Fear and Loathing in Mississippi (part 3)

Day 2: Saturday

The first thing I hear on Saturday morning is a rolling thunderous, piano-playing, one-man band, Theo D., who is set up in front of Wade’s Barber Shop – right across the street from the pig races.

I walk past a double-smoker in front of Delta Furniture and think, “I want 'em but I just can’t eat a plate of ribs at 9:15 in the morning,” so I keep walking to hear Theo D., Wolfman Belfour, Rev. Peyton’s Big Damn Band, Bloodshot Eyes, Gearshifter Youngblood and more – all before noon.

The music is raw, primal, and real. It is truly the Devil’s music, and adults are required to have an open container of alcohol at all times on the streets of Clarksdale, and we -- Buzzard, McRik and I are nothing if not good citizens.

I reconnect with McRik and Buzzard late that morning and I am a little surprised to learn they’d made a final stop at Ground Zero (Morgan Freeman’s club) after dumping me at the Uptown last night, and that McRik is now engaged to the 17-year-old bass player for Super Chikan and the Fighting Cocks. (Unfortunately she leaves town shortly after the gig and takes Mic’s watch and ring with her.)

So the music – there’s nothing like it. Here are some sample lyrics from Pat Thomas, son of Son Thomas, as he plays this morning at Sarah’s Kitchen:

I’m goin’ uptown
Gonna buy me a new plow lead
Gonna beat that woman with it
‘til she agrees with me.

Not all of it is that poetic but it all comes from the heart -- you know?

As the sun rises high I regret leaving my new Panama behind in New York, so I hoof over to Yazoo Street and into the Super Soul Shop. As the brother next to me at the front counter selects appropriate socks for the three primal-colored suites he is buying, I search through stacks of hats until I find the little beauty you see pictured above – a black straw fedora with a multi-striped band. El es muy bonito, no? I need it badly because all the music is outdoors Saturday, and 9 beers and a pint of KT will only keep you so cool in the Mississippi noonday sun.

So back to the music: Loose Bruce, Blue Mother Tupelo, Daddy Rich, Mr. Tater the Music Maker, Tullie Brae, Hambone, and lots more. It’s all good, and if it isn’t you just move on to the next corner, backyard, storefront, vacant lot, or flat spot in the street where someone else is pouring out their soul the way the first African inhabitants of the Delta did a couple hundred years ago.

No breakfast. Liquid lunch. A long night ahead. We’re in the Blue’s Café backyard listening to David Coen. Buzz and Mic get a huge pile of Cajun crawfish served on a cardboard box tray, but it actually requires more calories to peel them than is gained in the eating of them, so I go searching for an alternative.

The Lord provides. I turn a corner and there is Delta Furniture, and the ribs I’d passed on this morning. Just as I get my platter the sky opens and it starts to rain hard. Inside, a 40ish white man sits on one of the 200 crashed velvet couches the building holds. He has his leg in a huge brace, propped on a matching ottoman. He waves to me: “Come on in here boy and sit you down. You can eat your ribs in here,” he says pointing to a new settee, upholstered in beige ultra suede. I lick the sticky, sweet, red sauce from my fingers and park it.

Jimmy Littlejohn’s granddaddy opened the store in the ‘50s. It can’t have changed much. Jimmy, the four black men who work for him who are selling the ribs, and I, sit there watching the rain, talking NFL. One of the black men is a Stillers fan – but I like him anyway? Buzzard and McRik run in looking for cover. They enter the conversation with ease. We pass the ribs, and the flask, and talk about the blues. It is nearly Saturday night.