The Divas Pen LLC Publication
Your Blues Aint Like Mine
ISBN 978-0-9830523-2-6
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Your Blues Aint Like Mine © Copyright 2010 TA Ford
Cover art by M. B. Wright
Electronic book publication October 2010
With the exception of quotes used in reviews, this book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the publisher, The Diva’s Pen LLC.
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This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.
Your Blues Aint Like Mine
Mud Lake, Mississippi, is known for two things: its cotton fields that still flourish, and unseen darkness that permeates the night. Mud Lake is also the home of Tommy ‘T-bone’ Walnut. A troubled boy who found a home and adoptive family after being orphaned at ten, he grew into a man with a single wish. He wanted to be a blues singer.
He travels the Delta with his best-friend and surrogate brother, playing juke joints in hopes to be a blues star. The tragedy deals him a soul-crushing blow. And then, Tommy Walnut, a white man who has found love and friendship with a poor black family in the 1960s Deep South, is forced to face his demons. He’s forced to stand at a crossroad and decide. Is a short time of happiness and fame after a lifetime of misery worth risking it all? That fateful night, a hellish bond is made, promising Tommy fortune and the love of his life. But there remains a single price. His soul.
Prologue
Name is Tommy but you can call me Tbone. When I was ten, I saw my momma killed by her pimp—strangled with his belt until her eyes went funny. Dead-like. I hid in the closet until the roaches forced me out. When I finally did leave my dark crawl space of pink high heel shoes and dirty clothes, I covered momma with a blanket; got the thirty dollars she kept in a can under the bed, and took the guitar named Ilene that my Pa left behind. I’ve been on my own ever since. Running through the bayou, sleeping in the slums, and meeting many ‘runners’ like myself along the way.
It was a kid named Davis Duke that I took a shine to at fourteen. He was five years younger but many years wiser. Some said Davis was an old soul. I can say without a doubt he was much more than that. Davis used to hide me behind his Pa’s tool shed at night and feed me the scraps from his table. He was the only kid I knew that was a wiz with dice and drank whiskey from the bottle.
Davis' Pa was pretty well known in Mud Lake. His name is Daddy Legs and he ran a blues-joint called The Ditch. Guess the name fit. Folks had to climb down through a ravine to get to it. The Ditch was far enough off the beaten path for a runaway like me to find work. Despite my age I was tall enough and smart enough to barter small jobs that kept me front and center to the Mississippi blues scene. But that wasn't the real reason. My love for Mud Lake was because of my love for her. Her name was Daphane. She was Davis’s twin sister.
They lived at the back of the bar. They was black folk, I’m not. In Mud Lake it would give a person pause if even a throw away orphan like me was taken in by a Negro family. But Daddy Legs never turned me away the few times he caught me lingering. So despite it all I spent the next ten years of my life as part of the Duke family. Watching the beautiful Daphane bloom into the woman that would always have my heart.
For you my story with Daphane starts where Davis’ story ends. That’s when it all went to hell… my soul included. It was the summer of 1968 in Houma, Louisiana at a small juke joint called the Pink Lady. Yes, that was the night my best friend and blood brother, Davis, died.
The first night the devil came for me.
Chapter One
“What the hell you wearin’ man?” Tbone choked on his beer, gurgling down the rest. He sat up in a fit of laughter.
“My gear. My cool. Awe fuck you, Tbone. This here is fly,” Davis tugged on the lapel of his powder blue suit. He stood before a cracked mirror as tall as him, propped against a dusty oakwood tallboy in the corner. They shared a cramped wardrobe closet with a mop bucket and crates of Maxine’s homemade firewater. Davis checked himself from the front to the back, nodding his approval—oblivious to his lack in taste. Tbone sipped warm beer to keep from laughing.
“Five minutes!” Came a hard fist pound on the door.
Davis shot him a wink from the mirror. He strutted over to the cramped corner of the room and picked up his shoes that he would spit-shine to pearl gloss. They’d been in and out of New Orleans for over a month now, tonight they’d settled in Houma. Davis was the front man, all blues and soul. Tbone managed to get him through most of his routine on his guitar Ilene. Though Davis was born to music, Tbone wished his talent were the same. The only white boy to frequent the back wood juke joints down in the Delta he put in work each and every night. It hadn’t escaped his attention how impatient the band could be during rehearsals. He knew the men were getting tired of his failings.
“Tee, you gone do jus’ fine t’night,” Davis said. Through the reflexive surface in the mirror, Tbone fixed his eyes on the man he called brother. Tbone shifted on the stool seat and readjusted his guitar strap. “Been practicin’. I aint Daddy Legs.”
Davis laughed. “Hell nah you aint my Pa. But he put that harmonica in your hand… and your daddy put Ilene in the other. You jus’ got to believe in the music you sellin’. I keep tellin’ you this and you keep second guessin’ it. Hell boy, you got more blues in you than any Negro man I know. Stop holdin’ back on the string. Get in touch with your inner funky white-boy.”
Tbone plucked a chord, then another and howled. Davis doubled over with laughter.
How could he admit the truth? He wasn’t holding back. Davis and Daddy Legs were wrong. He loved the music and believed in the lyrics he wrote. It just never got right when he tried to play. Not the way it was heard in Davis’ voice. He just couldn’t reach it no matter how hard he practiced.
“Yesterday when we was warmin’ up, where you was?” Tbone asked. His eyes flipped to Davis who straightened his back and dusted invisible lint from his suit.
“Out.”
“Petie-boy said you was down in Terrebonne Parish. Shootin’ dice?”
“Petie-boy needs to stay out my business. I wasn’t shootin’ no dice!”
“Then that means you was at them cards again?” Tbone pressed.
Davis ignored him. He sat, spit on the side of his loafer then gave a good buffing with the brush. They sat in the cramped closet where they changed, facing each other. The heady smell of mildew souring over the mop bucket clogged his nasal passages. Tbone kept sneezing and rubbing his nose.
“Do I need to remind you of what went down in Biloxi?” Tbone sniffed, “We almost didn’t get out of there alive. If somethin’ going on, Davis, I need to know.”
Davis gaze lifted from the shoeshine. His front gold tooth gleamed within in his lopsided grin. “What you gone do, Tbone? Shiiieeet,” Davis chuckled, but it didn’t have the usual ring of amusement. There was something hollow and strained in his manner. “I got into a little money, then…”
“You lost it. Fuck. How much?”
“Hold up!” Davis stood. “Don’t get your drawers in a bunch. I gots time. They givin’ me time. We do a couple of shows and it’s good. All good, baby. You know me. I’m slick like butta… cain’t nobody hold me for long.” He gave a spin then stuck out his upturned palm. Tbone shook his head and slapped it.
Davis nodded. “Well alright then. Now let’s do this.” He put on his shoes. Tbone rose but reached to stop him. “I got a little saved for emergencies. How much you in for Davis? I can get to it and…”
“No, brother. I’m cool. We good.” He patted Tbone’s cheek, and then popped the collar of his polyester suit before slipping out. Tbone reached for his guitar. He’d keep his eye out for any trouble.
Chapter Two
The people of Houma were in the place deep that night. Davis’s performance had filled the 24-ounce pickle jar on the second set with dollar bills. Everyone in the Pink Lady was grooving. Davis soulful croon was a slow moving hand that reached in and squeezed the blues from your heart. Tbone's struggle to keep up with the band lessened when he connected with the lyrical flow. It was his time to conjure the sweet face of Daphane and drift on the memories of their times in Mud Lake. Daphane was kindness, love and all the sweet comfort a man could ever achieve with the woman he desired. Music, particularly the blues, always got Tbone to longing for Daphane.
***
"What you smilin' for Tbone?" Daphane emerged out of the blue-green sparkling waters of the creek; her thick tresses coiled, dripped water. She wore her slip dress for an afternoon swim. The nylon material slicked over her skin revealing her curves and barely shielding the dark perfection of her nipples. Tbone’s smile broadened. He leaned back. Blades of grass pushed through his splayed fingers. She was a vision. The sun was her halo, and the fresh smell of newly bloomed violets mixed with sweet grass was her fragrance.
"I ask you a question Tee. You come down here to peep at me again?" she plopped on the grass next to him.
Tbone let go a deep chuckle. Daphane was what folks called a 'straight-shooter'. He was guilty as sin, but not ready to confess. "Trying to understand why a gal like you would swim in her slip instead of her skivvies. You afraid of showing some skin?"
Daphane cast him a sly smile. "Nah, I aint afraid of nothin'. I'll tell you why though. Cause a guy like you gonna come a peepin' and I aint incline to give no peep show. You think I don't see you watchin' me Tbone?"
He shifted forward, propping his elbows to his knees. Davis and Daddy Legs never let any boy or man near Daphane. To be honest he'd kill a man if one were to look at her cross-eyed. But she was his kin. As close to it as he would ever have. Tbone was determined to never forget that fact. His feelings for her were wrong; she was Davis’s sister and the closest he's ever known as family. They could never be more.
"I don't come here to peep at you." he swallowed, down the lie and force the nervous tremble from his voice. "I come to fish."
"Is that so? Where your pole at?"
Caught he dropped his head and gave it a shake. "I guess I forgot it."
"Mmhmm."
She was close, closer than appropriate. Tbone lifted his head from his knees and cast her a look as she moved in even closer. He dropped his hands back behind him and the tips of their fingers touched. Tbone couldn't bare the closeness a moment longer. She was only seventeen. He was five years older and had taken on the title of her surrogate brother. The closeness was wrong. Though he'd willing admit that it didn't feel that way.
"You wanna kiss me?" she asked.
The quiet between them was heavy with the things he wanted to say. He opened his mouth to speak but she quickly moved on him, halting his words? Tbone fell back into the bed of grass. Daphane’s wet soft supple body covered him as her full sweet lips pressed to his. No tongue. She was too innocent to know that he craved a little tongue. But he'd die a happy man without it. Her hands pressed to his face and she pursed her lips to his offering him the sweetest kiss of his life. A burst of starlight exploded behind his lids.
Tbone struggled to remember to breathe; he focused on her lovely face in dazed bewilderment. Daphane stared down at him with her brown walnut shaped eyes. "Some day you gone stop runnin' an denying the truth between you and me. I'ma be here waiting for you when you do. Some day."
Daphane eased off him leaving the damp feel of her warm body behind. Standing before him she pulled her soggy slip dress over her curves and tossed it aside. In her white panty and bra she turned for the creek. She tossed him a beckoning grin from over her shoulder. She then sprinted for the calm waters. Winded, enslaved by the sweet promise in her kiss Tbone resisted the urge to follow. It would be hard to explain the erection he squeezed his legs together to conceal. Yet he never stopped grinning.
***
Tbone eased down the tempo, strumming chords with his thumb he measured the whine from Ilene to pitch perfect as the band followed note for note. His eyes remained closed. Davis had his harmonica and began to play. The crowd went wild. They always did.
Tbone let himself go. It worked for the first set but as they neared the second the homey warmth of being at Davis side jamming through their music soon morphed into something hot and insufferable. Heat flamed under his skin causing his flesh to pebble with beads of sweat. Strange, but his lungs filled with the muggy swamp air. He was hit with an unnatural arrhythmia to his heartbeat and all of it occurred within a millisecond. The dark fog that smoked away any thought of retreat consumed his mind. The music dulled as his pulse rate sharpened in the canals of his ear. He missed a note. Then another. That's when a voice so purely seductive reached his limited hearing over the grooving beats of the band.
He opened his eyes.
The haze of confusion melted like the walls and every thing or person surrounding him as he struggled to recover his lapse. He shook his head hard. His vision returned to focus and so did the grooving crowd. He fumbled through the bass, and without provocation felt compelled to look out past the audience to the bar. She turned on the barstool and met his gaze dead on. Her skin was brown, as if powdered in cinnamon. A woman he'd never seen before in a sexy low cut blue dress. He was reminded of the moon over the cotton fields in spring back at Mud Lake when he looked into her eyes. Bright irises shadowed under lowered lids with dark upward swept lashes were a striking color of blue. They glistened like fallen rain when she smiled. And her smile though faint, and only touching the corners of her mouth, remained the sexiest smile he had ever seen.
“Tbone, what the fuck you doin’ man!” Petie-boy hissed from the piano.
He shook his head from the reverie and realized he had stopped playing altogether. Quickly he regained his rhythm and flow with his brothers in music. When he dared another peek toward the bar, the sweet honey in blue was gone. So was the heat. But to his dismay it left a chill shiver along his spine. Tbone inhaled.