The Cle eland Travel Inn

Copyright 2012 John Baird Rogers

That winter, on the battleground of Cynthia's body, the cancer is winning. Hospice and painkillers become necessary.

One evening toward the end, she says wistfully, "You know, Joe, I always wanted to go to New Orleans with you. Just to

listen to music, wander around, drink some whiskey, eat some touffe, listen to some more music and roll around in your arms in a big four-poster bed." She turns carefully onto her side, mindful of the tubes snaking down her arm and smiles into Joe's eyes. "Then, maybe just take off north on the old Highway 61 to where that beautiful country blues came from. Mississippi John Hurt lived. Go to Avalon where

Then the Delta. Find the crossroads

of 49 and 61 in Clarksdale, where they say Robert Johnson met the devil and traded his soul to be a great guitar player. stop in Memphis." She breaks eye contact, tearing up. But maybe you'll find Maybe

"Now, I'm not going to make the trip. another lucky woman and have kids..." "No!" Joe reaches out to stop her.

"Have kids and take them up Highway 61 and tell them about their godmother Cynthia. Tell them about Robert Johnson and the crossroads and Son House." Hurrying the names together, almost out of breath; hurrying because Joe is shaking his head No. "... and Memphis Minnie and Blind Lemon and ..." "Cynthia ... please. I can't think about that."

Rogers / Short Story / 2 "Well, I can. Take that trip for me. Please. I can just

imagine my old soul looking down and seeing the thread of my life being carried on. It makes me happy. Really. I need to talk Your love, and

about my dreams, Joe. my dreams."

That's what I have left.

### That spring, Joes come up Highway 61 from New Orleans and turned east on Highway 8, following the Blues Trail toward Dockery Farms. A sign on the outskirts of the little town of Joe turns in,

Cleveland points to the "Cle eland Travel Inn." tires popping on the crushed rock drive.

There's a row of lawn chairs across the front of the building, white-painted metal like Joe's grandmother had when he was a kid back in Illinois. The kind you could rock a little A man is dozing in one of the

when you finally hit sixty pounds.

chairs, a cat is napping in another and a black and tan dog of uncertain breed is in the shade of a third. head to contemplate Joe's arrival. Joe picks what he thinks might be a parking place and gets out. The cat opens one eye and goes back to napping. The dog The dog raises his

offers a peremptory 'wuff' in apparent recognition of Joe's arrival, then rests his muzzle on his paws and lets his eyes follow Joe as he crosses the lot. The man stands, tall and lean,

and walks into the building with the careful attention of an older person.

Rogers / Short Story / 3 Joe follows him in and finds the man eyeing him suspiciously over the worn formica counter. "Uhh, yes I am." "You up from Florida?"

Joe is surprised until he sees a fly-

specked mirror above the desk. The man's chin juts out. items in the car." Joe nods, wondering at the connection between Florida and future larceny. The man must see the question in his eyes. "Not responsible for personal

"Stayin' here with that outta state license, folks figure you're followin' the Blues Highway. State of Mississippi makes a

big deal out of it, so folks come through here lookin' for Dockery Farms, goin to Clarksdale and over to Greenwood. Outta

state license with a white man drivin', that means a car fulla good stuff. So I'm just mentionin' that I'm not responsible for Lock your car."

your personal items.

Joe says, "Well there's not much in the car ..." "You know that, but nobody else does. Lock your car."

Joe nods again and accepts the worn room key. "How long you stayin'?" Joe says, "Well, like you said, I am interested in the Blues Highway ... three or four days, maybe?" "Not gonna take that long. people's memories. Most of what's left anymore is

Lotta people disappointed when they find out Course the important part never was

there isn't much to see.

anything you could see, anyway." Over the next couple of days, Joe learns that the man is the proprietor of the Cleveland Travel Inn, that his name is Tommy

Rogers / Short Story / 4 Jarvis, but that everybody calls him Mase, "'Cause of the jar, you know, in Jarvis. Mason jar. Get it?"

Mase is in his 70's, tall and lean, friendly under the rough leading edge. years ago. He inherited the small motel from his mother some

He has the soft diction and slow cadence of his

birthplace, and has honed both over the years to draw listeners like Joe into his stories. They sit in the white chairs most

afternoons, the old tomcat and the dog keeping them company, as Mase unreels the history of Clarksdale and Cleveland and the Delta, distilling the stories his grandfather told him sitting on these same chairs sixty years ago. "My grandfather was a boy in the time the music was strong around here. He said that on a Saturday night, Cleveland would

be full to the brim with people lookin' to have a good time. Back then, before the mechanical cotton pickers took over, there was five, maybe ten times the people livin' out here in the country. Sharecroppers, they were. Too poor to buy their land,

but they had a nickel or a dime, and that was what those musicians was after." "Come Saturday night, people would be lookin' to have a little drink, listen to some music and dance. Back then, people They called it

didn't mind walkin' a few miles to a jook joint.

a barrel house, because they'd prop some planks over barrels in a little commissary and serve whatever kind of food they made ... tamales, fried fish, like that ... and they'd have beer and hooch and the music. Blues Highway people won't tell you why

Rogers / Short Story / 5 Clarksdale was so important, but it was the white lightnin' they made around here." Mase punctuates his story with a nod. lightnin'. Memphis." He turns to look out over the fields to the west, shoots of winter wheat made emerald in the afternoon sun, shakes his head. "Mechanical harvesters came along in the 1930's and '40's, when granddad had a small farm. He was sharin' for Mist' Jones Yes. "Umm hmm ... white

My grandfather's was famous all the way up to

over near Tutwiler. But the equipment was too costly for anyone but the big farms. business, mostly." "Dockery Farms over here toward Ruleville and a few others got back all the land they owned before the War between the States and started farming it with the big machines. no jobs here, lots of jobs up North. and went. There was Little farmers, sharecroppers, got run out of

Most people just picked up

The musicians went with 'em."

After several days, Joe finds himself telling Mase about Cynthia, her love of the music, and her wish for him to take this trip. woman." In the mornings, Joe follows Mase's directions to places he knows Cynthia would have wanted to see. and final grave, over near Greenwood. Robert Johnson's third Mase's face softens. "Its a lucky man who has a fine

Mississippi John Hurt's

family graveyard, east of Greenwood in a silent grotto where the hills begin to rise toward the Piedmont. In the evenings, he

finds small clubs where a new generation of musicians is carrying

Rogers / Short Story / 6 on the tradition, mostly playing the Delta Funk that grew out of electric blues a generation ago. After several such trips, Mase is apparently satisfied that Joe is serious about the music. "Tonight, you take yourself into Clarksdale, go to Red's Place ... ask anybody where it is ... and have a listen to Sonny Boy Vee. Hes one of the last of the real bluesmen. Don't be put off by the place. You gonna It don't

like what you hear.

look like much, but you'll hear good music." True enough. Joe finds Red's Place easily. Old brick front

building by the railroad tracks, piled high in the front with ancient Bar-B-Que ovens, accouterments, building materials, buckets and who-knows-what. As he crosses the street, Joe hears The much-

the beat coming from the place, not yet the music. repaired door sags in its frame.

There's a piece of cardboard

plastered to it, announcing in uneven marker letters "Sonny Boy V and Trio. TONITE." The sign on the wall next to the door lays "NO guns, NO drugs, 21+over." Joe

out house policy succinctly:

opens the door to the last chord of a song, followed by applause from the crowd packing the small place. There's smoke, the smell

of beer and a rush of conversation as he pays the two-dollar cover. There are two kinds of bottled beer available. Joe says,

"Lite" and the bartender hands over a cold bottle in exchange for another two dollars. sweating. Sonny Boy V is surely well into his 80's. He's sitting in a Gonna need this tonight, he thinks, already

straight-back chair, cradling his scarred Fender electric in

Rogers / Short Story / 7 hands wasted by arthritis. On a chair next to him is a glass

bottleneck slide and a pint bottle of Jack Daniels Tennessee Sipping Whiskey about half gone. The rest of the trio consists

of a pudgy young man holding a Fender J-bass and chatting up two very fine looking young women and a kid on drums who couldn't be more than fourteen. The drummer seems impatient to start the

next number, but Sonny Boy is taking his time, working the crowd. Joe finds a seat at the bar next to a pretty woman who turns out to be Sonny Boy's niece. from?" Joe says, "I'm up from Florida." disappointed. The lady looks She looks him up and down. "Where you

"You know," she says, "We get people from Japan, all over Europe,

everywhere in the world comin' to Red's. Brazil, everywhere.

That guy over there," she tilts her head

toward a bearded man with a raucous Hawaiian shirt, "He's from Croatia. He gets into the music. White guys from Europe, they

just love our music." Joe's trying to figure a way to justify his boring normalcy when Sonny Boy takes a prefatory sip of the Jack, slips the slide on his ring finger, brushes the strings and slides up the neck to produce a shimmering introduction to the next song. The bass player cuts off his sales pitch to the ladies and comes in a little late. The kid on drums grabs the beat on the

next measure and makes it his own, establishing that he is, indeed, far more mature as a musician than his age would suggest. Sonny Boy's playing is simple ... Joe learns later that he 'had a

Rogers / Short Story / 8 stroke coupla' years ago' ... but the guitar speaks like a human voice, digging down below listening to a place much deeper. He delivers the words in a way that makes them a conversation with his audience, not a performance. Everyone there, white and

black, Croat and Floridian, has his feelings, knows what he's singing about.

Maybe it's the beers, maybe it's the music, but Joe feels like he's floating in a bittersweet ocean, a place he's never let himself go before. Cynthia's surely been there, and Joe has the

feeling that right now he can nearly touch her. When he leaves at 11:30, Sonny Boy is still going strong, and the Jack Daniels is three-quarters gone. The days pass quickly. Joe finds humor in the fact that

Mase is feeling a little sorry for him for having lived such a whitebread life. His realization of Mase's pity comes as a

result of the long, finely drawn tale about how the "V" fell off his sign fifteen years ago. "Had a hell of a storm one night. off their poles. Blew the 'lectric wires

Blew the V right outta 'Cleveland' on the sign.

I was fixin' to put the sign in good order, but I noticed more people were stoppin'. place, you know." smile. Nice white folks looking for an authentic

Mase squints what might be the beginning of a

"I got the 'V' right in the office, all painted up nice.

People stop comin' round, and I expect I'll put the 'V' up again."

Rogers / Short Story / 9 The good stories, all the side trips, the fine music and measured pace of life at the Cle_eland Tourist Inn stretch Joe's visit into the next week. But his pain is always there. He can

forget it for hours at a time, but then it jumps down on him, the more ferocious because he's forgotten it for a little while. One

night in Clarksdale, a young man is playing a beat up guitar and singing in a fine high tenor. Hey come back, baby. Mama, please don't go

Well, the way I love you, you'll never know Come back baby, think it over, just one more time.

Cynthia is suddenly next to him, in their living room, listening to that same song about the time they knew for sure she would be going. Suddenly, he is crying, a hard knot rising in his chest. Too much Cynthia, too many memories. memories are the hardest to bear. just one more time ... mmmmm just one more time Sometimes good

### When he packs up his kit, and it comes time to say goodbye to Mase, the old man is formal, gruff. bearing. "I thank you for coming." Joe puts out his hand for the shake and says, "Mase, you have a wonderful gift of language. you and heard your stories." I wish my wife could have met Standing with military

Rogers / Short Story / 10 Mase's stiffness dissolves, and he takes Joe's hand in both of his. "You come back and see me. I'll be right here."

"It may be quite a while, Mase ..." Both men realize 'quite a while' could be too long for Mase. Mase looks long at Joe, says, "Don't you worry none. I'll

always hold you here," tapping his chest. "You keep me, too, same place, along with that wife 'a yours, hear?"