Chapter One

The purple Cadillac thumps over the sidewalk and rumbles to a stop in front of an alley, where Jook has spotted his estranged wife, Bursitis, standing in the rain. He gets out of the car and hurries around to where she stands, takes her by the shoulders, and moves her under an overhang out of the rain. Jook’s loose-fitting brown pinstriped suit turns a darker shade in the rain, and water drips profusely from the rim of his beat-up, black fedora hat. Jook is eighteen, short, walks with a limp, and is blind in one eye, which is white and surrounded by scars.
Bursitis is in her early twenties; she is beautiful and buxom. On any other day she would certainly be the most beautiful Black woman on the planet, but in the rain her Mascara has made ugly stains down her face, there are bruises around her eyes, and her dress is torn.

“Bursitis,” Jook says to her, “what are you doing out here? Where is Razor Bill?”
“He don’t want me no more. I borrows money from him to bet against you and lost everything. He borrows money from everybody to bet against you and lost everything. You gots all the money in the world, now, Jook.”
The young man notices something. “Bursitis, do you realize that’s the first time in our lives you’ve called me Jook?”
“Oh, Baby, maybe I was wrong about your music. I just not ever listen to it real good before. But I been standin here listenin to you play over there at the juke; I was wrong about your music, Jook, you sounds real good. You can play for me any time you wants.”
“Why didn’t you come in?”
“I was embarrassed bout making myself such a fool. Last night I realized the grief I been puttin you through and it make my heart low to think of you sufferin so. Can you ever forgive me, Jook?”

“Bursitis, I’ve been forgiving you forever.” He smiles. “And you’re wrong about me suffering. It was all too amusing to get too upset about. You had me feeling low there a couple times, but my music always pulled me out of it.”
Bursitis looks both ways up and down the street, her voice becoming a whisper. “They more, Jook; they more you don’t know about. When I goes to get your guitar back from Boozer, he done went and give me the yellow-drippy disease. I pleaded with you not to make me go over there, but you had to have that damn guitar.”
Listen, Bursitis, you’ve got to start taking responsibility for yourself.”
“Boozer done give me the yellow drippies, and I done give em to Razor Bill. You know what that mean? That mean Bursitis gonna die. Razor Bill say he gonna kill me when he find me. Please, Baby, please take Bursitis back. She got nobody now, an you finally got enough money you can take care of Bursitis the way she always knew one day you would.”

Jook reaches into his pocket and pulls out a roll of thousand-dollar bills, and stepping closer beneath the overhang, peels off a hand-full and gives them to Bursitis. “Give that to your mama, and you two move somewhere nice. She won a lot of money, too and all together you should be able to move anywhere you want. And don’t worry about Razor Bill. Remember, he borrowed a lot of money and lost it all. He’s going to be the one hiding for a while.” Jook wipes away some of the mascara dripping from beneath Bursitis’ eyes, telling her, “Look, I gotta go. I had a good time, met some nice people, I wish you the best. Take care of yourself. Bursitis.”
Jook steps into the rain to return to his car, but Bursitis puts a hand on his shoulder to stop him. He turns to see she is holding a large pistol, and in her eyes is a look Jook has never seen before. She tells him, “I got nobody now, Big Moses.” She corrects herself, “Jook; I’ll call you Jook; hell, I’ll call you any damn thing you wants if you’ll take me back.”
Jook tips his hat, “I’ll see you around, Bursitis.”
The pistol is heavy and Bursitis struggles with both hands to hold it steady. She tells him, “If’n I can’t have you, Big Moses, they not nobody gonna have you.”

Jook realizes she is about to kill him, and steps back, motioning with his hands for her to lower the gun. But it is no use, and he watches her knuckles turn white squeezing the trigger. The phenomenon that Jook had always heard about, where a person’s entire life flashes before their eyes just before they die; happens to him now. In a blinding flash of scenes from his past Jook experiences each day of his life over again, birthday party’s with relatives and friends, Thanksgiving dinners with a huge turkey and family, and opening gifts on Christmas morning. He sees childhood friends and speaks to them, and there’s even a short scene with the old drunk who lives down behind the railroad station. But then the last scene appears, and Jook recognized it immediately. It is the morning he began the incredible adventure that has led to this moment with him standing in front of the pistol. It was early morning in early October, Jook was standing with an old woman next to an old country road, a rutted dirt strip that meandered through northern Louisiana. At Jook’s feet is his guitar case, with a red bag of harmonicas tied to the handle, his bedroll was laid over that, and on top was a paper bag containing sandwiches. Standing with him is his great-grandmother, Evangeline Cruder, and in the background his great-grandfather, Little Moses, working beneath the hood of their old truck. Evangeline was a hundred years old, her hair gray, her skin very black and touched with wrinkles, and eyes that were brown and large with life. She and Big Moses had brought Jook to the highway to see him off on his great adventure.

“Well, Son,” Evangeline told the boy, “try to remember the road you’re traveling so you’ll always know your way back.”
“I be know my way back, Ma.”
“I wish you had paid more attention to your English lessons.”
“I can’t help but talk like Pa sometime,” he said. “I be work on it.” They looked at each other; he smiled but she did not. He asked, “What is Pa doing with the truck engine?”
“It’s his way of giving us time to say good-bye. I had some things I wanted to say to you, but now I can’t remember what they were. I guess it’s just that it feels strange watching my boy step out into life on his own for the firsts time like this.” She paused a moment, then asked, “Will you be looking for Bursitis?”
“I guess so, Ma. Seems like nothing else in my life is going to matter until I find her and see how she feels about me.”
“She left without a word; that should tell you something.”
“Yes, well, maybe she was in a hurry. And that doesn’t matter; I write songs that are perfect when I’m thinking of her, and she’s in my every thought. One of these days she’s going to listen to one of my songs long enough to realize how much I love her, and then we’ll be happy forever.”
“She’s five years older than you.”

“She’s five years more responsible. It’ll be a good move. Oh, and by the way, my name is Jook now. I changed it because I’m going on the road as a Blues musician.”
“And Big Moses Cruder wasn’t Bluesy enough? Honey, the Cruder name’s been through Slavery and back again; how bluesy do you want it? That name has seen pains I hope you’ll never have to know in your lifetime.”
“Turtleneck named me Jook, Ma,” the boy tried to explain. “the same day he gave me his guitar.” Jook taps the case with the toe of his shoe. “It plays the most beautiful music on this earth, Ma, it lets me go where I want to go. It’s Turtleneck’s music I want to play. That old man used to sing those field calls just like he was standing out there in the rows, and that’s where I first heard the sound I wanted to build my music around. You’re right about slavery, and it’s in the sound no matter what I do. But I’m going to use the name Turtleneck gave me.”
Jook’s great-grandfather, Little Moses, closed the hood of truck, and came to where they were. Little Moses was two years older than his wife, very large and agile, and about his neck were scars from a shackle he wore when he was young. At six-foot-four, Little Moses was still an impressive figure. “You sure you won’t take Roan?” he asked his great-grandson. “He be get you anywhere you be gots to go. And long’s you got Roan, you kin always get yo’self a meal by plowin somebody’s field.”

“Don’t plan to get that hungry, Pa,” Jook told him. “And besides, you need the mule. I wouldn’t know how to get him back to you, and I don’t intend to be feeding anyone but myself for a while.”
“Aspiration be got saloons,” his Pa considered. “If’n you wants to play music in a saloon, why don’t you try there first.”
“I don’t want to play Civil War songs, Pa. It’s nineteen forty-seven, I want to play the Blues, and to do that I need to go where the Blues are being played; Memphis, New Orleans. I don’t care if not one person listening has a nickel to drop into my guitar case, if nothing more comes of my music than it makes some little part of the world a better place to be standing for a moment, then that would be fine with me.”
Evangeline told him, “That sounds wonderful, Son.” Then she asked, “So, how will you find Bursitis?”
“I’m not sure. She’s up in Shackshanny, Mississippi somewhere; went to stay with her mother. I know you people don’t like Bursitis very much, but I need to tell you that when I find her I intend to ask her to marry me. It’s just one of those things I believe I’m supposed to do in my lifetime.”
“Son, you be in love with this girl?” Little Moses asked.
“Every time seems like the best time, and every time it’s true.”

The old man shook his head. “Doin it like two possums out in the cornfield not love, Big Moses. You gots to have some foundation; you gots to have someone who always on your side.” Little Moses nodded to his wife in apology for his frankness, then put a huge hand on his boy’s shoulder. “Son, you know yo Ma and me never cut no words with you about how we feel about Bursitis, but you get that gal in trouble, Son, you not ever gonna see the light of happiness on this side of Glory again.”
“What I said was just making fun, Pa, Bursitis and I have never done anything at all. But she promised me if I live long enough, I will be rewarded.”
Little Moses was not amused. “Well, you just keep that sense of humor, Boy, and you’ll at least die happy. So far, all she done is show you the bottom of her shoes goin out the door. When yo money gone, she gone.”
“That’s the way it’s been,” Jook admitted. “But I know now that Bursitis was just spending all my money so that I would go out and work even harder. She only wanted me to be my best.”
“I hopes you still being funny,” Little Moses added. “You havin to hunt her down be a sign of what she thinks of you. If’n she love you, why she not standin here wid us?”

“I don’t know, Pa. I feel she loves me but doesn’t realize it yet. I’m going to try to find her so I can ask her in person, and maybe I’ll pick up a dollar or two playing music along the way.”
Evangeline put her arm around her husband. “We’ve been over this enough times at home to realize your mind is made up, Big Moses,” she said. “But please be careful, and write.”
The boy corrected her, “Jook.”
“Ah, yes, Jook. Well, whatever name you use, I’m sure you will succeed at whatever you do. And I know that the Spirit will always be with you.”
“Thanks Ma.”
His great-grandfather told him, “Son, I hopes someday you be find you a good girl and spend yo life with her; I hopes you be as blessed in that matter as I be.”
“I know, Pa,” Jook said. “ I’ll be working on it.”

The three of them came together in a hug with their arms around each other. Then Jook stepped back, picked up the bag of sandwiches, threw the bedroll over his shoulder, and lifted his guitar case. Against Jook’s small stature, the guitar case seemed large. “Got my guitar and my bedroll,” he said, “can’t think of anything else I’ll need. Thanks for everything.”
Evangeline, a couple inches taller than Jook, stepped forward and kissed him on the forehead. “Good-bye, Son, we’ll see you when you come home for Thanksgiving; or any time you can. Bring Bursitis if you find her; maybe there’s a side to her we haven’t discovered yet. Everybody deserves another chance.”
“Yes, they do, Ma, thanks.” Jook watched the old couple go back to their truck, get in, and with the morning sun streaking through the pines, drive a wide circle back onto the woods road toward home. With one last wave, they were gone. Jook stepped out on the highway and began walking east toward Mississippi. An hour later he saw a car coming. He put down the guitar case and stuck out his thumb.

Chapter Two

As Jook walked and hitched rides along the highway, he was following a map of Mississippi on which he had marked out the way to Shackshanny. After several rides he was in Mississippi, where he was now waiting at an intersection of two paved roads. In the distance he could see a red pick-up truck approaching. The truck was fairly new and driven by a black man. Jook stuck out his thumb and the truck pulled to a stop.
The driver said, “Looks like we goin in the same direction, friend; you need you a ride?”
“Thanks, I appreciate it,” Jook said, and lifted his bedroll and guitar onto the flatbed in back. Beneath a blanket, he noticed another guitar case stuck away. With his bag of sandwiches, Jook opened the passenger door and climbed in.
The driver put out his hand. “My name’s Elbow Snakeeyes.”
Jook shook his hand, “Jook; glad to meet you.”

Elbow Snakeeyes was very tall, his head actually touching the roof of the truck cab, he was slender, and looked to be a couple years older than Jook. Elbow was handsome in unusual ways, with a head that was long and a nose that covered most of his face. His big, brown eyes never seemed to be all the way open, but always hovered half-closed. “I see you got a guitar,” he said. “That case most bigger n’ you.”
“Yes, I know. But I can’t seem to go anywhere without it.”
“What kinda music you play?”
“I play the Blues. How about you?”
“Oh, I don’t play.” Elbow shook his head. “I won that guitar shootin pool over in Dasperville. Actually I’d much rather had the money; least then I’d be able to buy gas for this here truck. I never dreamed I’d meet somebody what might can teach me how to play the guitar.”

“I’d be glad to show you what I can, Elbow, but I’m getting off at a crossroads up ahead; the turnoff to Shackshanny.” Jook was intrigued by this nicely dressed black man, driving a new 1947 Ford truck across southern Mississippi. The man’s shirt was clean and his jeans were like new. That the jeans were over a foot too short for the man’s legs, and the sleeves of his shirt too short for his lanky arms, Jook considered to be natural for a man this tall. He found Elbow interesting immediately, and the more he listened, the more he liked him. Elbow’s smile was true, and trouble of any kind seemed to be foreign to his nature.
“How far that intersection?” Elbow asked.
Jook had to crick his neck to look up into the man’s face. “According to my map, about forty-five miles from that sign back there. But I need to get off at the Shackshanny exit. I’m looking for my girlfriend, Bursitis.”
“I knew that was comin,” Elbow laughed. “You start talkin the Blues, sure enough a woman bound to come up in there somewhere. Look, I know what you should do. You need to forget all about Shackshanny and come on down to New Orleans with me. I can make enough money shootin pool to see we never go hungry.”
“I’d like that, Elbow. But I have to find my girl first. My heart can only belong to one obsession at a time, and right now it’s Bursitis. She left Aspiration a week ago when her father died, and went to live with her mother over in Shackshanny.”
“You think they not got no girls down in New Orleans? An how can you say this Bursitis is your girl if’n you gotta go lookin for her?”

Jook changed the subject. “This is a nice truck, Elbow. How long have you had it?”
“Couple hours. It’s not actually mine; I borrowed it. Say, where you get that white eye?”
“Cockfight gone bad.”
“That eye disarmin, my friend. I’m sorry, but I gots to be honest.”
Jook explained. “The rooster I was betting on leaped over the wire and clawed me in the eye. Never knew what happened until it was over.”
“Now, ain’t that just like life to jump over the fence and claw you in the face.”
“Wasn’t life, Elbow,” Jook corrected him. “It was definitely the Rooster.”
Elbow continued, “And here you are out in the world looking for a girl what don’t sound like she wanna be found.”
“I should have asked her to marry me before she left home. Her father; everything happened so quick.”
“Has she seen that white eye?”

” Yes, certainly.” Jook opened the bag of sandwiches and handed one to Elbow. He took the last one for himself. “One day she told me, ‘Big Moses? I’ll lift my skirt for you if’n you buy me some candy.’ Spent all my money in one place that day, Elbow.”
They both laughed at this, taking bites of their sandwiches. “That sounds like love all right,” Elbow agreed. Getting serious, he told Jook, “My friend, you a fool. I thinks I known you long enough to tell you that.”
“Three minutes?”
“I got about forty-five miles to change your mind; New Orleans with the greatest pool-shooter in the history of Billiards, or wearin out the soles of your shoes lookin for this phantom girl. Look, I’ll tell you what; it’s only forty-five miles; you help me with the gas and I’ll drive you there. Who knows; your girlfriend mighta died or something.”
Jook thought about it. “Well, yes, there’s always that chance. Okay, sure; I’ve got about fifteen dollars.”
Elbow pointed ahead, “Look, there’s a gas station coming up.” He pulled off the highway and stopped the truck next to one of the pumps. From the small building came a young white man in grimy overalls, who stepped up to Elbow’s window. He unscrewed the gas cap and put in the nozzle. “How much you need, Mister?”
“Make an even three, Friend,” Elbow instructed him. “And don’t spill none.”

“I don’t spill none,” the attendant responded. “Only spilled gas once’d in my whole life, and that was to see if it was possible. Mighty nice truck ya got there.”
“Why, thank you, Friend. She been doin me real fine.”
The attendant finished pumping the gas, removed the nozzle, and placed it back on the pump. After screwing the cap back in place, he took a five from Elbow and counted out the change from a roll of bills in his pocket. The attendant mentioned, “Your truck looks just like one that was stolen from the High-Sheriff over in Spitwater around noon today; same color and everything. Deputies lookin hard for that truck. Yours has that same dent in the roof like the Sheriff’s where a limb fell on it.”
“Well, that is a coincidence,” Elbow smiled. “My dent come from some poor fool’s head who wasn’t mindin his own business.”
The attendant laughed at this. “I’m just telling you so’s you’ll know. Sheriff Sam Smellgood is the meanest lawman what ever lynched a nigger in Mississippi. Ya’al have a nice day now, heah?”
Elbow started the engine and pulled back onto the highway. After a minute or two, Jook looked at Elbow and asked him, “They’ve got a sheriff named Smellgood?”

Elbow only smiled. The truck rolled on and the miles spun steadily out behind them, and, as the sun rolled toward the horizon, Jook sat with his arm on the window, his chin in the crook of his arm. Mile after mile of fields and shotgun shacks were going by, dust was rising behind men plowing behind mules, endless white cotton and green sugar cane, wash hung out on lines, kids playing around broken cars, and slowly the humming of the wheels caused Jook to drift off to sleep. He found himself in a dream in which he had finally located Bursitis, and was knocking at her door.
Bursitis came and opened the front door. She is as beautiful as he remembers her. “How the hell did you find me, Big Moses?” she asks. “I thought I done hid my tracks.” She tries to push the door closed, but Jook has it blocked with his foot.
“Bursitis, wait!” he can hear himself begging as he pushes his way in. Jook sees himself falling to his knees with his hands gripping the hem of her skirt. “Bursitis,” he pleads, “please forgive my selfishness, Darling, turning to my music for comfort when I should have been crawling to you. I know you hate my music, but without you, music is meaningless. So, Bursitis, if you want me to, I’ll give up my music for you…I’ll give up my music for you…I’ll give up my music for you…I’ll give up my-”

Jook was suddenly shaken awake by Elbow. “Are you all right?” his friend was saying. “You look like you done seen a ghost.”
Jook struggled to catch his breath. “I’m all right; just a slight nightmare. Where are we?”
“Welcome to Shackshanny, Mississippi.”
Jook looked around as the truck bounced over a railroad track, to find they were entering the outskirts of a small town. The sun was almost down and streetlights were coming on. On the other side of a railroad track, the truck engine began to cough and sputter, and Elbow pulled to a stop next to the curb.
“We’re out of gas,” Elbow announced.
Jook pointed up the street. “Look, there’s a gas station on the next block.”
Elbow took notice. “Looks like it’s closed; yeah, look, its got a closed sign out front”
“We’ve got more money,” Jook pointed out, “Why didn’t you get more gas?”
“Because I got other plans for your money, my friend, just as soon as we find a pool hall.”
“Well, we can just wait here until morning.” Jook suggested.
“We can’t do that.”

“Why not? You can sleep in the truck; I have my bedroll. When the station opens in the morning, you can gas up and be on your way.”
“Jook, I have to tell you something; I didn’t borrow this truck, I done took it from that high-Sheriff that gas-station man was talking about.”
Jook’s mouth fell open.
Elbow continued, “Look, early this mornin I was walkin the same road you was walkin, only it become humiliation to my self-respect, the dust and the heat and all. So, just the other side of Spitwater, I looked off across a field and there I saw this pasture with a horse standing in it; of course, I was gonna let the horse go soon as I got to New York, or somewhere hitchhiking stood a better chance of getting me a ride. I was climbin over the fence to go talk it over with the horse, when I see this pretty red truck sittin in back of a farm house.”
Jook nodded expectantly, “And?”

“And that’s where I got this truck. The key was even in it”
Jook could not help an audible gasp. “Y-you stole this truck?”
Elbow looked down at his clothes. “An this shirt and pants, too. I saw them hanging on the clothesline and grabbed them on the run. The law’s bound to be lookin for this truck by now. We need to get away from it!”
Even as Elbow said this, Jook was already out the door and gathering up his guitar and bedroll from of the back.
“Wait up, Jook,” Elbow called after him, “I’m comin with you.”
The neighborhood looked deserted with no one around. Elbow grabbed his own guitar from the back and ran after Jook, catching him with three strides of his long legs. “Wait up. What you worried about? We okay. Everbody inside they houses eatin supper and listenin to their radio.”
Even as he said this, a woman came out the back door of her house carrying a garbage can, and she brought it down the steps and out to the street. Jook instinctively stood behind a light pole with his guitar case upright beside him, but Elbow was so tall there was nowhere he could hide. He did a poor imitation of a light pole as the woman went back to the house. She stopped at her door and took a long look at him before going back inside.
“I think she saw you,” Jook whispered.
“Saw me? Why me?”

“Elbow, they can see you in Sacramento.”
“It’s too dark. That street light not bright enough.”
Jook moved his guitar from one hand to the other, straightened his bedroll over his shoulder, and began walking away from the truck as fast as his mismatched legs would carry him.
“Jook, wait up!” Elbow called out, running after him. “Wait a minute! That woman didn’t see me.”
“Elbow, I don’t think it’s right to steal a truck.”
“Well, unless you got a better idea, we’re gonna be stealing us another one to get outa here.”
“Oh, no. I’m not going to steal a truck. I’ll wash dishes first.”
“Jook, this is the real world. In the real world you gotta steal you a truck now and then. I think it’s time for Elbow Snakeeyes to take charge of your education.”
“Well, look where it’s got me so far.”
“You were trying to get to Shackshanny. Well, look around you, Son; you in Shackshanny.”
Jook nodded in reluctant agreement, and looking around, noticed the railroad track. “There’s a train goes through here,” he pointed out.

“Son, I said I’d go to New Orleans with you, I didn’t say nothing about Canada.”
“Just a thought. You’re right, I don’t know much about these things. I do think we need to head further into town, ask around and try to find Bursitis. Surely she’ll put us up. She’s the reason I came here in the first place. But I won’t be part of stealing another truck. What you do is your own business, and I appreciate the ride, but I’m not going to help you steal anything.”
“I’ll tell you what. You give me another two dollars, and I’ll buy us a truck.”
The neighborhood was nice, clean, predominantly black, with several two-story buildings in the downtown area. After wasting over an hour looking, Jook waited while Elbow crossed the street and got directions from a store-owner closing up his shop. When Elbow returned he told Jook, “Around the block; it’s called the Zuma Street Pool Hall.” Noticing the concern on Jook’s face, Elbow told him, “Trust me, Jook, they nobody on this earth better at shootin pool than me. The fortunes of Kings have trinkled through these fingers, my good man, and I can get money anytime I get hold of a pool cue.”
“Even if you shoot pool half as good as you say you can, Elbow, playing pool for money is still gambling.”
“Shows what you know. Truth is, the Angels in Heaven still sing about the night the boss let em come on down here to earth to see with their own eyes the most lethal man with a pool cue in the history of the game; the Rack-Master, Elbow Snakeeyes.”

“Billiards will always have one monumental truth, Elbow, when your money is on the table, it can vanish at the drop of a ball. And I learned my own lesson about the evils of gambling.” Jook pointed to his blind eye.
“Shootin pool is not gambling to me, Son. It’s more like takin candy from a baby.”
“There you go stealing again.”
“You can’t have it both ways, little brother,” Elbow told him, leading the way. “Just stand back; your education is about to get intensified.”
Around the corner they came to a doorway with a sign looming over the sidewalk reading, ZUMA STREET POOL HALL. They entered the building with their guitar cases in hand. The room was long and narrow, with a window down the street side that was broken in places and covered over with cardboard. Two men sat at a bar at the far end, drinking beer and talking quietly with the bartender. A man was shooting pool at the first table. He was dressed in a double-breasted black and white pin-striped suit, very sharp, a black, wide-brimmed zoot-hat covered his eyes. As the boys entered, he stroked the cue ball and the nine dropped with a clunk into a pocket.”
“Nice shot,” Elbow offered.

“Of course. I’m the best! My name’s Cloven the Chosen. Maybe you boys heard o’ me.”
“Nope,”
“Well, if you not heard of Cloven the Chosen, then you musta just dropped off a potato truck. Maybe we should shoot a game and get acquainted.”
“No, no, not me, friend,” Elbow told him. “We just come in to ask for directions. We’re new in town, but we didn’t fall off no potato truck. Why would I, a complete novice at the game, want to shoot pool with a man who, the first thing he tells me is what a great a pool-shooter he is? You must be one of them Hustlers.”
“Then you have heard of me. Well, then, maybe I could shoot a game with your friend there, how about it, Shorty; five on the five, ten on the nine? Or are you a coward like your tall friend?”
Jook knew that Elbow had some kind of plan in mind, and looked to him for a sign but there was none. “Okay,” he said, setting his guitar on the floor next to Elbow’s. Jook walked over to a wall rack and went through the motions of selecting a cue, while Elbow got three beers from the bar. He handed one to Jook and the other to Cloven the Chosen.”
“Thanks, stranger,” Cloven said.

Not knowing what he was supposed to do, Jook selected a cue and returned to the table. “I used to shoot a little,” he told everyone, “back home in Aspiration. There was this table in back of Fitzer’s grocery store. But I never played for more than a dime, and usually lost that to the owner’s five-year-old granddaughter.”
Cloven took a sip of his beer. “Yeah,” he considered, “this sounds like it’s gonna be a real challenge. Tell you what; I’ll play you a game of nine-ball for a dollar. Even them what falls off a potato truck’s got a dollar.”
“We’ve got a dollar,” Jook agreed, still unsure as to what he was supposed to do. “Sure, I’ll play you; go ahead and break.”
Cloven the Chosen hung his head. “Well, well, potato truck boys. Why don’t we just skip all this hustle stuff and get right down to shootin some pool?”
Elbow understood, but Jook didn’t have a clue.
“Man willing to let another man break in a game of Nine Ball,” Cloven pointed out, “is a man what don’t know much about the game.” Cloven turned to Elbow. “I think you’re the ace, tall man, so how about it? I bet you got pool chalk behind your ears.”

“The name’s Elbow Snakeeyes. And this here’s Jook, the finest blues musician in Mississippi.”
Cloven grinned. “Well, maybe he can play you a funeral dirge after I’m finished with him.”
Elbow and Cloven both laughed at this. Jook was slightly amused, but not to the point of laughing about anything. He took a seat in one of the large wooden chairs against the wall, while the bartender racked the balls and collected a nickel from Elbow. Elbow selected a cue from the wall rack and stepped easily to the table.
Cloven the Chosen suggested, “Why not we just start with a game of nine-ball for ten dollars.”
“Sounds good to me,” Elbow replied, looking to Jook for verification.
Jook nodded. Lifting the lapel of his coat he unpinned a ten-dollar bill his great-grandmother had secured there, and handed it to Elbow.
Placing the bill on the edge of the table, Elbow said to Cloven, “Do I detect from your frivolity earlier, Cloven the Chosen, that you believe yo’self to be a shooter of pool?”
“Like the name say, string bean boy, I am Cloven, the handsomest man in Mississippi, what been Chosen by God to whip ass of every would-be pool shark what come down Zuma Street. Oh, by the way, you not the two strangers that just come into town in that stolen truck, are you?”

Elbow remained stone-faced, but Jook gasped out loud and stood up, ready to run.
“Hey, boys, it’s none o’ my business, but Sonny Boy, the Deputy man from over in Spitwater, he was in here not five minutes before you arrived, looking for a black man carryin a guitar case. Seems they got an eyewitness who saw the man what stole Sheriff Smellgood’s truck. Sheriff Smellgood’s that lawman who was in the news last year for lynching them four niggers what had the gall to walk on the same side of the street as a white girl. It’s him who owns the truck; it’s him you need to worry about. Look, don’t mind me none. I was planning on stealin that truck myself; it’s mighty pretty.”
Jook still couldn’t believe it. “You’ve got a Sheriff named Smellgood?”
“Not us,” Cloven said. “Spitwater, the town where you stole the truck, about fifty miles west of here. They got a prison there, too, a work farm, like the one the stealer of that truck’s gonna be whilin away his time in. That is, if the Sheriff lets him live.”
Jook said to Elbow, “I think we’d better be going. I think it’s out duty to help that Deputy find the truck thief.”
Cloven laughed. “Look, they was just in here. That Deputy won’t be back till midnight; surely you got time for one game of nine-ball.”
Elbow reminded Jook, “We not goin nowhere without some travelin money, and I can tell this gentleman got all we need.”
Cloven appreciated the remark, smiled, and raised his bottle in a silent toast.
“Okay,” Elbow agreed. “One game of nine-ball for ten dollars.”
Cloven took out a quarter and threw it onto the felt cloth of the pool table. “Go ahead and flip that; let’s see who breaks.”
Elbow looked at both sides of quarter, then bit it out of habit.
Cloven coughed, “I don’t need no trick coin to beat a country boy like you.”
Jook went back to the wooden chair, where he arranged guitar cases neatly side by side in front so as to be able to grab them up on the run. He took his seat.

Elbow asked, “Ready?” then flipped the coin.
“Tails,” Cloven called out.
Cloven stepped closer, and when the coin bounced to a stop he looked up at Elbow. “Heads. Go ahead and break, string bean boy, but you’d better not miss.”
The tension at the table was mounting, and the men at the bar took interest and turned around on their stools to watch. Elbow chalked his cue, laid it lightly over the railing of the table, and broke the rack. Balls rolled around the table, bouncing and clicking off the rails, and the nine-ball, dropped into a far corner pocket.
“Well, well,” Cloven commented, “I hope you don’t think that kinda luck’s gonna get you by all night. Let’s play another, double or nothing.”
Jook reminded his friend, “Elbow, that Deputy could be back any minute. We had twelve dollars, now we’ve got twenty-two. We’re rich. I think we should go.”
Elbow stepped to the window and looked both directions along the street, and came back. “Okay,” he told Cloven the Chosen, “one more game, double or nothing.”

Jook remained in his seat, slouching as the tension weighed upon him. The bartender returned and racked the balls, this time collecting a nickel from Cloven. Elbow leaned back from the table and again smashed the cue ball into the rack. This time the nine-ball slammed into the opposite corner pocket without even bouncing around the table first. Cloven the Chosen gasped out loud. He immediately went to the pocket into which the nine ball had disappeared, and felt around inside the edge for a magnet or some gimmick that would explain what he had seen. Finding nothing, he was slightly embarrassed. “Your luck’s getting dumber and dumber, ain’t it, Snakeman?” he said to Elbow.
“That’s Snakeeyes, Sir. Please don’t deprive me of my daddy’s namesake.”
“Well, I want another game,” Cloven insisted. “One more game, double or nothing!”
Jook, the eternal voice of wisdom, said to Elbow, “Forty-two dollars, Elbow. That’ll get you all the way to New Orleans.”
“I want another game,” Cloven demanded. “One more game, double or nothing!”
Elbow told him, “Look, friend, I never said I wasn’t the best. Truth is, I’ve never lost a game of pool in my entire life, except once when I was in the Convent. But I was only six, and them Nuns cheat like sonsabitches.” Elbow paused a moment, then nodded to Cloven. “Okay, one more game. But this has to be the last.”

Cloven took four tens from his pocket and laid them on the railing with the other bills. “I believe the break is yours.”
Elbow stepped to the table, chalked his cue, but as he lay his cue over the railing, Cloven leaned closer and said quietly, “Oh, by the way, Snakeman, I don’t think I mentioned this, but I’m needin my money to buy my Sweetie a bottle of wine and a engagement ring. It was in my plans tonight to propose marriage to my woman, and allow her full time what I been rationing out a little bit at a time. And if you take the rest of my money, I won’t be able to do that. So, here’s a little something extra on top of our wager; the next time you sink that nine ball, I’m gonna slit your throat.”
Jook sat upright in the chair. He stepped down and picked up both guitars, ready to run, and was amazed when Elbow laughed in the man’s face. There was a flash of metal beneath the pool table light, and Elbow was suddenly holding a huge, open straight razor to Cloven the Chosen’s throat. Elbow said, “There’s other ways to get out of this game besides losin, my friend.”
Immediately there was the sound of a shotgun slamming shut, and the bartender approached the table with the gun leveled at them. “You two gonna have trouble, you’d best take it out back.”
Jook was all the way to the door with both guitars in his hands, the bedroll over his shoulder, hissing back for Elbow to run.
But Elbow had surmised correctly that at this point everyone in the place wanted see how this game was going to end. “Okay, Cloven, my man,” he agreed, “We finish this game, then me and my friend here’ll go help that Deputy find that truck-thief. That agreeable to everybody?”

Cloven nodded, as Elbow slid the straight-razor back into his shoe and picked up his cue.
Cloven was resigned to his fate and watched helplessly.
Elbow had no intention of losing, but instead of sinking the nine on the break, this time he sank only one ball, then another, and another. But he soon felt Jook’s anxiety, and decided to bring the show to an end. Moving from one ball to the next, he sank three balls in three seconds, leaving the nine perched in front a side pocket. Cloven hung his head in despair, as the cue ball bounced around the table and stopped directly in front of the nine. Elbow set his cue deftly across his thumb, and with the coolness of ice, and the concentration of the supreme hustler, Elbow Snakeeyes flicked the pool cue forward.

April 4th, 2007. If you enjoyed the sample chapters of Jook and would like to read the entire novel, I will send the full digital manuscript, free. Subject your message: Jook - Manuscript

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This book has thirty more chapters.

Copyright, Rudy Young, 2007

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