The Dying Crapshooter's Blues (24 page)

There were snickers from the men in the bedroom doorway, and laughs erupted from the kitchen, where all the drinking was going on.

When Willie explained that the word had gone out to a good number of the downtown women, Jesse got loud again. “Get
all
them whores in here, goddamnit! There's some up at the Hampton, a few more out of the Dixie, and I want 'em
all.
You hear what I say, Willie?”

“I hear you, Jesse.”

“'Cause I think maybe I got to die today.”

“You lasted this long,” Willie said.

Jesse's face scrunched into a perturbed look, as if Willie was feebleminded, and got back to the business at hand.

“Lookie here, now,” he muttered, sounding like he had a mouthful of gravel. “You think I don't know what the hell's going on? It's my damn body.” His wide gaze found Willie and behind the unutterable sadness was a wild joy, as if this was all a joke. The blind man could hear it echoing in his voice when he said, “You make sure you finish the song. And you sing it over my grave. You promise me that.”

Willie said, “I promise, Jesse.”

“And don't make it so damn sad, either.”

“I'll do it right,” Willie said.

Jesse sagged into the mattress, gasping and sweating. “Can you play me what you got?”

Willie said, “All right,” though he never liked singing a song until he was done with it. This was different, and he knew where he was going, anyway, building it around the chord pattern of minor to fifth and back, over and over. There were only a few lines he wasn't sure of. That didn't seem to matter now.

He sang what he had. Once he reached the line
Police walked up and shot my friend Jesse down . . .
he hesitated for a second, completing the next phrase in his head. Then, in a somber tone, he said:

 

Boys, I got to die today

 

Jesse laughed breathlessly. Willie sang,

 

He had a gang of crapshooters and gamblers at his bedside

Here are the words he had to say:

I guess you ought to know exactly how I want to go . . .

 

“Hey, Jesse . . .”

Willie stopped. Jesse cocked his head. “Joe.”

Standing in the doorway, Joe said, “How you doing?”

“I'm still here, ain't I?”

Joe looked over at Willie, who shook his head. Joe turned back to Jesse, bending down closer and smelling something that made his eyes water.

“It's time for us to talk,” he said, putting an edge on the words.

“I know,” Jesse grunted. “I got some things to tell you. Only not now. I got to hear my song first. After that.”

Joe started to argue, only to catch a hard eye from the man on the bed. Jesse shifted his gaze and said, “Go on ahead, Willie.”

Willie said, “Maybe you ought to talk to Joe now. I'll play it later.”

“Ain't no
later,
” Jesse said. Though weak, his voice had an edge of strain. “Joe ain't goin' nowhere. So go on ahead.”

Joe sat back and Willie started playing again, picking up from where he left off, turning the dirge into a jaunty, bouncing vamp with a thumping bass string.

 

Eight crapshooters for pallbearers

Let 'em be veiled down in black

I want nine men going to the graveyard, buddy

And eight men comin' back

 

Joe felt Jesse's eyes on him and tried to read the faraway smile. If there was a message, he didn't get it. Men and women were now crowding the doorway to listen.

 

I want a gang of gamblers gathered round my coffin side

A crooked card printed on my hearse

Don't say them crapshooters are liable to grieve over me

My life's been a doggone curse

 

Some of the rounders snickered and a couple of the whores called out affirmations, like they were in church.

 

Send poker players to the graveyard

Dig my grave with the ace of spades

I want twelve policemen in my funeral march

The Captain playin' blackjack and leadin' the parade

 

The tempo increased just a bit and Willie sang,

 

He wanted twenty-two women out of the Hampton Hotel

Twenty-six off of South Bell

Twenty-nine women out of north Atlanta

Know that Jesse didn't pass out so swell

 

Now there were little hoots of laughter from the men and chuckles from the women.

 

Now his head was achin', heart was thumpin'

Little Jesse went down, bouncin' and jumpin'

 

Folks, don't be standin' around ol' Jesse cryin'

He want everybody do the Charleston whilst he dyin'

One foot up and a toenail dragging

Throw my friend Jesse in the hoodoo wagon . . .

 

Willie slowed again, returned to the original funereal pace.

 

Come here, mama, with that can of booze

Dying Crapshooter's Blues, I mean,

The Dying Crapshooter's Blues . . .

 

Willie plucked the last notes and looked over to see the odd, faraway ghost of a smile on Little Jesse's face. He gasped, “You hear that, Joe?”

“I heard, Jesse.”

“People gonna remember me, ain't that right?”

“Nobody's gonna forget you,” Joe said. “You don't have to worry about that.”

“I'll make sure,” Willie said.

“You do that. Please . . .” His smile faded as a gray cloud moved up his chest to invade his face. His lips moved and he tried to whisper something to Joe, who bent his head to listen.

“What is it, Jesse?” Joe said.

Little Jesse tried to mouth something, but instead of words, an eerie breath came up from his chest, one with a weight that seemed to charge the air over the bed; then, nothing more.

Willie said, “Oh, Lord . . .”

Time slowed and hung like a shroud. No one spoke or moved. Jesse opened his eyes, then closed them again, and let out one long, deep, shuddering sigh that was nothing if not full of the relief that comes at the end of a wearisome road. In the next second, his body stiffened, then relaxed and settled in the mattress.

Joe, feeling his voice catch, said, “Well, goddamn.”

“He gone?” Willie said. It wasn't really a question and no one answered.

Gradually, a ripple went out from the room. The whispers grew louder and there were a few sobs. Joe heard Martha begin to weep, keening as she pushed through the crowd to kneel at the bedside and take hold of Little Jesse's cooling hand.

Hearing some of the other women moaning with grief, Willie called out, “Hey, now! Y'all heard what he said. He didn't want none of that. Somebody get a bottle goin' 'round.” After a pause, he said, “Go on, Jesse.” He tilted his head in Joe's direction. “You'd best cover him up,” he said, and Joe pulled the sheet up over Little Jesse's dead face.

In the commotion that followed, no one noticed the small-boned Negro who slipped out the door. He hurried through the alleys until he could cut across Decatur and come around the side entrance of police headquarters, where he delivered the message that Little Jesse Williams was dead, receiving a quarter for the tip.

 

The drinking started up in earnest and went on until someone called out that the hoodoo wagon was turning into the alley. Presently, heavy footsteps came clumping up the stairs. Two men from the funeral home, dressed like twins in black suits and somber derby hats, walked in carrying a folded stretcher. With the help of Joe and another man, they went about the clumsy business of getting Little Jesse's cadaver onto the stretcher, out of the apartment, and down the steps to the alley. Everyone who was inside came outdoors, and more people from the Decatur Street speaks, pool halls, and gambling rooms showed up. Martha stood on the rickety landing at the top of the wooden stairs, watching it all with tired and damp eyes, her thin arms crossed against the cold wind.

Down below, a bottle was going around, and in spite of the somber presence of the black carriage and the two dark-clad
valets, a general mood of hilarity animated the alley as they settled Little Jesse for his ride to the funeral parlor. The two men climbed up, one snapped the reins, and the wagon clattered off, negotiating the narrow byway, then turning east on Decatur Street. The word went out about the wake as the party moved back upstairs.

Joe went inside to talk to Willie, and found the blind man in the corner chair of Jesse's room picking his Stella and looking tired and somber. He stopped playing and raised his head when Joe walked in. No one else wanted to be in haunted space, so it was just the two of them. For his part, Willie didn't at all seem worried about any juju that might be lingering.

Joe listened to the hypnotic minor-key drone and said, “Sounds sweet.”

“I'm bound to play it over his grave,” Willie said.

The crowd of Jesse's friends and rivals and not a few strangers started filling the rooms and getting louder by the minute. The revelry would last through the end of the day and through the night, replete with drinking, fighting, and fucking, all in Little Jesse's memory. Joe accepted a quick glass of whiskey out of respect for the deceased and made his exit. On his way out, he shook Willie's hand, and promised that he'd come by and see him later at the 81.

 

Joe wandered the dark downtown streets, walking aimlessly, feeling the hollow weight of having witnessed a man's death, then pondering the fact that the person who could have told him exactly what happened on Courtland Street on Saturday night was gone. It had been some scene in that room, bleak with grief at a man's passing and yet with a certain wild edge, ending with the song Willie had written, as if the blind man had distilled Jesse's life to its essence in those last moments.

Except for one small part. What was it that Little Jesse wanted to tell him? Was he finally going to offer Joe the other
pieces of the puzzle? Why had he waited so long, indeed until it was too late?

These thoughts went around as Joe hunched his shoulders against the night's chill, wondering why Little Jesse hadn't spoken up sooner. Instead, he had hedged his wager, playing another in an endless chain of angles, waiting for the right moment to show his hand. But his time ran out and the infection or whatever it was killing him had moved too fast. The gambler had bet and lost, and his last deal had gone sour. As much as Joe mourned his passing, he couldn't shake his anger at him for being such a fool and holding out like that.

He came around the corner at Cone and Walton and passed by the facade of the Dixie Hotel. The lobby was lit up, a glow of cheery yellow against the dark of the night.

Joe knew that if he wanted to drop the whole mess, this was his chance. Few would know and fewer would blame him. He could take Pearl's brokenhearted advice and leave, and that would be the end of it.

Before the thought had crossed his mind, he knew he wasn't going to do any such thing. He was in, and he wasn't going to get out by walking away. Pearl, the Captain, Lieutenant Collins, and the deceased J. R. Logue had all done their little bits to hold him fast.

Shuffling through the cast of characters, he thought of Robert Clark, who had witnessed the first act in the drama. Joe knew he'd have to find him, starting with Bell Street, where he'd last been spotted. If nothing else, he'd know he'd turned over every stone.

Before he went chasing that goose, he stopped at Beck's Café for a solitary dinner. Though he didn't have much of an appetite, he hadn't eaten since the morning, and figured it could only make him feel better. The place was known for chicken and biscuits, and that's what he ordered, along with a dish of greens and a cola to drink.

The after-work crowd had come and gone, and it was quiet, an ordinary night, missing only one pimp and crapshooter. Six blocks away, the wake for Little Jesse would be getting rowdy. None of the customers in the diner or the pedestrians on the street would know one way or another. The December night went on as usual, just a little more foot traffic on the sidewalks, as Christmas shoppers hurried from store to store.

As he waited, he glanced around to see a young fellow sitting at the other end of the counter. Joe studied him with an idle interest, noting the way he kept shifting about, like he couldn't get comfortable on his stool. Though it was plenty warm inside the diner, he kept his heavy coat on, and Joe saw the bulge in one of the pockets. The fellow was toting a pistol and couldn't quite get right with the feel of it, like he was not used to the encumbrance. One of Joe's few cop nerves told him there was something going on there, perhaps some mayhem in the making. He would not be surprised to pick up tomorrow morning's paper and read of a crime that had involved a troubled young man and a pistol. He had seen it too often: a kid with no sense, a gun that was made for killing, the wrong words spoken in the wrong tone of voice, and then blood on the floor.