a lil down home beef in alligator

a lil down home beef in alligator
by hardCore
(performed at the S\W Speak Easy)

Only two kinds of people ever come out of Bolivar County Mississippi; young looking old people, and old looking young people. Now if you happened to be young looking and old, then praise the good man up above cause you lucked out on some damn good genes. But if you turned out old looking and young, chances are you were just another real life victim of them down home Delta blues. See down around these parts, life is extreme. The July sun can sho nuff change your mind about taking a mid day joy ride in a Chevy. And a late afternoon thunderstorm can wash away the road you take home, and you right along with it. And money, well, it doesn't tend to be too fond of most folks around here, so if you're smart, you don't go getting too fond of it. But what you do, is take the moments in life slow, whatever they are. If a cool breeze comes running down a hill at you, you inhale it head first without blinking. You take long drags off the square. You eat, and you rest. Then you rest, and you eat some more. And love? You don't just make love. You learn to make love last. Now if all that slow living doesn't smooth things out for you just enough for you to find a little bit of joy in life, then you're left with two options; church or that music they call the blues.

The baddest blues player to ever come out of Alligator, Mississippi was the twentieth of twenty-one children. His name was R.L. Johnson. Now R.L. didn't stand for Richard Leonard or even Rudy Lester for that matter. R.L. didn't stand for nothing but a capital R and a capital L. But names ain't matter much to his family, cause nobody went by their birth given anyway. He had a sister they called Doll, another they called Smush, and one that just went by Pepper. He had brothers; Red, Tree, Preacher, Junior Baby, and Duck. He had a big brother they called Little Johnson, and a little brother they called Big Johnson. But R.L.? R.L. just went by R.L. That is, until the summer of 1959. R.L. was ten years old in the fifth grade when they found out three of his teeth were rotten. And well, with money being tight and all, poor little R.L. was forced to walk around the whole year with breath that leaned towards the sour side of baby shit. And believe it or not, that's exactly what they called him. Baby Shit Johnson. So it was no surprise to anyone when little R.L. jumped into his grandmother's blue Buick at the end of that school year, and went to live a few miles up the road in Hushpuckena. And for the next 10 years, if you weren't blood related, chances are you never heard one peep out of the little boy, they once referred to as R.L.

Then next time he returned to Alligator, he came in a white brimmed hat, wearing white patten leather shoes, driving a pearl white Cadillac. And his smile was the biggest brightest most electric anyone had ever seen. The minute he turned in off that old 61 Highway, leaving a long trail of dust down Lake street, past Lake Alligator, right through the heart of town; it was obvious, he was somebody. R.L. came back a blues man with a record they played on the radio, and everybody knew his name too. They called him Sweets, short for the name he was now known by, Sweet Mouth Johnson. Sweet Mouth could hit notes as high as the night is long, and could make a single guitar moan like ten rooms in a whore house. He had an almost too quick laugh that often trailed off into the wind as a whiny hum. And he had this obsessive way of sucking on anything that smelled remotely sweet. Peppermint, butter scotch, rock candy, you name it. Sweet Mouth had cursed the halletosis God's forever, and the ladies, oh how they noticed. You could always find him leaned up against a wall whispering in some woman's ear, whether she was married, engaged, or otherwise. And like any true blues man Sweet Mouth kept a black rubber gripped Colt revolver down around his ankle in case anyone had anything to say about it. Sweet Mouth was finally back home. He played his guitar, drank his whiskey, and pulled plenty of skirts, all across the South. And that's how the passing days quickly blurred into years.

A blues man can lose time, the way a small kid loses change. He'll sprinkle a few years backing the wrong band. Seven or eight fighting a bad record contract, and another three or four trying to recoup the money he spent fighting it. He'll throw away some of his best years doing heroine, or denying children he always deep down knew were his. He'll drop twenty years running from taxes while simultaneously chasing the wrong women. Dysfunctional marriages, funerals, and fewer gigs are enough to make a blues man spend a couple of years doing nothing but thinking. Thinking about all the years that got away. And that's exactly what Sweet Mouth did.

By the fall of 1997, Sweet Mouth was three months into a marriage with his fourth wife, Rosetta Turner. And as things had turned out, Sweet Mouth hadn't exactly become a young looking old person either. The hard living and late nights of a blues man had carved deep lines into his face and left his tired eyes a dusty yellow, but nevertheless, he was in love. In Rosetta, Sweet Mouth had finally found a woman he was as taken with as she was with him. Rosetta was beautiful, well educated, extremely successful, and loved the blues. At a blues festival in Baton Rouge, Sweet Mouth plucked his guitar with an intensity that left her with curled toes and a post orgasmic glow . A two-year courtship ensued, resulting in Sweet Mouth divorcing his third wife. Rosetta quickly took an early retirement from her job and she and Sweet Mouth were married under a Magnolia tree. They only exchanged one vow written by Rosetta. "I promise to love you tomorrow, the way I do today, and to never ever cheat on you." From then on, she and Sweet Mouth became one with the slow easy life of Alligator. They were best friends. They'd talk and fish and tend their garden and take slow drives on Sundays. Most days, they slept late and rested. Most nights, it was a different club, jook joint, or tavern. Sweet Mouth did the playing, and Rosetta did the clapping. They'd always leave the house together before the gig, and they'd always come back together afterwards. Until one night, when Rosetta was forced to stay home to nurse a cold. Like a good married man, Sweet Mouth kissed his wife goodbye and left the house that night. But like the blues man that he was, he did not find his way back home.

Sweet Mouth stumbled into the house at about 8 a.m., smelling of corn liquor, cigarettes, cheap perfume and sex. Less that five steps through the door he had passed out, face first on the couch. There, his limp body would lay for most of the day. He finally lifted from his slumber to the loud sounds of an evening storm. The rain was tap dancing on the roof at a steady pace when he finally got his bearings. And the memories began to flash flood his heart. The big legged red bone seated at the back of the club, the long drive out to Sugar Hill, the backseat of his car. Panic rushed his heart. Sweet Mouth began calling out to Rosetta. He called for her in a pleading tone, then sweetly, passionately, commandingly, and eventually angrily. Yet all he heard in response was a steady down pour of rain and an ever increasing wind. He jumped up towards the window only to pull back the curtain and see one less car in the driveway. He darted towards the bedroom to find all her personal belongings gone. Clothes, pictures, make-up--everything. Eventually Sweet Mouth made his way to the kitchen. Everything Rosetta had left for him was there. Sitting on the table was the spare house key, Rosetta's wedding ring, and a box of curiously strong mints for Sweet Mouth, that held the curiously faint scent, of cyanide.