It’s getting to be near again –
When my bones feel that ache that washes over them on the killing floor.
From the withdrawal I feel as the effects of the blues slowly wear off.

Once again, I go down to the streets,
to the cruel gutters of the blackest places.
Places of infamous name.

Names which just to hear, pushes cold sweat out the back of your neck ---
Danville, Alamo, Walnut Creek.
These forsaken towns where even the undead fear to walk alone.

But I go just the same,
I really have no choice, do I?

I enter that abyss of hell and endure its horrors:
The cheery music.
The Bobby McFerrin “Hits” coming from storefronts,
An occasional, partially decomposed cadaver of a disco tune,
with its specter of Bee Gee-ish ghouls wearing white suits with forcibly straightened hair.

Yet I go down there – for that temporary escape from the day to day reality of suburbanistic melodies.

He’ll saunter up,
like so many times in the past.
His glamorous clothes,
the two bitches by his side.

“How many today Jack?”, he’ll nod toward me as he winks at one of his “girls” and laughs.

I’ll debase myself once more, “Five”, I say.
But my tone betrays my pockets.

“You ain’t got no five in you man. Here bitch, take these and this is the last time I front your shit”.

Heart racing,
I make for the nearby alley,
wedged between Sharper Image and Victoria’s Secret.
Hastily I unwrap the CD’s.

My hands are shaking so bad that I crack the jewel case opening the first one.
Fuck it.
I slam it in to the cheap Walkman I always carry on me
Junior Wells – All night Long……... Fuckin’ cool.

My eyes begin to stop twitching for the first time and I feel that warm rush flood to my stomach.
I hear Junior croak, “Ya just don’ know, don’ know, don’ know…… how good ya gonna make me feel”.
I smile at the parallel between this crooner’s line and my fix.

I deftly open the second case like it’s nothing.
I marvel at the thousands of these I’ve done since “Willy” turned me on to RJ when I was twelve.
I flip it over, half enjoying and half abhorring the butterflies I feel as I anticipate the title…
What the fuck? - “An Ass Pocket of Whiskey”??? Who the piss is RL Burnside? Shit.

I put it in anyway,
believing that somehow, it’ll still turn out to be a bootleg Hound Dog Taylor,
which was what I had been craving.

The first chords are boogie.
A half Savoy-Brownish, half Delaney & Bonnie-like piece,
with an intro that sounds like a faster version of “Come on in my Kitchen”.

I look over the cover a bit closer.
It’s Delta stuff.
I hear this Burnside dude moan, “Poor boy… a long way from my home”

I know I’ll be all right now. I’m gonna make it once again,
It’s Ok… it’s fair enough stuff.

My biggest panic always takes place, not as I go down these streets,
not when I approach these guys standing in front of the doorways,
concealing obvious CD cases in their outer pockets.
It’s not even when I have to openly make the exchange,
knowing that cops are probably right down the street… watching.

I can risk those terrors.
My need is stronger than that dread.

But each time I furtively begin opening my fix,
alone in an alley
in back of some filthy lingerie store,
just before my first taste of each session,
the real jee-bees get to me.

There’s been too many junkies I’ve known
who were found dead, with bad disks,
lying with their heads face down
on top of their own inserts,
with half of a headphone dangling disgustingly out of one side of their head.

But I’m feeling goooood now.
Burnside turned out to sit just right with me.

I’m cocky now.
I’m righteous.
I got that Mojo.
It’s all workin’ now for me.

My fingers are clicking inside my head,
like typewriter keys gone velvet,
playing new riffs which outrace even my finest imagination.

I’m floating now,
I can feel the end notes of each bar’s arrangement
before I actually think the note patterns out.

Each time I get higher and higher,
as each time they end up being the exact progression I had conceived beforehand.

I reach for the third and last case.
I feel its familiar edges,
its smooth and unforgiving texture.

Man, I’m gonna be so fucking high.

I flip it open and…
NO….NO!!!! NO, NO, NO!!!!!!!!!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

HELP. SOMEBODY HELP ME!

I begin to swoon.
The world starts spinning round,
I’m dying.

I’m dying and I’m aware of every last moment.
I rode my life too high.

As I turn my head slowly over to one side,
and feel my cheek against the gritty gutter,
for what I know will be the last sensation I ever have;
my eyes sort of roll crookedly toward the ground.

With no remaining motive ability,
not even enough to direct my eyes away,
my final heartbeats are spent, almost forcibly, staring at the jewel case.

Forced to view Their blue and white striped shirts,
Their creaseless pants,
those tooth-pasted white smiles……...

And as I exhale a final, one-way, never to return breath …
It begins playing in my right ear,
from my headphone
which is sandwiched between
the street and my ear………
I’m forced to listen as I hear the cheerleaders chant;

“Hey, hey take it away get that ball and fight”

And the “Boys” begin their refrain:

“So be true to your school,
just like you were to your girl.
Be true to your school…

SURF MUSIC!!

JIMI…. JIMI,
I’M COMING HOME TO JOIN YOU…

…………………And Death Falls Not Proud, but Horrified.