Geoff Nicholson - Flesh Guitar

The sheets are tangled and wet with sweat, and swathed in them is Robert Johnson, blues singer and guitarist. He’s sick as a dog; pains in his head and stomach, in his very bones. In fact sometimes he howls like a dog, screams, sees visions, bays at invisible moons, talks to ghosts and demons. He hears music, not his own; strange stuff, from another country, or maybe another planet, like Mars or some such place.

It could all be worse. He could be in a tar-paper but in the middle of a swamp somewhere. He could still be on the plantation, or being worked over by smiling deputies. Being able to sing and play guitar hasn’t kept him out of trouble completely, hasn’t made his life a breeze, but without his gift he knows that everything about his existence would have been twenty times worse.

But why exactly does he feel so bad? It was just another weekend gig. He sang and played just like usual. All he did different was take a drink of whisky, from a bottle given him by the club owner. The guy sure had a good-looking wife and she sure did flash a nice smile poor Bob’s way, but he didn’t do anything about it. There were nights when he would have done, but not tonight. And he certainly couldn’t do anything once he’d started throwing up his guts. He certainly hadn’t done anything that you’d poison a guy for. Was he being punished just for his thoughts?

And suddenly, oh shit, there’s a woman in the room. Not the club owner’s wife, much worse than that, much scarier: a white woman. He’s in enough trouble already and this woman looks like really bad news. She’s wearing the weirdest outfit he’s ever seen, like fancy dress, like she’s a show girl or a specialized kind of harlot maybe. It’s pretty indecent the way her clothes hug her body, and show off her legs and breasts. She isn’t strictly his type. He prefers something more homely, someone older and more comfortably reassuring, but he can definitely see the attraction. And although he doesn’t exactly know how, there seems to be some sort of connection between this woman and the infernal outer-space music he keeps hearing.

That’s when he realizes he must be hallucinating. Oh sure, she looks solid and real enough, as though you could reach out and grab yourself a handful, but he knows she must be the product of his sick imagination. What manner of woman would be here with him at a place and a time like this? What the hell was in that moonshine that created such visions?

‘Hi, Robert,’ she says.

‘You know my name?’ he asks, but then why should he be surprised? That’s the way it is with hallucinations. They know everything.

‘I know all about you,’ she confirms.

‘And who the hell are you?’

‘I’m Jenny Slade.’

‘And what do you want from me?’ he asks.

‘I don’t want anything much. I just want to tell you about the future.’

‘You mean I got one?’ he says, as a stab of pain twangs through him.

‘Well, yes and no. That moonshine whisky the bar owner gave you, I’m afraid it is going to kill you.’

‘Oh Jesus.’

‘But that’s OK. That’s not the end of the story.’

No? It sure sounds like it to me.’

No, you have posterity on your side.’

‘Post what?’

Jenny smiles indulgently. She knows he’s not as dumb as he’s pretending.

‘Fifty or sixty years from now you’ll be known as the “King of the Delta Blues Singers”,’ she says.

‘I sure don’t feel like no king right now.’

‘Maybe not, but that’s what they’re going to call you.’

‘Who’s going to call me that?’

‘Blues fans, and record companies and journalists, and radio stations.’

‘You mean white folks, yeah?’

‘Mostly white folks, yes.’

‘Well, I ain’t prejudiced,’ he says, and he laughs through his sickness and stomach pain. ‘And what about my guitar playing?’

‘You’re going to be very popular for your guitar playing too.’

‘Hell, lady, I don’t see that I have to wait fifty, sixty years. I’m popular right now, you know. I recorded my song “Terra-plane Blues”, and it sold maybe five thousand copies. If that ain’t popular then I don’t know what is.’

‘You’re going to be even more popular than that.

‘For sure?’

‘For sure,’ she confirms.

Johnson doesn’t seem inclined to believe her. He says, ‘You see, these guys came down from the American Record Company. I recorded twenty-nine sides for ‘em. I made big money out of it.’

‘Big money for here and now, maybe.’

‘Yeah, well here and now’s where I’m at.’

‘That’s true, but things are going to change, Robert.’

He looks at her slyly, squinting through half-closed eyes.

‘Hey,’ he says. ‘You ain’t some kind of devil woman, are you? Come to take my soul away?’

‘Is that what you think I am?’

‘Well, no, can’t really say that I do, but you sure are a weird one.’

She looks at him disapprovingly, like a school teacher trying to chastise a pupil with a single look; an evil eye, maybe.

‘What is it with you and the devil, Robert?’

‘What you mean?’

‘I mean all this stuff about having hellhounds on your trail and having Satan knock on your door. What’s the point of all that?’

‘Say, you must’ve heard me sing. You must’ve paid attention.’

‘Yes,’ she says patiently. ‘I’ve heard you play many times, and I always wonder what’s all this nonsense about you having made some sort of pact with the devil.’

‘Hell, you don’t have to believe that stuff,’ Johnson says dismissively. It’s just showbiz. I had a friend called Ike claimed he learned to play guitar by sitting in a graveyard, letting the knowledge seep up through the tombstones into his ass. I don’t think too many folks believed him.’

‘So you don’t believe any of that stuff you peddle?’

‘I don’t believe in it exactly, but it does no harm to pay a bit of lip service, you know what I mean?’

‘Are you sure it does no harm?’ Jenny says, and she seems concerned. ‘You see, it seems to me that all this stuff about being in league with the devil is more than just bullshit, Robert. It’s actually very demeaning. It suggests that a poor black man couldn’t possibly have genius unless it was somehow handed to him from an external source. And that’s bad, Robert. That’s absolute crap. They try to pull the same stuff with women. You aren’t in touch with any devil, Robert, you’re just in touch with yourself.’

‘I’d sure like to get in touch with you,’ he says.

It’s a well-intentioned offer but they both know that Johnson’s in no condition to go touching women. Jenny sits down on the edge of the bed, but she’s visiting the sick, not accepting any sexual invitation.

‘It’s with the boys that you’re really going to be a hit. You’re going to be a big influence on lots of guys, a lot of them white.’

‘Now I know I’m dreamin’.’

‘There’s going to be a guy called Eric who’s going to base his whole career on playing “Crossroads”. Of course, it won’t sound much like your version; he’ll garble the words a bit and take a verse from a different song, and he’ll add a Chicago-style riff, but you’ll get a lot of the credit for it.’

‘And will I get money for it?’

‘You won’t need money when you’re dead.’

‘Yeah, but—’

‘And a band named after an airship will take some of your best tunes and lines and make them their own. And there’ll be books written about you, scholarly articles, television programmes, movies.’

It’s all getting too much for him now. All these words and ideas that he doesn’t quite understand.

‘What are you?’ he asks. ‘A fortune teller?’