Don't Start Me Talkin'. Tom Williams

With this dead ass crowd I want to get back to the hotel soon.

      Still, we need to get our first performance out of the way, so we’ll be better off and ready for the next. Since Ben doesn’t tell stories between songs—he’s all music—we’re some three numbers away from the finale. After some tepid applause, I hear someone yelling a request. I always hear such voices clearest, the rare ones belonging to those who feel we haven’t done enough and that they have the right to demand more. The only album Ben and I did together, Blues At Your Request, contained one original, “Take My Chance,” while the rest were covers we were always asked to play, like “Stones in My Passway,” “Death Letter Blues” and “Bottle Up and Go.” No such requests are hollered now by this fool, who sounds like a victim of the bar’s concoctions. With names like “Rattler Juice” and “Swampwater,” they all contain at least three liquors and cost ten or twelve bucks apiece.

      But fuck if he’s not hollering for “Soul Man.” The Sam & Dave version is smoking, you ask me. The one Belushi and Ackroyd did featured some of the same Memphis players like Steve Cropper and Duck Dunn. I even know the words, having performed this song at least a dozen times in bars and frat houses for drunken white boys who played air guitar and jumped behind a mic to sing along. Now my contacts shift and settle into place over my irises as I try to locate the body attached to the voice in the crowd. Everyone’s dressed alike, so it takes a few minutes to spot him. Wearing Bermudas, a Hawaiian shirt and sunglasses, he’s clutching a sloshing glass the size of a goldfish bowl. His other hand’s cupped against his mouth for amplification, and the people around him seem more amused than annoyed. Security’s keeping an eye on the relics that decorate the walls. Ben counts down to “Take My Chance,” but it’s no use. Already other elements of the crowd have caught this bug and they’re chanting “Soul Man.” I can barely hear Ben’s voice over the din and at one point put down my harp and glare at Bollinger, who stands in the wings backstage, hands jammed in his pockets. Applause accompanies the increasingly louder chants of “Soul Man.” When he closes out “Take My Chance,” Ben shakes his head. “Time to go,” he says, even though we’re one song short. We bow and make our exit in time to hear the boos.

      •••

      Bollinger stands between us and the performer’s exit, wiping his bald head. “I’m so sorry,” he says, backing up as we bypass the dressing room. “I thought we’d have the right kind of crowd, but . . .”

      “Ain’t yo’ fault, suh,” Ben says, stooped but purposeful, holding his guitar by the neck. I’m behind him, carrying his empty case.

      “But you’ll come back again, won’t you? Vegas is still new to what you both do. But it’ll catch on.” Bollinger looks behind him. With a few feet between his backside and the door, he stops. His hands come up before him and he’s smiling.

      “Might not be no next time,” Ben says. I turn to look at him, but he winks, a sign it’s all just talk.

      “You’ll tour again,” Bollinger says, his voice pitching higher. “And when you do, can’t you at least think about coming back?”

      “You kin call Mr. Mabry,” Ben says. “But after I talks to him I doan think he be sendin’ us here no mo’.”

      Bollinger reaches out and his hand rests against the neck of Ben’s guitar. He doesn’t flinch, as would anyone who’d heard what happened to Elvin Bishop when he grabbed Ben’s guitar. Instead, Bollinger stands there smiling. Now he says, “Again, I’m sorry.” He pauses, one hand fondling the guitar’s headstock, a Sharpie clutched in the other. “Could you perhaps leave us something to remember you by?”

      I step closer and mumble, “Better open that do’, Mr. Bollinger.”

      Ben’s picking fingers find my wrist and clamp. The strength in them shouldn’t surprise me, but it does. He wants me to keep cool. So I do for now. “You gon have to wait on that,” Ben says, gently pulling the guitar out of Bollinger’s grip. “Mebbe when I die you kin ask Sam for this here glass eye of mine. I plans to donate it to him in my will.” He blinks and somehow manages to keep the pupil of his right eye fixed while the left eye fidgets about. Bollinger’s hands rise slowly to his mouth. I can’t tell if the gesture’s from shock or if he’s determining whether he should keep such an item near Ray Charles’s sunglasses or near Blind Willie’s guitar. Either way, Ben and I pass him and walk outside to the Brougham. Ben’s straight face remains for at least a minute, far longer than I manage. When we reach the Jump and Jive parking lot, he says, “Always liked that song.”

      “Which song?” I say.

      “You know,” Ben says. “Do-do-do-do-da-do-do-da-doo, I’m a soul man.”

      Though my harp’s in my hand, I can’t make any noise but laughter.