At the dark end of the street.
He mouthed the words that he loved her.
She smiled. Weakly.
Then he heard the click.
“My trunk,” Porter said. Praying, too.
You and me, he heard Clyde sing in his mind.
And with the blast, came silence.
Chapter 1
Saturday night
New Orleans, Louisiana
When I was a kid I used to keep one eye open while I prayed. It wasn’t that I lacked faith in God or wanted to show any disrespect to the folks in church, it was just that I was curious about human nature. In that one silent moment, when everyone’s power was turned to their deepest wishes and desires, I tried to imagine what everyone around me wanted. The more I watched and later learned about death, the more I believed all those desires were fleeting. And really kind of sad. In the end, everyone just wants some kind of miracle. His own private resurrection.
I kept thinking about those weird life patterns as I walked behind the old scarred mahogany bar of JoJo’s place in the French Quarter, and reached deep into the brittle frost of a dented Coca-Cola cooler. I searched for my fourth Dixie.
JoJo’s Blues Bar had closed about thirty minutes ago. It was late. Or early. Dark as hell. Tables had been cleared and stacked with inverted chairs. Stage lights cast red beams on microphones and a lone upright piano. Over by the twin Creole doors, beaten and weathered with time, only the faintest orange glow came from the old jukebox pumping out Otis Redding’s “Cigarettes and Coffee.”
All that remained were four of my closest buddies in a back corner booth, underneath a poster of the American Folk and Blues Festival 1965, celebrating with one of my former friends.