LITMIR.BIZ

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all dat fine food. I was just getting ready to fry me up a couple of flapjacks. I ’spect you too full to join me.”

      “Yeah, I’m stuffed. But I brought you a couple of pieces of fried chicken to go with your flapjacks.”

      “Lawd have mercy,” Jake said as he unfolded the wax paper. “You be Mister Ted from now on. Bless yore little heart, Mister Ted. Why you do dis?”

      I wanted to tell him that I had always been taught to offer a gift if you wanted something, and I did want something from him. I wanted answers, but I didn’t know how to explain this, so I just said, “I don’t know. Just saw all that food and thought you might like some.”

      “You mind if I go ahead and eat dis chicken? Dem flapjacks can wait.”

      “No. Go ahead.”

      I watched while Jake ate his chicken, threw the bones into the fire, then wiped his hands on his handkerchief. Only then did I feel it was appropriate to question him. But the questions the preacher had raised could wait, because I had to know about the music. “Jake, you were playing your guitar and singing before I got here, weren’t you?”

      “I sho was. You heard me?”

      “I sure did.”

      “You like it?”

      “I liked it very much, but I never heard anything like it before. What kind of music was it?”

      “Why, dem wuz de blues. I wuz singing de blues.”

      “What in the world is the blues?”

      “Well, now, dat’s kinda hard to explain, but I goings to try. De blues is something deeper dan a mood. It—it comes from heartache caused by want, need, hurt, loss, hard work, sacrifices, and things like dat.”

      “Why would you want to sing about stuff like that?”

      “You just full of questions today, and dat’s another tough one. I s’pose singing de blues kind of makes dose things not seem quite so bad, plus it’s a reminder that they do exist.”

      “Can just black folks sing the blues?”

      “Shoot no. White folks can sing ’em too. I’ve heard ’em do it.”

      “Where do the songs come from?”

      “I just makes ’em up as I go along.”

      “How in the world do you do that?”

      “I be happy to show you. Dis’ll be yo’ song. You just pick out a subject.”

      “I don’t know how to do that.”

      “Sho you do. Pick out something like being hungry with no food, some kind of hard work, or—”

      “How about this old sawmill?” I interrupted.

      “Oh yeah, dat’s easy.”

      I watched while Jake started strumming on his guitar, then suddenly he picked up the pace and broke into song:

      “Got dem old sawmill blues

      “De kind you just can’t lose

      “Got sawdust in my clothes

      “Got sawdust in my nose

      “Sweat all in my eyes

      “I ain’t telling no lies

      “No time to drink no booze

      “’Cause I got dem old sawmill blues . . .”

      I sat there on that block of wood and was completely captured by the essence of the words, the sounds of the instrument and Jake’s voice. It was as if I could actually feel the music, an experience I had never had before. He went through the song four times and I had it memorized by the time he hit his last chord on his guitar. The sound and the wonder of the music lingered in my memory, and I was still tapping my toe, even after it was over.

      We moved away from the heat of the sun and hot coals onto a bench in a spot of shade beside Jake’s shack. The bench was simply a scrap board resting on two more blocks of wood.

      We sat in silence for a few moments before Jake said, “You got something else besides de blues on yo’ mind, don’t you?”

      “Yeah, how you know?”

      “You just quiet and thoughtful looking.”

      I felt awkward and knew even at my young age that I was broaching a sensitive subject, but somehow I knew Jake would understand and explain things to me. I started slowly, reached a comfort level, then proceeded to tell him the entire story about the last part of the preacher’s sermon.

      When I finished, once again, we sat in silence for a while until Jake asked, “So what you think about what yo’ preacher said?”

      I had been waiting for him to tell me what he thought. Now he was asking me, so I told him. “I ain’t too sure that preacher was right at all.”

      “You can bet yo’ bottom dollar on dat. He was right by saying a mark was put on Cain and he wuz sent off to de Land of Nod. But de next time you see dat preacher, tell him to read further and de Bible will say dat Cain and his family went on to be folks who lived in tents and raised livestock. Don’t sound like black folks to me. He just trying to stir up some hate. Proud to see it didn’t work on you.”

      “You read the Bible?”

      “Read it from cover to cover.”

      “When did you do that?”

      “When I was in de— While back when I had a little time on my hands.”

      “How about that word, the one y’all don’t like to be called?” I didn’t want to say it.

      “You means, nigger?”

      “Yeah.”

      “What about it?’

      “Where did it come from and how come y’all don’t like it?”

      “It come from back in the slave times when ignorant folks couldn’t pronounce Negro. I s’pose we don’t like it ’cause it reminds us of dat part of our past. Now, anything else bothering you today?”

      Jake had awakened the music in my soul, erased the doubts in my mind, and added to my education that day. I still wasn’t sure what that preacher was up to. It was as if he had been preaching to Old Man Cliff Creel. I would have to ponder on that.

      In the meantime, there was one more thing bothering me about Jake. “You ain’t got no garden and no chickens. You can’t live on flapjacks. What else do you eat?”

      “I went to Miz Miss Lena’s after you left yesterday and bought myself some groceries.”

      “What’d you buy?”

      “I got me some tins of sardines, a few cans of pork ’n beans, box of soda crackers, sack of flour, and a bucket of lard.”

      “My mother says you can’t live on stuff like that. You need fresh fruit and vegetables, eggs, and occasionally a piece of meat.”

      “She absolutely right. Eggs is what I miss most. Dey would go mighty fine with my flapjacks in the mornings. But if worst comes to worst, I can always make myself some nail soup.”

      “Nail soup—what in the world is that?”

      “You never heard de story ’bout nail soup?”

      “No, never did. Will you tell me?”

      “I sho will. Can’t rightly say whether I read it or somebody told it to me, but it goes like dis:

      “Dey was a gentlemen traveling by foot down a lonely road. It came on toward dinner time and a powerful hunger came upon him. A little farther down de road he came up on a farm house and dey was a lady in de front yard raking leaves. He decided to

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