Mister Satan's Apprentice: A Blues Memoir

15. Back Down Yonder

BACK DOWN YONDER Way back down yonder . . . where I come from We worked for a living,. . . we got up way before dawn We lived our dues . . . we did it with those sanctified blues —STERLING "MISTER SATAN" MAGEE, "SANCTIFIED BLUES' H I S T I M E , HAPPY tobea mercenary, I packed light. My old familiar show costumes were waiting in Utica— freshly laundered and folded, two complete sets of handmade rags designed to make me look like either a lovable waif (St. Petersburg Boy) or a mud-spattered roustabout (River Rat). Poor, above all. There was something strangely comforting about slouching around backstage in the same silk-lined Wookie-fur pants I'd worn all fall, as though the pants and I had earned our right to a second go-round. Gail and I, on the other hand, failed to reconnect as anything more than fellow showbiz survivors;the romance was gone for good. She had a cold when I arrived and seemed drained of vitality, as did the entire cast. A series of cities—New Orleans, Miami Beach, Houston, San Antonio—had been opened and closed in since Pittsburgh; some had been "fun," some had been "downers." The show itself had ceased to provide anyone inside it with more than fleeting highs, like a voluptuous Playboy centerfold jerked off to a few times too many. Who gave a fuck about Huck and Jim and their quest for freedom? The high point of the week was Dollar Friday: 275 C H A P T E R F I F T E E N T Mister S a t a n ' s A p p r e n t i c e You wrote your name on a greenback, tossed it into Mark Twain's stovepipe hat, and hoped you won the sixty-buck pot—to go along with your fat paycheck—when the winner was called out over the backstage RA. during intermission. A little extra drinking money always came in handy. There was one exception to the general malaise: Wreck and Rick Molina had gone fish crazy. They spent every free moment before and after the show paging through tattered copies of Angler and Bass Fisherman, debating the merits of neoprene hip-waders and lined wicker creels, whip-casting their carbon-graphite poles in hotel parking lots, lazing around the back of the bus dreaming out loud about fishing holes they were going to descend on in the next town, the largemouth bass and catfish they were going to catch, clean, and fry up. They'd rise before dawn and take a cab out to whatever local body of water the kitchen staff at our hotel told them was biting. Hours later they'd fall onto the bus, loud and spent and happy, talking trash. "I'm the man, baby," Wreck crowed in Columbus, stretching his endless limbs in one of the back seats, angling his fishing cap pimplow over his eyes. "Ten pounds three ounces without the head." Rick's delighted sneer showed lots of teeth. "Your shit stinks, Wreck." "Oh Mister Fisherman, can I trade you for that boot you caught?" "Your mama's shit stinks." "You what? You gonna wear it? Dag." "Fuck you. Blow me." "You Colombians, man, with your freaky tastes." "Don't go there, babe." "Hey, I'm cool. To each his own. Just keep that Deliverance shit away from me." "Your wife called me up last night, man. She was lonely." Wreck grinned. "Just 'cause I'm smiling don't mean I won't fuck you up." 276 Big River CINCINNATI, OUR THIRD STOP, was perched on rolling hills next to the Ohio River. Reconstructed paddle wheel steamboats from the days of slavery—wedding-cake white with black trim—were docked at the foot of the levee, promising leisurelyexcursions down to New Orleans. Kentucky was just across the way, lit up with billboards hawking cheap bourbon. The hometown blues hero, I discovered, was H. Bomb Ferguson: a skinny old piano player, nut brown, who wore a long silky purple-tinged blond Barbie wig with bangs. His haunt was Cory's, a small club up in the hills that I taxied to one night after the show. He shook his head like a Muppet as he pounded the keys and hollered, gossamer hair shimmering in the spotlights. His bearded all-white band, the Medicine Men, followed every wigflick . The music and...