P.J.: A Memoir
Chapter Six
“We are all here for a spell, get all the good laughs you can.”
- Will Rogers
Back in the cottage, Poppa lectured on the healing properties of “reefer” while he crumbled up the flower top and dropped it in a pot of hot water.
“Reefer, m’boy, is one of the Lawd’s most precious gifts to his chillun. It’s good for pyurtnear anything what ails ya. And if it don’t cure what you got, it makes you feel so good that you don’t give a damn, nohow. Best thing in the world for a hangover. The Latin name for it is Cannabis sativa an’ mos’ white folks call it marijuana. But any ol’ musician can tell ya that it’s ‘reefer.’”
Poppa rolled a memory.
“Stuff usedta be legal, ‘til some crazy gummint man decided it turned innocent white kids into wild killers. Made a buncha movies that scared the bejesus outta the white folks and got it made illegal. But it’s easy to get. Hell, it grows wild mos’ everwhere…even over yonder in The Swamp. Remin’ me to show ya where it’s growin’ sometime. Anyhow, when us blues cats was gonna get us some reefer back in the ol’ days, we usedta say we was gonna visit Mary J. Warner.
“Now lotsa folks jus’ crumble it up an’ smoke it in a pipe, but you too young for that so I’m fixin’ you up some brewed in the teapot. That’s another name for reefer – “tea.” The queers usedta call it that. So I guess you gonna have some tea tea.”
Poppa succumbed to a fit of chuckles over this bon mot.
“Meanwhile, I’m gonna put some in my ol’ pipe. They ain’t nothin’ like reefer to make a cat feel like pickin’ his git-fiddle and wailin’ some blues.”
Poppa fired up his pipe and poured a cup of tea for P. J. without spilling a drop.
“Drink that down, boy, an’ you gonna be feelin’ jus’ fine in no time.” Poppa’s voice sounded strange, like he was holding his breath, and soon he exhaled forcefully.
“Fetch yo’ ax, boy, an’ le’s go out on the porch where it’s cool.”
P. J. ran to get his guitar from where it hung from a peg on Poppa’s living room wall. He gulped the last of the tea and went out onto the porch where Poppa had resettled himself in his cane chair and was puffing on his pipe. They tuned their guitars and Poppa began playing some soft blues progressions. P. J. could already feel his headache leaving as he copied the chords. Poppa improvised:
Hot afternoon in Manatee,
The sun’s beatin’ down on you n’ me.
Got my reefer an’ I got my ax
Gonna set on the front porch an’ relax.
Cuz me an’ P. J. got nothin’ to lose
By singin’ these ol’ South Florida Blues…
P. J. continued to chord while Poppa picked a solo that was more eloquent than the words. Suddenly, P. J. noticed that the chords he had been struggling with for so long were coming easily. He closed his eyes and rocked back and forth to the rhythm of the music, looking like a small white Ray Charles. He was playing by touch for the first time. Of course! Why hadn’t he seen it before? It was all so natural and so right. The chords flowed into each other because they had to! There was no other way to do it. He kept chording for several minutes before he noticed that Poppa had stopped playing.
P. J. stopped playing and looked up from his seat on the edge of the porch. Poppa had a wide grin on his face.
“Now you got it, boy! We gonna make a bluesman outta you yet.”
P. J. grinned back at Poppa and noticed that his headache was completely gone. In fact, he felt better than he ever had in his life. Not tough and invincible as he had felt after the beer, but at peace with himself and the world. He thought he might just sit on this porch and play the blues for the rest of his life.
As P. J. and Poppa wailed away, a bald eagle flew downriver and lighted in the top of a towering pine tree next to Poppa’s cottage. His call had a high and lonesome sound that seemed to fit right in with the bluesy melodies. After a while, P. J. put his guitar aside and lay back in the grassy yard where he could watch the eagle. He had known the eagle all his life since the bird had nested in the tall pine for years. Now, he really studied the bird for the first time. Soon, he drifted into a waking reverie in which he became the eagle.
The eagle leaped from his perch and P. J. went giddily with him. The bird made a wide circle, then plunged to the river’s surface. P.J. felt the speed of the bird as it cruised just above the water. The eagle’s legs extended and powerful talons snatched a redfish from the rippling water. P. J. strained with the eagle as it fought for altitude, caught an updraft off the land, and soared back to its perch in the pine. Holding the fish with one claw, the eagle ripped out large chunks of the fish with its hooked beak. P. J. was overwhelmed by a sense of the savagery of the natural world. He leaped to his feet and went back up on the porch.
“Wow,” he said, forgetting Poppa was blind, “did you see that?”
Poppa snapped out of what seemed to be a nap.
“Ol’ eagle done got him some dinner, huh?” What’d he get, a jack?”
P. J. was slightly disappointed that Poppa wasn’t able to tell what kind of fish it was.
“Nah, a redfish.”
At that moment, the eagle, having finished its meal, tossed what was left of the fish away. The skull dropped ninety feet onto the tin roof of the porch where P. J. and Poppa were sitting. It hit with a resounding crash and slid off onto the front lawn. P. J. emitted a squeak, performed a minor feat of levitation and came down where the chair wasn’t. For a moment he stared in shock at the fish head on the ground, then he heard Poppa’s laughter.
The old black man was holding his sides and tears were running from his eyes. He began laughing so hard, no sound came out; he just sat there and shook. P. J. started to ask what was so funny, but then he started snickering too. Soon, he was roaring with mirth and rolling around on the floorboards of the porch. He had never laughed so hard in his life. Just about the time he would get it under control, he would hear Poppa chortling and that would send him off on a new wave of hysterics. As soon as one would start to settle down, the other would set him off and on it went for close to half an hour.
Eventually the two exhausted themselves and sat gasping for breath, not daring to say a word for fear they would start all over again.
“Hooooooooweeeeeee!” said Poppa finally. “I ain’t laughed that hard since that time yo’ Pa got in a fight with that tree.”
Benny had come home sloshed one night and staggered into a sapling Poppa had planted near the street. He had cussed the tree steadily for five minutes, apparently thinking it was a person. When the tree wouldn’t respond to Benny’s challenge to fight, he had hauled off and smacked it upside the head a couple of times. Then he launched a real haymaker which, fortunately, missed. The swing threw Benny off balance and he grabbed the sapling for support. The freshly planted tree came out by the roots and ended up on top of Benny on the ground. There ensued a wild wrestling match that ended with Benny taking two out of three falls from the tree. He had stalked away muttering something like, “That’ll show the clumsy sumbitch!”
The memory started the two chuckling again and soon they were howling as if they had never stopped. One funny memory prompted another and the sun was low in the sky by the time their shouts of laughter died down. A cool breeze came in on the evening tide and a glorious sunset was building in the west. Poppa sent P. J. inside to fetch him some ‘shine. The young white boy leaned back against the old black man’s knees and enjoyed the cool breeze. Poppa asked P. J. to describe the sunset.
“Well, first of all, the river’s gone all gold and sparkly. Over where the sun’s goin’ down, there’s a buncha long, thin clouds runnin’ crossways…kinda like a layer cake only it’s got all kindsa colors. Down where the sun is, it’s bright orange, like a bonfire. Then, higher up, it turns to pink, about the color of Pepto-Bismol. And on up further, it’s purple, sorta like those Mornin’ Glories out back. It sure is purty, Poppa. I wish you could see it.”
“Oh, I can, boy, I can.”
Poppa brushed away a tear from his blind eyes.
“All them colors is still right here in my head. All’s I need is for you to tell me how to arrange ‘em. Sunset’s my favorite time of day. It’s sad, but it’s sweet, too.”
P. J. picked up his guitar and started strumming softly. He sang:
Ev’ry night when the sun goes in,
Ev’ry night when the sun goes in,
Ev’ry night when the sun goes in,
I hang down my head and mournful cry.
True love don’t weep nor mourn for me,
True love don’t weep nor mourn for me,
True love don’t weep nor mourn for me:
I’m goin’ away to Marbletown.
I prayed to the Lord that train would come,
I prayed to the Lord that train would come,
I prayed to the Lord that train would come
And take me back where I come from.
Before he could get to the final verse, His mother’s summons pierced the air and shattered the mood. P. J. got up from where he had been leaning against Poppa’s knees.
“You need anything, Poppa?”
“No, boy. You jus’ head on home and get yo’ dinner. I’ll set here a spell ‘til the skeeters get too bad.”
“You want me to come back later and read some?”
“Naw, that’s OK. I jus’ got me one o’ them Talkin’ Books in the mail today an’ I reckon I’ll put it on the phonograph.”
“OK, Poppa, see ya tomorrow.”
P. J. picked up his bike and walked it slowly through the darkness gradually descending along First Avenue, in no great hurry to get home.
Sarah Effie was just setting the table when P. J. walked in. She didn’t look up from what she was doing.
“What were you and Poppa howling about this afternoon?” she wanted to know.
“Aw, nothin’ much,” replied P. J. “Just rememberin’ some things that happened, is all.”
She glanced at her son and then looked back more closely as Benny wove into the kitchen.
“Phileas Jimson, what’s the matter with your eyes? They’re all bloodshot and puffy.”
P. J. looked nervous.
“Benjamin, come over here and look at your son’s eyes. Don’t they look funny to you?”
Benny leaned down a bit unsteadily and tried to focus on his son’s face. He sighed and the fumes nearly flattened P. J.
“I don’ see nothin’ wrong with his eyes,” slurred Benny. “They look perfeckly normal to me!”
8:47:09 PM 
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