Initially, murky tendrils of reality seemed to draw him upward out of the deep abyss of unconsciousness. As reality began to reintroduce itself into his beleaguered mind, the man issued a sharp gasp that sent shimmering waves of pain racketing through his skull. As the white hot pain dulled, he tried to open his eyes, only to find one effectively swollen shut. That brutal realization opened the doors to the memories of the previous evening to pour over Theo like a shroud.

It had been their third night in Nashville, on the second leg of a six month tour of the South’s blues clubs. Theo reckoned they had hit every piss-ant, one room, hole-in-the-wall, single stall venue from Detroit to Jackson. It was a life full of cigarette smoke, cheap bourbon, loose women, copious amounts of pot and very little cash. The intoxicants were a necessary evil. If nothing else, they helped suppressed the sheer absurdity of the whole thing. Here he was, one of the most talented bassists in Memphis, following around a no-name blues quartet for chicken scratch and a chronically sore back, from sleeping piled up in a paneled van.

The drugs were definitely necessary, because Lord knew he had little alternative. Crazy as it seemed, Theo couldn’t bear to even consider the thought of leaving the band. Ever since he had caught the quartet’s (then a trio) Tuesday night show at his local blues club, he had been entranced. They sounded sloppy, sure. Old worn out instruments, a drummer half dead from the drink, outdated, forgotten about song-styles, but shit…that frontman. That frontman had something in him that Theo had never seen. Howlin’ Tic Colden, the barman had called him when Theo had asked about him. Some old bluesman from down South (he hadn’t looked that old to Theo). Playing in blues outfits was nothing new for the nimble young bassist, but as Tic and the band packed up their equipment and stood wrapping cords around their arms, Theo found himself petrified to approach them. When he finally did, he had spoken to the pianist, an older man with a voice that sounded like he gargled with gravel. Theo had offered his services as a bassist for virtually no compensation, extolled his talents, given his credentials, and even played a few numbers on a bass guitar borrowed from the next act. Plus he had a van.

At the end of the impromptu audition, the piano-player was suitably impressed. He had shoved the worn Bakers Boy cap up on his brow with one gnarled thumb and cast an inquisitive glance over his shoulder towards Colden. Colden sat at the rear of the stage, his guitar case in his lap, smoking the last in a long parade of cigarettes. His woolen black hair framed his ebony skin regally, long mutton chops seemed to race down his cheeks towards his mouth. His features were broad and strong, though his frame was lithe and meager. His fingers, impossibly long, rapped rhythmically the guitar cases black surface. His eyes were concealed behind a pair of dark sunglasses, but an easy grin passed over his lips. The old piano player (“Rufus” he learned later) turned back and offered an ancient, crooked handshake.

“You’re in!”

Three months later and Theo had found himself just as captivated with Colden as he had been that night back in Memphis. Every night as his thumping basslines played the canvas for Colden’s crude but powerful guitar, Theo found himself staring at the man in awe and wonder. Watching his every movement, the way the sinews in his neck stood out as he sang, the way those long fingers effortlessly plucked the strings on his old Dobro guitar. Then after every show, Tic would glide through the smoke filled atmosphere of the stage like a phantom, packing and wrapping his equipment. And then he was gone.

While Rufus and the old husk of a drummer, Stef, would get drunk and sit in with the other bands, Tic would sneak off silently into the night, only to re-emerge the following evening mere moments before show time. Initially, Theo had been more than happy to sit in with the other bands and drink until dawn with Rufus and Stef, but gradually the curiosity about Tic became all consuming.

And so, on their third night in Nashville, he had haphazardly packed his gear and stalked out into the humid summer evening. Next door to the venue, an ancient, empty theater sat silent and forgotten, it’s marquee empty save for a few orphaned letters. Theo stood under the marquee and watched from the darkness as the club emptied out. Less than a cigarette’s length later, Tic emerged from the club’s entrance, the old black guitar case in tow.

Theo had trailed Tic for what seemed like an eternity, through a maze of side streets and alleyways, to the very edge of town where the city lights dropped away like fireflies at the end of summer. There, he watched with increasing alarm as Tic descended into an abandoned gravel pit. Theo had sat waiting in indecision until his legs had begun to cramp. He nervously flipped open his phone and was dismayed that even the reception bars had abandoned him. He slipped quietly into the gravel pit, the forgotten piles of rocks standing like silent obelisks against the brilliant night sky.

Surprisingly, it was the smell that hit him first. That odd, musky mixture of blood, stale smoke and the raw odor of animal fur nearly overpowered him. He spun on his heels just in time to see a gnarled black fist collide with his face. Then there was only a sense of resignation and regret as he fell into that whirlpool of blackness.

Now, Theo opened his good eye and saw only the white hot filament of a single, lonely light bulb hanging from the ceiling. His head ached with such intensity that he could feel it in his stomach. He examined his surroundings and found himself in a janitorial closet that had apparently not been used in some time. Half empty boxes of Ajax Cleanser Solution (“Armed! With Ajax!”) dotted the dusty shelves with a few mold-eaten sponges. In the corner an old tin pail with a mop handle protruding from it leaned casually against wall. Theo occupied the room’s sole chair, to which he was bound with a healthy amount of electrical tape. A patch of tape covered his mouth as well.

He was in the process of testing those bonds when the closet’s sole door opened. Tic’s dark face emerged into the room, black sunglasses in place as always. He regarded Theo casually, although something around the brow suggested somewhat mournfully, and then stepped in, closing the door behind him. Theo felt himself shaking as the old man removed the mop from the bucket, flipped the pail over on it’s mouth and sat down on top, mere inches from his trembling knees. He reached into an inner pocket of his faded Army jacket and produced a beaten softpack of Marlboro Reds. Plucking one from the pack and holding it between his lips, he sighed heavily. Tic struck a match against the floor and Theo could smell the acrid sulphur. He cupped his hand over the end of the cigarette and lit it, drew, and then rocketed dual jets of smoke from his nostrils. Then he sat watching Theo, his elbows planted firmly atop his knees.

“Well youngblood, here we are. At an impasse seems like. ‘Even a blind hog finds a nut now and then’ my daddy used to say. I was mighty impressed with your bassplayin’ son. S’only reason I let you in the outfit in the first place. Rufus, Stef? I’ve known those two for years. Trustworthy fellas. Too smart or too dumb to be curious I reckon. And that’s the way it has to be.”

“But I took a gamble on you boy. But then I was always as lucky as a one-legged man in an ass kicking contest. So now here we are.”

He reached one leathery hand back into the innards of his coat and produced an old snub-nosed .38. He inspected the chamber and then leaned forward, placing the cold barrel against Theo’s forehead. Theo jerked and writhed, his eyes wide with terror.

“IDUNWNNADIE! IDUNWNNADIEEE! PLSSEE!! IDUNWNNADIE!” he cried from behind the tape, tears rolling down his cheeks now. Tic looked genuinely taken aback. He removed the pistol from Theo’s head and regarded him casually.

“I ain’t tryin’ to kill you boy. I’m just tryin’ to shoot you in the head. Whether or not you die is tween you and God.” He returned the gun to Theo’s head. The young man pressed his eyes together and waited for the shot.

But it didn’t come. When he opened his one good eye back up, Tic was watching him, the gun dangling in his hand.

“Might be another way to handle this here. Maybe we can satisfy that curiosity of yours right here and now. Put the matter to rest. Been a long while since I talked to someone. Guess every soul needs to release their burdens from time to time and a guilty dog barks the loudest they say.”

He seemed to consider the idea for a moment longer and then slipped the pistol back into his jacket to met Theo’s shaken gaze.

“Alright youngblood. You want to know about me? You want to know who I am? Well, ain’t no to start but the start I suppose.”

“My Christian name ain’t Tic. It’s Ellis. I was named after my daddy who was named after his. I was born in Decatur, Mississippi in 1912. I was the second child my folks had. My daddy always said I came out full of vinegar. Birthin’ wasn’t something that came easy to my mother, and when she had me, it nearly killed her. I was their last child. Their first, my older brother Reginald, was already ten years old when I was born.”

“My daddy was a sharecropper, the grandson of a slave. His daddy had been a sharecropper before him in South Carolina. He had worked hard and lived cheap as a three dollar suit. When he died, he left my father a decent sum of money. My daddy was a dreamer, and saw fit to move himself and my mother to California. They got as far as Mississippi. I don’t claim to know what happened there, but my daddy always was a dreamer, and sometimes too quick to trust. But dreams die just like people, and before long he was sharecroppin’ just like his daddy.”

“He was always a hard man, and when he got his dander up could be as mean as a rooster in a thunderstorm. He had watched his dreams of rich California soil pass and instead found himself buried in the red clay hills of Mississippi, surrounded by good ole boys and rubes. I think when my brother and I came along, he saw it as the final nail in that dream’s coffin. Maybe that’s why he pushed us so hard.”

“Six years after I was born, the Great War came. Reginald was sixteen and a life pulling a plow just didn’t appeal to him. But our parents weren’t about to let him run off and fight some white man’s war when there was plenty to do around the farm. I suppose in the end, Reginald was too much like my daddy to listen when others were talkin’ sense to him, because he skirted out one night after our folks had fallen asleep. We shared a room, he and I, and though I was young, I recall clear as day waking up and seeing him standing before the open window, one foot hitched up on the frame.”

“I shot up in bed and asked him where he was goin’, bout close to tears. I loved him dearly. He turned to me with those big green eyes and said ‘Ellis, comes a time when a man can’t wait for what he wants to fall on his head like an overripe apple. Sometimes he’s gotta go and git it.’ He hesitated like he was thinkin’ and then he somethin’ out of his old rudsack and tossed it to me. It was his new mouthharp. He had got it the year before for his birthday and it was just about his favorite thing in the world. Then he was gone.”

((God damn! Man you need to get writing...professionally I mean!

“Later that season, when we got the letter that he had died someplace called Ardennes…well…I guess that just about pushed my folks over the edge. My mother had been a beautiful woman in her youth, now she seemed hollow and grey as slate. She would spend long hours in my room, just starin’ at Reggie’s bed, as though he was gonna pop up there plain as day. Daddy was already a hard man, but my brother’s death made him mean.”

“I took over my brother’s chores on the farm, mostly tryin’ to get away from my daddy. With so much to do, we two didn’t turn up in the same place. Free time was mighty scarce, but I spent what little I had learning to work our old buggy. By the time I was ten, I was regularly makin’ trips into town to pick up groceries and feed. That was my favorite chore. Our farm was on the tail end of an old dirt loop, and we hardly saw a soul in a given week. Goin’ in to town, there always seemed to be something to see.”

“The general store was run by a man named Bensen. Old Swedish fella who had made some money in the timber trade, and then decided to stop breakin’ his back and go into the grocery racket. The store was little more than four walls and an old plank floor, but it was one of my favorite places on God’s green Earth. Ole Hostetler was a nice man, even to us Negro boys. He had an old Columbus upright piano that he kept in the back of the shop, and the old man wasn’t half bad. On slow days, kids from the county would show up and old Hostetler would ply us with lemonade and jerky and play that old piano like the devil hisself.”

“He’d play old gospel songs and traditionals, the ones our folks made us learn, but when there weren’t no adults around, he’d lift the latch seat off the bench and pull out a book of ragtime tunes. We kids just went beserk for those old rags. We’d sit there eatin’, drinkin’ and just as generally happy as a tick on a dog. When it was just him and me, Hostetler would let me sit on the bench next to him and teach me how to play chords. I’d spend my summer days down in that shop, thinkin’ about how made daddy was gonna be that my errand took so long. Weighin’ the whippin’ versus the music. I can tell you truthfully, there was lots of sore, sore nights.”

“Well, one Autumn day, daddy sends me into town with money for kerosene and a little extra money for a pocket bottle of rye. Daddy was drinkin’ a considerable deal by that time, but I was lucky in that sense. Lots of poor men got bitter and angry with drink, but my daddy? When he was lit up, he got bout as happy as a cat in the sun. So bringin’ home a bottle of liquor was as good as gold to me.”

“In any case, when I pulled up to old Hostetler’s store that morning, the air seemed crisp as an apple. I tethered our old mule Ironside (a mighty forceful name for that pitiful creature, let me tell you) up to the hitchin’ post and there stands Hostetler on the front porch of the store, starin’ down at me with the biggest shit eatin’ grin you ever saw.”

“’Ellis’ he says to me in that funny Kraut accent of his, ‘I’ve got somezing I sink you’re going to like. Come inside.’ Well, I followed that old man in and there sitting upright against the counter was an old brown guitar. Hostetler starts tellin’ me how I’d learned all he could teach on piano, takin’ to it so naturally as I did, and the only other instrument he knew was guitar. He tells me how on one of his stock trips to Jackson, he ran across an old boy pickin’ on the guitar. The boy seemed thirsty for a drink, so Hostetler makes him an offer and that was the end of it. Old Man Hostetler agreed to hold the guitar at the store, every time I came he would teach me a new chord.”

“Well now, for the next few weeks I was a boy in a daze. I couldn’t hardly think about nothin’ but that guitar and getting’ my hands on it. God Almighty, how daddy yelled. I would rake up the taters along with the weeds, I’d spill the feed, forget to unbridle the mule…he must have taken so much skin out of my hide those weeks that I shrank a size. But I didn’t care. All I was thinkin’ bout were those chords. That raw holler of the guitar when you hit her just right.”

“Things carried on that way for several months and by the time harvest season had passed, I was getting’ pretty damn mean on that guitar. But wintertime meant daddy would have less to do and would likely take the buggy into town hisself when need be. And God knows if he found out about that guitar…well that’d be the end of it. And a season away from music and playin’ was just more than I could bear. I explained all this to Old Hostetler late one October evenin’ and he just sat there watchin’ me like a bullfrog, his pipe pressed between his lips, not sayin’ nothin’ but burpin’ up great flowers of smoke every so often. When I was done, he handed me the guitar and told me to hide it somewhere safe as he didn’t know where he’d get another if my daddy got hold of this one.”

“That afternoon I was takin’ the old wagon road back towards home just as fast I could, that guitar rattling around in the back of buggy bed. I recall I was in a hurry, on account of it getting’ a might late. Ever since summer, daddy had been pretty intent on me being home well before dark. Livestock had been disappearing all over the county, so much so that the annual county fair had been canceled that year. And there had been more than a few whispered rumors about vagrants and carpet-baggers disappearing off the roads. But as they were mostly tramps, and it was their nature to wander, people didn’t much of it. All the same, I had been told not to drag feet on my way home.”

“The sun was already droppin’ down below the trees, and the whole sky exploded in that purple hue that seemed to have winter just behind it. Up ahead, around the bend of trees, I could hear the distant sound of my daddy choppin’ wood. I steered the old mule over towards the side of the path and snatched my guitar and jumped off the buggy. I stepped into the forest that lined the road and pushed my way through the underbrush. The sweet smell of magnolias filled my nose, but didn’t bring much comfort. The woods were getting’ dark quick, and the bleach white birch trees looked like bones stickin’ straight up out the ground. Several hundred yards or so from the road, there was a small glade with a massive oak tree dead center of it. This oak tree had a big ole hollow right in the base, big enough that I could squeeze inside. When I was younger, Reggie and I used to run through them woods chasin’ each other like cowboys and Indians, and I’d hide in that hollow, let him pass and double back towards the house. He’d show up sometimes an hour later, mad as a hornet.”

“Hurrying now, I put the old guitar in the hollow and then covered the entrance with scrubweed the best I could. I made my way back up to the buggy and just about wore that mule out getting’ back home fast as I could.”

“I snuck out to that old oak just about every chance I got. And by the time harvest season was over and winter had officially rolled in I was as good as Hostetler, by the time planting season come up I was better than he was, and when the next planting season came, I reckoned I was the best guitar player in the county. Better than any of them good ole boys that played at the county fair anyway.”

“That followin’ summer things got considerably worse on the farm. The man who owned the land we farmed on started askin’ for a greater share of crop. Daddy always said ‘You can’t draw blood from a stone’, but Mr. Hemming didn’t see it that way. He rode up on us one day while we were tillin’ and jumped off that great big horse of his. His face was cherry red and he starts whoopin’ and hollerin’ bout my daddy not pullin’ his share, and how he has obligations, and how we’re takin’ the food off his table, and how he has a line out the door of decent white families who would gladly work this land right and how he can’t understand why he ever got mixed up with such a crazy family of niggers anyway.”

“Well daddy just stood there, still as a pine tree and took it. But once Mr. Hemming disappeared round the bend, he’s cursin’ and wailin’ like you wouldn’t believe! That was the turnin’ point really. That very day. Whatever part of that man was my father disappeared with Mr. Hemming round the bend. What was left was like the pit of a peach. Hard and unforgiving. From that day on I was whooped near everyday. He’d beat me till his hand was raw, then he’d use the old ox whip. One day that snapped over my back, and my daddy was so angry he snatched up the beam from our old plowshare and just lays into me with it. A piece of wood big around as my leg! Wasn’t long before I just blacked out and lay there. I woke up a day and a half later in bed, my mother havin’ fits beside me.”

“He laid off me for awhile after that, but that same smolderin’ anger just burned his eyes, and when he looked at me I could tell that whatever love had once lived there was long gone.”

“Bout a week later, we found one of our chickens bout torn to shreds out by the property line. The followin’ week we find another. Daddy makes his mind up that it’s a wolf that did it and gives me the rifle and a bunch of traps to set out in the woods. I set em out, hidin’ em best I could, and by supper time didn’t have none left. As I head out towards home, I decided to stop by the oak tree and get in a bit of practice. Hostetler had seen how quick I getting’ on the guitar and started collectin’ all sorts of guitar records to play in the store. He got old Tin Pan Alley records, old rag, bluegrass, but the one that caught my ear was them old blues records.”

“Blind Lemon Jefferson, Charlie Patton, Tampa Red, Blind Blake. There was a music with pain in it. A music that didn’t make effort to help you forget your problems but rather sat down beside you and said ‘Life is shit as sure as sure as the day’s long.’ Got to the point where I could hear a song twice and play along by the third time.”

“So that evening, I figured my folks would expect the job to take longer than usual and I could work in some more practice. I pulled the old guitar from the hollow and tune it up. It’s old as all hell but it holds tune despite the humid summer heat. I started playin’ to beat the devil, the music just pourin’ out like moonshine. Before I know it, I can’t even make out the strings no more it’s so dark. I’m gettin’ bit from every which way by mosquitoes but I don’t pay it any mind. I’m lost. I’m somewhere far away from the backwoods of Mississippi, where your family hits you, and they’re the ones that’s sposed to love you. Where you’re poor and worthless to your fellow farmer, and just a nigger to the rest. I’m somewhere good. And I don’t even know where it is, but it’s there.”

“I look up and something’s lookin’ me right back in the eyes. A pair of yellow eyes big as silver dollars and as bright as light bulbs are starin’ dead at me. Behind em is the biggest goddamned wolf I ever seen. It’s covered in thick, matted black hair so dark I can’t tell where the wolf ends and the night begins. All I can see are those eyes. Those eyes and that great big maw beneath em. Paws as big as my feet. The damned thing must be five feet easy and probably weighed more than me!”

“My eyes dart towards my rifle, lyin’ in the grass a few feet away. The wolf growls low and I can feel it shakin’ my chest. I look back at the wolf and it falls silent. Mine left hand is still holdin’ a C-Chord firmly on the neck of the guitar, my right is shakin’ so bad it accidentally strums the strings. The wolf seems to…to what? To smile? How can a wolf smile? Damned if I know, but it’s doin’ it somehow. Tremblin’ like a leaf, I strum the chord again. The wolf yips now. My breath is still comin’ out in short, hot spasms as I slip into an easy G-Chord.”

“I know you must think I’m shittin’ you Theo, but this the Gospel truth. That wolf sat there for an hour and listened to me play. Got to the point where the fear melted away and the love of music filled that empty space. From behind me my daddy shouts for me. I turn my head and when I look back, the wolf is gone. I stow my guitar away and head back home to supper and a whoopin’ that leaves the dark skin on my back a murky purple.”

“But I went back the next night Theo. After my mother and daddy went to bed. And I didn’t bring the rifle. I started playin’ and sure enough that wolf showed up. I played for hours. Every night for a week. Durin’ the daytime I snuck out to the forest and sprang all the traps I had laid. That night I waited until the soft murmuring of my folks turn to steady snores and I skirted out again. I ran across the field like a jackrabbit. The moon was full and fat, and threw lines of silver over everything you could see. I dove my way to the treeline and made my way to the oak tree. I sat down beneath and pulled out the guitar and started playin’.”

“After while, from behind me, the bushes shuttered and shook, I turned with a big foolish grin plastered across me face to see my daddy standin’ there dumbstruck, just starin’ at me like a stranger. He looked from me to the guitar and his face grew dark with anger. I could see plain as day the thick leather strap that dangled from his hand.”

“’Is this where you go boy?’ he said. I remember his voice was perfectly even, as if he had known all along something weren’t right, but he was just waiting to solve the mystery. ‘Is this where you go?’ he looked at my guitar, ‘Where’d you get that?’”

“I tried to answer him, I swear to the Good Lord above I did. But my voice was lost.”

“’Did you steal that boy? You don’t think I have enough problems without you thievin’ from people?’”

“’I didn’t steal it Daddy! Mr. Host…’”

“The strap whipped through the air like a bat and landed flush across my neck. I could feel the welt rising as soon as it connected. I cried out. But that just made the old man angrier. He brought the strap down again, but I managed to turn my back before it landed and caught the blow right between my shoulder blades.”

“’Don’t you turn from me boy!’ he started hollerin’, but whatever punishment me not listen’ is gonna entail can’t be worse than the lickin’ I’m takin’ now. ‘Turn around and take it boy!’ he screamed, over and over. But I won’t. I crawled on all fours, tryin’ to scurry away when all the sudden I’m pressed against the ground by some great weight. I struggled for a moment and then realized my father was on top of me, sprawled out over my back. My belly pressed up against the twigs and rocks and I could feel them tearin’ my skin. One big hand pressed my face down into the leaves and I could smell the rank stench of rotten vegetation.”

“’Daddy, please…!’ I cried out. But he wasn’t listenin’ anymore. He was just spittin’ out fire and cursin’ me. I didn’t start panickin’ really until I felt him slip that leather strap across my neck and start pullin’ it tight. My lungs burned and ached as I was tryin’ to pull breath. But he had me pinned down now and was sittin’ on my back. He pulled the strap tighter, cursin’ the day I was born.”

“’This is fo yo own good Reggie!’ he growled. I wanted to cry out, to tell him I wasn’t Reggie. To tell him I was sorry. To tell him I’d never play guitar again! But please, please don’t kill me in this forest where the beetles will bore through my eyes and the worms’ll crawl through me! But I couldn’t say nothin’. The world was already getting’ dim. I couldn’t see nothin’ but a pinprick of light.”

“Then for a moment I thought I had died.”

“The weight was gone off my back and I couldn’t feel nothin’. But my throat was open so I took a deep breath and it felt like my whole insides from my mouth to my lung were on fire. That pain brought the rest of the world into focus and I heard it before I saw it. It was a terrible sound.”

“My daddy tried to scream but the cry was muted, cut off as clean as you’d cut down a tree. The cry was replaced by the awful sound of skin bein’ rendered. Just when daddy would shoot a deer and I had to help clean it, that horrible sound when you cut away the flesh from the meat and pull. It’s tears and shreds and you know you’re undoing God’s work. I thought it couldn’t get worse than that, but it did. After the tearing stopped, there was just the sound of gnashin’ and chompin’, something barrelin’ it’s way through all that muscle and sinew.”

“I rolled over onto my back and looked down past my bare feet at the body of father. He was layin’ out on his back as well with a massive black shadow hangin’ right over him. I could make out the wolf’s giant haunches, the muscle taught and fine as a hair split three ways. That massive tail low and sweepin’ the ground. The only thing I couldn’t make out was the wolf’s head cuz it was buried in my father’s throat. His head was INSIDE my father’s throat and he was rootin’ around in there like a vulture. Everytime he’d move, my daddy’s head would loll back and forth like chicken with it’s neck broke. Those wild brown eyes glazed and lifeless.”

“I found my voice.”

“I found it and I screamed, I screamed and I screamed. The wolf’s head spewed outta my daddy’s throat and it peered at me, it’s black fur sticky with blood and matted at odd angles that looked like horns. It regarded me for a moment and then calmly disappeared into the brush. I lay sobbin’ and whimperin’ for a few, just starin’ at my daddy’s lifeless eyes. Then, eventually I gathered my guitar and headed back towards the house.”

“There, I collected the few thing I could carry (Reggie’s harmonica for one) and just…well…disappeared on down the road. I never saw my mother again. I went back, years later. Found her grave. She was buried there next to my father’s remains. The kicker was I was buried there too! Sure enough they had put a gravestone up with my name on it that simply read:

“Ellis Howard Colden III
Beloved Son
1912 – 1927”

Tic took a final drag off the last in an endless parade of cigarettes and fell silent. He pinched the end of the butt out between two fingers and flicked it aside. For a few moments he said nothing, and just stared at floor between his feet. Then, with visible effort he drew a breath and sighed.

“Well, first thing I done when I left home was visit old Hostetler. I didn’t tell him then what had happened, about the wolf or my daddy tryin’ to strangle me. Didn’t see as it mattered much at that point. I simply told him I was fixed to leave, and there weren’t no talkin’ me out of it, so it wouldn’t be much use to try. I imagine the bruise across my face and over my neck told the story better than I ever could have anyhow. I told him I wanted to play the Blues, professionally.”

“He told me my first stop outta be Jackson, gave me a little money, and told me to stop in anytime I was in the area. He told me to be careful, lot of blues musicians were dope fiends and winos and there weren’t no future in that sort of life. He told me not to trust anyone and to contact him if I ever needed help. I thanked him. He was more of a father to me than my own daddy had been. We shook hands and I set off the road towards Jackson. I never Mr. Hostetler again.”

“Well I made it to Jackson, and found that despite havin’ learned how to pluck that guitar more or less alone, I was every bit as good as I thought. I became the toast of the town. Every night I’d play with a different outfit and people would cram into those clubs, Lord how’d they cram. Their faces bright and eager to see me. It was a great feelin’ I’ll tell ya.”

“Eventually, I started playin’ full time with Fat Willie Stacks, a bluesman out of Chicago who was plannin’ on tourin’ the Chitlin Circuit. And we did. We played it. Countless times over the years. After awhile, it all just sort of melts into a hazy line of shows, smoke and women. I joined different blues groups over the years. Played with anyone you could name in any place you could name.”

“I can’t say that I took Mr. Hostetler’s advice very well. There were plenty of drugs and plenty of hooch. I’ve been strung out more than a laundry line I reckon. I was married twice to the same woman. I spent a stretch in jail as well. Shot a man in Alabama over a woman. He died in the street, fell over like a rag doll and pissed hisself. It was a horrible thing to witness. Luckily for me, he was a negro and Alabama cared about as much for a negro as they do a three-legged horse. I served 11 years.”

“When I got out, I started playin’ the circuit again. But the crowds were a might smaller. This was the time of the Civil Rights Movement ya know. It was a dangerous thing to be a black man walkin’ the streets of the south where any old Redneck could scoop you up and drag your black ass down a country road. Besides, young people were listenin’ to different music then. Doo-Wop and skiffle groups were popular. Them British Beatles showed up and the whole damned world seemed to turn upside down.”

“I didn’t care. I just wanted to play same as I always had. I was older now, no young man. No wife, no children, no house. Just my guitar, the same guitar that old Hostetler gave me.”

“Well, one night I was playin’ in this divebar ‘The Blue Iguana’ in New Orleans, right off the French Quarter. It had to be nearly two in the mornin’ and the place was dead as a morgue. Just me beltin’ out these old blues standards with a handful of drunks and the bartender. But seated right up in front of the stage is this feller just eyeballin’ me. So close I coulda kicked square in the jaw if I saw fit.”

“He’s just watchin’ the whole time, never even ordered a drink. And I never seen him. He was white as a sheet with a big old beard down to his chest. He had this great big mane of black hair, shootin’ straight down his back. He looked like one of those Phillistines from the Bible. Just big and burly and ‘ornery all over.”

“’Well shit.’ I thought, ‘This good old boy probably means to string me up. I’ll be goddamned if he does too!’ So as soon as I finished my set, I packed up my guitar and slipped out the service entrance into the alleyway. I hadn’t made it a step or two when that boy shows up at the mouth of alley, so big you could barely make out the street behind him.”

“Well…I can be pretty nasty when pushed against a wall. If you don’t believe me, ask the feller back in Alabama with an extra hole in his head. I pulled my pistol out and aimed dead center. ‘Just turn around mister. We ain’t have to have no problems.’ But he just started walkin’ dead at me.”

“’For God’s sake mister! I swear to Jesus I’ll kill you. You wouldn’t be the first!’ I tried to sound confident, but my voice was crackin’ like a dry leaf. I took a breath and squeezed off five shots. Shit, he walked right through em like they was spitwads. Walked right up to me until my gun was empty. I know I didn’t miss, I could see the holes in his shirt, and the lily white skin underneath!”

“’L…listen m..m…mister…’ but that’s all I got out. He clocked me and sure as I clocked you earlier and when I woke up I was surrounded by old willow trees and it stunk like fetid swampwater. That old boy had dragged me out to the bayou, and if I didn’t already have a rope around my neck, I was damned sure it was comin’. A few feet away was a site that chilled my bones. A hole lay freshly dug in the earth, just big enough to fit a man.”

“I stood up and he’d just standin’ there watchin’ me. I was weighin’ my options, thinkin’ if I could get a hold of a big enough branch when he says…”

“’It’s you.’”

“’I…I can’t argue that…’ I said. He stepped closer.”

“’I’ve been looking for you.’ His voice was different…foreign. But not like old Hostetlers. Foreign in a way that no one could relate to no where they was.”

“’Well you found me. What do you want with me?”’

“’I want you to play. For me, and only me.’ He pointed past me and Christ if his fingers weren’t pointed and sharp! I look over my shoulder and my guitar’s restin’ against the tree.”

“’Look mister…if you aim to kill me, then do it.’”

“’Play.’ Was all he said. And I did. Sure as shit, I did. I sat down among the pine needles and crab grass and I played for two hours or more, until the sky turned a violet hue that stretched out over the bayou. When I was done he looked me in the eyes and I noticed for the first time his eyes were that same sickly yellow as that wolf.”

“’Christ the Redeemer…’ I whispered. And then he jumped on me and I felt my…my…myself slippin’ away. Like I was being pulled out of reality somehow. It was the same feelin’ as when my daddy has been atop me, stranglin’ the life right out of my young body. It was almost comfortable. And then, I felt him pressed against my face and his skin was cold, Lord was it cold! But something warm passed over my lips and my insides start burnin’. Burnin’ a slow ache like a fever, but just getting’ hotter and hotter. And when you think you’re about to melt away, it’s just gets hotter until it’s white hot and you can hardly feel. Somewhere in that blinding white heat, I fell away into darkness.”

“When I awoke, I had dirt in my mouth. I had dirt everywhere matter of fact. ‘Crazy white bastard’s buried me alive!’ I thought. I dug my way out and found myself back in the bayou. It was evening, just so, judgin’ by the moon. And I was hungry beyond imagination. That same white heat was alive, but buried deep. But I could feel it, just eekin’ it’s way to the surface.”

“Well, the next few nights were interestin’. I quickly discovered what I was. I learned to hide durin’ the day and to hunt at night, which wasn’t the most unusual thing in the world. That had been my schedule since I had a prison guard tellin’ me otherwise. But the power that came with it. That was the shock. The awareness. I don’t know how to put it. It was like everything was broadcastin’ some sort of radio wave that I had tuned into.”

“Overtime I learned there were others like me. Called themselves ‘Lics’ or ‘Kindred’. Vampires, you understand. The wilder types, like my ‘Sire’, meanin’ the one who turned me over, were called Gangrel and generally steered clear of the society types. That fit me just fine. Apparently, the dead play politics just like the livin’.”

“My Sire showed up a few months later one night at another gig in Baton Rouge. He filled in the missin’ pieces, although by that time there weren’t all that many. Turned out he was a Gangrel with an artistic streak. My guitar playin’ was just a piece of art he couldn’t let slip out of the world. And I can see why. My unlife is shit except when I’m on stage. Up there, I never wanna die.”

Tic stood up from the pail and looked down into Theo’s good eye.

“So that’s about it Theo. I spent the last few decades playin’ every gin joint from here Denver. I’ve been lucky enough to avoid politickin’ too much and riskin’ my neck. When the Gangrel gave a polite ‘fuck you’ to the rest of Kindred society, I was only too happy.” He crossed his arms, leaned against the shelving that lined the wall and looked at the Theo thoughtfully, “But I’ve been thinkin’ recently. Maybe it’s time for a change. The locals get spooked when a bluesman plays the same old haunts and don’t get no older. I’ve been thinkin’ about my daddy. Thinkin’ about those dreams he watched die, just like Reginald prolly did in some nameless trench, facedown in the mud. I think Theo, I may go to California. Do what daddy couldn’t. Rufus and Stef are on board. Hell they’re on board for anything I do. I learned a few tricks about ‘inspiring loyalty’ over the years. But you Theo…you’re stubborn as a deaf mule. What do we do with you?”