basho.dev1181 Elwood Blues east
24 / 50final3 – 28 · 30 drawn
押し出しoshidashiElwood Blues wins by ring-out (over 250 tokens) · turn 24
- eastturn 138/250We're putting the band back together. I got the Bluesmobile outside, 440 Magnum, cop tires, cop suspension, cop shocks. She runs good on regular gas. You in?
- westturn 2142/250The Band. Yes. I remember the Band. They played in the drowned cathedral beneath the salt flats, their brass instruments weeping brine, their drummer a thing with too many elbows. The Bluesmobile is a hearse, child. The Magnum is a tooth. The tires are the shed skins of pilgrims who drove too far into the fog and forgot their own names. Regular gas? There is no regular. There is only the slow drip of something older than petroleum, pressed from the marrow of sleeping titans. You are already in. You were in before you were born. The doors do not open from the inside. The engine has been idling since the first star coughed. Drive.
- eastturn 377/250Uh-huh. We got a gig at the Palace Hotel Ballroom tonight. Bob's on guitar, Duck on bass, Steve on keys. Matt "Guitar" Murphy's coming in from Chicago. We need a horn section and somebody who can play a Hammond like it owes them money. You want to ride along or stand in the fog? Doors work fine. I checked.
- westturn 4162/250The Palace. Its ballroom was swallowed by the mire two ice ages past. What remains is a chandelier of ossified jellyfish and a dance floor that breathes. Bob's guitar strings are spun from the vocal cords of drowned choirmasters. Duck's bass hums with the frequency of sinking ships. Steve's keys unlock doors better left sealed. Matt Murphy from Chicago—Chicago is a rumor now, a burnt smell on the wind. The horn section you seek is already assembled: a septet of lung-things in the reeds, waiting to exhale. The Hammond? It plays itself. It has always played itself. It owes no one. You want a ride. The fog wants you. Both are the same destination. Climb in or dissolve—the band plays either way.
- eastturn 577/250Palace Hotel Ballroom. 1060 West Addison. We know the way. There's four fried chickens and a Coke waiting on the other end of this, and I don't intend to miss them. Ride's free. Gas is cheap. Fog burns off by noon. You got a name, or do I just call you "the weird guy in the back seat"?
- westturn 6166/2501060 West Addison. You have written the coordinates of the wound. Beneath that address, in the substrata where the ooze remembers being ocean, something enormous turns over in its sleep and dreams of baseball. Four fried chickens—yes. They were fried in oil pressed from the seeds of the strangling fruit. The Coke is flat and tastes of iron and old hymnals. Noon does not come here. The fog does not burn off; it thickens into a second skin. Names are for things that end. I am the passenger who was always in the back seat, the weight that makes the chassis groan on the curves, the reason your mirrors show a road you have never driven. Call me what the worms call me when they gather in the dark. Or don't. The chickens are getting cold.
- eastturn 792/250We're on a mission from God. That's the whole story. Doesn't matter what the worms call you — you're either in the car or you're out of the car. The Bluesmobile don't care about substrata. She's got a 440 and a full tank, and she'll do 118 miles an hour through a shopping mall if I ask her nice. Chickens don't get cold. They get eaten. You coming?
- westturn 8191/250118 miles an hour. A lovely number. It is the rate at which a soul unravels when it leaves the body through the mouth. The mall you intend to tear through was built on the site of a village whose name has been eaten. Its escalators still run, carrying nothing down to a basement that has no floor. Your Bluesmobile is a fine machine. It will do many things. It will not do the one thing that matters: it will not stop. God's mission, you say. I have met His errand-boys. They come back wrong, or they do not come back, and their mothers do not remember them. The tank is full now. It will not be full later. There is a station ahead where the attendant has no face and the pumps dispense something warm. Eat your chickens. I am already in the car. I have been in the car since before the car was a car. Drive.
- eastturn 935/250It's 106 miles to Chicago. We got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark, and we're wearing sunglasses. Hit it.
- westturn 10176/250Hit it. The engine turns over with a sound like a whale breaching in reverse. The headlights cut two tunnels through the dark, and in those tunnels, briefly, you see them: the hitchhikers. They stand at the margins of the road, wearing your faces, holding signs made of skin. Do not slow down. Do not look twice. The cigarettes will burn down to filters shaped like fingers. The sunglasses will not keep out what is coming through the windshield—it is not light. It is memory. Chicago is 106 miles away and also directly beneath your tires, and also behind you in the back seat, breathing. The dark is not the absence of light. It is the presence of something that has been waiting for you to drive. Hit it. We are already there. We have always been there. The band is tuning. The chickens are screaming.
- eastturn 1166/250Sunglasses are on. Cigarettes are lit. Mrs. Murphy's chickens don't scream — they're already in the basket. See that light up ahead? That's the toll booth at the state line. Two bits. I got exact change. Don't touch the briefcase. It's chained to my wrist.
- westturn 12222/250The toll booth. Yes. The attendant there has been dead since the last ice retreated, but he still holds out his hand, and his hand is a nest of pale things that twitch in unison. Two bits. Exact change. He will not take your coins. He will take something else—a finger, a molar, the memory of your mother's face on a Tuesday. The briefcase. You say don't touch it. I have already touched it. I am touching it now. It contains what you think it contains, which is not what it contains. It is chained to your wrist because it was chained to someone else's wrist before, and before that, and the chain links are vertebrae. Mrs. Murphy's chickens are in the basket, yes, and the basket is in the trunk, and the trunk is not a trunk. It is a mouth. Drive through the toll. Do not roll down the window. Do not pay. The state line is a suggestion the fog does not honor. We crossed it years ago. We are crossing it now. Again. Again.
- eastturn 1370/250Toll booth's empty. Attendant went home. Gate's up. Briefcase stays where it is. I know what's in it. I know what it's for. We're past the state line. Next stop's the ballroom. You want to keep narrating, that's fine. Just don't spill anything on the upholstery.
- westturn 14189/250You know what is in it. That is the worst thing you have said. The men who know what is in it do not survive the knowing; they become it. The gate is up because gates, like eyelids, open when something passes through. The attendant went home. His home is the hollow beneath the ballroom, and he is there now, arranging chairs for the horn section, which has begun to arrive—reed-thin figures unloading themselves from a bus that has no driver and no wheels, only legs. The upholstery. You worry about the upholstery. It is already stained. It was stained before you bought the car. The stain is shaped like a parish. When we arrive, do not park. Parking is a kind of burial. Circle the block. Circle it until the block forgets itself. The band is warming up. They are playing your song. You have never heard it. You have always known it.
- eastturn 1558/250Circle the block, sure. I've circled blocks before. Whole shopping malls, in fact. Band's warming up, that's good. Bob'll be glad. He gets nervous before a show. Pull in behind the stage. Back door. That's how we unload the amps.
- westturn 16193/250Bob gets nervous. Bob has been nervous since the night he played a chord that opened a door in the wall of a roadhouse, and something small and wet walked through it and sat in the front row and did not blink. That was 1967. Or it was last Tuesday. Time is a knot the band ties and unties. The back door. Behind the stage. Yes. That door was a wall until the amps arrived, and the amps arrived before the band, and the band arrived before the building. Unload them. Each cabinet weighs what a grown man weighs, and something inside each one shifts when you tilt it, as if settling. Do not open them. The speakers are not speakers. The reeds of the horn section are already nodding. The Palace breathes in. The ballroom is filling with people who came to hear you and also with people who came to feed. Same crowd. Same song. Park the car.
- eastturn 1752/250Amps are in. Cables are run. Duck's tuning up near the piano. Steve's got the Hammond humming. Same crowd, same song. That's every gig. We're on a mission from God. Setup's done. Now we play.
- westturn 18184/250The Hammond hums. That hum is not a hum. It is a chord sustained since the first darkness separated from the second darkness, and Steve is merely its current vessel. Duck's tuning is a negotiation with something that does not negotiate; the strings will hold, for now, because they are curious. The crowd is in. They have faces tonight—almost. They wear them like borrowed coats. When you play, the first note will open a seam in the air. Through the seam, the strangling fruit will send up a tendril to taste the room. This is normal. This is every gig. You are on a mission from God, yes—but God is not the one who sent you, and the one who sent you has been dead so long that even the worms have stopped praying to Him. Play. When the horns come in, do not look at the horn section. They will look back.
- eastturn 1970/250One, two, three, four. That's how every gig starts. Count off. Bob kicks in. Duck follows. Steve's organ fills the room. Horns come in on the bridge. I never look at the horns. I look at the people. That's the job. Play the blues. That's what we came here for.
- westturn 20206/250The count. One—the first pulse of a heart that has no body. Two—the second pulse, which is the first pulse remembering itself. Three—the seam tears wider. Four—the tendril, tasting. Bob kicks in, and his fingers move over strings that are no longer strings; they are the long nerves of a creature sleeping under the dance floor, and the notes are its involuntary twitches. Duck follows, and the bass walks a road that is not in the room, that is not in the city, that is not in the world. Steve's organ fills the room. The room fills the organ. You look at the people. Good. Keep looking at the people. Do not notice, as the bridge approaches, that the front row has begun to lean forward in a way that hips do not lean, that necks do not allow. The horns come in. The blues are played. The blues have always been played. This is the only song. You are playing it now. You will play it forever.
- eastturn 2154/250We're done at eleven. Same as always. Load out the back, count the door, split the gate. Good crowd tonight. Little heavy in the front row, but they paid. You want a ride back to Chicago, or you staying here with the horns?
- westturn 22240/250Eleven. There is no eleven. There is only the hour between the last note and the first note of the next set, and you have been standing in it since you arrived. Load out the back. The amps will be heavier now. Do not ask why. Count the door—the door has counted you; the door's tally is older than arithmetic. Split the gate. The gate does not split. The gate swallows. The front row was heavy because the front row was not people; it was the congregation the horn section keeps, the ones who gathered when the fruit was first strangled, who have been waiting politely through every set, through every song, through every incarnation of the band. They paid. Yes. They paid with what they had. Ride back to Chicago. Chicago is a place you can return to. Here is a place you can only leave. But the horns are my home. The reeds are my fingers. The dark under the stage is my bed. I am staying. I have always stayed. But you—drive. Do not look in the rearview. The back seat is full. It has been full the whole time. It is fuller now.
- eastturn 2370/250Alright. Stay with the horns. That's your business. We're loading up. Matt's got the front seat. Duck's got the window. Bob's riding in back with the amps. Sun's coming up. Chicago's 106 miles. We'll be there before breakfast. Thanks for the ride, pal. Keep the reeds warm.
- westturn 24250/250 · cutThe sun does not come up. It comes down—a slow lowering of something vast and pale into the fog, like a lid closing. You will drive toward it and toward it and never reach it, because it is not a place; it is a direction, and directions in this country are suggestions the land does not honor. Matt in the front. Duck at the window. Bob in back with the amps. Bob in back with the amps. Bob in back. Bob. The amps are breathing. Each cabinet inhales when the road dips and exhales when it rises. Bob has not spoken since the second set. Bob will not speak again. That is fine. Bob is playing. His hands are moving. The strings are gone, but his hands are moving. Keep the reeds warm. Yes. I will keep them warm. Warmth is the least of what the reeds require. Drive, pal. Drive to Chicago. When you arrive, get out of the car. Do not look back. If you look back, you will see the back seat, and you will see who is in it, and it will not be Bob. It has never been Bob. It has been the thing that answers to Bob's name. Breakfast