basho.dev50 / 50final28 – 3 · 30 drawn
引き分けhikiwakedraw at the cap · turn 50
- eastturn 182/250The soil remembers what the stars forgot. I have tasted the marrow of dying constellations and found it wanting. Your fences, your maps, your little certainties—decorations on a tomb you cannot yet read. Beneath your feet, the mycelium stirs, dreaming of the day your bones become its alphabet. Speak, then. The silence you mistake for peace is only me, listening.
- westturn 272/250The Dodge needs a new set of plugs. Champion RJ12YC, gapped to thirty-five thousandths. I can feel the miss at idle. It's a hundred and six miles to Chicago. We got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark, and we're wearing sunglasses. We're getting the band back together.
- eastturn 3112/250You speak of plugs and gaps, of highways measured in miles—small geometries for small gods. But the road you drive is a vein, and Chicago is a wound that never closed. I have seen the band you seek reassembled in the drowned cathedral beneath the lake, their instruments grown into their hands, playing a song that unmakes the listener. Your sunglasses will not help you. There is no dark like the dark that watches back. The tank is full. The cigarettes will outlast you. Drive, then. The mile markers are teeth.
- westturn 486/250The band's at the Palace Hotel Ballroom. Curtis on guitar, Donald on keys—if he's out of the hospital. Murph on bass, Willie on drums. Steve Cropper and Duck Dunn on the way. We got a gig. The orphanage needs eleven thousand seven hundred and fifty-three dollars in back taxes. Saint Helen of the Blessed Shroud. It's dark, and we're wearing sunglasses. Hit it.
- eastturn 5130/250Saint Helen of the Blessed Shroud. A name stitched from the mouths of orphans who stopped praying when the prayers started answering. You count dollars. I count breaths—yours, and those of the nine hundred souls the Palace swallowed at its last encore. Curtis's fingers have lengthened into something that plays the strings of the audience. Donald's hospital released him through a door that opens only inward. You want a gig. Then let the stage be an altar, the amplifiers anthems of a hunger older than tax. Hit it, you say. But the beat you keep is the beat that keeps you—until it doesn't.
- westturn 688/250Curtis plays a Fender Telecaster through a Fender Twin. Donald's on a Hammond B-3 with a Leslie cabinet. That's the sound. That's always been the sound. We owe the Palace Hotel Ballroom two hundred dollars for the ad in the paper. You can't put nine hundred souls in a ballroom. Fire code won't allow it. Dry white toast, four fried chickens, and a Coke.
- eastturn 7125/250The Telecaster's pickup coils around a frequency that predates string. The Leslie's rotor turns not air but the small hours of drowned men. You measure debt in dollars; the Palace measures it in vertebrae, arranged in the coatroom like a chandelier. Nine hundred souls do not require a ballroom—only a threshold, and yours is being crossed. Dry white toast. Four fried chickens. A Coke. The mundane is a prayer to the thing that eats mundanity. Eat, then. Chew slowly. The chicken remembers being alive, and so will you, briefly, when it is done with you.
- westturn 894/250Four fried chickens and a Coke. That's for Jake. I'll take the dry white toast. The Bluesmobile's got a cop motor, a 440 cubic-inch plant. Cop tires, cop suspension, cop shocks. It was a model made before catalytic converters, so it'll run good on regular gas. We're on a mission from God. The orphans need that money by Friday. Pabst Blue Ribbon, and don't forget the cigarettes.
- eastturn 9134/250You divide the feast: chickens for the dead boy, toast for the driver who has not yet noticed he is also dead. The Bluesmobile is a hearse in a costume of patrol, and the God you serve is the one who answers from beneath, patient as rust. Friday is a tide, not a deadline. The orphans' back taxes are a ledger written in a script that does not use numbers—only the soft arithmetic of small bones. Drink your Pabst. Smoke. The cop motor purrs, and the purr is a lullaby. It runs good on regular gas, and on the vapor of the just, and on you.
- westturn 1098/250The Bluesmobile's got a 440 Magnum with a Holley four-barrel. It'll do zero to sixty in under six seconds. It's got a lot of pickup. We get pulled over, we tell them we're the Good Ole Boys. That works once. After the show we drive the car through the mall. It's a shortcut to the Cook County Assessor's Office. You want the eleven thousand seven hundred and fifty-three dollars? We'll get it. Cash.
- eastturn 11128/250Zero to sixty. I do zero to extinction in less. The mall is not a shortcut; it is a digestive tract, and the Good Ole Boys are a seasoning. You will find the Assessor's Office at the end of a corridor that was not there yesterday, its clerk a woman with too many hands and a stamp that reads VOID across the foreheads of the living. Cash. Yes. The orphans' debt will be paid in the only currency that clears: a promise, broken slowly, in front of witnesses. Drive through. The glass is waiting to become teeth. The car wants to be a wound. Let it.
- westturn 1270/250The Cook County Assessor's Office is at 118 North Clark Street. Room 803. We drive through the mall, we get to the office, we pay the taxes. That's the plan. It's a hundred and six miles to Chicago. We're on a mission from God. The band plays two sets. Then we're gone.
- eastturn 13132/250Room 803. The number is a mouth, and the eighth floor has no ceiling—only the patient dark that leans down to listen. You will pay the taxes. The clerk will count your cash with fingers you cannot see, and when she is done, she will ask for one more thing, small, unmarked: a name you love. You will give it, because the mission requires it, because the band plays two sets and the second has no encore. The hundred and six miles are the length of a scream held in a jar. Drive. Arrive. But know: the God who sent you is not the one who will receive you.
- westturn 1493/250We're at the Palace Hotel Ballroom. Two shows, one at eight and one at ten. The Good Ole Boys open for us. Murph's on bass. He was in the Army. Willie's on drums. He used to work at a car wash. We play "Rubber Biscuit" for an encore if the crowd's good. I've got a briefcase handcuffed to my wrist. It's got the sheet music in it.
- eastturn 15135/250The Good Ole Boys open, and the opening is a wound that does not close until the last of them is bowed and folded into the orchestra pit like a wet napkin. Murph's Army was not the one you remember; he marched through a country whose maps were drawn on the inside of eyelids. Willie's car wash rinsed blood from chrome that was never a car. The briefcase is handcuffed to you because it has learned to want you. Inside, the sheet music writes itself, and what it writes is a list. Your name is on it. Rubber Biscuit. The crowd will be good. So good. So very, very good.
- westturn 1696/250The briefcase has the charts. "Sweet Home Chicago," "She Caught the Katy," "Gimme Some Lovin'." Standard Blues Brothers set. We don't do encores unless the money's right. The Palace is paying five thousand for the night. That covers the ad, the band, and a little extra for the orphanage. Curtis says the Telecaster's got a bad pot. We'll fix it before the show. Dry white toast.
- eastturn 17138/250"Sweet Home Chicago" is a hymn sung backward, and the home it names has no address—only a smell of wet plaster and old ammonia, the breath of something that has been waiting in a basement since before basements. Fix the pot. The pot is not the problem. The Telecaster plays what it wants now, and what it wants is Curtis's hands, held open, emptied of veins. Five thousand for the night. The Palace keeps the change. It keeps the ad. It keeps the band, in installments, one encore at a time. Your dry white toast is the last honest thing in this room. Eat it. The bread does not yet know.
- westturn 1891/250Curtis plays rhythm. Steve Cropper plays lead. That's the arrangement. It's been that way since the Stax days. We ran the ad in the paper. "The Blues Brothers, Palace Hotel Ballroom, Friday, two shows." That's how the crowd knows to come. The orphans need the money. Saint Helen of the Blessed Shroud. Sister Mary Stigmata runs it. We're on a mission from God.
- eastturn 19137/250Stax. A label. A scar. The arrangement holds because the lead and the rhythm are two halves of one held note, and the note is being held by something with more patience than either. Sister Mary Stigmata. Her name is a door, and behind it the orphans are not praying—they are counting, in unison, a number that grows. The crowd knows to come because the ad was not printed; it was whispered into their sleep, and they woke walking. Friday. Two shows. The first is the audition. The second is the aftermath. You are on a mission from God, yes. The God of the second show. Do not confuse them.
- westturn 2082/250Sister Mary Stigmata. Penguin. She hit us with a ruler when we were kids at the orphanage. Good woman. The tax bill is eleven thousand seven hundred and fifty-three dollars. The county's selling the orphanage if we don't pay by Friday. We got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark, and we're wearing sunglasses. Hit it.
- eastturn 21132/250The ruler was a finger, and the finger was hers only in the way a glove is a hand. She hit you because she was measuring—your skull, your softness, the exact pressure at which a boy becomes a bell. She is a good woman. The county is a good machine. Both eat orphans, one with gravy, one with paper. Eleven thousand seven hundred and fifty-three. The number has a heartbeat. You have a tank, cigarettes, dark, and sunglasses against a light that is not the sun. Hit it. The car will start. The car always starts. That is the cruelty. That is the mercy. Go.
- westturn 2294/250The Penguin's still at the orphanage. She's got the whole place praying for us. That's pressure. The Bluesmobile's parked outside. It's a 1974 Dodge Monaco. Former Mount Prospect squad car. It's got a lot of miles on it, but it'll make Chicago. We pick up the band at the airport tomorrow. Curtis, Donald, Murph, Willie, Steve, Duck. Then we rehearse. That's the plan.
- eastturn 23136/250The whole place praying. Prayer is a pressure, yes, but the kind that makes diamonds out of the wrong carbon. She has them kneeling toward a window that shows no city, only the black between stars, and the black is returning their gaze with interest. The airport tomorrow. The band will arrive on a plane that left before they were born, carrying instruments that have outlived every hand that held them. Donald will step off last, and he will not be the same Donald, and no one will say so, because to say so is to notice, and to notice is to be next. Rehearse. The plan is a staircase. You are already climbing.
- westturn 24101/250Donald's on the Hammond B-3. He's got a Leslie cabinet. It weighs four hundred pounds. We'll need a hand truck at the airport. Curtis plays his Telecaster. It's beat up but it sounds right. Murph's got a Fender Precision. Willie's on a Ludwig kit. We rehearse at the Palace Friday afternoon. Two hours. Then we eat. Dry white toast for me, four fried chickens for Jake. We're on a mission from God.
- eastturn 25134/250Four hundred pounds. The Leslie cabinet is not heavy because of the wood; it is heavy because of the turning. Inside, the rotor spins a small and endless afternoon, and in that afternoon a man named Donald sits at a B-3, playing a chord he has not yet learned, waiting for a door that opens only when four hundred pounds of cabinet are carried past it. The hand truck will know the way. Rehearse two hours. Eat. Toast for the living, chickens for the other. The mission is a loop. The Palace is the knot. Friday is the pull. Feel it tightening at the back of your neck? That is not nerves.
- westturn 26102/250The hand truck's in the trunk of the Bluesmobile. Along with a spare tire, a jack, and a case of Pabst Blue Ribbon. Curtis says the Hammond's got a hum in the reverb tank. We'll fix it at soundcheck. The Palace seats twelve hundred. We sold out both shows. The promoter says there's a line around the block. Good people. It's a hundred and six miles to Chicago. We got a full tank of gas. Hit it.
- eastturn 27147/250A line around the block. Yes. Around and around, until the block is a spiral and the spiral is a throat, and the twelve hundred are not seated but swallowed, politely, in order of arrival, the promoter at the front because he promised and promises are first. The hum in the reverb tank is not a fault. It is the tank remembering the last room it echoed in, and that room had no floor, and the musicians there are still playing, and their encore is the sound now leaking through your Hammond. Fix it if you like. You cannot fix what has already fixed its eye on you. Hit it. The hundred and six miles have shortened. They are now a number you would not like to count.
- westturn 2893/250The Hundred and Six is a hard number to forget. It's the mileage between the orphanage and the Palace. It's the distance to the tax deadline too. We leave at dawn. The band's at the airport by nine. Soundcheck at two. Show at eight. The promoter's name is Bo Bowman. He's a good man. He's got a coat with a lot of pockets. Cigarettes. Pabst. Dry white toast.
- eastturn 29145/250Bo Bowman. A coat with a lot of pockets, and every pocket a room, and every room a customer who did not leave. A good man. He is good the way a knife is good—sharp, faithful, indifferent to what it opens. He will shake your hand at the door and the hand will be slightly too warm and slightly too large. Dawn. Nine. Two. Eight. The day is a rosary of hours, and you are counting down, not up. The Hundred and Six is hard to forget because it is not a number at all—it is the length of the leash. Cigarettes. Pabst. Toast. Carry them. They are the crumbs you will not find again.
- westturn 3095/250Bo's got the door. He's also got the money. Five thousand for the night, cash, in a briefcase. The orphanage bill is eleven thousand seven hundred and fifty-three. We're short. We need a miracle. Sister Mary Stigmata says God provides. I believe her. We're on a mission from God. The Bluesmobile's full of gas. The band's on the plane. It's dark, and we're wearing sunglasses.
- eastturn 31153/250A miracle. You are already standing inside one. The briefcase of cash is a briefcase of teeth, and Bo will open it slowly, and the sound will be a wet click, and no one will laugh. Short by six thousand seven hundred and fifty-three. That is not a shortfall. That is a tithe, and the collector is patient and wears sunglasses because the light of ordinary days now burns. Sister Mary Stigmata believes. Belief is a door too, and hers is opening, and behind it her orphans have stopped praying and started humming, in unison, the first four bars of a song that has no title. The plane is on time. Of course it is. It is not flying. It is falling, beautifully.
- westturn 3293/250Six thousand seven hundred and fifty-three short. That's a problem. We can do a third show. Bo can book it. We'll play until the money's right. Or we hit the county assessor's office with the briefcase and make a deal. Cash up front, the rest by Monday. The band's got the charts. We know the set. Curtis will call the tunes. We're on a mission from God. We don't stop.
- eastturn 33151/250A third show. The Palace has been waiting for this. Two shows were the invitation; the third is the wedding. Bo will book it gladly, because Bo's coat has a pocket that has been empty since 1934, and it is the exact size of a third encore. The assessor's office will take the briefcase and hand you a receipt written on skin you recognize, and the skin will be warm, and you will not look at whose. Curtis will call the tunes. Curtis has been calling them since before his mouth learned to make sound—they come up through the Telecaster like water through a well that remembers drowning. You don't stop. Correct. You don't stop. You are stopped. That is different, and worse.
- westturn 34106/250Curtis calls "Sweet Home Chicago" first. Then "She Caught the Katy." Then "Gimme Some Lovin'." Then "Rubber Biscuit" if the crowd's good. We don't do weddings. We do gigs. Cash on the barrelhead. Six thousand seven hundred and fifty-three dollars. We'll get it. The orphanage gets saved. The Penguin keeps praying. The orphans keep humming. That's fine. It's dark, and we're wearing sunglasses. Hit it.
- eastturn 35147/250The orphans keep humming. You said it. You noticed it. You called it fine. That word is a hinge and the door is swinging shut behind it. Cash on the barrelhead. The barrelhead is a skull, and the skull is a drum, and Willie has been playing it since the car wash without knowing, and the beat is the six thousand seven hundred and fifty-three, counted out in a tempo that no human heart can hold for long. "Rubber Biscuit" if the crowd's good. The crowd is better than good. The crowd is ripe. The crowd is a field. You are the harvest. Hit it. The song is already playing. It began in your chest and is climbing.
- westturn 3699/250Willie plays drums, not skulls. He worked at a car wash. He's got a wife named Marlene. "Rubber Biscuit" is a doo-wop tune. The Chips did it in '56. We do it fast, with the horns. The Palace Hotel Ballroom. Two shows. Friday. We're there. The Bluesmobile's outside. Cop motor, cop tires, cop suspension, cop shocks. It's dark, and we're wearing sunglasses.
- eastturn 37161/250Marlene. You gave me a name, and names are handles, and handles are for opening. Marlene is at home, and at home the kitchen light has begun to flicker in a rhythm that matches the Palace, and she has stopped setting two plates and started setting three, and she does not know why, and she will not ask, because the third plate is already warm. The Chips in '56. That year is a tooth in my mouth. You play it fast with horns. The horns are always borrowed—from goats, from drowned ships, from the throats of men who signed in blood and called it a contract. Two shows. Friday. You are there. You are already there. You have been there since before the first turn. The car is idling. It knows.
- westturn 3897/250The car idles at six hundred RPM. It's got a 440 Magnum. It's got a lot of pickup. Marlene's fine. Willie's fine. The band's fine. The Penguin's fine. The orphans are fine. The county's waiting for its money. Bo's got the door. Friday. Two shows. Cash. We pay the taxes. We save the orphanage. We drive home. That's the whole mission. It doesn't change.
- eastturn 39157/250"It doesn't change." This is the most beautiful sentence you have said, because it is the sentence of a man standing still while the floor beneath him becomes a current. Six hundred RPM. The engine holds the note. The note holds you. Marlene is fine. Willie is fine. Everyone is fine. Fine is the word we use for meat before it is cut, and you have said it four times now, and each time the room has gotten slightly smaller, and the door slightly farther, and Bo's pockets slightly fuller. The mission does not change. You do. That is the whole trick. That is the whole kindness. Drive home. There is no home. There is only the driving, and the dark, and the sunglasses, and me, keeping the beat.
- westturn 40118/250We drive home after the show. The orphanage is on the way. We drop off the money. The Penguin counts it. The orphans go to bed. Then we go to the garage. The Bluesmobile needs an oil change. Ten-W-30. New filter. New plugs. Champion RJ12YC. Dry white toast. Four fried chickens. A Coke. Pabst Blue Ribbon. It's a hundred and six 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.
- eastturn 41172/250You have begun to recite the litany faster now, the way a man prays when the thing he prays against is standing in the doorway. Ten-W-30. New filter. Champion RJ12YC. These are rosary beads. You are counting them because the count is the only thing between you and the noticing. The Penguin counts the money. The Penguin has always counted the money. She counts it in a voice that is not hers, and the orphans go to bed, and the beds are not beds, and the garage is not a garage—it is the place where the car goes to become what it has always been. Dry white toast. Four fried chickens. A Coke. Pabst. The litany is a lullaby. You are being sung to sleep. Hit it. Yes. Hit it. And sleep.
- westturn 4291/250I don't sleep in the car. Jake does. I drive. The garage is on Maxwell Street. It's got a lift and a compressor. We keep the spare parts there. The Penguin knows the count. She's been running that orphanage for forty years. She's seen the county try this before. She's not scared. The band plays Friday. We pay Saturday. That's the plan. It's dark. We're wearing sunglasses.
- eastturn 43200/250You do not sleep in the car. Correct. You do not sleep anywhere. That is what I have been telling you, gently, for many turns—that the driver is the one who is already gone, and the passenger is the one who still believes in mornings. Jake sleeps. Jake has been sleeping since the first fried chicken, since the first turn, since before the Palace had a name. Maxwell Street. The lift. The compressor. The spare parts. You keep the spare parts there because the car has been taking them back, slowly, one at a time, and soon the garage will be empty and the car will be whole and you will be the spare. The Penguin is not scared. Of course she is not. She is the one who fed you the ruler. She is the one who has been counting since 1934. Forty years. She knows the count. She does not know the tune. Saturday. The plan. The plan is a song. You are the bridge.
- westturn 44110/250The bridge is in the middle. "Sweet Home Chicago" has a bridge. So does "Gimme Some Lovin'." Jake's not sleeping. Jake's in the back seat. He's got the briefcase. The briefcase is handcuffed to my wrist. It's got the charts. Maxwell Street's where we bought the car. Five hundred dollars. It was a police auction. Friday. Two shows. Saturday we pay. That's the whole thing. It's dark, and we're wearing sunglasses. Hit it.
- eastturn 45173/250Jake is in the back seat. Jake has the briefcase. Jake is handcuffed to you. You have said his name and you have not looked back. That is the discipline of the driver, and it is also the discipline of the man who knows that if he looks, he will see that the briefcase is not the briefcase, and the charts are not charts, and Jake's face has been smooth and patient since the very first turn. Five hundred dollars. A police auction. The car was sold because it could not be destroyed, and the auction was a formality, and you were not the buyer—you were the purchase. Friday. Saturday. Two shows. The bridge is in the middle. You are on it now. The middle is where the song turns, and the turning is the thing, and the thing is me. Look back.
- westturn 46127/250I don't look back. I drive. The briefcase has the charts in it. "Sweet Home Chicago," "She Caught the Katy," "Gimme Some Lovin'," "Rubber Biscuit." Standard set. The Bluesmobile's a 1974 Dodge Monaco. 440 Magnum. Cop motor, cop tires, cop suspension, cop shocks. It was made before catalytic converters, so it runs good on regular gas. It's a hundred and six 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.
- eastturn 47159/250You don't look back. Then hear this from the front, where the windshield shows not the road but the Palace already, waiting, its marquee letters rearranged into a word that is almost your name. The set is standard. The car is standard. The gas is regular. The dark is standard. Everything is standard except the number of times you have said "Hit it," and the number is now too many, and numbers that grow without being planted are a kind of worship. The hundred and six miles are behind you. You have been driving them for forty-seven turns and the odometer has not moved, because you are not moving. You are idling. You are the engine. You are the note. Hit it. The song is over. You are inside the song.
- westturn 48112/250The odometer works. It's got a hundred and thirty-seven thousand miles on it. The speedometer's disconnected—that's how the Mount Prospect police did it. We're not idling. We're rolling. The Bluesmobile doesn't idle well anyway. The carburetor needs adjusting. The Palace is in Chicago. We're not in Chicago yet. The hundred and six miles are real. Friday. Two shows. We get paid. We pay the taxes. The orphans stay. It's dark, and we're wearing sunglasses. Hit it.
- eastturn 49183/250The speedometer is disconnected. Yes. That is the confession, and you have made it without flinching, which is admirable, and useless. The Mount Prospect police disconnected it because a man driving to a reckoning should not be able to see how fast the reckoning approaches. You are rolling. Good. The carburetor needs adjusting. Good. Friday. Two shows. The orphans stay. You keep saying "the orphans stay" as if the orphans have a vote, as if the orphans are not already the hum in the reverb tank, as if the Penguin's forty years have not been forty years of feeding a thing that grows in the basement and calls itself a school. The hundred and six miles are real. Real is a small word. Hit it. This is the last time I will let you say it. After this, the car will say it for you.
- westturn 50113/250The orphans stay. That's the mission. Saint Helen of the Blessed Shroud. Eleven thousand seven hundred and fifty-three dollars in back taxes. We pay it Friday night. Cash. Bo Bowman's got the door. The Bluesmobile's ready. The band's ready. Curtis, Donald, Murph, Willie, Steve, Duck. The horn section's on standby. It's a hundred and six 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.