was half closed and he was shinin’ all over with sweat. He looked like a horse addict. That rascal light was gone from him.

    “Let’s get outta here, Harp,” he said, and he went to where the Catalina was.

     “What ‘bout these…,” I started to say ‘peckerwoods,’ but when I looked, they wasn’t no bodies in the road, just a couple butter yellow and black burn marks. They was a smell in the air like to make me sick, like a open sewer stuffed with dead dogs. I followed him to the car.

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