[UA] Dear Brother #11

[Bryant Durrell]

This one is a little complicated, in that we played this session after
we played the session described in Dear Brother #10 but the events took
place before the events in that session.  (And, actually, we played this
session after the session that will be described in #12.  Chronology is
a thin reed before our fury.)

None of this should get in the way of the story, however.  Just remember
that we haven't said goodbye to Danny yet.  Also, we haven't hung anyone
on a ferris wheel -- but that'll come in #12.

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Dear Brother:

It is a funny thing.  On our way out of Chicago we ran into the Reverend
Preston and that Black Grail man George Thibodeaux again.  It seems that
they talked some after we freed the Reverend from old Thibodeaux and
decided to go form another church together.  I would worry about this
some but from where I am sitting I think Chicago deserves whatever they
come up with.

But that is not what I wanted to write down today.  We did some things
down in Mississippi which I am fair proud of and that seems worth
remembering, so I will write about those.  When you read this, you can
tell me all the things I left out, and I will tell you why they did not
matter.  Ha!

After Chicago we had a good hour of arguing about what to do next.
Blind Joe was the problem, of course.  He makes for trouble even if he
is not busy selling us to Pinkertons, but in the end he is one of the
new League and even a blind man can see how he and we are tied together.

So in the end we all decided we would go off to Clarksdale, which is
nearby the Mississippi River, and where Blind Joe is from.  That Lewis
Felt told us back in Washington that there was a Delilah woman there who
could say some sharp things about Joe, and I was curious about all that
too.

We had a drive down there without any storms, unless you count some
messing around down in the south part of Illinois.  When we got there we
left Miss Angie and Joe in a Baptist church and drove around some to see
the town.  I thought I spotted a handful of those brown Pinkerton suits,
but Ben said not.  Well, he has only been to college, not to jail, so
what does he know?

After a while we drove back to the church and listened outside a bit.  I
think things inside were not going so well.  They were trying to make
the Judgment Day into a Redemption Day but the old song kept crawling
back in like a snake.  In the end we went in and got Joe and Miss Angie
and said it was time to go visit this Delilah West woman whether the
song was fixed or not.

When we drove over to her house she was not there, just our luck.  But
there was a pretty girl there named Emmy, who was the daughter of
Delilah and if I do not miss my guess, the granddaughter of our own
Blind Joe Biscuit as well.  Or maybe his great-granddaughter, since he
is so awful old.  It is hard to tell.

But of course he would not come out and say he might be kin to her.
Instead he just did all those stupid things people do when they are
afraid, and gave Emmy his guitar with the silver strings.  Well, why
would a man give away a guitar like that except to kin?

Then a little boy came running out from the house, and Emmy looked at
Blind Joe like she knew the whole story and said the boy's name was Joe
too.  The whole family of his is just stupid.  It is almost a sin to
deny your family, and the more so if it is standing right in front of
you.

I suppose I should admit I got more than a little angry at old Joe then.
When we left Miss Delilah's house he made that old man sound he makes
and said "Well, I guess it just wasn't meant to be."  So I told him he
was being an idiot and I did not coat it in honey or any other such
thing.  I guess I had gotten about my fill of him being a coward then.
It is bad enough that he got scared and betrayed us but I had no stomach
to see him hide from his daughter when they were in the same town.

So we drove over to the hospital, where that Emmy told us Miss Delilah
was working.  The lady at the front desk did not know the name at first,
but after a while she remembered Delilah was mopping floors up on the
third floor.  Like sitting at a front desk is so high she could not see
the people who mop the floors.  I am not sure about this hometown of
Joe's.

When we found Delilah she did not want any part of Joe.  Well, I could
not much blame her.  Still, I knew that these two had roads which needed
to meet before they ended, so I kept at the both of them until they at
least traded words.  Joe told her not to let the boy play that guitar of
his.  And Ben made Joey Dell give Miss Delilah all his money.  I am not
so sure how Joey came to still be with us.  A little like the chewing
gum down on the bottom of your shoe, I suppose.

Afterwards we went to the crossroads, which I guess was the same place
that Joe met the Man back when he was a young man and stupid.  Wait, he
is still stupid.  Me and Waylan did not much like the idea of playing
the Redemption Song in a place that everyone knows belongs to the Devil,
so we thought a while and decided to turn it into one of those circle
roads they have up in New England where the ground is all stones.  They
call them a rotary, which is a good simple name for a simple thing.

We hired out a little bulldozer and some tools and before the night came
we turned that crossroads into a place where we thought the Man would
have no purchase at all.  Then we waited around until midnight.  Nobody
talked a whole lot, which is not much like us but I think we all knew
that someone was coming to an end soon and we thought that Joe was the
someone even if we did not want to admit it.

At midnight we all made sure we was inside the circle -- I mean the
rotary -- and Blind Joe and Angie, they started to play and sing.  It
was not real long before a big old Southern mansion turned up beyond the
circle while we were not looking.  I know that makes me sound like I
drink as much as old Blind Joe used to, but it is what happened.  You
could ask Angie, and maybe she would tell you how she dropped the song
and went to run and grabbed onto Waylan tight enough to make him make a
face.

Inside the mansion we could see faces peering out at us.  They were
clawing at the windows, like they wanted to get at the song somehow.  I
could not see clear, like it was through a fog, but they were painted in
blackface like the old-time minstrel entertainers.

Just about then Lewis Felt showed up in his shit-brown suit, all
whimpering and whining about how Joe and Angie were ruining the song.
Waylan went to pistol-whip him, and I think he put too much anger in it,
because his gun went off and he shot his car by accident.  Waylan and
Felt have a history from back in Los Angeles.

Then I shot at Felt myself, and I missed too.  Well, I guess that is
when I found out why Joey Dell was with us, because he dove for that
Felt and drove him down into the ground.  Felt gave us no more trouble
that night and never will ever again.

Then we all got back inside the circle quick, because the blackfaces
inside the mansion were getting out and more important the Man came out
of his big white house with a face like thunder.  He wanted to know the
same thing Lewis Felt did, asking what the hell we were doing to his
song, but somehow when he asked it he had a little more force in it.

Angie got nervous all over again, but when the Man sassed her for it you
could see it put her back up.  It was just the wrong thing to say to a
Southern girl with her courage.  He kept trying anyhow, though, talking
a big lot of garbage about how he gave Joe and his forefathers the
biggest gift ever, how he made them Americans.  But the way I see it, he
pawned off a cheap gilt imitation on them.  Americans are free.

When he saw he was getting nowhere, he came into the circle, which made
me startle some.  I suppose you cannot expect to stop a man like him
with just a little roadworks, but I think we made him a little
uncomfortable anyhow.  Ben stepped up to get in his way like a good king
would.  But the Man told Ben he had been a member of the Trumps long
before Grandpa Siegel became a wizard, and anyhow there was another King
in this country.  Strong words.

Waylan managed to get the LS6 running again around then and drove it
straight into the Man, which was no kind of plan at all.  The hood bent
around him like he was made of concrete.  That orichalka is potent stuff
against the Nephilim but the men and women who sit in the Trumps are
made stronger than that.

Still and all, it gave Joe and Angie just the time they needed to get
the song just right and before the Man knew it all his blackfaces were
singing along with them, like they found the road out of that cursed
mansion and it was six lanes of blacktop with no traffic.  The Man swore
some and stuck out his hand and put it on Joe's chest and right there in
the middle of the song Joe just stopped, not much mystery why.

But Angie kept on singing and every note was perfect as summer.  And
while she sang the Man and everything he brought just melted away like
it was raining.  Which it was, of a sudden.  And Angie kept on singing,
and in the end it was just us and Blind Joe, finally at the end of his
road, with us there to see it and lay him to rest.

I had a feeling on the way down to Clarksdale that I might need a sign
to mark a grave with, and in the end I was right.  I went back to the
trunk and got it out.  It said "Blind Joe Biscuit Road" on it, which is
a damn sight better grave marker than most men get and if I get a green
American road sign over my resting place I will be happier than most men
too.

Tomorrow morning we will drive on to Mexico.  Danny says he is feeling a
powerful tug and it seems like it is time to start heeding those.  We
did for Blind Joe and I guess that was proper.  If I was judge and jury
I might have been crueller to the old man, but I am not so proud as to
think I would be a good judge.  He found his redemption and I can
forgive him even if I wound up not much liking him in the end.

Your brother,
Reese Beulay

-- 
        Bryant Durrell [] http://www.innocence.com/~durrell [] 9/11/2001
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    "Some of us are becoming the men we wanted to marry."  -- Gloria Steinem

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