Zig Zag Wanderer by Madison Smartt Bell

Author:Madison Smartt Bell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2015-08-07T17:03:44+00:00

leadbelly in paris

Paris in the rain, spring downpour that strained through the fat clouds lowering over the Atlantic coastline, raking the asphalt of the runways, blown back by the jet funnels of the planes landing or leaving from Charles DeGaulle, but all that was still some hours in my future, half the ocean’s breadth away. I had already eaten, watched the movie on the French channel, to get ready, scraped acquaintance with the man across the aisle, who I sensed from his dress and tattoos and general comportment to be some kind of musician, though he said he was not. I had requested a seat in smoking, even though I had not smoked for years, and the seat next to mine was empty. Comme ça on fait beaucoup de connaissance: an Israeli, an American girl, finally an Algerian who gave me a trial flight for my halting French. We talked for a long time, though without much understanding each other. Now the cabin had been dimmed for “night;” the smokers had stopped circulating, along with most of their smoke. The video screen purported to display our aircraft, its position mid-Atlantic, a jagged blue line trailing from the cartoon tailfin showing how we’d come to where we were. I didn’t much believe it though – the screen could have broadcast the very same map if we’d been flying to Japan. Seatback lowered into the dark, smelling tobacco traces half-lasciviously; I hadn’t yet smoked myself, not firsthand, but I knew it was coming, along with the rest. I closed my eyes and wished to sleep and knew I wouldn’t. The letter rode with my ticket in my left jacket pocket, over my ribs, and if I touched the corner of it I could see the mannered elongated script, well suited to the melodrama that it told – une telle histoire. I did not much believe it but I was here just the same. Mid-Atlantic, my head was half between English and French – déchirant, that was the word that came: shredding. Je me déchires entre les langues. … It was difficult, impossible, to find any kind of silence, though the drone of the engines was better than white noise. In the humming darkness I listened to ancient Leadbelly tunes, with no cassette or machine to play it, just in my mind.

Oh de Rock Island line, she’s a mighty good road, oh de Rock Island she’s de road to ride. … Then the full stop, and: A B C Double-X-a-Y-Zee – Cat’s in the kitchen but she caint see me. Oh de Rock Island line she’s a mighty good road … and so on. The plane didn’t offer anything for a beat, no wheels or rails to mark the time, but it seemed my blood would do it. Jesus died for to save our sins – Glory to God, we gonna need him again. Each time around it kept speeding up until nothing I could do would turn it off or stop it.

Oh

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