P.J.: A Memoir
Chapter Five
“The only madness reefer ever caused was among them what never tried it.”
-Blind Poppa Roberts
P. J.’s head felt like it was not very well attached to his body by the time he left the Crowells’. It was not an unpleasant feeling. In fact, he felt invincible. He couldn’t remember ever having such a lack of timidity. Bring on the Paradise Court gang! He’d take ‘em all on and not muss a hair on his flat-topped head. A quick round of shadow-boxing, however, left him a bit dizzy so he decided to let the Paradise Court gang live another day. He walked a bit unsteadily across First Avenue to the shade of the Dowds’ so-called carport.
Wheeling his bike into the dust of the street, he mounted on the third try and wobbled off toward Seventeenth Street. Between Seventeenth and Twenty-second Streets was a large stretch of marsh and jungle. The city had claimed it from the Jimson estate years ago for non-payment of taxes and nothing had been done with the land since that time. The local kids referred to it as “The Swamp” and invested it with an aura of mystery that was enhanced by the fact that certain older kids used it for a number of illicit activities. It was home to every kind of poisonous snake you could think of and probably a couple of small alligators.
Such hazards were just part of everyday life for P. J. who loved the solitude of The Swamp and found it a fertile breeding ground for various heroic fantasies. He hid his bike near the edge of The Swamp and broached the wilderness. Many of the ophidian trails had been pioneered by “Jolly Roger” Dowd himself. The one he chose this day seemingly dead-ended in an impenetrable thicket of branches and moss belonging to an enormous old oak which had succumbed during the last big hurricane. Checking carefully to make sure no one was looking, P. J. moved a branch aside and dived into the resulting opening.
Among the branches of the tree, P. J. had constructed a completely undetectable fortress from which he could see without being seen. It was comfortably lined with soft Spanish moss. Here he went when he did not wish to be found. He pushed some moss aside and exposed a cavity in one of the branches containing a cache of peanut butter crackers and M & M’s. It would serve him well when the Russians invaded.
The Russians were on everyone’s mind in these waning days of the McCarthy era. Benny Dowd spoke of “pinkos” and “The Red Menace.” He kept a fully loaded arsenal of weapons at strategic places around the house. The guns held the same sort of fascination for P. J. that deadly snakes did, but he had no doubt that he would use one to defend himself when the invasion came.
The Cold War paranoia was nowhere more evident than P. J.’s classroom at Manatee Elementary School where regular “duck and cover” drills were held. About once a week, a siren fit to wake the dead would sound and the impressionable youngsters were instructed to duck under their desks and tuck their heads between their legs. After putting your head between your legs, according to the schoolyard humor of the times, you “kissed your ass goodbye.”
The Russkies would never get P. J., though. He would hide out in his impregnable fort and lead guerilla raids on the enemy like the famous Civil War General Francis “The Swamp Fox” Marion. And if they dropped “The Bomb?” Well, then, P. J. would just dig himself a fallout shelter and fight the Reds with a remote controlled ray gun mounted on the roof. He was busily shooting down enemy bombers when the beer and the hot afternoon caught up with him and he drifted off to sleep.
When he awoke, it was with the sure knowledge that he was being watched. He knew that his bow and arrows hung just a few feet away. Could he get to them before the enemy nailed him? He froze as a branch directly above his head sagged with an ominous creaking. Suddenly, a masked face peered through the moss and P. J. found himself nearly nose to nose with a large raccoon. P. J. emitted a war cry and dove for his weapons. The ‘coon beat a dignified retreat, apparently secure in the knowledge that P. J. was less than lethal as an archer. The mighty hunter sent a wobbly missile in the general direction of furry bandit’s ample rump and was about to take up the chase when he realized he had a throbbing headache.
Reeling back inside his sanctuary, P. J. flopped on the moss and threw an arm over his eyes. He tried to will his headache to go away. No luck. He tried shaking his head violently. That made him nauseous as well. He grasped the sides of his head with both hands and pressed inward. That seemed to concentrate the pain right behind his eyes. Faint music came to his ears.
Ninety-five in the shade.
My throat is so dry.
My woman done left me.
I need to get high, high, high, high.
Got them Swampwater Blues,
Lawd, I’m just so lowdown.
‘Cause there ain’t no corn likker
In this dirty ol’ town.
The faint sound of guitar chords wove intricate rhythms around the voice and it was indicative of P.J.’s distress that he did not immediately recognize the source of the music. When the aching synapses finally kicked in, he made a beeline for his bike and headed up First Avenue as fast as his pain would allow. If anybody knew what to do for a headache it would be Blind Poppa Roberts.
George Washington Roberts was descended from the slaves that had once worked the Jimson plantation. As a young man, he had gone North to escape the discrimination facing blacks in the South. He found a more subtle, but equally effective form of discrimination in the North. He turned to his gift for music in order to avoid a life of manual labor and made quite a name for himself in the blues capitals of Chicago, St. Louis, Memphis, and New Orleans.
He lost his eyesight after receiving a blow to the head in a barroom brawl on the South Side of Chicago, but his career never faltered. He had always played the guitar by touch and by ear and those senses became preternaturally sensitive in the years following his loss of sight. Like most black musicians of the era, he had never gotten rich. He was, however, better off than most of his fellows and he loved the life on the road.
When he finally retired in the early fifties, he found himself drawn back to the shores of the broad Manatee River he had left so many years before. His grandson reluctantly delivered him to the back door of Molly Kathleen Jimson. She recognized him immediately and greeted him like the long lost friend he was. Their conversation eventually drifted around to the status of the old slave quarters just up the river from the mansion. Informed that they were still standing, but just barely, he persuaded Molly to sell him the buildings. To Molly’s credit, she would have sold them to him even if she hadn’t needed the money.
Naturally, there was a huge brouhaha over the idea of a black man living anywhere but in “The Quarters.” Molly Kathleen never had much time for what she considered useless conventions and few people, even white people, could resist Blind Poppa Roberts’ charm. When the dust finally settled, the old bluesman had come to earth in a neat little cottage built mostly of durable cypress salvaged from the old slave quarters.
While Roberts could no longer see the river in which he had played as a child, his acute hearing could discern its many moods and his nose could revel in the rich rankness of its shoreline. His extraordinary senses and eidetic memory allowed him to navigate nearly as well as the sighted and he often could be seen with his red-tipped white cane tap-tapping his way into the old village of Manatee. The white neighbors eventually came to accept his presence and even became rather protective of him. Those of their children who had not been infected with their elders’ prejudices found the old bluesman to be a constant source of fascination.
P. J., of course, had a much closer relationship with Blind Poppa Roberts than anyone else and not just because he was a next-door neighbor. The boy was drawn to music of any kind like a reptile to the sunshine and spent hours listening to the old man play and sing. P. J. had an excellent ear and quickly picked up any melody he heard. Often, the boy could be heard singing or whistling some raunchy black blues number that sounded most incongruous coming from a small white child.
Blind Poppa Roberts was also the source of many intriguing stories about his days as a travelling musician and he took great delight in P. J.’s rapt attention to his oral memoirs. For P. J.’s ninth birthday, Roberts had ordered him a guitar from the Sears and Roebuck catalogue. He was having great success teaching P. J. the basic blues licks once they had restrung the instrument so that the left-handed P. J. didn’t have to play it upside-down.
Roberts had a small income from the royalties on music he had written and recorded, but he had also made some smart investments when he had the extra money. He was financially secure, if not wealthy, and P. J. found him a soft touch for candy or movie money. P. J. earned his keep by running errands for the old man when his rheumatiz acted up and he didn’t feel like walking to town. P. J. thought of Blind Poppa Roberts as a grandfather, rich uncle, best friend, teacher and hero all wrapped into one person. As a result, he spent more time with Roberts than with any of his own family.
From his grandmother, Roberts had learned much about the uses of medicinal plants and herbs indigenous to the region. She had been a “griot,” a combination healer, storyteller, psychologist and historian in her native Africa. She served the same function to the slaves on the plantation and endeavored to pass on her knowledge to her descendents. Only George Washington Roberts remembered all she had taught.
P. J. had long since discovered that going to Roberts for a remedy was easier and a lot more fun than a visit to the white doctor, although his mother undoubtedly would have been horrified at some of the treatments he received.
P. J. found Blind Poppa Roberts in his favorite chair on the front porch of his cottage. Beulah, his guitar, was in his hands and a Mason jar of ‘shine was within easy reach. Roberts’ unseeing eyes tracked the boy unerringly as he crossed the yard and climbed up onto the porch.
“Heighdy, P. J.,” the old man said. “What you been doin’ over in The Swamp?”
P. J. was still occasionally stunned by the acuity of the old man’s senses.
“Heighdy, Poppa. How’d you know I been in The Swamp?”
Poppa gave him a big grin.
“Cuz I kin smell the mud on yo’ shoes and that ol’ Spanish moss you been layin’ in. Go gitcherself a dope outta the fridge.”
Like many older Southerners, Roberts referred to Coca-Cola as “dope,” a throwback to the days when the beverage actually contained cocaine.
“Poppa.” said P. J. after he had returned with his Coke, “what you got for a headache.”
“Well, that depends,” replied Poppa, “on what kinda headache you got. Is it the kind where you hit yo’ head on somethin’ or the kind where you been readin’ without enough light?”
P. J. squirmed a bit before answering.
“Well, y’see, I was over at Ernie’s earlier helpin’ him with his bricks and after we finished he gave me some of his homebrew.”
Poppa tried hard to choke back his chuckles.
“Lawd, boy. It’s a wonder you still alive. You better be glad all you got is a headache. Actually, what you got is called a hangover and that needs a different kinda cure. C’mon ‘round the back.”
Poppa led the way through the house and into a small shed situated in the back yard. He moved as confidently as any sighted person.
The air in the shed was hot, but dry thanks to a small electric heater that stayed on most of the time. The walls were lined with plants and herbs in various stages of preservation and the air held a rich amalgam of earthy smells. Poppa went directly to a group of large, bushy plants that were hung upside-down so that their roots scraped the ceiling. He pinched off a couple of flower tops and turned to P. J. with a wide grin.
“What you need, m’boy, is some reefer tea!”
9:29:15 PM 
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